When a classroom “works” it is a powerful place to be. While the students ultimately make these moments, talented educators need to set the stage for success.
The same can be said of harmonious faculty and staff relations. A building full of talented people does not guarantee a comfortable place to grow as an educator.
In honor of Edutopia’s 20th anniversary, please visit Edutopia to read more about creating a healthy faculty environment.
Name: Adrian Camm (@adriancamm | http://adriancamm.com/)
Organization: Quantum Victoria
Current title: Curriculum Innovation
Selected accolades: 2009 Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence – Best National Achievement: The Ministers Award for Excellence in ICT, 2010 Victorian Education Excellence Awards – Most Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year
What skill(s) do you feel are most important for today’s students to explore in academic settings (tech or non-tech related)?
Learning how to learn is the most important skill students need in the 21st century. But if you are looking at ‘hard’ skills then the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) disciplines, including computer science, will be needed by most as we move increasingly toward a multi-disciplinary, high-tech future.
Students with STEM skills, combined with innovation and entrepreneurship, will be equipped to find solutions to current and future problems such as clean and renewable energy, climate change, poverty, health etc. and this will ultimately lead to a better world. (more…)
by Thomas Petra
Students work in groups as emergency responders on a search and rescue mission at sea. After identifying pertinent variables of the situation they become acquainted with U.S. Coast Guard search patterns and procedures. They are given a helicopter and cutter to perform the search but need to take into account each vehicle’s limits. Once the groups have gathered the necessary information they need to decide how to conduct their search using the equipment and data available to them. Google Docs is a great resource to guide and record this exchange.
The SAR patterns are mapped in Google Earth. One path marks the cutter’s search pattern and another for the helicopter. The search vehicles’ speed needs to be used to calculate each turn in the pattern. This is marked in Google Earth with placemarks denoting the time. (more…)
Name: Thomas Petra (@RealWorldMath | About | Real World Math website)
Current title: Founder of RealWorldMath.org
Selected accolades: 50+ 3D buildings in Google Earth, Google Certified Teacher
What is the best part of your job?
I feel a general sense of freedom when I design math lessons for Google Earth. In the past, I always ended up altering the material that goes along with the traditional math instruction so that it was more interesting or challenging to my students. Now I have more tools that enable me to do this.
I can choose the concepts I want to focus on and the way I present them. Google Earth allows me to bring elements of history, science, or geography into a math lesson. I try to show math in meaningful situations…if I can do this, then students can make relevant connections.
In your 20 years as an educator, has technology directly improved your teaching ability? If so, are there measurable indicators you use to assess this?
Technology makes my instruction multidimensional. Math instruction typically has students playing a passive role in learning, but with technology I was able to create lessons where they are active participants. Instead of disseminating information, I can create environments where students construct their own knowledge.
Technological benefits are not easily measured by conventional assessments. I find that technology boosts higher‐level thinking skills that the standardized tests don’t measure and it helps to build positive student attitudes towards mathematics. I still relate my content to the CORE standards but I feel it goes beyond that.
What are some essential websites or software offerings that you regularly use with students beyond Google Earth?
I’ve taught math students how to use SketchUp to make models of polyhedrons and 3D buildings. I think it’s a great tool for project-‐based learning activities. It incorporates measurement, modeling, photography, and plenty of opportunities for problem solving. We modeled over 30 buildings of a community center together.
YouTube doesn’t have to be a place where viewers passively watch video. Free annotation tools allow content creators to provide interactive opportunities to engage content. The resulting video can be used as part of a flipped classroom model or to time-shift any kind of instruction.
This video tutorial shows you exactly how to create buttons that can be placed on your video to jump forwards and backwards within the timeline.
Here is an example of an interactive lesson on fractions that use YouTube annotations to create a quick self-quiz. ((From a previous blog post: Interactive flipped instruction with YouTube annotations and time-markers)) This flipped instruction (flipped classroom) example redirects the viewer directly into the pertinent portion of the lecture that addresses any incorrect answers:
Here is an example of a video that covers several different topics and includes an introductory table of contents that can be accessed at any time. ((From a previous blog post: Screencasting and flipped instruction: beyond math ))
Final example is fun but also a powerful example of the freedom that interactivity allows. Use the buttons to play the piano and create your own song – one that the original video creator could never have imagined.
It can be overwhelming for a teacher to feel compelled (or mandated) to “use more technology” in the classroom. Sometimes is seems that the required to quantify assessment and use data analysis results in the de-personalization of feedback and is of less value to students.
Technology integration doesn’t have to mean building a rocket or using GIS data in a lab; technology can be a tool that allows teachers to do their jobs more efficiently. Katrina Kennett (@katrinakennett) shows us a great example by using a spreadsheet to track and grade essays against a rubric without sacrificing personal feedback. Katrina uses Google Docs to share student evaluations – the result is part living documentation of progress, part portfolio, part conversation. Add it all up and a student sees their teacher model 21st century fluency, understands what is expected of an assignment, and receives guidance on how they can improve.
To learn more about Ms. Kennett’s use of Paperless Grading and the formulas she is employing, visit http://kennettenglish.blogspot.com/p/grubrics-paperless-grading.html
Name: Errin Gregory (@erringreg | Just a Thought blog)
Organization: Gold Trail School District (#74) in British Columbia, Canada
Current title: Grade 4/5 Elementary Connected Classrooms Teacher
Selected accolades: Virtual Schools Conference 2011 presenter, BCTF New Teachers Conference presenter
What skill(s) do you feel are most important for today’s students to explore in academic settings (tech or non-tech related)?
It’s important for students to be able to explore topics that are of interest to them. Let’s make things relevant, at a personal level, so they can understand why they’re spending time learning about it.
Visual literacy and visual arts are vitally important. What is a culture or a society without art, without that appreciation for information communicated through imagery? We are bombarded everyday with advertisements, websites, logos, photographs – children need to learn how to read and how to communicate with images.
Digital citizenship involves a set of skills that are crucial learning for children. In the past, citizenship involved being a responsible and dutiful person at a local, national and global level. Now, with the online spaces in which people apply for jobs, conduct business, socialize and much more, there is a component of digital citizenship which in a way, transgresses or blends local, national and global responsibilities.
Feed readers: video embedded. View Errin in action at The Connected Classroom.
Rushton Hurley of NextVista.org hosted a webinar today on “Digital Identity and Adolescence.” I presented with Ted Kalmus, Head of School at Billings Middle School.
Digital Identity and Adolescence presentation slides from the event are available for viewing and the entire event was recorded and is available online. Please visit LearnCentral for the Young Adult and Digital Identity audio and video recording.
Digital Identity and Adolescence by Ted Kalmus (Billings Middle School) and Jac de Haan (TechnologyWithIntention.com) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Flipped instruction (the flipped classroom model, vodcasting, time-shifting) is an attractive concept because of the in-class time that is freed to work through concept application and discussion. One of the criticisms of this teaching tool is that students receive knowledge in a passive state – by watching video.
In an attempt to create a more interactive experience for students, YouTube annotations and time-markers can be used to create “check-ins” as the lesson progresses. Below is a simple proof of concept* using a review of fractions. There are an infinite amount of creative possibilities using these free tools, and they work when viewed at YouTube.com or when embedded into a class website.
How might you use these tools – feel free to comment below.
*This is just a proof of concept. Audio quality is low and audio/video channels get out of sync towards the end.
Almost every week, I’m contacted by an educational institution that wants assistance in implementing a technology tool. In the majority of cases, these conversations have a similar pattern:
Client: “We want you to come to the school and show [insert audience here: teachers, students, admin] how to use [insert technology tool here].”
Me: “Sounds like you’ve invested in the idea of using [insert technology tool here] at your school. Can you tell me why?”
Client: “We looked at several different technologies and decided that [insert technology tool here] is the best solution.”
Me: “How are you doing things today without [insert technology tool here]?”
Client: “We are already committed to moving forward with [insert technology tool here] and just want someone to spend a few hours showing everyone how to use it. Some of us are already using it, but others need help getting started…”
As a technology integration specialist, this is a difficult position to face. Often, end users (teachers or students) aren’t even aware of the vision (more…)