Google Reader is a great resource for aggregating and sharing information. One of its most useful features for educators is the ability to bundle RSS feeds into a single information stream that can be subscribed to.
A few weeks ago @courosa mentioned online that the subscription button wasn’t working for user-generated bundles.
No word from Google about whether this is intentional or not. I did some digging within the code but couldn’t figure out what was going on. I took a look again today and think there is a solution that works: I’ve documented in a YouTube video for others to test:
I love teaching and finding new ways to reach students. I try to use all technology available to make learning interactive and (hopefully) more informative than traditional methods.
What skill(s) do you feel are most important for today’s students to explore in academic settings (tech or non-tech related)?
Students should be comfortable with math basics and have strong number sense. They need to recognize when a value from a computer may be wrong. Students should also be good navigating around technology tools: graphing calculator tricks (and their are many), spreadsheet use, and hopefully some understanding of introductory programming.
I tell my students this all the time, “I have to have a reason to spend all my life teaching mathematics to you when I know most of you won’t be graphing parabolas at 30.” Math is just the medium to create better problem solvers and algorithm followers. Math class is the weight room for brain.
For a teacher looking to use technology to connect with students, enhance learning or embrace 21st century skills, where do you suggest one begin?
Start with what you already do. If you are comfortable using Word and Google search, make a simple guided web lesson. If you love your iPad, then find apps that could be used to help with a lesson.
Keep exploring and trying new things. This year alone (after 20 years in the education and technology fields), I have tried 3 or 4 new tech-related curriculum enhancements.
What is the best part of your job?
The best and the hardest part of the job is often the same thing. I enjoy finding multiple ways of explaining a math problem and helping students realize that it is not as difficult as they think. It is rewarding to see a student ‘click’ after several ways of questioning, illustrating, and/or detailing the problem. That is one reason I maintain a web page and create video lessons.
Second best: my school’s willingness to let me explore all the new ways to reach the students. iPad (to post notes, make video lessons, and more), Smartboard (to post notes and provide interactive visual instruction), and great computers are just some examples of the support Seattle Academy provides to allow me further my abilities as an educator.
What was your path to your current position?
Loyola High School in Los Angeles played a big part of my desire to learn and teach. University of California at San Diego gave me a mathematics degree, the desire to surf or be on a board all my life, and my first taste of programming. La Jolla Country Day School gave me my first job in teaching. Middle school computer classes with the Apple IIe. I also helped teachers learn how to use their Macs, set up and run the schools first email server, and first learned that very young minds can understand programming (with HyperCard).
After a few years at Seattle Country Day School (with Ethan Delevan) as a math teacher, I made the move to my current position at SAAS. I have taught math from 6th grade at SCDS to Calculus at SAAS and everything in between. I also enjoy teaching Statistics and Software Development.
*Editor’s note: David freely shares many of his resources with other educators via www.ElectricTeaching.com. The following video introduces the website, its purpose and uses in the classroom:
Flying back to Seattle from a really intense weekend of professional development at EduCon.
All in all, the conference was energizing and fulfilling on both a personal and professional level. I had the opportunity to meet people who influence my teaching and philosophy face-to-face. The majority of sessions were designed to be interactive and there were multiple informal, open-invitation meetups every day. The deep-integration of social media was completely natural, with video-conferences, session streaming and heavy tweeting.
Beyond the excitement and enthusiasm of the event, I’m focused on two salient ideas:
EduCon attendees are not special. Apologies to all of the incredible people present, but we aren’t smarter or more creative or gifted in some way that other educators are not. EduCon attendees are most alike in that they generally hold:
a willingness to believe that education is an evolutionary and revolutionary process, not a fixed discipline.
a recognition that a learning environment should reflect the individuals within it.
a certain amount of humility and vulnerability as they admit that they themselves are learners, sometimes learners without a clear vision of their destination.
EduCon should not be a once-a-year mindset. EduCon is in many ways special, but it doesn’t have to be unique. The ideas and format, while masterfully orchestrated by the students and staff at the Science Leadership Academy, are replicable and adaptable. We have frameworks for optimal learning environments, those aren’t just for children – educators should model inquiry-driven learning in collaborative settings too.
This second point was the topic of an Encienda presentation ((Here are the slides for my presentation – they were designed to compliment my words, not substitute for them.
)) I gave at EduCon on Saturday. Asked to participate about 90 minutes prior to the session, I scrambled a little to get my thoughts and slides in order. I was honored to be a part of the experience and the positive responses were much appreciated.
My plan is to carry forward these ideas and maintain a network of innovation that spreads through future professional development experiences and inspires other to push their own beliefs about learning environments. If you’d like to join me, feel free to accept the challenge and pledge publicly at http://www.flip-lab.com/challenge.
Name: Marcie T. Hull (School site, Blog, @ecram3) Organization: Science Leadership Academy Current title: Technology Coordinator, Art Teacher, Technology Teacher Selected accolade: Educon co-organizer, Mother to Chase and wife to Steven
What skill(s) do you feel are most important for today’s students to explore in academic settings (tech or non-tech related)?
risk taking
learning in front of people
verbalization of ideas
knowledge that there is more than one right answer
I call this process “setting students up for failure” – sounds awful, but if kids learn to fail in front of people, especially in a safe place where there is a teacher/ guide, the more they become comfortable with the learning process and going beyond the first idea and the idea that there is one right answer.
For a teacher looking to use technology to connect with students, enhance learning or embrace 21st century skills, where do you suggest one begin?
I usually tell teachers to begin with their own lesson plans. They are professionals that have crafted units that are built for learning. Finding tools (not technology – that word is over used and means nothing) that compliment the essential questions that the teacher hopes students walk away knowing.
What is the best part of your job?
I have autonomy in my classroom which allows me to teach in ways that inspire the students and myself.
What was your path to your current position?
I started as an art student at Temple’s Tyler School of Art and got a teaching degree while there. With one year left on my certificate, I got a job teaching art at an under-achieving middle school in West Philadelphia. The principal of that school found out that I was able to use computers and when the computer teacher retired she put me into the school lab.
I went on to get my masters to be an Educational Technologist and my K-12 certification in business technology, because one needs a business technology certification to teach technology in Pennsylvania. That school was taken over more than once because of NCLB and finally was made into a Mastery Charter school.
Chris Lehmann hired me to be a founding staff member of the Science Leadership Academy and I have been here ever since. In six years we have started an annual conference called EduCon, I’ve gone to many technology in education conferences. I won the Keystone award for excellent usage of technology in the classroom. I have also done many professional developments and really enjoy sharing the expertise of 6 years at SLA.
After reading articles and watching screencasts about the iBook Author announcement today, I decided to spend 30 minutes to find out how easy the new authoring tool is to use.
paste in content from a previously written article
create a simple image slideshow
create a simple interactive quiz
record and embed an introductory video
create and then delete a couple of charts (display issues in the final version)
test via the Share>email as iPad option
I was excited to find out that you can freely distribute iBook Author creations beyond the iBookstore as long as you don’t charge for the content. This at least means that I can create classroom materials and sync, send, or download them to student devices. The downside of personal distribution is that when you update the book you will have to manually push the new version to all devices. An iBookstore distribution allows the new content to push to iPads automatically.
This morning Apple released an e-textbook authoring tool & distribution system, and in a single announcement may have shifted many of the purchasing conversations that occur annually at educational institutions.
On first glance, this seems to be a rebrand of the iTunes U bookstore focused on schools of all levels – an evolution of existing technology, not a revolution. iBookstore already allows authors to distribute books. The ‘new’ e-textbooks appear to be ePub3, a standard that already is in production and has the potential to work on more than just an iPad. Apple’s iWork Pages application already has the ability to “Export as an ePub”, although the new authoring tool should have a more robust feature set. Furthermore, an ePub can already be opened in iBooks without going through the iBookstore distribution channel, via email. However, Apple’s marketing strategy, as always, is fascinating and potentially extremely effective:
Allow consumers to assume hardware purchase as a logical step in an implementation plan, rather than advertise to that decision – By getting teachers, administrators, parents and students excited about the potential of using digital textbooks in the classroom, Apple brings its audience to vision. If people buy into the vision, then the purchasing decision to equip students with iPads (and teachers with laptops) is just a step on the path.
Focuses on action verbs – Apple’s marketing team has always focused on what people do with their products, rather than device specs. The vast majority of device buyers don’t know one processor from another and are interested in whether or not they can surf the web from their phone rather than what version of Android is installed. Engaged students (collaborating with each other and accessing dynamic content) are one of the cornerstones of successful education.
Convince administrators to reallocate scarce budgets – At a time of year where many schools are solidifying next year’s budgets, Apple has presented a neatly packaged authoring & delivery system for digital textbooks that may mean a cost savings in book purchases in exchange for an increase in technology purchases (namely iPads).
Align new offering with largest potential competition – Rather than battle traditional printed textbook publishers, Apple has convinced Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton to partner with the new Apple distribution system. These three companies represent 90% of the textbook industry. No doubt reminding these CEOs about Apple iTunes effect on the music industry was influential. It has not been announced yet how these existing publishers will leverage Apple’s distribution system.
This new authoring and distribution system for e-textbooks goes a long way towards providing students a more versatile classroom reference. However, it is still a one-way delivery system. As an educator, I can qualitatively estimate student engagement and use assessments to judge whether it has an impact on learning – this is certainly the hope outlined in Apple’s advertisement (embedded below).
As a content creator and possible e-textbook author, I’d really like this advancement to include two-way communication. I’d like to know which chapters students spend the most time with, where the most notes are taken, if there are sections that students skip, etc. There are already some social learning networks out there (I’m familiar with Better.At) that provide plan authors with feedback that allows for content adjustments based on data. Technology already allows us the ability to auto-collect and aggregate this data, and test scores are at least one step removed from the feedback cycle.
Critique aside, I’m excited to play around and see how I can use it in my own classrooms.
Name: Michael Gorman (21st Century Tech Blog, @mjgormans) Organization: Southwest Allen County Schools Current title: Professional Development Director of 1 to 1 and Digital Learning Selected accolades: Indiana Teacher of the Year 2010 Semi-Finalist, Southwest Allen County Schools 2010 Teacher of the Year, Indiana US Air Force 2011 STEM Educator of the Year, Allen County 2011 Excellence In Education Award, Discovery DENny Award 2011
Education is a fantastic place to be! The world of education is being transformed before our eyes, and as educators, we get to take an active role. We will see many changes as classrooms become more student-centered and learning takes on a more active form. Classroom walls will dissolve and the real world will become new place to learn, promoting a new relevance. Through this exciting yet disruptive transformation, the educator will become even more important, providing the essential human element that is so important to the education of a child.
What skill(s) do you feel are most important for today’s students to explore in academic settings (tech or non-tech related)?
Empathy. Technology is one of many tools (though especially important today). But technology cannot replace the human element of teaching.
For a teacher looking to use technology to connect with students, enhance learning or embrace 21st century skills, where do you suggest one begin?
I travel across the country and continually post about ways to infuse 21st century skills and technology into the curriculum. I remind teachers that it is important to look at successful prior lessons and infuse these past successes with technology and 21st century skills.
I often refer to this in my Jukebox to iPod presentation. When looking at this transformation it is obvious that technology made a great idea even better. Teachers must realize that they have a vault of awesome activities that have proven to be successful with students. Many times these perennial gems can be reinvented, mixed, and transformed to bring about a new 21st century lesson that will be even more engaging and applicable to today’s digital learner.
I actually started in the area of environmental and outdoor education. It seems so similar to today’s technology emphasis on integrating all of the disciplines. Then it was the environment that did the connection… now it is the technology. After environmental education came a start with elementary school…moving to the middle school the last “over 30 years”.
After doing some post grad work at Johns Hopkins I saw a new vision of working with educators. I now facilitate our school district 1-to-1 program and provide professional development on transitioning to a digital learning environment. With this, I have a flexible job that allows me to travel the country consulting in PBL work for BIE (BUCK Institute), digital media for Discovery Education, and digital literacy for Alan November. I am currently also consulting on new educational game and providing some advice to Tech & Learning Magazine and PBS.
Do you have a single lesson plan, curriculum strand, or project that you feel exemplifies effective technology integration – one that you are willing to share with others?
I created this project to demonstrate that a teacher can facilitate student production of a powerful movie… yet easy to implement. It can be done by somebody with little technology background… yet it can foster growth in student 21st century skill development and the core curriculum.
I’m super-excited to be a part of a FlipLab, a new workshop that blends flipped classroom technical skills and experiential learning.
The entire workshop is flipped, in that attendees will do some pre-work before arriving on February 23rd. With a common foundation of knowledge and vocabulary, the workshop will focus on building a complete roadmap for flipped classrooms. From content alignment to screencasting to project-based learning and alternative assessment, we will look at how to successfully integrate technology and create meaningful learning experiences.
From the website:
FlipLab gathers innovative educators to explore and share best teaching practice while leveraging recorded content…Everything developed at FlipLab is shared with other teachers under a Creative Commons license. You will leave a FlipLab workshop with flipped lessons tailored for your classroom and ready to implement. You’ll pilot them in your classroom and work with peer coaches to debrief the results. Even better, you’ll be part of a network of educators pushing the boundaries of educational best practice.
And the best part of all is the incredible team of FlipLab mentors who will be video-conferencing in to provide support and share their own successes and obstacles. The list of mentors is a who’s who of best teaching practice and also a list of my personal educator heroes:
Over winter break, our family received Goodnight iPad, a humorous children’s book that pokes fun of our tech-obsessed culture while giving a nod to the humble book. I enjoyed the read, and my 2-year-old has it in heavy rotation right now.
On first glance, this seems to be a rebrand of the iTunes U bookstore focused on schools of all levels – an evolution of existing technology, not a revolution. iBookstore already allows authors to distribute books. The ‘new’ e-textbooks appear to be ePub3, a standard that already is in production and has the potential to work on more than just an iPad. Apple’s iWork Pages application already has the ability to “Export as an ePub”, although the new authoring tool should have a more robust feature set. Furthermore, an ePub can already be opened in iBooks without going through the iBookstore distribution channel, via email. 
