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Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

This article by Matt Baier, for Edutopia, published on February 19, 2015 outlines a professional development program that inspires teachers to feel the emotions of creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy while learning and developing skills that promote more effective use of technology tools.

Creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy. These are the ten emotions that game players experience, according to Jane McGonigal in Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World. Do teachers report feeling any of these emotions when they describe professional development? No (except for maybe relief when it’s over).

Conquering Technology

My colleague Kathy Garcia and I decided to create a professional development program that inspired teachers to feel these emotions while learning and developing skills toward more effective use of technology tools. We created a professional development game, accessed through the iTunes U platform, called Conquering Technology. Our teachers learn skills like taking advantage of the iPad’s accessibility features, digital workflows, creating their own iBooks, using Google Apps, and authoring their own iTunes U courses.

The critical component for success was for teachers to become self-motivated in advancing their skills. For inspiration, we incorporated badges, awards, levels, gift cards, and public recognition, as everyone is uniquely motivated. Our focus has remained on positive motivation rather than a fear of negative consequences.

Conquering Technology was created for the novice-to-advanced user. Starting with basic skills, faculty members progress through challenges with support resources available any time, anywhere. While some challenges develop general iPad skills, our focus revolved around using the iPad effectively and creatively in our 1:1 iPad educational environment. We didn’t have too much difficulty creating a list of skills in which our faculty should be proficient. Our challenge was determining how faculty would demonstrate their knowledge. We called each skill-learning unit with assessment a challenge and grouped them into levels, which in turn were grouped into episodes.

Motivation and Recognition

Each level has an associated badge that is displayed within faculty profiles on the Cathedral Catholic High School website once all challenges have been completed. We wanted faculty to be publicly recognized for their hard work, so when they pass all the levels in an episode, they earn a $50 gift certificate. In addition, they receive an award that is presented to them either in front of their class or at an all-faculty meeting. Public recognition is a key component — not only do we want to publicly acknowledge our pride, but it’s also critical in motivating some people.

All faculty members are expected to complete one episode per year. As an iPad school, we find that iTunes U is the perfect tool for delivering our professional development game. iTunes U is an outstanding platform for delivering a wide variety of content to an iPad. Videos, links, apps, documents, audio — anything from the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBook Store can be easily added. Even more importantly, any training content that we create ourselves can be easily delivered to our learners.

We use a private course with our faculty but have made the first two episodes public. The third episode is still in development and should be published before the 2015-2016 school year begins.

The first episode focuses on how teachers can use the iPad for themselves. The second episode focuses on how the teacher can use the iPad to manage his or her classes and engage students. The third episode will focus on how teachers can help students to use the iPad to create. The fourth will focus on helping students connect to the wider world (e.g. publish content, connect with other learners or professionals, etc.).

Accessible Resources

As technology trainers we saw several positive outcomes.First of all, there was a marked increase in teacher motivation to participate in our technology training. Even reluctant learners were willing to take part, and many of them reported that they appreciated the opportunity to have all of the necessary resources available to them on their own time. We saw much more buy-in than we expected across our whole faculty. We cannot seem to publish episodes fast enough for our most motivated teachers. This is a great problem to have.

In addition, teachers worked on the game on their own time. Even though we have professional development time set aside once a month, teachers were working on their own during prep periods, after school, and even on the weekends.

Another benefit is that more teachers would actually use the resources that we created. Kathy and I have made many tutorial videos and screencasts that unfortunately were not used as widely as we hoped. Now that they are part of Conquering Technology, they are being used more frequently by teachers.

Anyone can do this. Many of you probably already are. Let’s share and collaborate! Our courses are public and available for free in the iTunes U catalog. Use your iOS device to subscribe to Episode 1 and Episode 2. We’re proud of our work but are always eager to see what’s working in other schools as well. Please let us know about any technology-conquering PD you’ve used or created.

 

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Why Students Should Take the Lead in Parent-Teacher Conferences

Original Source

Posted By Sherwen Mohan

The following is an excerpt from “Deeper Learning How Eight Innovative Public Schools Are Transforming Education in the Twenty-First Century,” by Monica R. Martinez and Dennis McGrath.

A particularly vivid example of putting students in the driver’s seat of their own education is the way they handle what traditional schools refer to as parent-teacher conferences. At these time-honored encounters, it’s not uncommon for students to stay home while the adults discuss their progress or lack thereof. But at schools built on Deeper Learning principles, the meetings are often turned into student-led conferences, with students presenting their schoolwork, while their teachers, having helped them prepare, sit across the table, or even off to the side. The triad then sits together to review and discuss the work and the student’s progress. The message, once again, is that the students are responsible for their own success.

The specific dynamics of these conferences vary widely. At California’s Impact Academy, three or four different sets of students and their families meet simultaneously, as teachers circulate through the room, making sure parents are getting their questions answered, and only intervening if the student is struggling. Yet in all cases, the basic spirit is the same: this is the student’s moment to share his or her reflections on achievements and challenges.

“Over time, the parents begin to set a higher bar for their students at these conferences.”

At King Middle School, the twice-yearly student-led conferences are “one of the most important things we do to have students own their own learning,” says Peter Hill, who helps prepare kids in his advisory class, or crew, for their meetings. “And yet, the students’ first impulse is to tear through their folders to find every best thing that they have done to show their parents.”

Instead, Hill encourages students to reflect on the connection between the effort they have made and the quality of their work. To this end, he asks them to choose three examples that help them tell their parents a deeper story: one that shows they have recognized both a personal strength and an area in which they are struggling. Most students, he says, have never thought about their learning in this way. Nor have most of their parents.

Indeed, many parents need some time to adjust to the new format, Hill acknowledges. Often, he says, a mother or father “just wants to ask me about how their child is doing, or how they are behaving. Sometimes I have to nudge the conversation back to let the child lead. We also have to teach the parents how to be reflective about their kids’ work and how best to help.”

Eventually, however, most if not all parents appreciate the new process, teachers told us. “They come to realize that report cards don’t tell them anything very useful,” says Gus Goodwin, Hill’s colleague. “And over time, the parents begin to set a higher bar for their students at these conferences.”

As crew leader, Hill has his students practice how they’ll discuss their work products with their parents. We watched as he spoke with one eighth-grade boy who initially shyly lowered his head as he confessed that he felt uncomfortable showing his work to anyone, including his mother and father. Hill told the boy he understood how he felt, and then offered some strategies for discussing his work in math, which both of them knew was a problem area. “You have done some good work of which you should be proud,” he told him. Together, they then picked out a paper that demonstrated the boy’s effort, after which Hill suggested: “When we have the conference, why don’t you use this assignment and begin by saying, ‘I have done a good job in math when I . . . .’ ” The boy wrote the phrase in his notebook, and visibly began to relax, after which Hill used the rest of the advisory period to find more examples of work that showed his effort.

As kids learn to advocate for themselves in this way, they discover how to let their parents know more specifically how to support them. Hill tells the story of one student who was clearly intelligent, but struggling with his independent reading. Rambunctious in class, the boy surprised Hill by sitting straight and quietly in his chair when his father, a seemingly stern man, walked into the room. But what surprised him even more was when the boy spoke up for himself during the conference, telling his father: “I realize now that I need to spend more time reading on my own and I need your help with that. I need my three brothers out of the room at night so I can read in silence.”

Such exchanges empower both students and their parents, Hill noted, adding: “When I checked in on the student a few weeks later, he was very pleased that his dad was keeping his brothers out of his room so he could do his silent reading.”

At Science Leadership Academy, health educator Pia Martin coaches her students in how to communicate with parents about difficult topics, such as why they might have received a C in a class. “How will your parents respond?” she asks. “What are the things that will trigger your parents and how will that play out? Will this lead to lost privileges or other forms of punishment? How do we minimize this?”

“In conference, I’m your advocate,” she always reminds them. Like Hill and several other teachers we spoke with, Martin said she usually helps begin conferences by encouraging students to talk about what they are good at, to prevent meetings from turning into blame-fests. She tells the students to start the meeting with two questions: “What do I do well?” and “How can I build on this?”

“I always tell them, ‘Own what you got,’ ” Martin says. Only after students spend a moment to recognize what they’re doing right does she encourage them to tackle the challenges, with the following questions: “What have I not done well?” and “How can I improve this?”

Copyright ©2014 by Monica R. Martinez and Dennis McGrath. This excerpt originally appeared in “Deeper Learning How Eight Innovative Public Schools Are Transforming Education in the Twenty-First Century,” published by The New Press Reprinted here with permission.

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The Importance of Social Media for Your Job Search [INFOGRAPHIC]

Original Source 

Posted By Sherwen Mohan

Did you know that 73 percent of recruiters have hired a candidate through social media, and that 93 percent of hiring managers will review an applicant’s social media profile before taking the next step?

Which means it’s never been more important to have your social media house in order. This is where LinkedIn really matters – 79 percent of recruiters make hires through the business social network, compared to 26 percent for Facebook and just 14 percent for Twitter.

Social recruitment has benefits for companies, too – 33 percent have seen a decrease in time-to-hire, and 49 percent have seen an overall increase in candidate quality.

Check the visual below for a close look at the importance of social media for your job search, which comes courtesy of Career Glider.

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First successful implant of a ‘bionic’ eye could restore sight to the blind

‘I’ve dreamed in colour for the first time in 20 years’: Blind British man can see again after first successful implant of ‘bionic’ eye microchips

Original Source

Posted By Ian Jukes

Surgeons in Oxford, led by Professor Robert MacLaren, fitted the chip at the back of Chris’ eye in a complex eight-hour operation last month. Chris, from Wiltshire, said: ‘I’ve always had that thought that one day I would be able to see again.’

It was the ‘magic moment’ that released Chris James from ten years of blindness.

Doctors switched on a microchip that had been inserted into the back of his eye three weeks earlier.

After a decade of darkness, there was a sudden explosion of bright light – like a flash bulb going off, he says.

Now he is able to make out shapes and light. He hopes his sight – and the way his brain interprets what the microchip is showing it – will carry on improving.

Mr James, 54, is one of two British men who have had their vision partly restored by a pioneering retina implant.

The other, Robin Millar, one of Britain’s most successful music producers, says he has dreamed in colour for the first time.

Both had lost their vision because of a condition known as retinitis pigmentosa, where the photoreceptor cells at the back of the eye gradually cease to work.

Their stories bring hope to the 20,000 Britons with RP – and to those with other eye conditions such as advanced macular degeneration which affects up to half a million.

Mr James had a ten-hour operation to insert the wafer-thin microchip in the back of his left eye at the Oxford University Eye Hospital six weeks ago. Three weeks later, it was turned on.

Mr James, who lives in Wroughton, Wiltshire, with his wife Janet, said of his ‘magic moment’: ‘I did not know what to expect but I got a flash in the eye, it was like someone taking a photo with a flashbulb and I knew my optic nerve was still working.’

The chip is 3mm by 3mm, and is implanted into the eyeball of sufferers

The Six Million Dollar Man: A similar ‘bionic’ technology was used to restore sight to the blind, and the first group of British patients to receive the electronic microchips were regaining ‘useful vision’ just weeks after undergoing surgery

The Wiltshire man can now recognise shapes after becoming the first British patient to be fitted with the digital chip

Robin Millar from London, one of two men to undergo cutting edge bionic eye treatment

The microchip has 1,500 light sensitive pixels which take over the function of the retina’s photoreceptor rods and cones.

One of the first tests was making out a white plate and cup on a black background.

Mr James, who works for Swindon Council, said: ‘It took a while for my brain to adjust to what was in front of me, but I was able to detect the curves and outline of these objects.’

Tim Jackson, a consultant retinal surgeon at King’s College Hospital and Robert MacLaren, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Oxford and a consultant retinal surgeon at the Oxford Eye Hospital, who are running the trial, say it has ‘exceeded expectations’ with patients already regaining ‘useful vision’.

The first group of British patients to receive the electronic microchips were regaining ¿useful vision¿ just weeks after undergoing surgery

The company hopes for a further trial with ten new patients later this year

Ten more Britons with RP will be fitted with the implants, which are also being tested in Germany and China. The device, made by Retina Implant AG of Germany, connects to a wireless power supply buried behind the ear. This is connected to an external battery unit via a magnetic disc on the scalp. The user can alter the sensitivity of the device using switches on the unit.

Mr Jackson said: ‘It’s difficult to say how much benefit each patient will get, this pioneering treatment is at an early stage.

‘But it’s an exciting and important step forward. Many of those who receive this treatment have lost their vision for many years. The impact of them seeing again, even if it is not normal vision, can be profound and at times quite moving.’ Mr Millar, 60, who was behind Sade’s Diamond Life album, has been blind for 25 years. He said: ‘Since switching on the device I am able to detect light and distinguish the outlines of objects.

‘I have even dreamt in very vivid colour for the first time in 25 years so a part of my brain which had gone to sleep has woken up! I feel this is incredibly promising and I’m happy to be contributing to this legacy.’

The patients were able to detect light immediately after the microchip was activated, while further testing revealed there were also able to locate white objects on a dark background, Retina Implant said

The chip pairs with an external device to process images

Chris James from Wiltshire, said: ‘I’ve always had that thought that one day I would be able to see again.’

The first real, high-resolution, user-configurable bionic eye

Researchers in Germany have unveiled the Alpha IMS retinal prosthesis; a device that completely redefines the state of the art of implanted, bionic devices. The first round of clinical trials were a huge success, with eight out of nine patients reporting that they can now detect mouth shapes (smiles, frowns), small objects such as telephones and cutlery, signs on doors, and — most importantly — whether a glass of wine is red or white.

The Alpha IMS, developed by the University of Tübingen in Germany, is exciting for two reasons. First, it is connected to your brain via 1,500 electrodes, providing unparalleled visual acuity and resolution (the recently-approved-in-the-US Argus II retinal prosthesis has just 60 electrodes). Second, Alpha IMS is completely self-contained: Where the Argus II relies on an external camera to relay data to the implant embedded in your retina, the Alpha IMS prosthesis has a built-in sensor that directly gathers its imagery from the light that passes into your eye. This has the knock-on effect that the Argus II requires you to turn your head if you wish to look from side to side, while the Alpha IMS allows you to swivel your eyeballs normally. In essence, Alpha IMS is the first true, self-contained bionic eye.

At this point, you really should watch the two videos below. The first demonstrates where Alpha IMS is implanted, and how it works. The second video shows one of the first patients to receive the Alpha IMS prosthesis, and how it felt to see his wife’s face for the first time. It isn’t clear in the video, but the device is powered wirelessly from a battery in the patient’s pocket.

The Alpha IMS and Argus II retinal prostheses work in fundamentally the same way. Basically, there are different kinds of blindness — cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, disease, and so on. In a healthy eye, light is converted into electrical signals by the rods and cones in your retina, which are then transmitted down your optic nerve to your brain. In an eye that’s been afflicted by macular generation or diabetic retinophathy, these signals aren’t generated. Alpha IMS and Argus II restore vision by, essentially, replacing the damaged piece of your retina with a computer chip that generates electrical signals that can be understood by your brain. (See: A bionic prosthetic eye that speaks the language of your brain.)

For the most part, these bionic eyes are still rather dumb and rely heavily on the brain’s amazing ability to make sense of the alien signals being pumped into it. That isn’t to say, though, that we don’t have any control over the signals being produced, and thus the perceived image: In the image above, the large device above the patient’s ear is a dial that can adjust the implant’s brightness. Yes, we’re now at the point where we can create bionic eyes with configurable settings. I wonder how long it’ll be until there are bionic eyes that offer higher resolution and sharper visual acuity than our squishy, fleshy orbs.

Research paper: doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.0077 – “Artificial vision with wirelessly powered subretinal electronic implant alpha-IMS” [open access]

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Which of These 4 Instructional Strategies Do You Use in Your Class?

Original source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

Instructional strategies, according to Alberta Learning, are “techniques teachers use to help students become independent, strategic learners. These strategies become learning strategies when students independently select the appropriate ones and use them effectively to accomplish tasks or meet goals.” the strength of instructional strategies is that they determine how teachers can go about realizing their teaching objectives.

Instructional strategies are derived from different educational theories. Here some examples of  4 key instructional strategies as identified by Gayla S. Keesse :

1- Direct Instruction
This is what some refer to as the traditional method. Direct instruction is primarily teacher centred and consists of direct lecturing or vertical teaching. It is a form of explicit teaching  that consists of repetitive practice, didactic questioning, drill and demonstration. This strategy is particularly useful for ‘providing information, or developing step-by-step skills.’

2-Interactive Instruction
As its name indicates, this strategy consists of creating learning environments conducive to interactions and discussions. It posits that learning takes place through interactive communication of knowledge and this interaction can happen in different forms including: open or closed group discussions, collaborative project work, whole class discussions …etc

3- Experiential learning
One of the seminal works in experiential learning is Dewey’s “Experience and Education“. This strategy highlights the primacy of the process of learning over the product of learning. The purpose is to enhance students motivation and increase their retention rates by connecting classroom learning to their lifeworlds. This can happen through engaging students in reflexive thinking about their own experiences and how to leverage what they learned in the past in new contexts.

4-Independent Study
Gayla defines this strategy as “the range of instructional methods which are purposefully provided to foster the development of individual student initiative, self-reliance, and self-improvement. Independent study can also include learning in partnership with another individual or as part of a small group.”

Read Gayla’s post for more information on each of these strategies. There are also several other instructional strategies that were not mentioned in her work, here is a one-page PDF from Deming Intermediate School containing more than 40 examples:

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assessment Gaming

Study Shows Video Games’ Impact On Face-to-face Teaching

A new study conducted by faculty at NYU and the University of Michigan has uncovered some interesting results in regard to using digital games to provide formative assessment to students during the learning process. Jordan Shapiro, an expert in gaming and learning, shares this news in Forbes.

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

In the past, I have covered many studies that look at the efficacy of game based learning. But a recent study from A-GAMES, a collaboration between New York University and the University of Michigan, is significant because it looks at the way games impact the learning experience and the relationship between teacher and student. It does this by considering how digital games support ‘formative assessment’ — a term educators and researchers use to describe “the techniques used by teachers to monitor, measure, and support student progress and learning during instruction.” It may sound fancy but “formative assessment” really just refers to the ongoing attention that all good teachers have always provided their students, monitoring student learning and offering ongoing and specific feedback.

A-GAMES stands for Analyzing Games for Assessment in Math, ELA/Social Studies, and Science. The project is one among many games and learning research projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The study, entitled “Empowering Educators: Supporting Student Progress in the Classroom with Digital Games,” was undertaken by Jan Plass at NYU and Barry Fishman at University of Michigan. Surveying 488 K-12 teachers from across the U.S., they found that “more than half of teachers (57 percent) use digital games weekly or more often in teaching, with 18 percent using games for teaching on a daily basis. A higher percentage of elementary school teachers (66 percent for grade K-2 teachers and 79 percent for grade 3-5 teachers) use games weekly or more often for teaching, compared with middle school (47 percent) and high school (40 percent) teachers.”

These numbers are more or less consistent with previous studies. particularly the Level-up Learning study that the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop issued this past fall. That study focused on teachers and how their thinking about digital games in the classroom impacts actual implementation. This A-GAMES study, alternatively, is looking in more detail at the way games impact the teacher’s ability to provide personalized attention, assessment, and feedback to individual students.

The NYU/University of Michigan study found that on a weekly basis, 34 percent of teachers use games to conduct formative assessment. What are they assessing? Facts and knowledge; concepts and big ideas; mastery of specific skills. And they are doing formative assessment with games in the same way they do it with other classroom activities: observing students in class; asking probing questions; looking over their shoulders. All of this suggests that “using digital games may enable teachers to conduct formative assessment more frequently and effectively.” Game based learning seems to be aiding and supporting existing strategies rather than radically transforming the practice of teaching.

“Formative assessment is thought of as one of the most important classroom practices to support student learning,” said Barry Fishman, professor of learning technologies at the University of Michigan School of Information and School of Education.  “And our study indicates that teachers who use games for formative assessment conduct assessment more frequently and report fewer barriers.”

One of the useful things about this new study is that it does not focus on radical disruptions to the culture of education. Nor does it focus on cost savings or efficiency–not even on student achievement. Instead, it focuses on the efficacy with which digital games enable teachers to do their jobs. Therefore, it may help to dispel some of the negative myths about game-based learning that have become obstacles to widespread implementation.

Believe it or not, the perception of video games in the classroom is not always positive. Many teachers that I’ve spoken to express a fear that games are going to replace human teachers with automated video game avatars. I’m not sure where that notion comes from. I talk to a lot of game developers and pro-tech educators and so far I’ve never met one who wants to replace teachers with robots. Most want to create tools that are help teachers to do their job with more ease and greater impact.

Still, many folks worry that there are nefarious legislators and big bank types who see technology as a way to reduce labor costs through automation. I acknowledge that such a fear is not totally absurd. I’ve read Diane Ravitch’s work and I understand why she worries about the ongoing privatization of the public school system. I see how what begins as a an effort to create a marketplace where parents have more choices could spiral into a mess of potential dangers. In fact, I’ve even argued myself that we need to stop thinking of education as a business or an industry, and stop thinking of teachers like factory workers or resources. There’s nothing hidden here. It is easy to see how our unwavering faith in the corporate mindset has created a tragic level of socioeconomic stratification.

But it is also important not to swing all the way to the polarized opposite perspective. Although lowering labor costs seems to be an inherent part of the Walmart way (which is certainly not in the best interest of our children), we should also acknowledge that financial considerations have always been part of the school conversation, even at the very beginning of the great U.S. public education experiment. It wasn’t all idealism at the start. Don’t imagine that everyone used to act in the best interest of equity, social justice, and democracy but somehow we wandered off the straight and narrow path. That’s just plain false.

While promoting her book Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession, Dana Goldstein brought renewed attention to Catherine Beecher, an early feminist educator who was not only an outspoken advocate for girls’ education but also played a pivotal role in the women’s movement by leading women into professional classroom employment.

In the 19th Century, Beecher argued that one of the reasons women would make good teachers is because they provided cheap labor. In an interview with Rebecca Traister, Goldstein explained that Beecher “needed to make this pragmatic appeal to cheapness because one of the main barriers for early education reformers was trying to make education compulsory, so that parentshad to send their kids to school. And resistance to raising taxes was the major barrier to this movement.” The economics have always been one of the biggest obstacles to equity in education.

So please don’t spout nostalgia from a meek-shall-inherit-the-earth anti-profit moral soapbox. Someone profits on pencils and blackboards and desk-chairs and lockers and magic-markers. Sure, we should watch the hucksters carefully. Be wary. They’re not to be trusted. But also, we don’t want to miss out on good innovations because we’re afraid we might get scammed. If we’re afraid to take risks and iterate, an education for reflective critical thinkers is already long lost.

Certainly I worry about the tragic impact edtech and game-based learning could have on our children were we to mistakenly prioritize the capacity to create high impact at a low cost. This criteria absolutely should not hold more weight then other factors which guarantee an education for human dignity. Were affordable scalability the only promise of game-based learning, I’d be the first to object. But that’s not the case.

Instead, game-based learning uses interactive simulation to blend content with context in such a way that students learn not only facts, but also how to use those facts in relationship with other individuals and with the world around them. What’s more, games make it easy to harness the power of play and creativity, creating a pedagogy grounded in discovery learning (hands-on exploration) instead of just direct learning (lecture, demonstration).

Now, thanks to this study, we have some evidence that game-based learning can also enable better formative assessment. Which means that it even helps facilitate the kinds of live interactions that have traditionally formed the foundation of good teaching. Remember, it is not a choice between video games and live teaching; it is a happy marriage of both.

 

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The 16 Attributes of The Modern Educator

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

By Reid Wilson, December 30, 2014

As teachers and educators, we are constantly required to review, evaluate and renew our teaching strategies to align them with  the cultural, technological and pedagogical ethos of the era we are living in. In today’s era, the digital component is at the foreground which obviously calls for a new mindset, a novel conceptual framework that views technology not as an end itself but solely a mean to an educational end. It is a truism that digitally has opened a new horizon of unprecedented learning opportunities and experiences  but we can only tap into its full educational potential when we equip ourselves with the proper mindset: a growth and open mindset that as much as it adapts it also disrupts the century-old orthodoxies underlying teaching and learning practice. Teaching is a dynamic concept which is constantly evolving and expanding and that is why teachers and educators are forever learners.

Engaging in such a life-long learning journey entails that teachers develop a set of robust thinking habits that allow them to fit in the rapidly evolving educational landscape.These habits are, according to Reid Wilson, what make the profile of a modern educator. Below is an awesome visual created by Wilson featuring some of the characteristics of a modern teacher which I want to bring to your attention. Have a look and share with us what you think of it. Enjoy

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Digital Learning

106,000 Free Teacher-created Digital Textbooks Hit the Web

Times are changing. Old, outdated textbooks are sooo 20th century. Laura Devaney, Director of News at eSchool News shares the news of CK-12 Foundation releasing 106,000 free and open digital textbooks for teachers and students to utilize. Please read ahead to learn about this exciting initiative. 

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

More than 100,000 teacher-created digital textbooks are now available online through the CK-12 Foundation’s free STEM content and tools platform.

The 106,000 digital texts, or FlexBooks, come from the roughly 30,000 schools using CK-12’s free and open digital resources. CK-12 is launching two new tools in addition to its new content.

One is a new physics simulation module that uses real-world interactivity to increase student engagement. Students relate often-abstract concepts to real-world examples to increase learning.

The second is called PLIX (Play, Learning, Interact, and eXplore), and it gives students an interactive and immersive experience that helps them learn by doing.

PLIX “makes it simple for students to play around with concepts, follow up, and model those concepts,” said Neeru Khosla, the executive director and co-founder of the CK-12 Foundation.

“Learning best happens when you’re exposed to something–you first learn very basic facts and then you think about the material in deeper ways,” she said. “[PLIX] takes students through deeper thinking, critical thinking, and creativity,” in the hopes that they use their knowledge to create new ideas, tools, and concepts.

“We want to make learning happen in any way that it happens for individual students,” Khosla said. “We’re giving them the tools to learn in their own way. We’re on a path to prove that free doesn’t mean low-quality.”

The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) in Texas is using CK-12’s free online resources for high school science classes, with plans to expand the resources into other subject areas.

Instead of purchasing textbooks, money from the instructional materials fund went toward 15,500 laptops and resources for high school students. District leaders found that opting for CK-12 FlexBooks and purchasing laptops was still cheaper than buying new science textbooks, even with laptop upgrade or replacement costs.

Because CK-12’s resources and digital FlexBooks are adaptable, teachers can customize the resources in whatever manner suits their needs–and this, said EPISD Director of Instructional Services Timothy Holt, is invaluable.

“That’s empowering to teachers–they can modify resources on their own. That’s power that no paper textbook has,” he said.

Initial plans for a spring 2015 rollout were slowed to incorporate intensive professional development, ranging from practical use tips to in-depth tutorials and examples on how to integrate the FlexBooks into instructional practice.

“Nothing will kill a tech initiative faster than poor PD,” Holt said.

And come fall, EPISD leaders hope teachers and students will be using CK-12’s FlexBooks in as many lessons as possible.

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Digital Learning

Questions to Ask Oneself While Designing Learning Activities

Dr. Gerstein shares her expertise and insights into lesson planning. She provides teachers with some forward-thinking reflective questions to ask themselves as they plan learning experiences for their students. 

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

I absolutely love planning lessons from scratch.  I just got a job teaching technology units for a summer camp for elementary age students. I can design and teach whatever I want – planning for a different theme each week. Some of the themes I am planning are: Expanding and Showing Your Personal Interests Through Blogging, Photos, and Videos; Coding and Creating Online Games; Tinkering and Making – Simple Robotics; Hacking Your Notebook; and Creating Online Comics, Newspapers, and Magazines.  I have begun the process of planning these classes through reflecting on what the lessons will look like.  Here are some questions I ask myself as I go through this process:

  • Will the learning activities provide learners with opportunities to tap into their own personal interests and passions?
  • Will the learning activities offer the learners the chance to put them “selves” into their work?
  • Will the learning activities provide learners with opportunities to express themselves using their own authentic voices?
  • Will the learners find the learning activities engaging? interesting? relevant? useful?
  • What “cool” technologies can be used to help meet both the instructional and the learners’ goals?
  • Will the learning activities provide learners with opportunities to have fun and to play?
  • Will learners be able to do at least some of the work independently?
  • Will the learning activities give all of the learners opportunities to shine?
  • Will the learners get the chance to share their work with other learners, with a more global audience?