Browsing all posts in Posts.
Top 10 Reasons Communicating on Computers Impacts Quality of Writing
I recently came across Pew research on Writing, Technology and Teens that showed that they do not believe that writing on computers improves the quality of student writing. According to the study, teens appear to recognize the importance of learning to write and 78% feel the writing abilities would improve if their teachers used computer-based [...]
A Teaching Moment: Survey Monkey as a Tool for Peer Assessment
Although students are traditionally assessed based on their written work, I try to challenge my students to provide evidence of their progress in a variety of different ways. The undergraduate students I teach are often headed toward careers as professional communicators, so learning how to express themselves verbally and visually is just as important as [...]
India Increases Education Spending by 16% to 360 Billion Rupees
Watching a national budget presentation normally ranks right around having a root canal or doing one’s taxes. But this past week, India’s educators were glued to the tube and asking The Big Question: would the central government back up the talk of the Right to Education Act with cash?
As the numbers rolled out, the answer [...]
Making Smart Ed Tech. Decisions: Picking the Right Tool for the Job
I haven’t decided whether to add an iPad to my tech arsenal just yet. I’m usually a magpie attracted to bright and shiny objects, but I’ll resist the impulse to buy an iPad until I determine whether it offers some essential functionality I can’t live without.
I watch teachers and schools select technologies and sometimes see [...]
Reaching all Learners: Presentation Tools for the Innovative Educator
Visual presentation tools like PowerPoint and Keynote have been saddled with an unsavory reputation. Lazy presenters can use the visual tools as a crutch to improve lackluster presentations. However, the best presenters use visual presentation tools to clarify their topic and make information accessible to all types of learners.
The popular VARK model of learning styles [...]
How to Teach an Old Dog New Tech: The Invisible Hand of Learning Part II
How do we motivate adults to learn new things? This question has been on my mind for months. In my first post for ISTE (The Invisible hand of Learning: Part I) I wrote about how we changed our Professional Development (PD) concept from a top-down to a bottom-up model. The experiment is now on it’s [...]
The 5Ws and H of Playing [Video] Games in School: Part 1 – Why Play Games?
In the first of a series blogs on Playing [Video] Games in School, I thought I’d pose and try to answer the question, “Why play [video]games in school?”
The obvious answer is, “To motivate kids and make learning fun!”
I don’t know how many times I asked my kids, “How was school today?” and either got a [...]
Virtual Collaboration: Finding Your Birds of a Feather
When I meet with educators for professional development around the topic of project-based learning I often ask experts to join us through Skype. Bud Hunt, Terry Smith, Julie Lindsay, Chris Lehmann, Linda Hartley, Jeff Utecht and others have graced my groups with their presence. Teachers are always impressed with their knowledge and passion, and note [...]
A Teaching Moment: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Basics
With more than 1.5 billion Web sites, 400 million Facebook users, 5.5 million Twitterers, and over 100 million blogs, it can be difficult to stand out in cyberspace. While there are a multitude of tips, tricks, tools and tags that can help attract search engine traffic to a site, the process of search engine optimization [...]
Education Technology: A Student’s Perspective
I am Sierra, a 7th grader and Rob Reed’s daughter. I went with him to California to the HP Innovations in Education conference, co-sponsored by ISTE.
So far, my classroom has been using shared computers for the whole school(Macbooks) and each student has an assigned computer. We do not do much on the computers but type [...]
