Ed Tech Terminology and Concepts Teachers Should Know About

September 1, 2014
Educational technology is a dynamic field of research and study. This dynamism stems mainly from the constant flow of new educational web technologies and the emergence of novel Ed Tech concepts that provide theoretical underpinnings for these technologies. The challenge for teachers is not only in keeping up with this fast moving trend but also with understanding the basic foundational concepts without which any talk about Ed Tech integration in class would be futile.

As a new teacher keen on understanding and using educational technology effectively in the classroom, you need, first,  to make sure you understand  some of the key Ed Tech terminology that you will be repeatedly coming across. To this end, I am sharing with you two excellent resources where you can have access to a glossary of useful Ed Tech terms and concepts:

1-Ed Tech Glossary
This is a great list of popular Ed Tech terms compiled and featured in Classflow. This list is organized alphabetically.

2- ED Tech Terms Visual
This is a visual I shared a while ago here in Ed Tech and Mobile Learning. The visual features around 15 important Ed Tech concepts.

Browse more data visualizations.

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24 Questions to Enhance Students Reflective and Critical Thinking Skills

August 31, 2014
Reflection is a fundamental skill from which is branched out all other thinking skills. Reflection is a form of meta-thinking, a process of deep contemplation and pondering. It is also the basis of critical thinking for we can not raise critical thinkers if we do not have good 'reflectors'. When students are taught the art of reflecting, they become independent learners who are engaged in a constant process of assessment and re-assessment of their learning needs and strategies.

Reflection is all about questioning. To cultivate a reflective culture within your class, students need to be encouraged to pose challenging questions as to the way they learn and think. They need to be able to track the inner thinking process that lead them to the answers they come up with. There are a variety of questions to use with students in this regard. Some of these questions are captured in this beautiful visual below. Teachheath, who created this visual, divided these questions into 4 main headings: accuracy questions, understanding questions, clarity questions, and giving clarity questions. Go through the visual and explore the different questions featured there. This is indeed a great back-to-school resource to add to your teaching toolkit. Enjoy

Source of the graphic: http://goo.gl/72q0vH

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Everything Teachers Need to Know about Chromebooks (9 Tutorials)

August, 2014
Chromebooks are making gigantic inroads in the education sector. Several school districts here in Canada and the States are adopting them as teaching tools within classrooms. Their growing popularity among the education community is attributable not only to their reasonably cheap price but also to a host of excellent features that you can not find in other devices. Chromebooks are easier to handle, faster and more secure. They are also " instantly personalizable by each student or teacher, and easy to manage, making them an ideal solution for bringing the power of the web to your classrooms".

Here are some of the things K-12 schools can do with Chromebooks:

• Scale access to the web with computers that are simple to use and easy to distribute
• Share devices among students, with no manual set-up for different users
• Enjoy constant connectivity through integrated Wi-Fi and optional 3G, for always-on access without relying on school networks
• Administer machines throughout the school, no matter how many Chrome devices you have, or where they’re being used

If your school is integrating Chrombooks or if you are planning to use them with your student, the video tutorials below are definitely something you want to watch first. They will help learn more about how to manage and operate Chromebooks.

1- Chomebooks for Education : Overview

2- How to Log in for The First Time on Your Chromebook

3- Set The Background Are of your Chromebook

4- The launcher

5- Chromebook Tabs

6- Window Control

7- How to enable Caps Lock, use the special keys, and more on your Chromebook

8- How to create a new document (and find it later) on your Chromebook

9- How to print from your Chromebook

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7 Tips on how to Drive Students Motivation

August 30, 2014
Here is another awesome back-to-school  resource. This is basically a graphic from ASCD featuring seven reminders on how to drive motivation. These reminders are quotes from popular thinkers which provide some smart tips on how to ignite learners motivation. Below is a round-up of these 7 reminders and you can download this free poster from this link.

• Students pose two fundamental questions that relate to motivation to learn: Does the teacher see me? And how does the teacher see me? ( Carol Ann)
• Rewards, punishments, incentives, threats, and other external strategies create finishers, not learners. ( Richard Curwin)
• A key ingredient in fuelling passion to learn is making sure students feel intellectually challenged. ( Stevi Quate and John McDermott)
• When students are focused on goals that they had a hand in choosing, it brings reading engagement, motivation, and progress t a whole new level.( Jennifer Serravallo)
• Teachers must adopt the mind-set that there's no such thing as laziness. If a student appears lazy, there's something else going that we can't see. ( Rick Wormeli)
• When students know there are supports in place to keep them from free-falling into failure, they're much more likely to take risks to deepen their learning. ( Robyn Jackson and Allison Zmuda)
• We think control is going to make something better. But people have only two reactions to control: They comply, or they defy. ( Daniel Pink)

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New Bloom's Taxonomy Poster for Teachers

August 29, 2014
Bloom's taxonomy is one of the most popular learning taxonomies ever. Since its release in the last half of the 20th century, it has been widely adopted within the education sector and was used extensively  to design and create learning materials and curriculum content. Bloom's taxonomy maps out learning skills along a thinking continuum that starts with lower order thinking skills in one end  (e.g. remembering and understanding) and moves up in difficulty to the other end that embraces higher order thinking skills (e.g. evaluating and creating).

However, Bloom's taxonomy has been repeatedly modified to suit the requirements of the era in which it is used . Thus, we ended up having  different versions of Blooms taxonomy. The visual below from Fractus Learning captures these versions into three main columns ( Bloom's original taxonomy, Bloom's modified taxonomy, and Bloom's digital taxonomy). To this is added another column for digital activities that go with each of the Bloom's thinking levels. I invite you to check it out and share with us what you think of it.

You can access the original downloadable visual from this link.

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A Good Visual Featuring 7 Ways to Be More Creative

August, 2014
Creativity, according to Albert Einstein, is intelligence having fun and for most neuro-cognitive scientists creativity is something that is inherently born with us and the proof is kids. All kids draw on their sharp sense of creativity to discover and explore the world around them. They can easily adapt their behaviour to new situations, develop new thinking skills and are constantly engaged in trying out "new ways of doing stuff". Sir Ken Robinson made a strong argument in this regard in his popular TED talk "schools kill creativity". Ken argued that kids come to school bursting with  creativity and by the time they graduate they have lost most if not all of their creativity. Sounds like schools are "educating kids out of creativity"!

But creativity is similar to a light bulb anytime you turn it on it will light the whole place. It might be dormant but it is always there waiting for someone to rekindle it. Creativity is a praxis, it involves doing and thinking and there are different ways to combine this doing and thinking to make a creative act. the visual brow features some of these ways. You can also check this post for more suggestions on how to be more creative.

Check out the original poster here.

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New Poster on How to Cite Digital Images

August, 2014
Here is a great visual from Langwitches on how to properly cite images on your blog. If you are planning to start a classroom blog or website then this could be a great material to share with students to help them learn about the different ways they can use to cite images. Langwithces featured here four kinds of images ( copyright images, Creative Commons licensed images, public domain images and images used under fair use) with explanations on how to cite each of these kinds. Have a look and share with with us what you thin of it. Enjoy

Click here to see the original poster

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Some Useful Educational iPad Games for Your Students

August 28, 2014
A fun game can be a great way to deliver instruction, especially during a break from school. It can make education more engaging for even the most recalcitrant student. And sometimes they can be pretty fun for adults too.

Tesseract 

The game consists of rolling a golden sphere to each surface of a hypercube. This is done by touching a door to pass through which in turn rotates the tesseract four dimensionally and brings the sphere into a new room. Passing through a series of rooms strategically will put the sphere on the walls and ceilings of rooms it has previously been in. The goal is to reach every wall, floor and ceiling of every room.

The Fluid Ether 

Fluids can move in strange and mysterious ways, often counter to what we expect. Understanding fluid motion is as much a science as an art form, and visualizations of fluid flow are treasured for their beauty. Learn to create beautiful interlacing fluid patterns in this game as you navigate hand-crafted levels. Immerse yourself in The Fluid Ether! The game even includes a level editor, for you to make your own levels in the game to share with others.

Grid Lines: Ordered Pair Game 

Players will race (Multiplayer mode using WIFI) or practice (single player mode) in identifying two locations (ordered pairs) on the grid, drawing a straight line from one edge of the gameboard to the other passing through the two locations identified, scoring points for each shape that his or her line touches or through which his or her line passes that are located in all four quadrants of the coordinate grid.

 

Numblr 

Numbler is a game where players build math equations in a familiar crossword style board. All the mental fun of popular board and online word games, but with numbers instead of letters.

SparkleFish 

With SparkleFish you can record creative words in your own voice for playback inside surprising, ad-lib stories. If you enjoy Mad Libs, then you’ll really love SparkleFish. It’s fun for all ages, species, individuals, groups, etc.

Math Game iPad Apps 

This collection of math gamesCurated by 4th grade teacher Adam Wuerfele.

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A Treasure Trove of Excellent Resources on Project Based Learning

August 28, 2014
Are you planning to integrate project based learning in your teaching pedagogy? Are you in need of some helpful resources to get you going? Here is an excellent resourceful page where you can access various materials on project based learning. This page is compiled by Cybraryman whose works have been repeatedly featured in this blog. Similar to the Critical Thinking page I shared earlier, this is also a work in progress and is updated so often with the addition of new resources and links.

From video tutorials to mobile apps, this page contains tons of excellent resources meticulously curated for teachers and students. You may want to bookmark and save it for future reference. Enjoy

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Google Slides for iPad is Finally Out

August 28, 2014
Google Slides for iPad is finally out. As is the case with its precedents Google Sheets and Google Docs, Slides is now available for free download from iTunes app store.

Google Slides app allows you to easily create presentations, edit slides, and collaborate with others on presentations right from your iPad. Other interesting features provided by Google Slides include:

•  Create new presentations or edit any that were created on the web or on another device 
•  Share presentations and work together with others in the same presentation at the same time
•  Open, edit, and save Microsoft PowerPoint files
• Get stuff done anytime -- even without an internet connection
• Add and rearrange slides, format text and shapes, and more
• Present right from your device
• Never worry about losing your work -- everything is automatically saved as you type

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Tons of Resources for Teaching Critical Thinking to Your Students

August 28, 2014
Somebody asked me today about resources for teaching critical thinking to students.The first thing that comes to my mind is Cybraryman's wonderful platform where he collects and shares educational websites and links.His Critical Thinking page features a wide variety of resources on problem-based learning and critical thinking. You might want to bookmark his page and keep checking on it as it is a work in progress and he keeps adding more stuff to it. Some of the things you will find in this page are video resources on critical thinking, guides and tutorials, rubrics, iPad apps for teaching critical thinking and many more.

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5 Good Extensions to Enhance Your Google Drive Productivity

August 27, 2014
Since the time Google made it possible for third party developers to create extensions and add-ons compatible with Chrome and the Chrome app store is teeming with all kinds of apps. If you have a look at the Drive section in the Chrome store you will notice a multitude of apps provided there for free , however, many of these apps are not really worth installing. In this regard and if you are looking for powerful Drive extensions to maximize your productivity, this selection is definitely a must try out.

1- Save to Google Drive

This extension allow you to save web content directly to Google Drive through a browser action or context menu. You can save documents, images, and HTML5 audio and video all by right clicking and selecting 'Save to Google Drive'.
2- Save Text to Google Drive

The Save Text to Google Drive Chrome extension helps you save web text content to your Google Drive.
3- Shortcuts for Google

Display all Google™ services as buttons in a space-saving popup next to your address bar. Reach services like Gmail, Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and many more in just two clicks from your browser. The extension includes more than 220 Google services and websites.
4- Pixlr Editor

Pixlr presents a full featured photo editor direct in your browser. If you are used to working with Gimp, Paint shop pro or even Photoshop you will feel right at home with this online image editor. It contains lots of the features that you normally see in desktop applications but just one click away. No registration required.

5- Black Menu for Google

This extension is meant to be a replacement for both, iGoogle and the quickly removed google menu. This extension contains an extensive menu of google services. You can access them by browsing through the black menu entries. By clicking the menu entry of your choice, you'll go to the corresponding google service in a new tab.
Based on a post initially posted on Mashable.

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Two Great Periodic Tables of Educational iPad Apps

August 27, 2014
Today as I was wading through my Twitter feeds I came across a link to the periodic table of iPad apps created by ICTEvangelist.Upon checking this work I learned that it is inspired by a relatively similar work done by Sean Junkins which I have featured in an earlier post in this blog. Different as they are, both of these periodic tables provide an interesting collection of educational iPad apps you could probably consider using with your students.These apps are arranged under different categories and each of these categories  has a unique colour code to help you identify apps belonging it. The labelling of the categories in these two periodic tables slightly differ from one another with ICTEvangelist tending to repurpose his work for UK-based educational settings.

1-The Periodic Table of iPad Apps ( Sean Junkins version)

2-The periodic table of iPad Apps (ICTEvangelist version)

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Enhance Students Productivity with These Web Tools

August 26, 2014
There is a growing number of tools for students offering benefits from organizing assignments to creating study groups to taking notes. Here are some notable options for your students to consider.

ClassOwl 

ClassOwl was founded by a group of Stanford sophomores wanting to improve the hectic academic experience. Teachers and students are constantly faced with the challenge of staying organized and up-to-date with assignments and deadlines. ClassOwl is a simple solution for teachers to help keep students on track.

Piazza 

 A free resource to create online discussion forums and study groups for university students. Piazza is an online platform that facilitates interaction among. Using Piazza you will be able to:

• answer students’ questions once for all students to see
• your students can engage with classmates in online discussion
• you can post class related announcements
• you can post class files, resources and the class syllabus
• you can conduct polls to get a sense of where students stand
• you can receive/send private messages from/to students on 
• more sensitive subject matters

GroupMap 

Students can use this website to host and record collaborative brainstorming sessions.

Surfmark for Education 

Surfmark is an online research application that encourages critical thinking and helps students learn how to synthesize and integrate knowledge around topics. It is a powerful research tool currently available on iPad that also teaches the process of doing research properly.

Trello 

A surprisingly simple yet powerfully visual to-do organizer students can use for all their tasks.

Want more? Check out these collections of tools

Student Tech Tools 

This collection is curated by middle school social studies teacher Drew Ackerson.

Student Research Tools 

This one is curated by grade school teacher Kelley Sovol.

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Back to School Activities to Try in Your Class

August 25, 2014
In the series of posts I am sharing here on the back-to-school event, today I uncovered from my archive two awesome posters created by Busy Teacher outlining some interesting ideas for teachers to try in the first week of the new school year. These ideas span a wide variety of classroom activities  to get your students into the 'learning mode' required for debuting a new academic year full of success and productive work.

Here are some examples of these activities as featured in the graphic below:

My dream job
Have students write a paper on their dream job and then share it with their peers. The purpose of this activity is for students to practice their writing and speaking skills.

Give a speech
Students give a short speech on a simple topic like" my summer vacation' to practice speaking in front of groups.

Give a report
Have students give a short written report on something 'newsworthy' in their communities, like the opening of a new shopping mall.

Our class policies
Have students work in groups to draft abut ten class rules or policies. They can then share with other groups and decide on a final ten.

Weekly journal
Introduce the weekly journal, for fluency practice, not correctness, and based on a topic that comes up in class reading, like sibling relationships.

Survey your classmates
Students survey peers on a topic like how many students drink coffee in the morning and then come up with a percentage.

Information gap
Divide up the information on a reading topic among different groups, one paragraph each. Have them then share information to complete the reading.


1-  Check the original poster from this link




2- Check the original poster from this link

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30+ Resources for Students to Learn about Coding Languages

August 25, 2014
Learning coding is becoming a necessary skill that kids needs to master in order to thrive in tomorrow's job market. There is now a growing trend in schools and educational cirlces towards bringing coding skills and computer programming to the forefront of the educational agendas. Several public figures including business leaders ( Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg), politicians ( Algore, Obama), and educators such as the deans of Standford and Harvard have reiterated the need for schools to teach kids computer programming and coding skills.

Source: http://goo.gl/4cl575

I have already featured here a list of important resources and applications to help in the teaching of coding in classroom, however , an essential part of the coding knowledge students will be exposed to is related to the coding languages. To this end, I am sharing with you this list of excellent resources to help students learn about the 10 most used programming languages out there. I compiled this list based on this article from Mashable.

Programming Languages	Places to Learn about Them
Java	Udemy Lynda.com Oracle.com LearnJavaOnline.org
C Language	Learn-C Introduction To Programming Lynda.com CProgramming.com Learn C The Hard Way
C++	Udemy Lynda.com CPlusPlus.com LearnCpp.com CProgramming.com.
C#	Udemy Lynda.com Microsoft Virtual Academy TutorialsPoint.com
Objective C	Udemy Lynda.com Mac Developer Library Cocoa Dev Central Mobile Tuts+
PHP	Udemy Codecademy Lynda.com Treehouse Zend Developer Zone PHP.net
Python	Udemy Codecademy Lynda.com LearnPython.org Python.org.
Ruby	Codecademy Code School TryRuby.org RubyMonk
JavaScript	Codecademy Lynda.com Code School Treehouse Learn-JS.org
SQL	Lynda.com SQLCourse.com TutorialsPoint.com SQLZoo.net

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