Tips, Tools and Technology for Educators

Episode 10 - May 21, 2010

(Episode Length: 23 minutes, 13 seconds)  

e-Learning Today TV - View in iTunes

Introduction

• Welcome to e-Learning Today TV

• Previous episode - Let Go and Let Learn
  

School of the Week

• Gateway Academy
• alternative school for students with special needs
• small, intimate class settings
• offers different teaching styles
• life skills, preparation for future

Current E-vents

• Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge

• Students aged 7+ log summer reading minutes online

• 20 schools with the most minutes logged will appear in the Scholastic Book of World Records 2011.

• Students aged 3 - 7 log books with parent or guardian to gain points to grow an online garden, plus tips on raising young readers, healthy reading habits, exciting summer reading activities, and more.  

• Browse the site for reading recommendations for kids of all interests and ages including summer reading lists, hot summer reads, and non-book ways to get your child reading this summer.

Fit to Learn

• Nintendo Wii partners with American Heart Association
• Promoting healthy and active lifestyle
• Make exercise fun and accessable
• Tips and tools to make healthier decisions

Hashtag Talk

• 5 Alternatives to Traditional Grading | #Edchat Recap

• No matter where you stand there was much to learn on incorporating more authentic grading methods into your instruction in order to encourage students to become life long learners and provide more valuable insight for parents on their child's progress. There are many faults with traditional grading methods. Relying solely on letter grades can actually be more harmful than helpful when it comes to student learning, empowering and engaging all students, and measuring growth.

• Traditional grades are often"  subjective, meaningless, restrictive, misguided, unrealistic, invalid, and do not take into account the needs of 21^st century learners. 

• @tomwhitby: If a kid is workin @ 100% of ability and is failin do we grade on acheivement or ability? @gfred33: Grades keep some students from taking risks and others from seeking challenge. @whatedsaid: I don't believe grades motivate students to learn. They motivate students to get grades.

• Alternative Grading Methods

• Reshaping grading methodology in public education is impossible without also examining and reshaping traditional teaching methodologies.

• Standards Based Grading

• Individual Learning Projects with Rubrics

• Self-Assessed Learning Goals

• Observations ,Anecdotal Records, Progress Monitoring

• Portfolios

Watch and Learn

• SMART video
• inspirational video about teachers
• teachers support and encourage children
• teaching lessons for in and out of school

Teach This

• Twitter Trending Topics
• Twitter changed "trending topics"
• Not what is popular now or has been for a while
• Latest, breaking news
• Podcasts Made Easy - Part 1 of 2
• Feeds, metadata, and queues - Oh My!
• The Who, What, and Why
• Podcasts are engaging, dynamic, and authentic teaching and learning tools. Everyone can benefit from listening to and creating audio and video podcasts.
• Podcasting for EduBloggers
• Podcasting for Administrators, Teachers, and Coaches
• Podcasting for Students
• Podcasts serve as creative, authentic, and dynamic formative assessments and portfolios of student learning. Plus, the fact that it gives students an audience is a motivational and engagement tool that leads to higher quality work and participation.

Blogger of the Week

• 5 Traits of 21st Century School Administrators and Leaders | Derek Keenan
• Author of Adventures in Teaching and Learning - a blog for 21^st educators, teaches his high school English in Airdrie, Alberta using a class set of ipod touches
• "Meet them on Their Terms, Use Their Tools": Keenan's goal is to create lifelong learners by showing his students how to use the devices in their pockets for academic tasks.
• He explains, "If they are at work and need to create a solution to a problem, they will be able to pull out their iPod and create a mind map, twitter with experts, blog and collaborate.  I guess it boils down to authentic learning."
• He echoed the message of last week's blogger of the week, Principal Eric Sheninger, demanding that administrators must "lead teachers into new frontiers of education" and accept that learning can and must occur socially and globally, outside school walls. 5 Traits:

1. An Active Listener
2. A Connected Leader
3. An Authentic Conversationalist
4. Inspirational and Empowering
5. A 21st Century Learning Specialist
•  "We owe it to our students to lead in a way that is consistent with the future they are moving toward!  Be great for them!" - Mr. Keenan
• Check the show notes for a link to my interview with Mr. Keenan on authentic teaching and learning, 21^st Century tools for success, using ipods in the classroom, and more.

E-freebies

• 3 sites for audio books
• Sites that offer free stories and books
• Downloadable versions
• Different languages
• Clear and quality sound

So, What Do You Know

• A Rubik's cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 (over 43 quintilian) possible configurations.Talk about a lesson in combinations.... or place value... or elapsed time! If you turned the Rubik's cube once every second it would take you 1400 trillion years to finish to go through all the configurations. If you had started this project during the Big Bang, you still wouldn't be done yet!
• thousand 1,000
  1 million 1,000,000
  2 billion 1,000,000,000
  3 trillion 1,000,000,000,000
  4 quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000
  5 quintillion 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
• An average person will spend 1 1/2 years of their lifetime in the bathroom

e-Learning Today TV - View in iTunes