February 2011 Blog Posts (58)

At the Freshman Transition Network we are always trying to find resources that can be used in the classroom to motivate and inspire kids.  This video is one such resource.  

Your students need to see this.  After they watch it, take an opportunity to talk about how they treat their fellow man.  Talk to them about Love and Forgiveness and Humility.  Take a moment to talk about judging others and the treating…

“The challenge for our education system is to leverage the learning sciences and modern technology to create engaging, relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners that mirror students’ daily lives and the reality of their futures.  In contrast to traditional classroom instruction, this requires that we put students at the center and empower them to take control of their own learning by providing…

I’ll be presenting examples of classroom uses of social networking tools at the Campus Technology 2011 conference. Do you have a story you would like share?

If you’ve used Twitter or Facebook in the classroom successfully, and would be willing to have your story…

Hi class,

Welcome to our class. I hope you all have fun and learn. 

Original post

I discovered the University of the People a couple of months ago and right away its mission really intrigued me. The concept is both simple and revolutionary – to create a university which is tuition free. In today’s world of rising education costs and student debt escalating out of control, this seemed like an alternative worth exploring. The concept is…

“Round 1” in a look at the many free, richly featured CMS & LMS apps available in the cloud.

What options exist for teachers who want to try using a Course Management System, but don’t have one available in their school? Fortunately, there are many free CMS/LMS tools available on the Internet. The heavy snows across the US this winter pushed the value of these tools to the forefront of my mind – courses hosted in a Learning Management System position…

So (full disclosure), I'm currently going through the NETS*T process, and one of our requirements is that we share at least three examples of technology we use to support teaching and learning to share with our colleagues.  Here, then, is my post (thanks for reading!):

One of my favorite technology tools is my messageboard, set up through proboards (sorry, you can't access it: it's password protected).  It has proven to be useful for a variety of purposes.  It began as a way…

This was originally posted on Assessment FOR Learning.

Recently I spent a few minutes in the classroom of SHS Marketing teacher Michelle Kovac.  Her Marketing students had just turned in projects that day.  

When I came into the class the students were in the process of evaluating similar projects turned in by last year's students.  Mrs. Kovac had given her students a rubric when they…

Cam Studio software is a great way to record and post for all to see exactly what you are doing...

Check it our and download it for free at:http://camstudio.org/

Save one bookmark dealing with one biome to Diigo for 7th grade -> http://ning.it/dlrUPJ

The biomes are:
    * tundra
    * taiga
    * temperate deciduous forest
    * scrub forest (called chaparral in California)
    * grassland
    * desert
    * tropical rain forest
    * temperate rain forest

Happy Chinese New Year! The Chinese use the lunar calendar in addition to the solar calendar. According to the lunar calendar, the new year this year was on Feb. 3, which is the Year of the Rabbit. The twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac cycle every 12 years. Because every month in the lunar calendar has 30 days, and there are no months with 31 days, every 4 years the lunar calendar is corrected by repeating a month.

The Chinese keep track of their birthdays using…

Like it or not we are constantly judged by our writing skills. Whether we are writing a term paper for a class or research report for our boss, the quality of our work will be determined in part by the quality of our writing.  This may not be fair, but there is something we can do about it.

Writing is important because it’s a communication tool. Imagine you had a great song on your MP3 player that you wanted to share with your friends, but every time you played it there was mainly…

from Chris Dawson, ZDNet

ePals, creator of the world’s largest learning network, has partnered with Dell to add its newly announced SchoolMail³⁶⁵ and its LearningSpace communication and collaboration solutions to Dell’s Connected…

Hi everyone. I would like to introduce my blog, the Mathematics and Multimedia. 

This blog has two main themes: one is mathematics and the other is multimedia. The mathematics part will discuss ideas behind mathematical concepts from elementary to undergraduate topics.  The multimedia part will discuss the use of different media such as text, graphics, sounds, video and animation in teaching mathematics. Mathematics and…

As a teacher, I can increase graduation rates of my students by increasing engagement in learning, especially when it applies to at-risk learners (Archambault, 19). So, as a brand new online teacher, I felt it was within my education, training, and scope to attempt to increase engagement in my online classroom.



Yesterday I contacted 34 disengaged students with a personalized letter inviting them to come back to the online classroom and turn in an assignment. Within 24 hours, 10 of…