September 2009 Blog Posts (134)

Geocaching in schools

I have been using geocaching as a way of familiarising my students with their local environment. Using GPS navigators, we search for the hidden treasure planted by a fellow, keen geocacher.

My next step is to adopt a local environment, get the kids to maintain it, make permanent posters created by the students to inform tourists about the area they are visiting and then create our own geocache linking all our work together and added to the geocaching website.

I have a ning called… Continue

Added by Juanita Alenka Shaw on September 21, 2009 at 3:41pm — No Comments

Pimp Me Out!!

Being that I work in a place that the ad world absolutely covets -- I mean my campus is Madison Avenue's dream turf, right? -- and I am in a place that most definitely needs an influx of cash, well, why not take advantage of my own unique ability to reach young consumers.

That's right... PIMP ME OUT!!!

I am talking about full frontal teacher marketing here. Really, why not turn me into an English teacher that looks like a NASCAR driver?

I could sport… Continue

Added by Alan Sitomer on September 21, 2009 at 6:30am — No Comments

Inspirational Teacher Movies

I was contemplating movies that inspire or encourage teaching. As I reflected on this, I thought back to the first time I watched Stand and Deliver. This movie was inspirational as I watched a teacher demonstrate an unwillingness to accept poor performance by students. At that this point, I changed my thinking - worrying about the individual student and their success in class. Lately, I have again altered my thinking to be more along the lines of "What did we learn" rather than "What did I… Continue

Added by Glen Westbroek on September 20, 2009 at 8:37pm — No Comments

Dropbox

I just updated my personal blog to share my experiences of Dropbox with you. I have used it for over a year now and it has changed the way I do things on my computers. It is an online backup, sync, and sharing tool. You download a Dropbox folder to your computer, and everything you put in it is backed up online. You can share folders or… Continue

Added by Jonathan Wylie on September 20, 2009 at 12:30pm — 1 Comment

Ideas for Summarizing

Hello! I am a reading teacher for struggling 6-8th graders. I have been trying to teach my students to summarize but they are really struggling with the concept. They seem to have trouble deciding which details are important and usually include many that are not needed. I have tried selective hi-lighting but many of them end up hi-lighting almost the whole page. Are there any ideas on how I can help my student determine what to include in a summary? I would like this skill to lead into… Continue

Added by Diana Irvine on September 19, 2009 at 9:09pm — 1 Comment

DoInk Talent

Okay, it's not animated but I like the strong colors and lines (cute puns too).

Not all Pun and Games by feebbycakes, made at DoInk.com

See more by feebbycakes here:… Continue

Added by Ellen on September 19, 2009 at 8:00pm — No Comments

I need more than my Integrated Tech K-12 Masters to feel I am growing in the classroom

Hi all,

I was introduced to Web 2.0 almost 2 years ago during a presentation of some of our teachers who had attended the first Web 2.0 conference in Shanghai. From there I learned about K-12 Onine Conference and I was off and running in many different directions with not great focus. I have often described my learning online as have Internet ADD. use… Continue

Added by Heather Davis on September 19, 2009 at 7:25pm — 1 Comment

eportfolio 'cuse I need more to figure out

Just finished the webinar on Electronic Portfolios and found it interesting. My quandary is that when I did the paper portfolio years ago, it appeared that the amount of time spent working on them always felt disproportionate to the product. I like exhibit A the student preferred exhibit K. We would discuss it, compare it to the rubric, and debate it over again before moving on to the next item.

I really like the idea of a Web 2.0 eportfolio where it is a truly (virtual) living… Continue

Added by Artie O'Connor on September 19, 2009 at 12:45pm — 4 Comments

The World Is My Interface

I changed the name of my Technology Supported Human-World Interaction blog to "The World is my Interface". It reflects the direction of my thoughts about interaction and pervasive computing. The first post includes links to related blog posts, as well as links to people who are doing research in this area.

Added by Lynn Marentette on September 19, 2009 at 11:26am — No Comments

University President as Risk Taker

In answer to the question as to whether it is the role of the president to assume the risk of promoting change, I think that it is one of the risky, yet necessary traits of an effective presidency.

Take for instance the president of Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. From what I know of him, he seems to be an extremely likable person, charismatic, a respected leader in business. Yet, he did something that is oriented toward an unknown future at his university that he cannot… Continue

Added by Tait Johnson on September 19, 2009 at 10:01am — No Comments

Tragedy in Philadelphia: No Love for the Libraries (a.k.a. Saving short term cash by expanding long-term ignorance)

The City of Philadelphia is closing all -- that's right ALL -- of its public libraries. Click here and GULP!

Actually, it seems the city got a stay of execution... click here to read about the reprieve.

Either way...

--Is this not a metaphor for what plagues our… Continue

Added by Alan Sitomer on September 19, 2009 at 6:30am — No Comments

Has Technology Transformed Your Practice? Take This Survey!

Transforming Teaching and Learning Survey

At the end of October, I will have the privilege of attending an education summit at Google entitled, "Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age ". Before this event, I will be blogging on the topic of transforming teachers' practices with digital technologies.

I have some pretty specific ideas in mind that I'd like to include in my blog posting. I also would like… Continue

Added by Lucy Gray on September 18, 2009 at 5:15pm — No Comments

Introducing THINK Global School

I wanted to take a moment to introduce our school which will be opening up in September 2010. We are very much about opening a dialogue with anyone in education, especially global projects, global awareness, technology in education and new models of teaching & learning. We'd love to hear your thoughts / comments / feedback.

Follow us on Twitter (@tgsthinkglobal) or see if any of our team be in your area any time soon… Continue

Added by Mike Hourahine on September 18, 2009 at 12:57pm — No Comments

HELP US!!! AYUDENOS! Aiutaci!

I’m Argentinean and for a long time ago I have been seeing how our magna carta is being violated constantly. Today our government is violating our human rights, particularly, our rights to express ourselves freely, to think and make decisions about our own actions. Tomorrow, they will kill us, in silence and no one will ever know.

Our country is walking the path towards socialism, the same one that we have seen in Cuba for the last 51 years, and in the Venezuela of Chavez. Countries were… Continue

Added by skynet silverstar on September 18, 2009 at 12:10pm — No Comments

Lack of Risk Puts Nation at Risk

This is the topic of my new post on Life in the Renaissance. You can read and comment at http://bigenhoc.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/lack-of-risk-puts-nation-at-risk/

Added by Chris Bigenho on September 18, 2009 at 11:17am — No Comments

Does eLearning need to have a ROI that’s more than just money?

The Adobe Captivate Blog earlier this month reported on a Higher Ed blog - http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/

“Around 70% of faculty believe that the learning outcomes of online learning are inferior to F2F.”

This got me thinking about business eLearning -

I have seen all sorts of content classified as eLearning and as an educator I have to ask –

Is it important to have learning outcomes associated with eLearning for it to be… Continue

Added by Jodi Harrison on September 18, 2009 at 9:13am — 2 Comments

"How I Spent My Summer" Will Inspire

Hey all,

Some of you may know through fb or twitter that my godson, Seamus, underwent brain surgery this past summer to remove a malignant tumor from his cerebellum. He is manfully struggling back from it and has to date regained much use of his right hand, tentative freedom from the walker, and his ability to speak. His "new" voice is a different one than his pre-surgery one, and its timbre belies the brilliant, sardonic wit he inherited from both his parents.

I invite… Continue

Added by Scott Merrick on September 18, 2009 at 6:51am — No Comments

Educators requested to collaborate on Classroom applications supporting Technology Education standards

I am looking for contributions to a Wiki that was developed to gather content (lessons. assessments, resources) from around the world on Technology Education activities for students in grades K-12. The ideal activities will be project/problem-based and allow multiple solutions. It will contain a variety of activities and assessments to engage students in their learning.... Assessments may include service projects.

This is a global collaborative effort to develop Classroom… Continue

Added by Sandy O'Neil on September 17, 2009 at 7:00pm — No Comments

Diving Into Grad School

Ok team, here's the deal: I graduated from Harvard College in 2008, and spent a year in the real live working world... and now I'm a student again. With just one year lag, you'd think it would be easy to jump back in, yes? Well, it turns out it's not so easy. In the last week of August, I started a new job, had orientation for HGSE, and moved to a new apartment, which made things just a bit... hectic.

Now I'm hunkering down, getting to work, and being a good grad student.… Continue

Added by Samantha Biegler on September 17, 2009 at 4:49pm — No Comments

What is Interpretation?

I just got back from a trip to Yellowstone National Park and it took me back to the days I worked at Colorado State Parks. I presented campfire talks, guided nature walks, designed visitor center displays, and developed environmental educational curriculum and programs for various school districts. You will find this type of instruction, which is referred to as interpretation, at parks, zoos, aquariums, museums, and historical sites. I know the word interpretation has different meanings but the… Continue

Added by Patty Cantrell on September 17, 2009 at 4:30pm — 1 Comment