Tuesday 29 January 2013

Using online portfolios in the classroom

Our digital world is transforming the way we learn, and today's teachers are tasked with the challenging job of sifting through the deluge of educational technologies and creating a meaningful learning experience for students.
Next-generation education portfolio platforms - such as Digication, Pathbrite, Taskstream and Epsilen - are one way for teachers to start early and educate students about how they can manage their own academic and professional accomplishments. From using portfolios for giving students educational feedback to the portability of transcripts and official academic documents, new opportunities exist for lifelong learning and sharing.
Here are five best practices for implementing an education portfolio platform in any K-12 or college classroom.
image credits: Carbon Made Portfolios
1. Build in Opportunities for Peer-to-Peer Learning
Focus on the goal of increasing students' digital literacy by fostering a collaborative learning environment where some of the more tech-savvy students can guide and help others learn. These practices can generate trust, offer problem-solving opportunities, and deepen peer-to-peer learning on the educational lessons taught in the course.

2. Create Lessons That Foster Data and Knowledge Curation
Sifting through the endless hoards of information on the Internet is becoming a necessary skill. Students need to learn how to find reliable sources and how to conduct research in an organized and discriminating way. Eleventh-grade English teacher Amy McGeorge of Leadership Public Schools, a high school in the San Francisco Bay Area, began using next-generation education portfolios in the classroom to teach the literary classic Catcher in the Rye. She assigned a digital literary analysis and asked students to create an online portfolio that included what they learned about the characters. The results showed better-than-ever student engagement and understanding of the story.

3. Engaging for All Levels of Learners
One of the biggest challenges for today's large classrooms and high student-to-teacher ratios is offering high-performing students engaging activities that won't hold them back while the teachers focus on students who need additional support. Online portfolio projects are a stimulating activity that allows learners of all levels to deepen their knowledge on a subject matter or assignment while maintaining a common ground with their peers.

4. Develop Organization Skills and Plan for the Future
Instead of sorting through crumpled assignments in the bottoms of backpacks, students are able to login to their online portfolios and find everything in an organized manner. Using tags for common subject areas helps students sort through all of the information they have collected so that they can see the "bigger picture" and be reminded of all the work they have done in a specific area. I saw one example from a graduate level course at the University of Illinois in the School of Library and Information Science. Here, students were given the assignment of creating an online portfolio that showed digital materials reflecting theoretical concepts on gender, race and sexuality learned in the course. Not only did student understanding of the concepts far surpass the classes that weren't using online portfolios, but students also reported high levels of satisfaction with their ability to share their class portfolios with professional and personal contacts beyond the classroom.

5. Not All Online Portfolios are Created Equal
When picking an online portfolio, look for portfolios where the creators remain the owners of the data compiled. It's important that students and users have access to the content of the portfolio beyond the course or college education.
Using online portfolios successfully gives early adopters in the classroom the latitude to teach peers how to master the technology. Learning can be accelerated through the process of independently curating new knowledge and can also be extended beyond the classroom for a long-term collection of academic and professional successes.

By Heather Giles @ Edutopia - Technological Integration (slightly abridged)

Monday 28 January 2013

Blended Learning Resources by MIT

BLOSSOMS is an MIT educational project in partnership with colleagues in Jordan and Pakistan. Each BLOSSOMS module is a multi-segment educational video to be shown in a high school math or science class, with the in-class teacher leading the students in interactive educational activities between each BLOSSOMS video segment. BLOSSOMS is funded by the Hewlett Foundation with additional funding by the Sloan Foundation and by partners in Jordan and Pakistan.
Check the following video to understand the potential of this tool:

Tuesday 22 January 2013

President Obama!

image credits: The English Blog
This cartoon by Luojie, cartoonist for the English-language China Daily, depicts the swearing-in ceremony of President Obama, marking the start of his second term of office.
Under the Constitution, a president’s term ends at noon on January 20, and the new president has to be sworn in on the same day. The presidential inauguration usually takes place in public, but when Jan. 20 falls on a Sunday, presidents have shifted the public ceremony a day and opted for a swearing-in at the White House, which is what happened this year. Yesterday's ceremony took place in the Blue Room at the White House, and Obama took the oath of office on Michele Obama's family bible.
Yesterday, which also happened to be Martin Luther King Day, saw a more lavish public reenactment. This public swearing-in drew about 800,000 to the National Mall to watch the poetry, music and oratory outside the U.S. Capitol and included several nods to this president’s place in history as the first African American to hold the office. Obama placed his hand on two Bibles, one owned by the slain civil rights leader and another used by Abraham Lincoln at his swearing-in on March 4, 1861.
This cartoon shows a worried-looking Obama taking the oath on a pile of debt, surrounded by piles of debt—a reference to the U.S debt mountain, which currently stands at over $16 trillion and rising fast. Having avoided the fiscal cliff, one of Obama's priorities in his second term will be to deal with the exploding national debt.

Source: The English Blog (slightly abridged)

Friday 18 January 2013

Recycling old blog posts


image credits: SearchTempo
If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve probably had a day where you thought, “I have nothing to blog about! I’ve blogged about everything I can imagine already!” It happens to everyone.
So what can you do? You could try clearing your head to come up with new blog post ideas or taking a break from blogging until you’re inspired again.
But those two options are passive—you’re waiting for the good idea to come to you. If you don’t have the time to wait around for inspiration, reworking some older posts to be current and relevant is a great way to get blogging again.
If you’re recycling an old post, you need to find a way to keep the content current and engaging. 

How to make your new content better than the old

1. Use analytics to see what’s working. Before picking any old post to rework, pause to reflect on what your analytics already tell you. Which posts have done the best for you? Then take a deeper look at the content in those posts—are there any common topics or formats that your readers best respond to?
By using your analytics to figure out common threads in your most popular posts and then applying them to your recycled post, your new post will be much more likely to succeed.

2. Listen to feedback from your readers. Besides checking out the numbers associated with previous posts, read through successful old posts’ comment sections for ideas on how to rework the post. Through comments and shares on social media, you may find new angles or ideas for the reworked post you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.
If you end up using reader feedback for the post, be sure to thank them—they’ll be pumped to hear that you’re listening just as much as they are.

3. Use Google Trends (formerly Google Insights). You can also use Google’s search data to spice up your content. Can your old post be seen differently in light of a current news story or trend? If you’re expanding on a topic you only briefly covered before, is it still relevant to people today? Google Trends will help you figure out just how fresh your post is and how to make it even better.

Ideas for awesome reworked, reused, and recycled posts
So now you know how to make your new posts better than your old, but what types of posts do best as reworked forms of their old selves? Here are a few ways to do it:

1. Follow up with Part 2. Have a post that did really well or drew out an intense debate? Breathe life into that old post by continuing the story or addressing unanswered questions in a new post.

2. Create a themed series. If you notice that a post format has done tremendously well, try turning it into a series. Whether you make the series a weekly post or just one that pops up from time to time, continuing a theme builds anticipation and regularity for your readers—a great way to establish a solid reader base.

3. Pull back the curtain. If you can take a personal spin on a post you’ve already written—do it! For example, if you’re a food blogger and have written a recipe that rocked, try putting together the process behind finding that recipe.

4. Reflect and add more info. You can also update an old post with new information, especially if there is a lot of time between the two.

5. Create The Ultimate Guide to Something. After blogging for a while, you probably have a ton of posts that could fit nicely together…so why not round them up into an Ultimate Guide? Ultimate Guides are great ways to get readers to discover more of your posts since you’re linking to them all in one place.

6. Get visual. Try using the same content in a new medium. Make a video explaining the post more in-depth or add an infographic to download for free. For example, if you’re a fitness blogger, you could do a video workout and a one-sheet guide of all the moves you’re doing. Your readers will enjoy seeing your awesome content in a new light.

By Ginny Soskey, in How to Reuse, Rework and Recycle Old Blog Posts, (slightly abridged) via Shareaholic

Thursday 17 January 2013

Have you already followed us on Facebook?

Staying healthy during the school year


image credits: chloraseptic
I will admit that I have suffered far too many times with sickness in my years as a teacher.  It seemed that whenever a student crossed my path I would inevitably catch whatever the little darling was carrying. What I would like to offer is some advice to teachers who are facing the onslaught of the worst cold and flu season on record, and perhaps some of these habits can be helpful year-round to keep healthy and in the classroom.  Obviously, seek the suggestions of a medical professional before altering your lifestyle, especially if you have risk factors for chronic diseases.

Get enough sleep
I will admit I more often than not will not and cannot follow this advice, however the benefits of sleep are numerous.  While you sleep your body purges itself of toxins and does necessary repair work.  If you do not get enough sleep, chances are you are short-changing your body on its repair time.  We cannot expect a plumber, for example, to install a sink in 15 minutes and then complain when we lack the fixture.  Your body is the same way.  Get at least 7 hours of sleep each night.  A nap after school can also help a little, too.

Disinfect your hands
My students laugh when I put a new bottle of hand sanitizer next to the box of tissues, but at least they use it.  Teach your students that, when they cough or sneeze into their hands or after they blow their nose, they should use hand sanitizer in order to kill off bacterial germs.  You can get bottles of it in the dollar store and it will do the trick, but the visual reminder will help them remember to use it.  Also, disinfect your hands after handling student paperwork.  Think about it:  James suddenly sneezes while he is getting his materials out to hand in to you.  The droplets hit his paper and he innocently hands it in to you.  You now have his germs on your hands.  Yuck!  I keep a key chain bottle on my work keys to remind myself to use it.  After you use hand sanitizer several times it is a wise idea to wash your hands like normal and start fresh.  Furthermore, keep your hands away from your eyes, nose, and mouth.  If you make yourself aware of how often we touch our faces, it would surprise you.  Those are common locations to catch diseases because they are warm, moist areas: bacteria and viruses love those places!  Do not give them the chance.

Sanitize your desks
While the maintenance staff in our school is fantastic at wiping our desks with cleaner, they could always use the extra help.  Use disinfectant sprays and wipes to assure yourself that you are killing off some of the germs your students are encountering.  Think about the other places student touch:  desks, tables, doorknobs, bookshelves, the community pen cup… and just give them a quick spray or wipe.  I usually try to do this before I leave for the day so the disinfectant chemicals have time to work undisturbed.

Eat right
Aside from helping us with the added calories we can build up, eating correctly provides your body with the necessary nutrients to restore and repair itself.  Give it the fuel it deserves.

Take a multivitamin
Most adults try to take a multivitamin to supplement the nutrients they miss in a normal day.  It would be good practice for you to start this if you have not already done so.  I also add in additional Vitamin A, C, D, and E, but that is a personal choice.  Vitamin C and zinc, I have found, tend to be effective in giving your immune system a boost and help you fight off a cold more easily.

Stay home if you are sick
Yes, I know, we have all gone to work feeling under the weather because we have obligations that we cannot miss, we do not want to make substitute plans, we can survive it and then rest when we get home. I have said them all and none of them have made me a more effective teacher.  In fact, if I am too sick to think straight, I am too sick to teach effectively.  Therefore, if you have a fever, if you feel dead on your feet, just take the day and rest.  You more than likely need it.  Listen to your body.  If you go in sick you expose your students, colleagues, and yourself to other opportunistic infections or to reinfection if you have not disinfected your area.  The school will still be standing when you return, and your students will have missed you but will be much better off having a teacher at the top of his/her game.

While all of us will probably end up getting sick during the average school year, taking care of yourself is something you should make a priority.  Our students count on us, and they deserve us at the top of our game.  You are worth the extra effort and care, and since we are a self-sacrificing group of individuals that can ultimately be the hardest lesson we learn.

Friday 11 January 2013

How Shakespearean are you?

How Shakespearean are you? is a wonderful tool from Oxford Press. It is a "How Shakespearean are you?" meter. You have to copy and paste some text into the tool, then "your words will be compared with all the words used by Shakespeare in his plays and our verdict will be delivered on its Shakespearean content." Running Teaching & Learning's post about the 150th Anniversary of the London Underground through the tool, it said we were 85% Shakespearean. "Is this the Bard I see before me?" it said! We are pretty happy with the result!




Things we say thanks to Shakespeare

Thursday 10 January 2013

World Wonders Project


The Google World Wonders Project is a platform which brings world heritage sites of the modern and ancient world online. Using Street View, 3D modeling and other Google technologies, Google has made these amazing sites accessible to everyone across the globe. With videos, photos and in-depth information, we can now explore the world wonders from our armchair just as if we were there. The World Wonders Project is a valuable resource for students and scholars who can now virtually discover some of the most famous sites on earth. The project offers an innovative way to teach history and geography to students of primary and secondary schools all over the world. There are several educational packages for your classroom use available for free download.
From the archaeological areas of Pompeii to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Google’s World Wonders Project aims to bring to life the wonders of the modern and ancient world.
By using our Street View technology, Google has a unique opportunity to make world heritage sites available to users across the globe. Street View is a hugely popular feature of Google Maps which is already available in dozens of countries. It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images. With advancements in camera technologies we can now go off the beaten track to photograph some of the most significant places in the world so that anyone, anywhere can explore them.
Street View has already proved a real hit for tourists and avid virtual explorers. 
The World Wonders Project also presents a valuable resource for students and scholars who can now virtually discover some of the most famous sites on earth. The project offers an innovative way to teach history and geography to students all over the world.
The Project is supported by a broad, connected suite of other Google technologies, bringing wonders of the world within reach of an unprecedented global audience. The project website also provides a window to 3D models, YouTube videos and photography of the famous heritage sites. Together with partners including UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund and Cyark, the World Wonders Project is preserving the world heritage sites for future generations. 

Source: World Wonders Project
 

Wednesday 9 January 2013

London Underground is 150 years old

Google Doodle for the 150th Anniversary of London Underground


Today marks 150 years since the first ever train travelled under the streets of London. The staple of city life has been chugging along longer than film, longer than the modern Olympics and it’s even older than the oldest person in the world. 
With 11 tube lines and 83 stops in zone 1 alone, the tube is one of the most convenient forms of transport in the city. Imagine if everyone chose to roam above ground during rush hour; nothing would ever get done.
The Underground was the first transport system of its kind meaning that not only is it the best, but that London is a world key innovator.
After many iterations, Harry Beck was commissioned in 1933 to design the map we all know and love today. His innovative grid system made reading the map a lot simpler for everyone, including first time tube-goers.