New professional development focuses on engagement through gaming

New online professional development course focuses on increasing student achievement through engagement with game-based learning

The ever-increasing omnipresence of digital media in student’s lives can be challenging for teachers as they compete for kid’s attention in and out of the classroom. With this in mind, Teach n’ Kids Learn (TKL) and DimensionU have teamed up to create a robust Online Professional Development course that supports teachers’ instruction in mathematics and language arts through gamification, quickly and easily.

Included for K-12 educators who enroll in the course by February 15, 2016, is a free DimensionU Class License (for up to 30 students), through the remainder of this school year.

The online professional development course focuses on helping teachers incorporate educational video games and applying game-based learning techniques in the classroom. The DimensionU portfolio of educational games creates high student engagement and offers a solid foundation with demonstrated improvement in students’ achievement results. In regards to the online course, TKL’s instructional methodology, guarantees teachers immediate implementation in the classroom, individualized support and well structured, easy-to-use examples for applying the newly acquired techniques.…Read More

Acer introduces ‘game-changing’ TravelMate notebook

Acer TeachSmart solution with LED status indicator embedded on the lid enables new ways for classroom participation

Acer on Jan. 20 announced its new TravelMate B117 notebook, made for the education market featuring by Windows 10 Pro.

The notebook supports the Acer TeachSmart solution, which enables new ways of classroom interaction, and empowers teachers with tools and cloud-based services to distribute class materials and collect assignments digitally.

The TravelMate B117 with Acer TeachSmart features an LED light embedded on the lid that can flash in different colors. Students can toggle between four colors through a software interface to indicate their status, allowing teachers to easily keep track at a glance.…Read More

7th grade scholarships for MOOC completion

Qualified 7th grade students can earn special consideration for Cooke Scholarships by completing an edX MOOC

Outstanding 7th grade students from families with financial need can earn special consideration for a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship if they complete a free college class offered by online course provider edX, the two nonprofit organizations announced.

The Cooke Young Scholars Program provides high-achieving students entering 8th grade with many benefits, including: individualized counseling to set academic goals; guidance on applying to colleges; and funding for summer educational programs, study abroad, internships and some school expenses.

Up to 70 students will be selected to begin the Young Scholars Program when they start 8th grade in September. Young Scholars must have earned grades of mostly As in school since 6th grade, with no grades of C in English, math, science or social studies. They must live and attend high school in the United States or a U.S. territory.…Read More

New Va. high school to focus big on coding

Students will enter an innovative program that teaches core graduation skills alongside industry internships and computer science

coding-schoolHigh school isn’t what it used to be.

That’s the consensus of a growing number of educators who say how and what students are taught must change in order to better prepare them for a rapidly changing workforce that demands new skills.

With that goal in mind, a group of 13 Richmond-area school systems have banded together to start a new regional high school that will allow students to meet their core requirements while getting an education focused on computer science.…Read More

How to use video and Google Forms to encourage deeper learning

This take on document-based questions turns students into mentors and instructors

video-questionsFor as long as I have been a teacher, I have been showing videos in class. While not a revolutionary idea, back when I first started I would show a video related to the lesson and hand out an accompanying question sheet to make sure the students were focusing on the main ideas. I would call out helpful reminders like “Number 3 is coming up!” to ensure that students were paying attention.

They were not.

My high school students were sometimes doodling on the paper, staring out the window, or hoping to just get the answers at the end from myself or a friend. But the content was so good and so relevant! I thought. These were primary source accounts! How could students not be engaged? What could I change to make the topic and delivery more relevant? That’s when the lightbulb went off.…Read More

What Google’s virtual field trips look like in the classroom

Google Expeditions are field trips with a virtual reality twist

google-expeditions Last spring, Hector Camacho guided his high school economics class on comprehensive tours of the New York Stock Exchange, Federal Reserve banks, and the Treasury Building. Students swept their eyes up countless Neoclassical columns before heading inside for a detailed look — all without leaving the library of their Mountain View, California school.

The catch? Students were plugged into Google’s latest virtual reality creation — Expeditions, which creates immersive, 360-degree tours out of a cardboard viewer and a smartphone.

“The best thing about it that we can’t physically go to these faraway places,” Camacho said. “At the high school level, time is really precious. For field trips, you have to worry about buses, lunches, permission slips. If you can remove all those obstacles, still take them to a very faraway place, and give them a similar experience, that’s powerful.”…Read More

App of the Week: Skaffl

Ed. note: App of the Week picks are now being curated by the editors of Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. Click here to read the full app review.
 skaffl

What’s It Like? Skaffl is a tool for distributing, completing, and grading work on the iPad. Teachers create classes and then share each class’s unique access code with their students, who can then use that code to enroll in the class via their own Skaffl login. Teachers then create three types of activities: an in-app assignment, a student dropbox, or a handout. A handy workflow for these activities appears every time teachers create a new one. Teachers can distribute activities instantly (to some classes, some students, or all at once) or schedule them for a later date.

Price: Free/subscription

Grades: 6-12…Read More

Set Up Your Own Digital Media Lab for Next to Nothing

A green screen and a Mac turn a storage space into a hi-tech playground

media-labBack when I was in school, class projects were limited to written reports, dioramas, and posters—things we could create with pencils, paper, Popsicle sticks, and glue. To say our students today have many more options available to them would be the understatement of the 21st century.

With the advent of lightning-quick computers and gorgeous digital media tools, students are now dreaming up PowerPoint presentations, Prezis, websites, wikis, Photo Stories, and more—things limited only by their imaginations. Creating these types of digital projects has become second nature to them, and they have no concept of a time when these technologies were not available. In fact, creating digital media has become a very personal matter. Just look on Facebook, YouTube, Vine, Vimeo, Instagram, Twitter and you will see that our students are creating and sharing digital content on a daily basis.

As educators, it behooves us to find ways to provide opportunities that allow our students to engage in learning activities relevant to their lives. As a library media specialist, I know there’s no better place to provide them with these opportunities than a school’s own library media center.…Read More

4 ways to make your class more engaging

New method called ‘Connected Learning’ aims to make courses more engaging for youth

engaging-class-connectedMobile technology and its use in the classroom is booming across the country; but outside of the ‘cool tech’ aspect, many educators struggle to understand why students find tech-connected classrooms more engaging. A new method of teaching and learning explains that it’s not about the technology–it’s about the four principles behind it.

Connected Learning, an educational approach designed by the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE), says it harnesses the information age to make learning more powerful.

“For too many young people, particularly our most vulnerable populations, formal education is disconnected from other meaningful social contexts in their everyday lives,” explains AEE in a new brief. “The connected learning model posits that focusing educational attention on the links between different spheres of learning—peer culture, interests, and academic subjects—better supports interest-driven and meaningful learning in ways that take advantage of the potential of digital networks and online resources to provide access to an engaging learning experience.”…Read More

11 note-taking tips for the digital classroom

With less books, paper, and pencils and more laptops, smartphones, and tablets gracing our classrooms these days, it would be logical to say that the nature of note-taking in class has changed, too, reports Edudemic. Especially with digital tools such as Evernote, writing things down on paper seems less likely to be the #1 way of taking notes. That said, does taking notes really help? Does the physical act of writing something down help you to remember it? What is the most effective way to take notes? How does all of this play into a more digitally based classroom?

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Why should students show up to class?

Where do you get your information on content or ideas that you present in the classroom?  Some of you educators may say the classroom text book, most of you may be experts on the topic, and few of you will say outside resources that aren’t technology based, CK-12 blogs.  Most of you may be putting together PowerPoint presentations or implementing some sort of slideshow or classroom discussion into your lesson planning.  The online classroom is full of presentations, videos and discussions with the help of companies like Khan Academy and 2U that actually allow you to have virtual face to face exchanges.  So, why should students continue to show up to class when they can learn and gain human interaction online? Today’s learning process needs experiences…

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