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"Students will select a topic they feel passionately about. They will select the medium and mode of showing what they know based on what they have learned this year. For example, if they loved doing a video interview and want to freelance for Broadcast, then they can create a video assignment."
Monday, March 24, 2014
Authentic Classroom Resources 03/25/2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Authentic Classroom Resources 03/10/2014
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The Evidence Base for Social Studies: Inquiry-Based Learning
This is a good short explanation of the IBL process
Friday, March 7, 2014
Authentic Classroom Resources 03/08/2014
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Classroom tasks that are worthy of students time and attention, relevant, connected to the world and organized around the ‘big ideas’ of a subject can develop understanding, intellectual interest and engagement with students.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Authentic Classroom Resources 03/07/2014
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Inquiry-Based History Class - YouTube
Karl Lindgren-Streicher leads a great conversation about IBL, flipped classrooms and resources for social studies classes
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How we use compelling questions to drive inquiry-based learning in the literacy classrooms - YouTube
"Brad currently teaches 4th grade at Rattlesnake Elementary in Missoula, Mont., and he has taught around the world during his 13 years of teaching. During his seven years of teaching in the Philippines, Germany, and El Salvador, he was exposed to an educational framework that transformed his vision of education -- the International Baccalaureate primary years program. Currently Brad has returned to his hometown in order to try to shift the paradigm through which we educate. He holds a BA in Elementary Education and an MFA in Integrated Arts and Education."
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Authentic Classroom Resources 03/06/2014
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Rewordify.com: Understand what you read
"Rewordify.com helps you read more, understand difficult English faster, and learn words in new ways. Just paste in difficult English (or enter a web page URL) and click the yellow button. You'll see an easier version, for fast understanding now. You'll learn what the hard words and phrases mean with our Smart Highlighting. (Click it or tap it.) You'll read (and teach) better tomorrow with vocabulary lists, learning activities, quizzes, flash cards, and more—that you get instantly, with answer keys—from any block of text you enter!"
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Conference Presentations
This year The Authentic Classroom returned to the Collaborative Conference On Student Achievement in Greensboro NC to talk about Inquiry Based Learning in the classroom environment. The consensus of the conversation was that it has to start early, and because we are asking students to change the way the think about their learning teachers need to be prepared to show learners that they can do take charge. Teachers need to have strong knowledge in their content but that its alright if teachers don't know the answers to the questions that learners pose, as long as you have established a mechanism for learners to create answers for themselves. Finally, engaged learners retain more information under concept driven instruction when they have outlets for demonstrating both their knowledge and their creativity.
Here are the slides for the presentation. What are your thoughts on how Inquiry Based Learning fits into your class?
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Authentic Classroom Resources 02/21/2014
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Moot – Forums and commenting re-imagined
This is a fantastic tool for any classroom. Moot.it allows learners to create a real time back channel during presentations or can be used as a debate forum. It is simple to use and a superb tool.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Authentic Classroom Daily Resources 02/05/2014
Down With Textbooks - David Cutler - The Atlantic
tags: education pln authenticThe unquestioned assumption of online education - The Tech
Online education is growing rapidly. Recently, six new universities have been added to the edX platform. Each new university plans to develop its own set of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Between the big three — edX, Coursera, and Udacity — there are now hundreds of MOOCs from universities all over the world. Advocates are quick to highlight that these MOOCs have already served millions of students, enabling anyone with an Internet connection to receive a world-class education.tags: authentic edtech
President Obama Educational Announcement
Today, following up on his call to action, the President is announcing major progress toward realizing the ConnectED goal to get high-speed Internet connectivity and educational technology into classrooms, and into the hands of teachers trained on its advantages. The FCC and private sector are taking key steps to answer the President’s call, including through:tags: authentic edtech education
25 Rules Of Thumb Deemed Important In Instructional Design
What rules do instructional designers rely on to solve design problems? What insights become patterns for future use?Know your learners
Determine what it is you want your learners to perform after the instructional experience. What is the criterion for successful performance?
Making History Accessible: SlaveryStories.org – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Sometimes, an interesting project gets started unexpectedly. That’s what happened with SlaveryStories.org, a new, collaborative digital project that launched February 3, just as Black History Month began."tags: history authentic pln education
You Didn't Know You Could Do These 5 Awesome Smartphone Camera Tricks
"Your smartphone camera is one the ultimate lifehack tools. We’ve already taken a look at four ways you can be making better use of your smartphone camera to turn your smartphone into a makeshift scanner, a memory aid, and more, and today we’re at it again."tags: authentic pln education
The Benefits of 'Repeating' Subject Matter - Bridging Differences - Education Week
"Our version of Hirsch. The entire Mission Hill school studies ancient Egypt at the same time (kindergarten through 7th grade) for two to three months, and the next year ancient Greece, followed by ancient China, followed by some particular early South American culture. "tags: benefits subject subject matter education pln authentic
Monday, February 3, 2014
Authentic Classroom Daily Resources 02/04/2014
As the 21st century moves forward we begin to see more learners creating and taking control of their PLN. How often do we talk about learning networks with kids in the public education system? Do we help them build their own learning networks beyond the classroom walls?
Learning Without Technology - The Educator's PLN
The more we learn about learning, the further we seem to be getting away from the primary teaching lessons of the past. Lectures, although necessary, are no longer the focus of teaching methodology. Today’s methods seem to be relying on more collaborative and authentic learning. Actually doing and making, as opposed to having descriptions and theories delivered by lectures, is a shift, which is taking place in education today. Critical thinking, always addressed to some extent in learning, is now becoming more prominent in education.
Students propose changes for India's educational system | The Chronicle
While many undergraduates were preparing to move in for the Spring semester, 100 students contemplated solutions to educational challenges in India and the United States. This year’s Winter Forum, titled Rethink Education: The Innovation Challenge, featured speeches from two former North Carolina governors—Jim Hunt and Bev Perdue. The three-day forum—hosted by the Center for Child and Family Policy at the Fuqua School of Business—allowed students to work with experts in education to create proposals to eliminate common problems in the field. At its conclusion Tuesday, groups of about eight students presented their solutions and winning teams were announced.What do you think?tags: education pbl ibl
No wonder nobody wants to come | Dangerously Irrelevant
"Ira Socol says: If your school, and your school day, is not about students collaborating, connecting, and building knowledge and understandings together, why would anyone come? Serious question. If students want to learn in isolation; if they want to sit at a desk and work on their own stuff, occasionally checking in with an “expert,” they have no reason to come to school. They can do a lot better at home, or at their local coffee shop, or even the public library, where both the coffee and the WiFi connection will be better."tags: education ibl pbl
Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Student @CGressmanTHS explains the power of her PLN
"With or without the guidance and support of educators and parents, students across the globe are developing and building their personal learning networks. Knowing how to do so effectively is a key to successful learning independence. Below you will hear from Courtney Gressman. A young lady in the midst of building a learning network to help open the eyes of educators to students feelings about school and learning. Read on to discover how this has impacted her as well as how both her teacher and mother supported this work. "tags: education pbl ibl pln
Western Massachusetts to test new standardized exam called PARCC | masslive.com
"n the spring, thousands of students across the state will become guinea pigs as they take a new national assessment exam for the first time. Nearly two-thirds of 647,700 students in grades 3 through 11 will test a portion of the PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers exam, that is being rolled out with the new national Common Core education standards which 18 states, including Massachusetts, have adopted."tags: test exam education pbl ibl
Friday, January 31, 2014
Authentic Classroom Daily Resources 02/01/2014
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What is it? This summary of research on Project Based Learning also appears in the BIE book PBL for 21st Century Success. It provides a quick look at key studies showing PBL's positive effects on student academic achievement, mastery of 21st century competences such as problem-solving and critical thinking, addressing the needs of diverse learners and closing achievement gaps, and increasing students' motivation to learn.
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"Your textbook is just another tool in your teachers’ kit of ways to engage learners. The problem is that for many of us it becomes a crutch when we first begin our planning. The textbook can be very useful for planning our curriculums and lessons."
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Reading with Digital Sources
Reading is far to often a challenge for learners. Though they may be able to pronounce, identify and understand the words on the page, true literate reading in which learners are able to create meaning and understanding from text is a complex task. Schools are inundated with reading programs the majority of which are designed around traditional paper bound texts or printed sheets.
There are a few reliable strategies that make all of this manageable for both educators and learners. Learners need to develop sound search strategies. Google Power Search is an open course that demonstrates many of the lesser known capabilities of what the Google Search page can do for learning. Specific searches such as Google Scholar bring academic and professional research to younger learners and give them access to content experts.
Good search techniques can bring learners to the information that they need, but once there new digital literacies begin to effect a learners ability to deal with that information. Learners are quickly confronted with not only the text but multiple images, videos, colored links and advertisements specifically designed to draw there attention and pleading them for a mouse click. As learners hyper-navigate their way from one link to another they begin to use up valuable class and study time clicking and scanning without making good judgments about the accuracy and value of the content of the sites that they are visiting. Collecting and curating information amid all the distractions is vital to developing good digital reading techniques. Educators promote quite distraction free environments and good note taking or reading journals for learners while the read printed texts. Those same strategies are also important to digital reading.
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| Before Readability |
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| After Readability |
Bookmarking, markup, and notebook software digitizes this important digital reading process. When reading online it is vital that learners become good curators of information. Organizing resources for learning so that they may return to them for later is an important strategy for digital reading and learning. There are several good digital notebook services online including Evernote and Springpad each with web clipping tools that allow learners to tag and collect information directly from websites to a personal notebook. Sringpad has an additional social aspect that learners find useful in which they can send invitations for whole notebooks or individual notes to other learners or they can make them public and can create online discussions around content ideas, issues, or problems. Both services are user friendly enough to grow with the learner. Regardless of educational level anyone can benefit from learning and developing digital reading strategies.
The simple truth of reading online is that there is too much information for anyone to take in all at once. Learners must learn to read in a multidemensional format that allows them to navigate deeply into the text at the touch of a button. Young learners must read with a skeptical mind and to dig for detail, never assuming that the first link from a search engine is the best or most effective answer to their person content questions. They must learn to collect and curate information and to process it into their own creation while giving credit to those sources that made their work possible. As learning become more social in the 21st century digital notebooks and collection of information will become the new currency of the digital realm. Are we readying learners to profit from this?
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