August 9, 2015 A screencast, also known as video screen capture, is a great way for teachers to create and share instructional videos and explanatory step by step tutorials with students. regardless... ....read more

We have recently created a section  in this blog covering everything related to the use of Macs for educational purposes. We have already featured some handy tips to help you  tap into the... ....read more

August 10, 2015 LearnToMod is a Minecraft add-on to help students learn coding and programming skills through creating interactive mods to the game. LearnToMod, which we discovered through this... ....read more

August 10, 2015 Chemio is an excellent app that provides students with the most necessary chemical references in one neat interactive periodic table. Chemio is free today and only for a limited... ....read more

August 10, 2015 It’s about the time of the year teachers get busy preparing their teaching gear for the start of a new school year.In this regard, we are actually working on a back-to-school guide... ....read more

WhatsDue is a free service for sending assignment reminders to students and their parents through mobile push notifications. I wrote a post about their updates yesterday. This evening, to answer a question about the admin panel in WhatsDue, I made the following short video. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesVersal Adds a Gadget Marketplace and Google Classroom IntegrationSeesaw 2.0 - More Great Features for Building and Sharing Digital PortfoliosWhatsDue Gets a Refresh for the New School Year 

Vibby is another service that I featured yesterday and this morning fielded a couple of questions about how to use it. The video embedded below demonstrates how to highlight and comment on videos through Vibby. Applications for Education As I mention in the video, Vibby could be a good tool to have students use to analyze presentations. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHighlight Debates or Analyze Presentations Through VibbyHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDueVersal Adds a Gadget Marketplace and Google Classroom Integration 

The proper use of apostrophes can be tricky. Even the best of us occasionally misplace them or forget to place them where they need to be. When To Use Apostrophes is a relatively new TED-Ed lesson explains when and where to use apostrophes. The video is not the most in-depth explanation that TED-Ed has produced, but does provide a nice review for students. Click here for the complete lesson with review questions. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesShort Lessons on the Origins of EnglishHow to Annotate Videos Through VibbyHighlight Debates or Analyze Presentations Through Vibby 

Announcify is a free text to speech application that is available as a Chrome browser extension. With Announcify installed in your browser any time you're viewing a webpage you can simply click on the Announcify icon in your browser and have the text of the page read to you. A bonus aspect of using Announcify is that in order to make a webpage easier to read it enlarges the text of the webpage and removes all sidebar content. In the video embedded below I provide a short demonstration of Announcify in action. Applications for Education As I mentioned in the video above, Announcify could be a great little tool for students that need audio support when they are reading online content. The enlargement of text and removal of sidebar content could also help students focus on what they are trying to read on a webpage. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesIt's a TED-Ed Lesson on ApostrophesHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDueHow to Annotate Videos Through Vibby 

This is an updated version of a post from my archives. The original version of this post was written in response to a teacher's request that I share some resources containing visual lessons on fractions.  Thinking Blocks is a series of iPad apps nice site for elementary and middle school students. Thinking Blocks provides interactive templates in which students use brightly colored blocks to model and solve problems. As students work through the problems they are provided with feedback as to whether or not they are using the correct sequence to solve each problem. There are templates and problems for addition, multiplication, fractions, and ratios. Thinking Blocks is also available as a series of web-based activities. Who Wants Pizza? is a fun online activity for learning about fractions. Who Wants Pizza was developed by Cynthia Lanius at Rice University. The activity has five parts plus practice activities for students to explore. Teachers will find notes about using this activities in the classroom. Visual Fractions has eight categories of visualizations, lessons, and games for students to explore and learn the functions of fractions. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives has a lot of interactive activities for students learning the use of fractions, addition and subtraction, and the multiplication of fractions. Conceptua Math is a provider of interactive visual mathematics lessons. One of Conceptua Math's primary focuses is on the development of tools to aid teachers in the instruction of lessons on fractions. Conceptua Math's offerings are a mix of free and premium (paid) tools. There are a total of fifteen free interactive tools for teachers and students. Each of the free tools has an introductory video and a sample lesson plan. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesFun Math Practice With PenguinsMeasure Yourself - Comparing the Feet of AnimalsNoteBookCast - An Online, Collaborative Whiteboard for Every Device 

A lighthouse I photographed during a bike ride this week. Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and the air feels exceptionally fresh. My week-in-review post usually mentions an outdoor activity like cycling, hiking, or skiing. This morning it just feels right to sit on my deck, drink coffee, and read a book (Wilderness Warrior - a biography of Theodore Roosevelt). So that's what I'm doing. I hope that your weekend is off to an equally enjoyable start. This week I wrapped up the last session of my online course Blogs & Social Media for Teachers & School Leaders. That five week course carried a graduate credit option. A number of people asked if I would offer it again. Due to the time constraints of the new school year starting soon, I decided to offer a condensed version of that course. Classroom Blog Jumpstart will be a three night event (August 17, 18, 19) in which I'll cover everything you need to know to create an awesome classroom blog. Learn more about it here. Here are this week's most popular posts: 1. 12 Good Resources for Teaching Digital Citizenship - A PDF Handout 2. How to Create & Distribute Flipped Lessons Through EDPuzzle 3. How to Save Time When Replying to Email 4. ClassDojo Introduces a New Way to Communicate With Parents 5. How to Create a Random Name Picker in Google Sheets 6. 5 Posts to Jumpstart Your Classroom Blog 7. SimplyCircle Helps You Organize Communication With Parents  Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference?Click here to learn about my professional development services.  Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.BoomWriter provides a fantastic tool for creating writing lessons. Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.MidWest Teachers Institute offers online graduate courses for teachers.HelloTalk is a mobile community for learning a new language.Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.EdTechTeacher is hosting host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.SeeSaw is a great iPad app for creating digital portfolios. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Week in Review - The Most Popular PostsThe Week in Review - Preparing for CampHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDue 

Zoom In is a new resource that US History teachers will like. After reading Glenn Wiebe's and Larry Ferlazzo's glowing reviews of it, I had to try it out too. Zoom In provides units of lesson plans built around primary source documents. The collection of lesson units is organized into six eras of US History. Zoom In is more than just a collection of lesson plans and documents. Zoom In provides an online classroom environment. As a teacher you can manage multiple classrooms within your Zoom In account. Students join your class by using a class code (email addresses not required). Once students have joined your class, you can begin distributing assignments to them from the lesson plan database. You can track which students have started the assignments, read their responses to questions within the assignments, and give students feedback on the assignments all within your Zoom In classroom. Applications for Education It took me some time to fully understand all of the features of Zoom In's user interface. Likewise, I think that students will need to some time to understand how the user interface works. All that said, once I figured out how all of the parts worked together, I saw that it will be a great tool for helping students analyze and learn through reading primary source documents. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTeaching American History Through ArtMake Lesson Plans and Storyboards Pop With These New GuidesUse Your Google or Edmodo Account to Create HSTRY Timelines 

Disclosure: PrepFactory is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com. As we head into the fall many students will be preparing to take the SAT or ACT. PrepFactory is a free service for high school students can use to prepare for those tests. PrepFactory offers students a series of tutorial videos and written tips to help them prepare for both tests. After completing a tutorial students can test themselves in a series of practice questions. Each question set is timed and and limited to chunks of ten questions at a time. Students can earn badges for completing tutorials or question sets. To get started on PrepFactory students choose the test that they are preparing to take (they can change their choices at any time) then take a short guided tour of the service. After taking the tour students complete a ten question quiz intended to give them a sense of what they need to work on. Upon completion of their first quiz students can choose to review their answers with the help of PrepFactory, take another quiz, or watch a video about test-taking skills. For the fall PrepFactory has introduced SAT Wordplay, a head-to-head vocabulary game between two players. SAT Wordplay randomly matches players in a game to answer vocabulary questions as quickly and accurately as possible. In the video embedded below I provide an overview of PrepFactory's features. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesKnoword - A Fun and Challenging Vocabulary GamePrepFactory Offers SAT & ACT Practice Exercises and TutorialsHandy Visuals for Fractions Lessons 

One of the challenges of starting a new classroom blog is generating enough content for your students to read and to comment on. If you can get students blogging early in the year, you can build momentum for the rest of the school year. Here are five things that you could have students blog about in the first week of school. Three favorite moments from the last school year. Favorite part of summer vacation. All-time best moment in school. Three questions they want to find the answers to this year. Favorite book or movie and why.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories5 Posts to Jumpstart Your Classroom BlogThe Week in Review - Time to ReadHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDue 

Last year I featured the Hemingway App Editor as a good tool to help students analyze their own writing. Hemingway is a free tool designed to help you analyze your writing. Hemingway offers a bunch of information about the passage you've written or copied and pasted into the site. Hemingway highlights the parts of your writing that use passive voice, adverbs, and overly complex sentences. All of those factors are accounted for in generating a general readability score for your passage. This summer the Hemingway Editor was updated to offer a few more features. The Hemingway Editor now provides tools for formatting the text that you write in the web version of Hemingway. You can now create bullet lists, change font size and style, write numbered lists, and indent paragraphs. Applications for Education Hemingway is the kind of tool that I like to have students use before exchanging papers with classmates for peer editing. Hemingway acts as a kind of "virtual peer" before the peer editing process. I would also have students use Hemingway before turning in their final drafts for a grade. StoryToolz offers a tool similar to Hemingway that you may also want to check out. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories5 Things Students Can Blog About to Start the School YearThe Week in Review - Time to ReadIt's a TED-Ed Lesson on Apostrophes 

Duolingo is a popular free service that offers activities for learning Spanish, English, French, Italian, Irish, Dutch, Danish, German, and Portuguese. The service works in your web browser and is available as an app on Android, iPad, and Windows 8. Last winter Duolingo introduced Duolingo for Schools. Within Duolingo for Schools teachers can create online classrooms in which they monitor their students' progression through the learning activities available in Duolingo. In the video embedded below I provide a demonstration of how to create a classroom in Duolingo for Schools. The video also shows a student's view of Duolingo for Schools. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNow Open - Duolingo for SchoolsComing Soon - Duolingo for SchoolsHemingway Editor Updated in Time for the New School Year 

Google Slides, like most good programs, has a number of features that often go overlooked even though they're in plain view. One of those features is the drawing tool that can be used to create freehand drawings on a slide in Google Slides. If you've never given it a try, take a look at the video embedded below to see how easy it is to create a freehand drawing in Google Slides. For more tips like the one above, take a look at my YouTube playlists Practical Ed Tech Tips and Google Tutorials. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Create a Classroom in Duolingo for SchoolsHemingway Editor Updated in Time for the New School Year5 Things Students Can Blog About to Start the School Year 

One of the underutilized functions of every popular blog platform (Blogger, Kidblog, Edublogs, WordPress) is the option to apply tags or labels to each blog post. Tags and labels don't get used because people don't understand how using them can be beneficial in the long run. In WordPress, KidBlog, and Edublogs there is an option to apply tags to every post. In Blogger the same function is found in the form of labels that can be applied to every post. By tagging or labeling your posts you are creating a framework which will make it easier for you and others visiting your blog to find more posts to read. In practice this means that when someone reads a post and wants to find more like it in your blog, he or she simply needs to click on a tag or label to be taken to more posts on the same topic. Try it for yourself on this post on PracticalEdTech.com. After reading the post, click on the Google Drive tag to find more posts containing Google Drive tips. Applications for Education On a classroom blog using tags or labels makes it easy for students to find related posts. For example on a US History classroom blog you might try labeling or tagging each post with a unit title like "Revolutionary War." Then when it comes time for students to review material about the Revolutionary War they can simply click on the tag to find everything related to that unit of study. I'll be sharing more tips like this one in my upcoming course, Classroom Blog Jumpstart, starting on August 17th. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories5 Things Students Can Blog About to Start the School YearHow to Create Freehand Drawings in Google SlidesHow to Create a Classroom in Duolingo for Schools 

There is certainly not a shortage of online tools for distributing quizzes to students and watching their responses in realtime. Formative is the latest online quiz and feedback service that I have tested. Formative provides you with a place to create online classrooms. Your students join your classroom by entering the assigned class code after registering on the Formative website. Once your classroom is established you can begin distributing assignments to students. Assignments can be as simple as one question exit tickets like "what did you learn today?" to complex quizzes that use a combination of multiple choice, short answer, and true/false questions. You can assign point values to questions or leave them as ungraded questions. You can also enable or disable instant feedback for students. When you give an assignment to students through Formative you can watch their responses in realtime. The best feature of Formative is the option to create "show your work" questions. "Show your work" questions enables students to draw responses and or upload pictures as responses to your questions. When you use this question type students will see a blank canvas directly below the question. On that canvas they can draw and or type responses. Applications for Education When Infuse Learning shutdown earlier this year many teachers were disappointed by the loss of a great tool that allowed students to draw responses to questions. Formative's "show your work" question format seems to have filled the void created by the closure of Infuse Learning. The "show your work" question format in Formative could be great for gathering responses to math questions or any other question that isn't easily answered by using standard keyboard functions. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHandy Visuals for Fractions LessonsUse Tags and Labels on Classroom Blog PostsHow to Create Freehand Drawings in Google Slides 

"The Peace Of Wild Things" By Wendell Berry by TeachThought Staff Presented without context, a beautiful poem about suffering, anxiety about the future, and ultimately-finally-love. By our resident muse, Wendell Berry, here is "The Peace Of Wild Things." The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought
 of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time 
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. -Wendell Berry Wendell Berry’s poem "The Peace of Wild Things" from GMO OMG from Compeller Pictures on Vimeo. The post "The Peace Of Wild Things" By Wendell Berry appeared first on TeachThought.

A Teacher’s Guide For Creating A Twitter Chat In Your School by Nellie Mitchell A twitter chat is an amazing resource for professional development and gives educators the option to participate in their PJs, from the comfort of their own home! It is essentially a chat room, with everyone sharing and talking and hanging out virtually—discussing learning strategies, classroom management techniques, and technology. A good chat stimulates great conversation, but also has the power to motivate an entire district. It is a way to build and develop a growth mindset that is neither forced nor overwhelming. The motivated, technology-enthusiasts will jump at the chance to learn about the next big thing from their peers—-and will genuinely pursue new ideas. A twitter chat can help teachers develop their PLN—as they figure out whom to follow, find great infographics and articles, and connect with other educators locally and globally. Twitter is always a great resource for PD, but some teachers either don’t have time to use it or don’t know how. A district twitter chat gives teachers a chance to send a few tweets, and use hashtags in an environment that feels safe. It also gives them a chance to use twitter in real time—while watching TV or catching up on Facebook—-so there isn’t as much pressure to ‘figure it out’ in an afternoon meeting. It also provides immediate feedback—someone is definitely going to read and respond to the tweet, and teachers feel like they are part of something—a dialog that is much bigger and more powerful than a meeting in the school library. Webb City School District in Missouri has been hosting monthly chats for over a year. Teachers in the district say that the chat is their favorite resource to gain relevant new ideas and collaborate with teachers in other buildings. What Works By making the chat time consistent (e.g., the first Tuesday of the month from 8-9 p.m.), this can help teachers to keep track and participate when their schedule allows. It is optional, so if teachers have sports or family obligations, it is okay if they can’t make it to every chat. What To Do Before The Chat Pick a theme each month to focus on. Write about 5-6 prompts for an hour of chatting. Send out a list of questions a week before the chat. This is incredibly helpful for teachers who are very busy! Use Remind—to get a reminder tweet 30 minutes before the chat starts. Use Twuffer or Future Tweets to schedule some tweets in advance. It can get tricky to read and respond to tweets if a lot of people are in the chat—scheduling and thinking about your responses to the prompts in advance helps. You will get a lot more out of a chat if you are present—scheduling the tweets is not the same as participating in the live chat—-and it is obvious who is there and who isn’t. What To Do During The Chat Just introduce yourself with first name, school name and grade. Use a common hashtag for the chat and answer each prompt with A1, A2, according to the question. Also use Ts and Ss to shorten ‘teachers’ and ‘students.’ Use TweetDeck to follow the chat in its own little window. Favorite anything that is shared that you might want to see again later or read later. If you are managing the chat or behind the scenes-you could use Tweet Binder to get data on the statistics of the chat. Tweet Binder tells you who is who, how many tweets are sent, etc. What To Do After The Chat Use Storify to document and collect all of the tweets from the chat and archive it on the district website. Here is a compilation resource —-how to use hastags, twitter quick start guide, and archived chats from the Webb City District that you can use as a reference if you are starting a district chat for the first time. How To Incentivize Participation Many teachers with a Twitter account have never even sent a single tweet. One idea to pull in those hesitant teachers into the chat is to offer a little incentive. Something simple that is relatively easy to manage but also worth the hour of time (or sometimes two if they schedule some tweets in advance). The building with the highest percentage participation in the monthly chat earns a free jeans day. With such a simple incentive, many people are encouraged to get involved—parents, aids, cooks, and even custodians chime in with a tweet or two during the chat to represent their building! Each person who participates in the chat gets a sticker for a free jeans day. The #wcedchat is even strong in the summer when there is no incentive—but the jeans coupon is a great bonus during the school year! Each person who participates in the chat gets to leave 15 (or even 30?) minutes early the next day (or the next PD day). Other ideas? Please leave some suggestions in the comments! Make It A Committee Effort Create a district team of dedicated teachers from all levels who are enthusiastic about the chat. The committee members sign up for various tasks to make each chat a success. The committee can use a Google Doc to generate discussion and take notes after an initial meeting. A GoogleDoc can be a great place to draft the questions/prompts, sign up for jobs and delegate tasks. Also, the document can grow and develop over time, with everyone adding their thoughts and ideas for long-term goals. Possible tasks for the committee each month? Email staff with dates, times AND questions a week before the chat Welcome people to the chat (2 people greet and say hi to others as they check in) Welcome and close chat Tweet out a reminder 1 week before the day of chat Tweet questions 1, 3, and 5 Tweet questions 2, 4, and 6 Document participants and share with admin (to award stickers of participation) Give twitter tips and archive chat Email staff about incentive winners Another great part about using a GoogleDoc to collaborate—the committee members can add new ideas, draft chat topics, and sign up for tasks at their convenience. By collaborating virtually, teachers and administrators involved in the chat committee don’t have to add tons of extra meetings to their schedule. A Few Themed Chat Ideas To Get You Started Data Mobile Learning Personalized Learning Digital Literacy Reflection Summer PD Back to School Parent teacher conferences Digital Citizenship Lesson Planning Tools Differentiated Instruction Favorite #edtech Sample Letter To Colleagues One Week Before The Chat Happy Summer to all. I hope that everyone can find some time to join us for #wcedchat Tuesday at 8pm. This chat will give us a chance to share some of the ideas that we have gained from our summer experiences. Here are the questions for this week: Q1 (8:05) What was your favorite part of summer? (Professionally or personally) #wcedchat Q2 (8:15) What new things have you discovered over the summer that you are excited to try in your classroom? #wcedchat Q3 (8:25) Advice for new teachers: What can you do the first few days that will make a dramatic difference the remainder of the year? #wcedchat Q4 (8:35) Do you have a favorite or new back to school "get to know you" activity? #wcedchat Q5 (8:45) What app/web tool are you excited to use this year? How will you use it? #wcedchat Q6 (8:50): What can you take from tonight’s #wcelem to use as you think about the upcoming school year?  #wcedchat Want to join a district chat before you start one? The next Webb City #wcedchat is August 4th, 8-9 p.m. and the prompts are above if you want to join! Here are more of the best twitter chats for teachers in 2015. Other Ways You Can Use Twitter In Your School Use Twitter as a Mainstream Tool for School Improvement A Lesson Using Twitter must Have a Social Component 10 Reasons Twitter Works in Education A Teacher’s Guide For Creating A School Twitter Chat The post A Teacher’s Guide For Creating A School Twitter Chat appeared first on TeachThought.

Advice For Teachers? 10 Things To Not Lose Sight Of This Year by Terry Heick For many of us, school’s starting soon. Instead of a tool or learning model or 1400 word essay, how about a few quick ideas that might just save you this year-if you can keep from losing sight of them. 10. Schools should be ready for students, not the other way around.  I’m not sure where I heard this recently, and Google wasn’t helping me figure it out, but it’s perfect. You’re there for the students, not the building, the district, or some organization. 9. The school year is a marathon, not a sprint. And this should have significant implications for instructional design-spiraling, for example. Some ideas students can "get" right away, while others will take all year. Continuously spiral those sufficiently complex ideas so student shave a chance to master them. 8. You don’t need a million tools and strategies to teach well. So use a handful that are flexible and powerful. The 40/40/40 rule is a wonderful on-the-fly measuring stick to help prioritize content, teaching, and assessment. Other useful tools that can come in handy? Metaphors, similes, and analogies (using them to teach complex ideas-"a thesis statement is the _____ of an essay a…"; "The Civil Rights movement was like…"; RAFT assignments. Choice boards. 7. People change, and students are people. You never know what a student is going through, or "where they are" in their development as human beings. Have a short memory, and be their best chance to become something great. 6. The students should talk more than you do. This one’s easy to forget, especially when you have so much to teach. There’s the shift though-try to focus on what students are learning and how, rather than what "you’re teaching." 5. A growth mindset includes a sustainable mindset. You can’t teach if you’re exhausted, misinformed, too hard on yourself, disconnected, or misunderstand your role in some critical way (as a colleague, a peer, a teacher, a department leader, etc.) It’s not your job to save the world. Every child needs something different. In response, try to adopt learning models, tools, teaching strategies, and more-and use them in a way that doesn’t require superhuman effort from you to make it work. They should work harder than you do. 4. You’re a professional, and you control your own attitude. You see what you want to see, so choose to see and assume the best in people and circumstances, and move forward from there. Schools can be places full of bad policies and absurd bureaucracy. You probably can’t change most of that, so focus on what you can change-and that starts with how you think. 3. How you make students feel can last a lifetime. Careful.  You are a larger than-life-figure to most students. You’re a teacher! You may be the loudest voice in their already busy mind. Consider the character you play in that mind accordingly. 2. It’s not your job to prepare students for "the real world." Holding their feet to the fire for a deadline? Refusing to let them retake an exam? Requiring them to work with students they don’t begin to work well with? And doing so under the guise of "the real world"? For it to be successful, school should be the exact opposite of these characteristics we cherry pick from "life." It should be a time to help them learn from mistakes; a place that helps protect them from themselves; a chance for them to adopt mindsets based on love and growth, not fear and policy. While this doesn’t excuse accountability measures for students, the big idea is clear: School is there for the students, students aren’t there for the school. If we want a better world, we can’t continue to ladle in the worst parts of that broken world into our classrooms. 1. The students are always watching you. How you treat people (even the "problem students); how you show compassion or model accountability. Where you go for resources. How you define "success." What you do when you’re frustrated or upset. Your dedication and craft and expertise. They may not see it all every single time, but they never stop watching. This means your voice carries on outside the classroom, where they’ll continue to talk about you-for years to come if you’ve done it well. Advice For Teachers? 10 Things To Not Lose Sight Of This Year; adapted image attribution flickr user sparkfunelectronics The post Advice For Teachers? 10 Things To Not Lose Sight Of This Year appeared first on TeachThought.

If you ask any technology integration specialist/coach about "test prep technology" programs, you are more than likely inclined to receive looks of disapproval over excitement. In a climate where schools dedicate entire labs or carts to the use of such programs, we absolutely despise them because they get in the way of what students need when it comes to digital learning. Dear Teachers…With all of my heart, please stop thinking that the use of programs such as istation, Think Through Math, Accelerated Reader or (insert program name here) fulfills appropriate access to tools for learning. With that said, those that live in the world of tech must stop the message that digital creativity is the only acceptable use of technology. Don’t get me wrong, I believe wholeheartedly in digital creativity but I also know that there are steps to getting there and foundational learning is still critical. Sometimes technology provides a means to learning and we must acknowledge that. In school tech circles, we frown upon programs historically used to increase standards based knowledge typically applied during testing. (Honestly, we frown upon them because of the way in which teachers use them.) With that said, it is possible that when considering blended/personalized learning that there is some value to content based tech. The trick is that even if technology was utilized as a means for learning, that the learning doesn’t end when the program exits. This is where creativity can take over. If I am to be honest, I believe that kids learn best through other means involving the real world. They have to tinker and explore. However, in an age of digital everything…I can’t deny the fact that there exist some computer program or app that may address the basic needs of learning too. I learned my alphabet and how to read while watching this timeless media program called Sesame Street. If technology can be used to support such learning, so be it. Again…we have to have space to create. We must also admit that certain tools spark content based learning. There has to be balance. Not one or the other. Possibly…Both PS….If tinkering/making is an option, do that first. Always!

There was a time in my academic career that I thought that every classroom should have an interactive whiteboard. As a matter of fact, I was my school district’s in-house "expert" on all things SMART. I trained every teacher in our district at some point and even conducted outside trainings and conferences. I had clickers, a slate and a mindset that I could not and would not teach in a classroom without it. And then…everything changed… 1. The ipad released and my school bought some. 2. I found twitter, Edcamp and connected to teachers. 3. I changed the way that I taught a little bit at a time. It was as if the walls of my classroom crumbled and everything that I thought about student engagement shifted. I wanted students to have more "hands-on" contact…not "drag and drop" technology, but to create beyond presentations. All of a sudden, it mattered that their work contained their own questions and research…their voice. It mattered that we didn’t go to a lab for access but that kids had access when needed. I stopped spending so much time "pre-creating" SMART lessons and started putting more time in inquiry, facilitation and even understanding the power of curiosity. The onslaught of innovation that occurred coupled with being connected forced me to look at who I was as a teacher, who my students were…and change. This is why connectedness is a part of this work. You are different because you have no choice but to be. Curating and sharing implies that you want to support the learning of others. Contributing your own work to the academic space shows that you are willing to share your own practice. A few months ago, I hired a specialist in my dept. I was looking for something specific. I wanted a connected educator. I wanted someone who was sharing online in such a way that one could easily understand their belief in the work that they shared. I searched for twitter feeds, blogs, facebook, youtube, pinterest, edmodo and even school websites. I talked to other directors who engaged in the exact same practice. I found that as much as we understand the power of such connectedness…it does not always exist. However, it can be inspired. It was important to know that. When you apply to work in a space with connected leadership, your resume isn’t the one that you submit on paper but your digital footprint online. Trust me…we are looking, even if you don’t list it. When you are connected, you have immediate access to ideas. Conversely when you are not connected and only live within the realm of your own school/district…your exposure to "different" is completely limited to what you hear at conferences and in this day and age, we do not have time to wait for once per year learning. When you are not connected, you are also only hearing the sounds of "where we are now" as an organization instead of "where we can be". In a perfect world, all instructional specialist…tech and content…would be connected. After-all, we are on the frontline of supporting teachers, ideas and growth. What we have to be careful about as leaders is mandating connectedness. It should be an internal desire…not a requirement. Yes…I believe and want our specialist and teachers to be active online practitioners but outside of the normal school day, demanding continuous online activity is not only vile but legally unacceptable. At the end of the day, as much as I want to see us all contributing to this space, the continuum of connectedness should not take precedence over personal living. You can’t expect people to give of their time 24/7 to talk about reaching kids when doing so could mean that they themselves aren’t reaching the children in their own home. With that said, we have to find and have balance because not being connected isn’t an option either. Truthfully, without my PLN…I would still live in a bubble where… Learning only happened from the front of the room because a lesson was projected on a touch screen board. Student privacy/data wasn’t a part of my vocabulary. Students solve "naked problems" in math and didn’t tackle real relevant work. (3 Act math = life changing) Whiteboard recording apps were everything. (That’s all I had initially on my ipads) "Making" was something that you did during art. POC didn’t exist in tech. I would still be making all graphics via power point. One more thing…If I were not connected, you wouldn’t be reading this post. My voice would still be silent in this space.