Some Great Books For Teachers

Some Great Books For Teachers

By Katie Lepi

If you’re a teacher, you probably don’t have oodles of free time on your hands (unless you’ve thrown lesson planning and grading your students’ work out the window!), but when you do, a good book recommendation is almost always welcome (trumped only by a good wine/beer/food recommendation!). I always enjoy a good ‘beach read’ when I need something brainless (read: flaky, easy reading), but sometimes I’m up for something with a little more substance. What better than something that can help you out in your classroom or professional life?

The handy infographic below is a great list of 50 awesome books for teachers to read. From teaching strategies to teacher humor, and cartoons and real life stories, there’s a bit of something in here for everyone. Take a look – you can see what’s on the list that you may have already read, and you’ll likely find something new that you’d like to take a look at.

Do you have any other teaching related favorite reads that aren’t included here? Leave us a message in the comments!

50 Great Books For Teachers

(see the infographic for the rest!)

• The First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide
• Teaching With Fire
• The First Days Of School
• Growing Minds
• The Teacher’s Book Of Wit
• Fred Jones Tools For Teaching
• The Courage To Teach
• Educating Esme
• School
• The Substitute Teacher’s Organizer
• You Know You’re A Teacher If….
• Stories From A Teacher
• What If There Were No Teachers?
• 99 Ways To Get Kids To Love Reading
• See Me After Class: Advice For Teachers By Teachers
• Why Johnny Still Can’t Read
• Inside Mrs. B’s Classroom: Courage, Hope, and Learning on Chicago’s South Side
• The Cooperative Classroom: Empowering Learning

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/50-books-teachers/

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Trying New Technology

Trying New Technology

By Katie Lepi

10 Drivers of Blended Learning

• Teachers need and want to:
• Personalize learning
• Improve the progress potential for each individual student
• Improve student engagement and motivation
• Shift to online state testing as of 2015
• Extend time and stretch resources effectively
• Extend the reach of effective teachers
• Improve teacher’s working conditions
• Decrease device costs
• Have students and parents adopt learning apps
• Narrow the digital divide

10 Questions To Ask Yourself When Implementing New Technology

• The answer doesn’t have to be yes for every question, but the more boxes you can tick, the better!
• Does it improve the teacher’s ability to personalize learning? (yes!)
• Does it offer potential for individual progress? (yes!)
• Does it improve student engagement and motivation? (yes!)
• Does it help teachers to to online testing methods? (yes!)
• Does it extend time and stretch resources effectively? (yes!)
• Does it extend the reach of effective teachers? (yes!)
• Does it improve teacher’s working conditions? (yes!)
• Does it decrease device costs? (yes!)
• Does it help students and parents adopt learning apps? (yes!)
• Does it help narrow the digital divide? (yes!)

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/new-technology-questions/

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Why It’s Time To Change How Students Cite Their Work

By Shawn McCusker

When students write a paper, it goes without saying that they must cite the sources that they use in creating it. For generations, students have created note cards to document and organize these resources and/or submitted a bibliography page with their finished work.

In the modern classroom, student research and creation has taken on a new look. Before, when students created a poster, and then separately handed in a bibliography page to the teacher, justice was done and fair credit was given for the ideas used.

However, as widespread sharing of these projects becomes more common, and the internet allows students to reach an audience far beyond the school or classroom, we need to re-evaluate this procedure and address our responsibility to share these sources – not just with the teacher or school, but with all who might consume the project.

Without readily available sources to review, the audience cannot truly evaluate the validity of the project. They are left with what might be a beautiful and elegant project (the product) without knowing the sources used to construct it (the process).

Sharing sources with an audience is how we can focus on the PROCESS of creation rather than seeing only the PRODUCT.

Sharing Sources of Student Work

1. Include citations for individual pieces of information within the products themselves. This method has the advantage of sharing the sources with those who are consuming the project. For a classroom, this further engages the class in evaluating the sources that are used and allows them to ask “is that a valid source?” or “does that source have a perspective or a bias?”

2. Have students create a traditional bibliography page in Google Drive and include a link to it on their project. This will increase the likelihood that students will explore sources and evaluate projects at a deeper level. The same could be done with Evernote or a shared document in Dropbox.

3. For traditional paper projects, science fair projects, posters, mobiles or other display work, have the students provide a shortened URL to let others find and explore their works cited as they view the product. This will also work for electronic work such as Prezis, Glogsters, Popplets, Google Presentations or online videos. Shortnened URLs can be created at tinyurl.com or by using chrome extensions such as goo.gl URL shortener.

3. In place of a Tiny URL, use a QR code to link viewers to works cited. QR codes can be created for free using QR Kaywa or QRCode Monkey. QR codes are an image file that can be easily added to online projects, and are equally effective when added to the end of videos.

In our information-rich world, accessing information is a daily activity, making it essential to credit the sources being used. This is no less true in elementary school, high school or college. The “Culture of Creation” that emerges in connected classrooms makes this even more important, and putting it at the forefront of creation will allow for a healthy and necessary evaluation of how classwork is created and the ideas used to do so. 

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/students-cite-work/

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Questions To Ask Yourself Before Trying New Technology

By Katie Lepi

Yesterday, we looked at an infographic that looked at the implementation of a blended learningprogram. It talked about how to set yourself up for success when implementing blended learning, what some attributes of a great blended learning program are, and drivers of blended learning.

The drivers of blended learning was sort of buried towards the bottom of the infographic, and we thought it could use a little spotlight of its own, so we’ve taken that part of the original infographicand are showcasing it on its own below.

Why? Because there are really good reasons to give it a shot. If you look at the ten reasons listed below, we’re pretty sure you’ll find at least a couple that you’ll benefit from, or are already trying to do in another way. If you read each item as a sort of question to yourself, they can also serve as a handy little go-to list that you should be asking when you’re implementing anything new in your classroom.

10 Drivers of Blended Learning

• Teachers need and want to:
• Personalize learning
• Improve the progress potential for each individual student
• Improve student engagement and motivation
• Shift to online state testing as of 2015
• Extend time and stretch resources effectively
• Extend the reach of effective teachers
• Improve teacher’s working conditions
• Decrease device costs
• Have students and parents adopt learning apps
• Narrow the digital divide

10 Questions To Ask Yourself When Implementing New Technology

• The answer doesn’t have to be yes for every question, but the more boxes you can tick, the better!
• Does it improve the teacher’s ability to personalize learning? (yes!)
• Does it offer potential for individual progress? (yes!)
• Does it improve student engagement and motivation? (yes!)
• Does it help teachers to to online testing methods? (yes!)
• Does it extend time and stretch resources effectively? (yes!)
• Does it extend the reach of effective teachers? (yes!)
• Does it improve teacher’s working conditions? (yes!)
• Does it decrease device costs? (yes!)
• Does it help students and parents adopt learning apps? (yes!)
• Does it help narrow the digital divide? (yes!)

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/new-technology-questions/

www.mschools.co.in

sharad@mschools.co.in

  SKYPE: linkites, saket.dandotia, sharad.gour, sonal.khandelwal8

                              

The Busy Teacher’s Quick Guide To Blended Learning

By Katie Lepi

Blended learning is a combination of some face-to-face teaching and some online teaching. It is a great way for teachers to bring online components into the forefront, rather than just using digital materials as supplemental (often at home) course materials. Blended learning has a huge advantage – it doesn’t prescribe that particular activities must be online or in person. There isn’t a particular percentage of teaching and learning that has to happen in the classroom or not. You can tailor it to your needs, and do some experimentation. It is so flexible, and can be something different for each teacher, each class, or each student. One class may lean heavily on the online component and another may not, depending on the availability and appropriateness of materials available.

The handy infographic below takes a look at the details on blended learning. What is it? Why do teachers like it? How does it work? Keep reading to learn more!

Learning About Blended Learning

• Blended learning refers to any time that a student is learning in a mixed environment of brick-and-mortar, supervised learning, and learning via online delivery methods.
• It is estimated that by 2019, 50% of all high school classes will be delivered online.
• Tight budgets, teacher shortages, and a greater demand for results are some of the biggest factors accelerating the growth of blended learning.
• By the end of 2014, 50% of all post-secondary students will be taking at least one class online.
• Because blended learning is so customizable, it really pushes personalized learning and moves education away from the one size fits all model.

Blended learning models can be mostly online, mostly in person, half and half, or some combination thereof. There are six distinct models:

• Face-to-Face Driver
• Rotation
• Flex
• Online Lab
• Self-Blend
• Online Driver

More technology solutions are needed to support blended learning models. These include:

• Integrated systems
• High quality, dynamic content
• Analytics
• Automation
• Applications that enhance student motivation

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/blended-learning-infographic-2/

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How To Use Smartphones For Language Learning

By Colleen Lee on February 16, 2014

“Have you mastered what we are working on?”

I am working on trying to balance the need to know that my students ‘have it’ with the practical realities of a modern language class. For that reason I have been looking at more and more choice in not only what language students use to demonstrate learning but also in how they do it. This year I have been making more use of the ‘quick conversation’ as a means of measuring learning. So an interaction, recorded on the phone, and then forwarded to me is a new way to offer some formative assessment.

What? They all look like they’re working hard to me!

Supplies

You need one mobile phone per conversation pair. I am aware that there are students without mobile phones so I also have a handheld digital recorder ($30) that can also be used. Almost all smart phones have some form of audio note recording app built into them – and they can use any one.

Requirements

I am careful to lay out the criteria beforehand. This is not onerous but a task designed to hear the desired pattern or structure in context, and more than once. For example, in my grade 12 course I needed to hear that they understood the difference between 3 types of conditionals. It is easy for me to tell who is ‘getting it’ and who isn’t.

Preparation

I allow about 15-20 minutes depending on what we have studied. This is enough time for them to consider the requirements, ensure that they are comfortable with what they have to demonstrate and run through it a couple of times. This is also a key time where partners affirm their knowledge and even help their partner to understand a concept they might not be as clear on.

Sending

I will not accept any files until after the end of the school day and it is sent from a student’s home, via a wireless connection. The last thing I want to do is push a cost onto a parent for data. If I receive the file prior to that it is not marked.

Listening

You will receive files in a variety of formats. Typically I click on it and it opens in a program that will play it. However I use a Macbook Pro and files that come from Android phones initially look incompatible. Well – internet searching to the rescue. I know what kind of files my computer reads – and so I search “converting .api to .mp4″ – the answer is easy to find. After doing of few of these I am comfortable altering the file extension to what I need to hear it.

Marking

I wanted to be able to credit students for completing a task as required, but also encourage them to show a bit more range in the language they choose to do this. So I looked around at various rubrics and came up with one that measures “Task”, “Vocabulary” and “Grammar”. Students also receive some feedback in written form. The rubric isn’t perfect but it provides feedback that students can use.

The phone conversation homework is popular with my students who like the timeliness and authenticity is provides. More of these to come.

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/phones-language-learning/

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Why Schools Need A Powerful Physical Education Policy

By Katie Lepi on February 16, 2014

Books and homework alone don’t make an education. Learning need to be well-rounded –  students learn pick up all sorts of life skills and habits in school, even from a very young age. Required curriculum elements have, in many cases, forced districts and schools to cut some of the extras that help to make our students more well-rounded individuals. No one wants to see art, music, or even food education cut out of their school’s curriculum, but did you know how important a strong PE curriculum can be?

The handy infographic below  (created by UNESCO) takes a look at why a quality physical education program is so important for students. It does more than get students up off their tookusfor an hour in the middle of the school day. Keep reading to learn more.

The Power of Physical Education

Physical education provides a gateway to:

• Physical well-being
• Social and emotional well-being
• Culture and the arts
• Literacy and communication
• Learning approaches and cognition
• Numeracy and mathematics
• Science and technology

Physical Education….

• Values and communication skills are a critical complement to cognitive knowledge
• Quality physical education drives inclusion
• Develop knowledge and confidence to drive academic achievement
• Breaks down barriers
• Challenges stigma
• Encourages dialogue and understanding between all groups
• Drives socioeconomic improvement – fewer health issues, obesity, longer life span, etc

Because of all these benefits, 97% of countries have made physical education compulsory, but:

• Only 79% of countries have prescribed curricula
• Physical Education is considered less important than other subjects in 54% of countries
• Only 53% of primary schools have suitably trained Physical Education teachers

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/physical-education-policy/

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