I was in a classroom recently where students were using laptops, doing an activity that required a relatively low level of intellectual engagement. They were typing up essays they had written earlier in the week so they could enter them in their online blog site. All the students had headphones on and were listening to …
The Talent Code
I just finished the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. The subtitle for the book is "Greatness isn't born, it's grown." To put it simply, Coyle's premise is deep practice + motivation + skilled coaching = talent. Notice talent is not equated with innate aptitude but rather a skill that can be developed through a combination …
Winnowing the Internet Chaff
How can a teacher who only has a few minutes here and there in a busy day ever find and evaluate the best internet resources for teaching and learning in her classroom? Unless she is motivated to search for internet content sources outside her busy school day, she clearly has to rely on others to …
21st Century Media Specialists
Provocateur Scott McLeod (otherwise known as Scott McLeod, Iowa State University associate professor and head of the Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education) came to the Minnesota Education media Organization fall conference to shake up the status quo. His provocative keynote challenged media specialist and librarians to examine the core of …
Getting Started with Blogs
Do you have something to say? Want to share it with a larger audience? Blogging may just be your ticket. But how do you start? This is a question I recently faced as I started Cultivating the Educational Technologist blog. It’s a little bit finding your voice, identifying the tool you want to use, and …
Getting Started with Web 2.0
Have you been thinking about doing something new and different with technology this year in your classroom or professional life? Are you daunted by the overwhelming choices of Web 2.0 tools out there? Should you start blogging—or using a wiki (whatever that is) or a Ning (now there’s a name for you)—or what about this …
Vision for 21st Century Learning Environment
In 2005, my then superintendent, asked me to come up with a vision for technology integration, and, "oh,by the way, present it in one month!" I was just 3 months into my current job as instructional technology specialist in Curriculum and Instruction, and, needless to say, I was a little overwhelmed. I came up with …
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Beyond PowerPoint–Prezi
This is a Prezi presenation. Check it out by clicking on the above image. I think Prezi offers a nice change of pace from PowerPoint that will definitely capture our students attention? It also allows us to be more free flowing in our presentations. We can jump from one idea to another--show relationships and details--and …
School 2.0: Progressive Pedagogy and 21st-Century Tools: Part 2
(View the above video from the 10 minute mark to about 20 minutes to see how Chris Lehmann thinks technology is contributing to 21st century learning) 21st century learning is about so much more than just the hardware in the classroom. We can install the latest internet wired multimedia computer, connect it to a video …
Continue reading School 2.0: Progressive Pedagogy and 21st-Century Tools: Part 2
iPod Touch Grows up with 3.0 and Evernote
iPod Touches are amazing devices—wireless connectivity to the internet, free educational applications that are expanding daily, the functionality to view video and sound podcasts—Apple has educators thinking this is the computing device of the 21st century. Last spring, I took the lead in showing teachers how these handhelds could be used in their classrooms as …
