Archive for Category: "SummerEd"
July 18, 2012 8:37 pm
EdCeptional #035 – Hot Apps for the Summertime
The Crew here at EdCeptional is in full summertime mode! Some of us are off enjoying time in other countries, and some even had a chance to check out ISTE 2012 in San Diego this year! Luckily, Deb and I had a chance to catch up and talk about some of the new interesting apps that have come out this summer, but we can’t wait to talk again with the full EdCeptional Crew! Show Host: Patrick Black (@teachntech00) [...]
June 25, 2012 9:54 am
EdCeptional #034 – Wait, wasn’t tonight #36??
It’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to get together, and apparently we’ve forgotten how to count, we seem to have missed a few episode numbers. Anyway, as a way to combat our own “summer slide” we discussed some of the finer points of summer – ESY vs. summer camp, or should we have year round school. Just some of our opinions! Thanks for listening! Show Host: Patrick Black (@teachntech00) Show contributors: Deb Truskey (@debtruskey) Tricia [...]
June 12, 2012 8:00 am
SummerEd: Learning Never Takes a Vacation
The summer months for students and teachers brings rest, relaxation, and reflection. For teachers, it’s a common practice as well to attend professional learning seminars, prepare new lesson plans for the next school year, and continue to search for new and creative ways to reach and teach all students. A teacher’s learning process never ends, so I got to thinking. As a father of a soon to be first grader now, it’s become even more clear to me that our [...]
June 5, 2012 8:00 am
SummerEd: 6 Things To Do This Summer
Take a minute and think about the last vacation you took (for those that don’t remember or don’t know the meaning of the word, stare at this picture of a woman on the beach). If you let your mind wander just a little, you’ll start feeling the stress melt away. The screams of kids, the grinding of the pencil sharpener, the slamming of the door… it’s all fading into the distance. Learning is over, now it’s time to just relax. [...]
July 31, 2011 8:54 pm
Real Quick… Have You Seen the Qwiki App?
Here at EdReach, we are big fans of the educational tool Qwiki. (Did you notice the Qwiki of the Day on the sidebar?) For those of you who have not yet have the pleasure of experiencing Qwiki, it is a fantastic tool that allows you to learn about literally millions of different topics in a matter of moments. According to Wikipedia, “Qwiki is a platform that creates interactive, on-the-fly, multimedia presentations of information.” Basically, Qwiki lets you quickly learn about [...]
July 24, 2011 1:22 pm
Celebrating Failure: It’s About the People, Not the Technology
What happens when you throw a bunch of Apple Distinguished Educators (ADEs) in the middle of the Arizona desert for a week of sharing and learning? Some pretty amazing things! It was an absolute honor to be able to attend the ADE Summer Institute with such a phenomenal group of educators. The week-long institute was an opportunity for me to share, learn, and grow in ways I had never imagined. While I left the Institute with loads of valuable ideas [...]
July 21, 2011 12:00 pm
Formative Assessment – The Greatest Bang For Our Educational Buck?
This week I had the privilege of attending Learning Forward’s 2011 Summer Conference. I attended some great sessions, and took in a few great keynotes from Ian Jukes and Mary Cullinane. The session that really got me excited and thinking deeply was Dylan Wiliam’s session: Embedding Formative Assessment With Teacher Learning Communities. I am almost ashamed to say it, I was unfamiliar with Dylan’s work, and if you are unfamiliar with his work I implore you to familiarize yourself with [...]
July 9, 2011 4:03 pm
Light the Fire: Learning Through “Sparks”
A feature of Google+ that has great potential in the classroom is “Sparks.” “Sparks brings you stories on the things you love from all across the Web, so it’s easy to strike up meaningful conversations with your friends.” Setting up your Sparks is super easy. Simply type in some key words into the search box and Google+ builds a stream of information for you. Sharing these links with your circles takes two clicks. Google+ is designed to enhance what some [...]
July 6, 2011 10:34 pm
Circle Me Up: Exploring Circles in Google+
We’ve added a few new verbs to the English lexicon in the past few years: first, we began to “friend” people. Then we began to “follow” people. Here is another one: “circle me.” One of the distinct advantages Google+ has over social networks such as Facebook and Twitter is the ability to precisely communicate with groups of people. Google calls it “targeted sharing.” While this is possible in Facebook it’s rather cumbersome and clunky. Twitter relies on hashtags which work [...]
July 4, 2011 8:00 am
Google+ In Education
Last week Google re-entered the social media field with the launch of Google+. Initial reactions have been positive, a good sign for Google which has struggled to find it’s place in social media. What does Google+ mean for educators? For students? For schools? This is one of the topics that the EdReach team will be exploring this week. This week we will be featuring a series of posts related to Google+, from a basic overview for those who haven’t had [...]
June 23, 2011 12:00 pm
Attending ISTE At Home: Seven Tips To Enhance Your Virtual ISTE Experience!
ISTE is the mega conference of mega conferences; it is the largest EdTech conference in the world. ISTE annually draws over 12,000 to the conference and this year there are over 135 workshops, 700 sessions, and informal learning opportunities every where you go; ISTE 2011 will be held in Philly June 26-29. For a great ISTE overview listen to the latest EdReach show. Personally I’ve been to ISTE twice and never been disappointed. This year I won’t be there, instead of attending and presenting [...]
June 23, 2011 8:00 am
EdReach Show #26: Our ISTE Preview!
Exciting! Scott, Judi, and Jay all join me to talk about getting into the ISTE van, and heading to Philly this week for the ISTE Conference. The big story at ISTE definitely seems like it will be iPads and tablets. We discuss the controversy over the ISTE Keynote, which has always been a point of contention for some of the attendees of the conference. We talk about many of the awesome, innovative educators to keep an eye out for, such [...]
June 21, 2011 5:41 pm
Join EdReach at ISTE 2011!
It’s only a few days away, but the EdReach team will be at ISTE (that’s the International Society for Technology in Education- for your newbies) in Philadelphia, PA. The conference starts Sunday, June 26th and runs until Wednesday, the 29th. We’ll be starting out on Saturday, though, at EdubloggerCon, which is a fabulous “unconference” hosted by Steve Hargadon. EdReach will be live blogging, taking pictures, and catching up with educators from all around the world. Although many of the sessions and [...]
June 19, 2011 4:58 pm
Who Needs Textbooks When You Can iAuthor Your Own iBooks?
With more and more app developers designing innovative apps like The Elements: A Visual Exploration and Our Choice, it is clear that traditional textbooks are no longer needed as mobile learning devices become common classroom tools. Students can easily have access to updated information in a variety of different ways, whether it is through text, images, audio, or video. There is an incredible amount of content-specific apps, podcasts (have you seen iTunesU?), and eBooks available. And of course we can’t [...]
June 14, 2011 8:00 am
For Summer PD, Facebook is the new Twitter
I always try to think of ways that will get teachers excited about sharing their learning experiences. At conferences, taking teachers to the session about the Personal Learning Network is usually fun. They learn about all the social networking tools that will help them. They end up signing up for Twitter- then – never use it again. I think Twitter is really one of the best resources for getting ahead in Ed, however, it’s not for everybody. Even one of [...]
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June 9, 2011 12:00 pm
Students Need Clear Learning Targets [Resources Included]
The hot and humid breeze of summer is upon us all. For teachers and administrators it is a time to reflect and think about what changes we will make next year. Throughout the year you probably have read some blog posts and articles that may have resonated with you, and now summer presents an opportunity to reflect on ways to implement those ideas for next year. I read an article in Ed. Leadership a few months ago that has continued [...]
June 7, 2011 4:00 pm
Summer Ed: Learning for All
With summer almost upon us (I know I still have a few days), it’s the time of year to sit back, relax, and try something different! Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean you stop learning, but it gives you a time to do it in a different way, so take a look a few ideas. Podcasts: I am addicted to podcasts! I rarely listen to the radio in my car, and always have a backlog of 20 or so to [...]
June 7, 2011 8:24 am
Summer Ed: Vacation? Changing the mindset of the “turn-off” society.
It may not scare you a bit, but it scares me. I’ve worked quite hard this year to spread the love of assistive and integrative technology, to show teachers and students what can be accomplished when you turn on the fire hose of learning, how to streamline the access of knowledge with tools like Qwiki.com and Diigo.com, and what can happen when you tap into your potential as a life-long learner. That about sums up what I do in a [...]
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