Education Elements

DECEMBER 15, 2020

It’s December. We made it to the end of 2020 – a spectacularly stressful year, no matter who you are, what you do, or where you live. As the months ticked by, though, it became clear that the chaos of the year placed almost unbearable levels of stress on some professions, educators among them. As schools wind down for winter break in the midst of a national spike in COVID-19 numbers, it may be a good time to deconstruct and consider burnout, what it looks like, what causes it, and what we can do

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Education 226

Digital Promise

DECEMBER 3, 2020

2020 has been a particularly difficult year. The abrupt transition to remote learning was a shock to our national education system. Districts, schools, educators, and families scrambled to get plans in place for distance learning. As the executive director of the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools (VILS) program, I had the opportunity to participate in professional development workshops, calls with coaches and IT personnel, and other virtual convenings supporting our community members from the

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Ditch That Textbook

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Google Classroom can already make us more efficient, but these tips can save you even more time and effort. If you and your students are using Google Apps in the classroom, Google Classroom can save you tons of time and effort. It helps you assign, collect, grade and return work seamlessly. But, like anything else, there […]. The post 10 Google Classroom time savers for teachers appeared first on Ditch That Textbook.

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Catlin Tucker

DECEMBER 20, 2020

The events of the last nine months have launched the phrase “blended learning” into the mainstream. I worry that instead of articulating the value of a powerful blend of online and offline learning, teachers are receiving the message that they “must” adopt blended learning to meet the demands of the moment. Yes, blended learning can help teachers navigate the challenges of teaching at this moment.

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A Principal's Reflections

DECEMBER 13, 2020

Balance has always been a challenge for teachers. I vividly remember this during my early years as a teacher. Each night I came home exhausted. Maybe the 45-minute commute had a little to do with it, but the main culprit was how I used available time in the classroom. Since I was not very open to risks and convinced that the most critical aspect of my job was to get through the curriculum, my sole focus was on direct instruction.

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Neo LMS

DECEMBER 10, 2020

One of the nicest advantages that some students enjoyed about the spring version of online learning was the relaxation of the bell schedule. However, the attempts to squeeze normalcy into an extraordinary situation removed that luxury in most cases this fall. In an effort to recover learning time that was lost in the spring – and to neutralize criticisms that distance learning is inadequate – many schools, districts, and education agencies have resolved to create plans for the 2020-2

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User Generated Education

DECEMBER 24, 2020

I, like many of you, have been doing remote teaching since March, 2020. I am a student-centric, hands on/minds on teacher. In normal times when students come to my classroom (I provide pull-out services for gifted elementary level kids), I get them doing hands-on activities within minutes of entering into my classroom. As many of you know, remote teaching is very different than face-to-face learning.

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Digital Promise

DECEMBER 7, 2020

In September, Digital Promise launched a series of events to support educators with continuing and growing maker learning opportunities that meet the needs of learners through distance learning and beyond. In this post, we share how the learnings from these events have informed our approach to a new professional learning opportunity, the Maker Learning @ Home Cohort. .

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Catlin Tucker

DECEMBER 31, 2020

When I was in college, I started writing a holiday newsletter to include with my Christmas cards. My mother had always written a newsletter, so it seemed a natural way to reflect on the year. It also provided friends and family with an update on my life in a pre-social media world. It is a tradition I have continued through the years. Trying to wrap my mind around 2020 to craft my newsletter was no small feat.

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Speaker: Speakers:

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Education

A Principal's Reflections

DECEMBER 20, 2020

" Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. " - Joshua J. Marine I love working with educators. Even though I am often the facilitator of learning, I always seek out opportunities to put myself into the shoes of those doing the day-to-day work and then use this as an opportunity to reflect on my practice.

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EdTech Magazine

DECEMBER 7, 2020

As we look ahead to the future of K–12 education, there’s no doubt that technology will continue to play a vital role in the way students learn. Smart technology in particular has become increasingly popular, inspiring educators to upgrade their classrooms with innovative hardware and immersive lesson plans.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

DECEMBER 16, 2020

DialMyCalls (an AATT sponsor) has a special Christmas offer for kids: Free Santa Calls To Your Family This Christmas. This Christmas we have a great gift for everyone! Whether you’re an existing DialMyCalls user or not, you can take advantage of our completely free phone call from Santa. Imagine the look on your child’s face when they receive a personalized phone call from Santa with his or her name on it!

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Neo LMS

DECEMBER 29, 2020

Dear fellow teachers, Last year I wrote an open letter that was meant to be fun and supportive at the same time, and to make you welcome the new year with a positive attitude. Read more: Our favorite teacher memes for 2019. But 2020 happened to all of us all over the world, and we realized how things could change in the blink of an eye. We are still teachers, still doing what we know best, but in very different conditions.

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Generative AI holds tremendous promise for all stakeholders in higher education. But guardrails are needed. Strong governance that empower instructors are at the core of a responsible approach to using generative AI in academia.

Education

Digital Promise

DECEMBER 15, 2020

December invites us to step back to reflect on the events, learnings, and open questions of 2020. The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and the resulting protests, sparked an overdue reckoning on race across the nation. Conversations about equity and racial justice within education and organizational commitments to anti-racism were ubiquitous this spring, but that momentum has stalled for many white allies.

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Catlin Tucker

DECEMBER 11, 2020

When I began my career in education, I believed the value I brought to the classroom was my subject area expertise cultivated as an English major at UCLA and my pedagogical expertise honed while working on my teaching credential and Masters in Education. I operated under that misguided assumption for years. I remember feeling intense pressure to have the “right answer” when students asked questions.

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A Principal's Reflections

DECEMBER 27, 2020

The year began like any other. From a blogging perspective, I kicked it off with a post on what could be as a means to pump up educators as they continued to move towards embracing innovative strategies and ideas. In my opinion, January always represents an excellent opportunity to try something new. Personalized learning quickly became a focus area based on impressive outcomes from some of the schools I had been working within in an on-going and job-embedded fashion.

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EdTech Magazine

DECEMBER 8, 2020

The 4-year-old in the photo is wearing a tan suit with a complementary tie. His broad smile shows a full set of teeth. And now, the man who was that child says the photograph still makes him smile as well. “The suit, the smile, it lights up my face every time I see it,” said Quentin J. Lee, principal of Childersburg Middle School in Alabama. “Behind that smile, you don’t see the guy who’s never met his father, you don’t see somebody who actually failed the eighth grade.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

DECEMBER 17, 2020

This week, I’ll post my updated suggestions for three holiday activities that will get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of teaching that starts after the New Year. Here’s what you’ll get (the links won’t be active until the post goes live ): Speed Up and Protect Your Computer. 11 Ways to Update Your Online Presence. For regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher, these are yearly reminders.

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Neo LMS

DECEMBER 17, 2020

It seems that everyone’s looking forward to the new year and the promise that it holds. And who should blame us? It’s 2020, after all, am I right? For my part, I also think that we should leave other things behind in 2020: learning myths! You know: We use only 10% of our brains. We remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see.

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Digital Promise

DECEMBER 2, 2020

According to a 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Education, only two percent of teachers are African American men, yet African American students make up at least 16 percent of the country’s student population. To make matters more tenuous, teachers of color leave the teaching profession at higher rates than white teachers. This reality has serious implications for the country’s educational landscape overall, as well as for the growing number of students of color.

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Catlin Tucker

DECEMBER 9, 2020

In a previous blog, I shared a collection of thinking routines developed and published by Project Zero at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. These routines are incredibly effective structures to encourage students to think more deeply about ideas, concepts, processes, and issues. The Project Zero team presents a clear rationale for each routine (in English and Spanish), providing an explanation of the purpose of each routine as well as an explanation of how to apply the routines.

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Personalized Learning

Teacher Reboot Camp

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Part of the December 2020 STEM Resources Digital Calendar ! The good news is there are thousands of digital tools and apps (many free) to support teachers, students and families. The bad news is there are thousands of digital tools. Teachers need to quickly find the right tool to meet their students’ needs and means. The websites below have search engines to narrow down the choices along with short descriptions and reviews.

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EdTech Magazine

DECEMBER 23, 2020

With kids spending more time online than ever, many teachers are witnessing an increase in cyberbullying among their students in online classrooms. In a recent report, L1ght analyzed communication on millions of websites, discussion boards and gaming platforms. The results were bleak, with a 70 percent increase in hate speech and a 40 percent increase in online toxicity between students in online platforms.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

DECEMBER 19, 2020

I’ll be taking a few weeks off–until after the New Year–to edit/format my website, work on projects with a deadline, prioritize life, and wish my two adult military children could come home to visit. I may drop in on you-all as you enjoy your holidays, but mostly I’ll be regenerating. I wish you a wonderful season, safe and filled with family.

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Neo LMS

DECEMBER 8, 2020

In the ‘60s, most learning science researchers agreed that students learn by association and reinforcement, ignoring the individual factors that influence learning. However, that all changed when a renowned researcher, Martin Seligman, and his collaborators posed these fascinating questions: Can people learn to be helpless? Can they learn to be optimistic?

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Speaker: Andrew Cohen, Founder & CEO of Brainscape

The instructor’s PPT slides are brilliant. You’ve splurged on the expensive interactive courseware. Student engagement is stellar. So… why are half of your students still forgetting everything they learned in just a matter of weeks? It's likely a matter of cognitive science! With so much material to "teach" these days, we often forget to incorporate key proven principles into our curricula — namely active recall, metacognition, spaced repetition, and interleaving practice.

Training

Ditch That Textbook

DECEMBER 3, 2020

Assignments in Google Classroom are better with apps! Use these apps that work with Google Classroom to level up your activities. Google Classroom looks kind of bare at first glance. A stream. Assignments. Grades. It might make you want to say, "Where's the flash? Doesn't this thing have an app store like my iPhone does?"But […]. The post 30 apps that work with Google Classroom appeared first on Ditch That Textbook.

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Education Elements

DECEMBER 29, 2020

I got started with this tradition of predictions in 2010 after reading Disrupting Class, a book by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn. In their book, they predicted that by 2019, 50% of all high school courses will be online in some blended learning model. That was a pretty bold prediction in 2008 when the book was published, but their model for cycles of innovation seems pretty accurate now that we have hindsight.

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Teacher Reboot Camp

DECEMBER 21, 2020

Part of the December 2020 STEM Resources Digital Calendar ! The first step in student ownership of their own learning is goal setting. We can help students identify what they know, how they want to grow and commit to plans to making this happen. One way I help my students set learning goals is by having them complete the vision board template below, which is free for you to copy and assign to students.

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