You don’t need to be a Dickens scholar to understand that for many teachers it is both the best of times and the worst of times.
Let’s start with the good stuff. Digital innovation is inspiring imagination. Educators from all over the world are learning how to responsibly blend technology into their teaching, while sharing resource suggestions and best practices with colleagues and their growing professional learning networks.
The freedom to choose an assortment of apps, videos and open educational resources that can augment – if not replace – traditional curriculum for any given unit or lesson plan is empowering. Learning how other teachers put these tools into their own practice via Twitter Chats, EdCamps and other collaborative environments is exhilarating.
Findings showed that using video instead of other teaching methods resulted in small improvements in student learning, whereas using video in addition to other teaching methods resulted in larger improvements. Source: Study: Pre-Recorded Videos Prove More Effective for Student Learning Than In-Person Instruction – Higher Education The article discusses the various advantages to using pre-recorded…
Cloudpets sound like a cool idea. Use a teddy bear as a microphone and speaker to allow children to communicate with loved ones. It’s such a great idea that over 800,000 of the stuffed animals have been sold. How do we know this? Because the company has no clue how to do security. A maker…
Highlights • An abundance of toys present reduced quality of toddlers’ play. • Fewer toys at once may help toddlers to focus better and play more creatively. • This can done in many settings to support development and promote healthy play. Source: The influence of the number of toys in the environment on toddlers’ play The…
In August, Superintendent Michael Hynes wrote an outstanding article focusing on the fact that kids need recess because their mental health may depend on it. The article will most likely be one of the most viewed Education Week opinion posts of 2018 because it was shared over 300,000 times to date. Not only was the…
What if I told you that, contrary to the alarming headlines and eye-catching infographics you may have seen ricocheting around social media, new technologies aren’t shaking up the labor market very much by historical standards? You might think I was as loopy as a climate-change denier and suggest that I open my eyes to all…
15 years ago, I made two major choices before I went to school in the mornings. I picked what cereal I would have (how good were Ricicles?), then sifted through my CD collection before popping one into my Discman for the day. … Think of that same journey I took 15 years ago. Today, it’s…
