e-Learning Today TV – View in iTunes
Episode 7 – April 30, 2010
(Episode Length: 26 minutes, 22 seconds)
Introduction
- Welcome to e-Learning Today TV
- Previous episode – Teach Kids not Subjects
Pick me up
- Louisiana Arts Program
- artists and educators brought into schools
- dancing, music, drama, etc.
- improved scores and behaviors from students
Current E-vents
- America’s Next Top SCIENTIST Video Contest | Discovery Education & 3M
- Designed to promote the exploration and importance of science literacy, communication, and innovation among America’s youth
- The top 10 scientists will receive a trip to New York City and the grand prize winner wins a $50,000 in U.S. Savings Bonds
- DEADLINE: MAY 27, 2010
- Students grades 5 – 8 can submit their 1 – 2 minute video entry online. The video must be about a specific scientific concept selected from a list of concepts provided by the judges. View the complete rules and regulations here. Click here to enter the contest.
- Teachers interested in learning more about how to help your students create an award winning video entry, register yourself or your entire class for a webinar or view the webinar archives
Dotcom
- PicLits
- match images with words
- create stories and tales from just a picture
- writing/ story telling tool
- Make a StoryBook
- create story/picture book
- simple interface, many options
- ability to share and print stories when finished
Hashtag Talk:
- How do we ensure those without privilege have equal access to quality education and opportunity? As a TFA alum, I left the chat with much to reflect on.
- Favorite Tweet – Sandra McGonagle: Inequity happens when teachers don’t truly believe all children can learn. #edchat
- Teach for America: “One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.” The mission of Teach for America is to build a movement to eliminate educational inequity – not to fill teacher shortages.
- Some oppose TFA, insisting that most corps members leave after 2 year commitment – but the truth is TFA holds a deep belief that the best hope for ending educational inequity is to build a massive force of leaders in all fields who have the perspective and conviction that come from teaching successfully in low-income communities.
- More than 60% of Teach for America alumni stay in the education field after their two-year commitment – with most working in the K-12 field, while more than 50% of beginning teachers leave education within the first five years.
- TFA corps members and #edchatters agree, we must increase teacher and instructional quality and maintain high expectations of our students.
- Ingredients for closing the opportunity gap:
- Maintain High Expectations – No excuses
- Quality Administration, Instruction, and Teachers
- Funding and Resources
- Advocacy, Relationships and Community
- Power, Privilege and Policy
Watch and learn
- Did You Know…?
- Intensity and popularity of use of technology
- Facts on the increase of usage
- More videos have been uploaded to YouTube in the past 2 months than if ABC, CBS and NBC had been airing new content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year since 1948
- Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years but in the last 5 years, online newspaper readers are up 30 million
Blogger of the Week
- Mary Beth Hertz
- K-6 west Philly Computer Science teacher leader, Organizer for EdCamp Philly, delicious, diigo, ning networks such as classroom 2.0 and twitter, Philly Teacher: a Blog about Teaching, Learning, and Life
- Her passion about Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) for educators will motivate you to start utilizing the social web to share and learn with educators all over the world.
- Most recently, Hertz participated in an educator panel on Real Time Communication and Education for the #140 Character Conference.
- The post that stuck out to me most this week was 6 Reasons I Surround Myself with People Smarter than I Am, a post advocating for Professional Learning Networks for educators.
- Her advocacy for PLNs begins with a reflection on her own education including her experiences at Oberlin College: “I was exposed to ideas and points of view I had never considered in high school. I was pushed to explore these new ideas and ponder how these new points of view played into my own beliefs at the time. This is the same experience I have had in building my PLN as an educator.”
- Through self reflection and thoughtful analysis, Hertz comes to the conclusion that every educator should join a Professional Learning Network. She insists, “Teachers need to have the opportunity to be surrounded by colleagues who challenge their ideas and expose them to new ones.
- Interview -How can educators use PLNs to affect real change?
- take risks in the name of a better education for your students or a better community.
- open up the channels of communication between stakeholders to better serve the community and the school.
- expand your horizons and increase your learning opportunities so you can build a toolkit of resources.
- 3 words to describe education today: 1. kinetic 2. political 3. innovative
E-freebies
- E-learning for Kids
- non profit global foundation
- activities by grade and subject
- relatable topics like baseball and magic
- newsletters are press releases for teachers and parents
- Lightning Bug
- site full of writing resources
- get students thinking about prompts, characters, styles, etc.
- resources for teachers for writing samples and ideas
Teach This
- Facebook Personalization Feature
- “open graph” now “social graph”
- connecting other social sites and apps
- giving public information to other sites
- “open graph” now “social graph”
- 3 Professional Learning Networks Every Educator Should Join
- Pre-internet: teachers collaborate in person
- 1990s: email to collaborate with people from conferences and workshops + in person
- Today/Social Web: Global network
- Blogs / MicroBlogs
- Twitter: Once you sign up, use twitter search features to find educators tweeting about your interests, or twitter directories like Twellow or We Follow to connect with educators with similar interests.
- Get Involved: Every #TeacherTuesday (the day most teachers are active on twitter) at 12 pm and 7 pm eastern, teachers from around the globe connect on twitter using the hashtag #edchat to discuss and evaluate various solutions to educational challenges.
- Social Bookmarking Keep, organize and share your favorite links. Social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Diigoallow you to use tags instead of file folders to organize your favorite resources.
- Share and network with groups like Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0.
- Groups and Forums
- Members of educational groups and forums like Ning share resources and ideas, discuss topics of interest, maintain blogs, plan events, and much more.
- My favorite Ning networks – Classroom 2.0 or Educator’s PLN.
So, What Do You Know?
- A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
- “ough” can be pronounced TEN DIFFERENT WAYS?
- Try this sentence: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.