The theme of transformational learning was a good one. Just last week, I led an internal PD session with our staff on some of my key 'take-aways' from the conference.
I better get to sharing! So, here they are:
1. Alan asked a great keynote question: "What are the look-fors in a 1:1 (or BYOD) school to know it's being implemented effectively?"
It's a good question, and one that I want to pursue as we start our own BYOD process next year.
Alan, has a great website filled with resources - one of which is the handout: "Is Technology Adding Value?" It's a good starting point as we plan units around the changing nature of what learning should look like.
The question above helps to frame why some of the tools below resonated with me.
2. Jing for student feedback
I've used Jing for years, but wasn't promoting it as a student feedback option.
For those new to Jing, Jing is free. It allows users to quickly create voice-over videos while capturing the screen (or screenshots with captions). All videos / images are saved in the cloud and accessed with a URL - no software other than a browser! I've created an extremely rough Jing to give you an idea of how it works.
Research shows that students prefer online, verbal feedback that is personalized. It also shows that teachers are more likely to applaud positive characteristics of student work instead of simply writing about what needs to be improved.
Check it out as a fast, effective (and permanent!) way to share student feedback.
3. PollEverywhere.com - as a means to get Formative Feedback and as learning tool for students.
PollEverywhere (and other similar sites) are the online version of the "clicker system" we've heard about in classrooms. Students can submit answers to questions dynamically by texting, tweeting, typing a url into a browser.
Teacher created choices can be multiple-choice text, multiple-choice images, or open-response.
Student answers are displayed immediately (if desired) and stored for discussion as needed. It opens up all kinds of interesting ways to use data on the fly. Consider:
a) Wait time... giving every student time to answer and contribute
b) Hide or Show Data immediately... to show results or re-visit results later
c) Group consensus... sharing group responses, and then asking student groups to form a consensus on the correct answer.
d) Scaffold learning... display results and then give hints, give readings, have students re-poll and re-visit answers.
Overall, there seem to be many quick, easy ways for how a tool like this can foster inquiry based learning?
4. Wolfram Alpha
Words have a hard time with this site. It's a visual Siri.
Type in topics that have factual information... in their words, "Enter what you want to calculate or know about:"
Check it out. Then ask yourself how often we should ask students to make posters again by transferring loads of data from different sites when this site does it in seconds. And, if this information is at their fingertips, what sort of questions should teachers now be asking of students?
5. We all know about Khan Academy, but what might be new is www.ed.ted
A free non-profit from the folks who bring you TedTalks, Ed.ted is taking teacher-generated ideas and creating professionally designed learning videos on the topic.
All the videos are available for free and are intended to be used in the flipped concept model.
Unlike Khan where only internal developers are coming up with video, Ed.Ted seems to be harnessing the crowd-sourcing idea to leverage a potentially far more powerful learning site.
These five ideas seem more than enough to absorb and implement.
So going back to our initial question:
What are the look-fors in a 1:1 (or BYOD) school to know it's being implemented effectively?
It has to be more than faster access to information...which help students answer the same types of questions. We better be using these tools as more than $1,000 pencils with access to Google.
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