Life-Long Learning

roughdrafts1:

I came across this website and am thinking of ways to use it to interact with my students. I think I am going to create a wall and direct my students to it for a homework assignment. I think it might have some interesting applications for interacting with vocabulary, as well as posting thoughts about reading assignments. 

world-shaker:

I really loved this article. Definitely recommend a read.

If you are passionate about serious intellectual inquiry, there has never been a better time in which to live. Technology has the potential to completely revitalize traditional liberal arts education. In the years to come, “just in case” and “just in time” learning will fuse and transform each other.

Here are just a few of the ways technology can make students more intellectual:

1. As technology grows more and more sophisticated, we can bring intellectual products of human history to life. For a literary example (albeit not an entirely successful one), check out Arden’s interpretation of the life and times of William Shakespeare. For examples of computer games that are both entertaining and analytically challenging and can be used to supplement traditional lecture style classes, check out games like Civilization and Pirates. Both games allow students to tinker with variables in different historical systems and continuously observe the outcomes of their decisions. Because computers can provide instantaneous feedback, they lend themselves naturally to helping students develop systemic understanding of different subjects. Why are systems so important? Because no matter what the subject (whether it’s English, math or science), real mastery depends on understanding how details fit into the whole.

For more on how games can be introduced in classrooms as sophisticated texts to critique, check out my post on how to design an educational game.

world-shaker:

Here’s one:

Fluxtime

Fluxtime is an interesting tool that allows the user to record actions as they move things around the screen, manually creating the animation. In addition to providing backgrounds and images Fluxtime has an upload option so you can include any images you create or find elsewhere.

world-shaker:

A great one-page graphic aid for those of you using Bloom’s Taxonomy. It looks great taped to the wall!

infoneer-pulse:

Students in first-semester composition classes are routinely assigned to write a research paper, but this exercise rarely succeeds because they do not yet grasp how to analyze their sources, say the chief researchers of a multi-institutional study of college students’ citations.

“We need to be teaching analysis, and a lot of it,” Rebecca Moore Howard, professor of writing and rhetoric at Syracuse University and co-principal investigator of the Citation Project, said in an interview. She and her colleague on the project are scheduled to present their latest findings Thursday at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in St. Louis.

The project, which began as an effort to examine plagiarism and the teaching of writing, looked at source-based student papers from 16 institutions, including Ivy League universities, private and public institutions, liberal-arts colleges, religious institutions, and community colleges.

» via The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

(via world-shaker)

world-shaker:

Seasoned teachers may not be surprised by these concepts, but they may be helpful for student teachers or ed majors.

PS: While this was written for astronomy educators, it’s general enough to apply to everyone.

revolutionizeed:

I use Dropbox constantly to store my notes, PowerPoints, links, and worksheets so that I can access it on either my laptop, desktop, or iPod.  I like to have my notes on my iPod so I can walk around the room easily.  This might be even more amazing for teachers with iPads or Nooks to use it on.  Essentially, Dropbox is a place where you store documents and such on the internet in a cloud that you can access from any of your devices!  Try it out!

infoneer-pulse:

Each year, the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The ALA condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information.

A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The number of challenges reflects only incidents reported. We estimate that for every reported challenge, four or five remain unreported. Therefore, we do not claim comprehensiveness in recording challenges.

» via American Library Association

(via teachingliteracy)