Category: K-12 Education

Bill Nye Headlines 2011 Martin Institute Summer Conference

The Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence is excited to announce that Bill Nye will be the keynote speaker for the 2011 Summer Conference.

About Bill Nye
Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. “My family is funny,” he says, “I mean funny in the sense that we make people laugh, not just funny looking.” Bill discovered that he had a talent for tutoring in high school, and while growing up in Washington, DC. He spent afternoons and summers de-mystifying math for his fellow students. When he wasn’t hitting the books, Bill was hitting the road on his bicycle. He spent hours taking it apart to “see how it worked.” <Read More>

Featured Speakers
Other featured speakers at the Summer Conference include Tom Barrett (a.k.a. @tombarrett), 21st century educator from Nottingham, England; Vaija Wagle, Harvard University Project Zero Group Leader; Carol Vukelich, distinguished educator in early literacy; and Tiffany Boyd, literacy coach and consultant with Heinemann Publishing.

Registration
Registration details for the Summer Conference are forthcoming. Sign-up to receive an email notification once registration begins. The 2011 Summer Conference will be held on Wednesday, June 15 and Thursday June 16, 2011, in Memphis, TN, USA.

Educational Technology: Current Trends and Future Directions

Future-TechnologyThis is my slide deck for my keynote presentation at today’s Tennessee Administrator’s Technology Academy. The following serves as an outline of some of the topics that will be highlighted and demonstrated.

  • Standards, 21st Century Learning, and Higher-Order Thinking Skills
  • Classroom Examples
  • Web 2.0 Tools and Services
  • Benefits and Barriers
  • “Telecollaboration”
  • Audio and Video
  • Mash-Ups
  • Mobile Learning
  • Interactivity
  • State of Innovation
  • A Personal Experience
  • Conclusions and Discussion

 

Educational Technology: Current Trends and Future Directions

View more presentations from Clif Mims

 

 

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DEN SciCon 2011 Is This Saturday

(Cross-posted from TN DEN LC Blog)

The Tennessee Discovery Education Network Leadership Council (TN DEN LC) is hosting 3 live events for the DEN SciCon Virtual Conference happening January 22nd! So, no matter where you live in TN, you can attend a live event with relative ease and be part of one of the most fantastic groups of educators anywhere on the planet…the DEN!

So why go to a live event? First, you will get to spend quality time with educators who share the same passions for Discovery and science that you have. Second, there will be live workshops at the events that will not be available to you online. Third (as if you need another reason), the food is on us! And fourth, we will be skyping all three groups together so we can all meet one another across the state!

Join us for all of the event or just part of it. Breakfast and lunch will be provided to registered participants (and this event is FREE)!

Here are the locations and links to register:

Cleveland, TN

Ocoee Middle School

Register at: http://tinyurl.com/38bue6n

Knoxville, TN

West Hills Elementary

Register at: http://tinyurl.com/2b4vuvz

Memphis, TN

St. George’s Independent Schools, Germantown Campus

Register at: http://tinyurl.com/29v9qzw

On site registration begins at 7:30 AM. The first session kicks off promptly at 8:00 AM.

You must pre-register online to attend the live events of the conference. This will help us coordinate room space and food expenses. If you register, but later decide you cannot attend, please contact the coordinator for your event at least 48 hours prior to let him or her know you cannot attend.

This year’s SCIcon will have a special presentation from Reed Timmer, Extreme Meteorologist and TVN team leader, for Discovery Channel’s hit series Stormchasers.

Join thousands of educators from around the world for an amazing day of professional development sessions, networking and sharing.

Agenda (all times CT)

8:00 AM
Opening Keynote

The Five E’s of Inquiry-Based Instruction

Patti Duncan, DEN Guru

9:00 AM

The Student Experience: Engaging and Assessing Young Scientists

Mike Bryant

10:00 AM

Spotlight Session
Real Students, Real Teachers, Real Results: Implementing Discovery Education Science

Cindy Moss, Director of Science and Math, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

11:00 PM

Top Ten Free Science Resources from Discovery Education

Porter Palmer

12:00 PM

Hands-On Digital

Brad Fountain and Lance Rougeux

1:00 PM
Closing Keynote

Into the Storm: Following the Love of Science

Reed Timmer, Extreme Meteorologist

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Skype’s New Resource Specifically for Teachers

Skype in the Classroom is “a free directory that connects teachers and helps them use Skype to enrich students’ educational experience.” It allows you and your students to meet new people and connect with classes from around the world. Skype offers an immediate way to help students discover new cultures, languages and ideas, all without leaving the classroom. (Source)

“There are lots of teachers out there doing amazing things with Skype. But many of them say their biggest obstacle is finding other teachers and classes to connect with. [Skype is} developing a free online directory to make it easy for teachers to connect with other teachers and resources from around the world…Once you sign up with your Skype account and create a profile, you’ll be able to search for other teachers and classes by subject and region. You can also share inspiration and tips to help kids learn with Skype.” (Source)

Start by creating a profile, then explore the directory to find teachers and resources that match your interests. You can then share inspiring links, videos and tips with other teachers.? Feel free to connect with me, too.

Suggested Reading: STEM Education

Texas Tech alumnus Rick Husband was the final ...
Image via Wikipedia

Overview

“The acronym STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The STEM fileds are those academic and professional disciplines that fall under the umbrella areas represented by the acronym. According to both the United States National Research Council and the National Science Foundation, the fields are collectively considered core technological underpinnings of an advanced society. In many forums (including political/governmental and academic) the strength of the STEM workforce is viewed as an indicator of a nation’s ability to sustain itself.”
(Source)


Suggested Reading

STEM at Work: Students become Physicians-in-Training

Where Will Your STEM Education Take You?

NASA Launches STEM Education Video Game

STEM Resources and Discovery Education


Tech & Learning’s Question of the Week
Which device do you think is best for 1:1?
Cast your vote.

Talking Ed.: Intro. to K-12 Online Learning

Talking Ed.: K-12 Online Learning

Talking Ed. with Dr. Michael Barbour

Episode 002 (View entire series)

Dr. Michael K. Barbour, Assistant Professor in Instructional Technology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, provides a primer in virtual schooling and online learning. Much of his research focuses on rural K-12 students learning in virtual school environments, specifically how these virtual opportunities can be designed and delivered to be accessible to students with a range of abilities.

{ Video not available }

Connect with Michael

Shhh!!! The Students Are Learning: Being an Effective Classroom Facilitator

This my presentation for the 2010 K-12 Online Conference.

Description

Be a facilitator of learning rather than a deliverer of information. Develop strategies for managing a classroom where students can have a leadership role and the teacher becomes the classroom coach. Strategies for designing and practical tips for implementing units will be shared.

Discussion

  • Please share your experiences with designing and implementing facilitated learning activities and units.
  • What worked well and what would you do differently next time?
  • What advice can you share with teachers preparing to facilitate learning?

Additional Notes and Resources

Please visit the related page on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively. I invite you to add your suggested resources related to this topic over there.

A Teacher’s Influence (Quote from Haim Ginott)

I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized.

–Haim Ginott

Empty Classroom

Requesting Your Assistance: Making the Curriculum POP!

One of the professional development workshops I’m facilitating this week is titled Making the Curriculum Pop. We’ll be focusing on the use of digital media and alternative text selections to engage students’ interest in “pop” culture. I would appreciate any ideas for connecting music, TV, movies, newspapers, magazines, etc. with the curriculum, as well as links to images, audio, video, resources, etc. that you can share. I’ll certainly credit you for your suggestions, too.

The International Student Media Festival

The International Student Media Festival celebrates outstanding classroom media projects. Students and teachers from kindergarten through college are honored in a three-day event that includes workshops, screenings of winning entries, and an awards ceremony. It has now grown to be one of the oldest and largest events of its kind. ISMF has been sponsored since 1974 by the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT).

Projects are judged in categories including Live Action video, Sequential Stills slideshows, Interactive Stills, Photography, Web Design, Podcasts, and Animation.

The festival is usually three to four days long and is jam packed with hands-on, creative learning experiences for students, teachers, and parents. Various workshops for all ages are offered by our Corporate Partners throughout the festival. In the past we’ve offered workshop topics such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, iMovie, claymation, Garageband, and many more! (Workshops are subject to change each year).

There is also an awards ceremony during the festival where students are recognized for their achievements. Outstanding projects will receive an Excellence in Media Production award. From these, we cull out Judges’ Favorites and the highly-acclaimed Best of Festival designation. (Content and Image Source: ISMF.net)

Learn more about the ISMF and submit your entries.