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Digital Tools to support English Learners in Content Areas Jennifer McGraner Pickerington Local Schools

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Menti.com

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Smart Classroom-Tech Integration

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February 2019 | Volume 76 | Number 5
The Tech-Savvy School Pages 20-26

Liz Kolb

Over the past decade, I have collaborated with school administrators on how to use research-informed strategies to coach teachers in using technology tools in ways that lead to academic and social-emotional growth. I've discovered that the secret ingredient to learning with technology is found not in the tools themselves (despite the wealth of marketing on the benefits of particular educational apps or devices), but in the instructional methods the teachers employ with the tools (Bebell & Kay, 2010; Kay & Lauricella, 2011).

To capture this dynamic, I've developed The Triple E Framework, a free resource that administrators can use as a research-informed guide to support teachers in choosing technology tools that add value to learning goals. The three elements of the Triple E Framework-engagement, enhancement, and extension-should be considered when integrating technology into a learning activity. The framework also includes nine simple guiding questions (see Figure 1) that administrators can ask teachers when assessing a lesson plan that incorporates technology tools.

FIGURE 1. Triple E Framework Guiding Questions

1. Does the technology allow students to focus on the task of the assignment or activity with little potential distraction?

2. Does the technology motivate students to start the learning process?

3. Does the technology cause a shift in the behavior of the students, where they move from passive to active social learners?

4. Does the technology tool aid students in developing or demonstrating a more sophisticated understanding of the content, creating opportunities for creation/production over consumption?

5. Does the technology create scaffolds to make it easier to understand concepts or ideas?

6. Does the technology create paths for students to demonstrate their understanding of the learning goals in a way that they could not do with traditional tools?

7. Does the technology create opportunities for students to learn outside of their typical school day?

8. Does the technology create a bridge between school learning and everyday life experiences?

9. Does the technology allow students to build skills that they can use in their everyday lives?

Engagement: Learning Needs to Be Social

For more than a century, education experts have been clear that learning occurs through social interaction (Dewey, 1897). So educators should ensure that technology doesn't remove the social component to learning; it should instead include opportunities for students to engage in meaningful conversations and reflect with others on what they are working on (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015).

Administrators can encourage teachers to look for educational apps and tools that allow students to engage with others. One basic example is Google Documents, which allows students to comment on, chat about, and synchronously edit each other's work. Consider a 4th grade teacher who would like to encourage students to add more detail in their writing. She could have her students write stories in Google Docs. Once a week, the teacher pairs each student with a parent or editing expert (such as a high school senior in AP English). The student and editor each log into the document at the same time, which allows the editor to talk about writing and give the student suggestions about adding more detail. This synchronicity also allows for the student's questions to be answered, and any misconceptions to be revealed and discussed.

While tools with built-in engagement features are useful, however, not all applications are social or collaborative in nature. This does not mean that teachers shouldn't use them. They can look for ways to integrate co-use into an isolated technology application (Guernsey & Levine, 2015). For example, rather than having students read or listen to a book alone in a reading application such as RazKids or Epic, a teacher can ask students to find a reading or listening buddy and challenge the teams to discuss the review questions and get every single one correct the first time through. The teacher could also encourage each pair to read out loud to each other.

Some other ways teachers can create social learning when integrating technology tools include:

▪ Asking students to reflect on what they are doing with technology through visual thinking routines (such as turn and talks, see-think-wonders, or share-alouds).

▪ Conducting "switcheroos," where an individual student starts working on his device, then trades devices with the student next to him when the teacher calls "switcheroo." Students then either add to the content (such as a story or image) or provide feedback on it, and then switch back.

Disrupting Distraction

While most technology use excites and motivates students, it doesn't always support cognitive growth around academic goals (Wartella, 2015). In fact, it has been found that most 3rd graders will get "off-task" after 10 minutes of an activity (Godwin et al., 2016). Students can quickly get distracted when using technology tools, and teachers should be careful not to assume that engagement in using a device or application is the same as engagement in the learning goal. Additionally, research has shown that just having a technology device next to a student can cause a decrease in a student's cognitive capacity to learn (Ward et al., 2017). When a laptop or smartphone is sitting on the desk unopened, students can be distracted by the "idea" of what they could be doing on the device or worried that they are missing a text message or email.

Pedagogical strategies play a vital role in keeping students on task when using technology. Imagine a high school science teacher who wants his students to use the virtual reality tool Google Cardboard to investigate animals in their natural habitats. Instead of simply handing out the Google Cardboards and iPods and telling the students to find the habitat application, the teacher first gives them very explicit instructions for the project. He shows them how to find the application on the device, so the students can focus on getting to the right place and not click on random buttons. Then the teacher gives each student a checklist of animals to look for and questions to ask themselves when they find the animal. Next, the teacher hands the students the devices, and they do a quick tutorial together. Finally, the teacher allows the students a short amount of time (10 minutes or less) to complete the task on their own. After 10 minutes, the teacher asks students to pair up and reflect on the activity. The reflection activity lets the students know that there will be some personal responsibility for learning the content and sharing what they have learned.

Administrators can also encourage teachers to look for technology applications that have minimal off-task distractions. Examples of apps with off-task distractions would be those that encourage students to spend time dressing up avatars, include too many "sticker" rewards for answering questions, provide distracting music or noises, or feature random hot spots to click on or swipe that are not related to the learning goal. One easy way to check for the amount of distractions in an application is for teachers to ask themselves, "Are my students talking more about the fun avatar that they get to dress up, the number of points they have, or the actual content?"

Here are some other ways teachers can design lessons to keep students' minds on the learning goal when using technology tools:

▪ Teach students how to self-monitor and self-reflect about what they are doing on their screens so that their minds are on the learning goal. Ask them periodic questions such as "Are you doing an activity on the device that helps to meet our learning goal today?"

▪ Help students write a "plan of action" in which they create a personal learning goal for their technology time.

▪ Monitor students' technology activity and periodically sit down with individual students to ask probing questions about what they are doing with the technology and why.

Enhancement: Supporting Higher Cognitive Activity

Learning with technology is best when it supports higher-order thinking and skills (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). When students are using technology to create, analyze, evaluate, gather, and synthesize knowledge, there can be long-term and positive cognitive growth. Teachers should look for technology tools that can help develop these types of cognitive skills.

Many tools that ask students to use their creation or synthesis skills are not content-specific; rather, they are more general tools that allow students to create or produce something such as a podcast, video, book, or poster. Examples of these types of tools are Seesaw, Google Slides, Padlet, EdPuzzle, Flipgrid, and Book Creator. However, just using tools that encourage higher-level thinking is no guarantee that academic learning will occur. Teachers still need to purposefully design strategies to help connect the content learning to the creation software.

For example, if a 6th grade science teacher asks students to create skits about different biomes in iMovie with little direction, the movies could quickly become blooper reels without real content learning (focusing instead on the fun editing tools or on being silly in the skit). However, the teacher could ask the students to use iMovie to put together a documentary about the biome they live in, specifying certain scientific criteria they must address. She can take this even further by partnering with other classrooms across the world that are in different biomes, so that students can share their videos with their peers in other countries and get exposure to different areas of the world, while sharing their own work with an authentic audience.

When using content-specific technology applications, which often focus on lower-level cognitive skills, administrators can encourage teachers to add instructional strategies that help their students use higher cognitive skills with the software. For example, a 1st grade teacher whose students are using a drill-and-practice software to learn reading comprehension skills can ask her students to complete a reflective notebook entry on what they learned and how they can use those new comprehension skills in real life when reading for understanding or detail.

When using formative assessment tools such as Quizizz or Kahoot!-which are fun but can quickly turn into races or games instead of an in-depth consideration of the learning content-a teacher might turn off the timers in the application, have students work in teams (with one device) to discuss and come up with a consensus response before answering, or review questions together as a class after the quiz is over. By integrating these moves, the teacher can help the students use higher-level thinking skills to discuss, argue, and analyze the content.

Value-Added Learning

To enhance learning with technology, educators should also consider valued-added learning over traditional resources. Administrators can encourage teachers to ask themselves, "What value is added to the learning experience by integrating this technology into the activity over a traditional method?" The value could be a more authentic learning experience or added scaffolds and supports that are harder to offer without the technology.

For example, a world language teacher who has a learning goal of helping students understand the cultural similarities and differences between France and the United States might read the book A Walk in Paris by Salvatore Rubbino to her students. Then she can ask her students to log on to Google Earth and compare the streets, clothing, cars, and other artifacts they see in the images of Paris to those in images of their own community. This gives students a more authentic way to compare cultures than just looking at the illustrations in the book.

Other strategies for enhancing learning when using technology tools include:

▪ Select software or technology tools that provide scaffolds or supports for students to more easily understand the learning goals.

▪ Create screencast video tutorials on how to use the software. By creating the screencast video (and not relying on the "stock" video tutorial that comes with the software), the teacher should be able to personalize these tutorials with hints, tips, and other scaffolds for differentiating instruction for the students.

Extension: A Bridge to the Real World

Learning happens when it is situated in authentic contexts (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Technology should help bridge real-world learning with the classroom curriculum. For example, a teacher could use Skype to connect an expert scientist to the class when students are studying about a particular scientific phenomenon. Or a 10th grade social studies teacher could use the mobile tool GooseChase to create an interactive scavenger hunt that her students can complete on their phones while on a field trip to a local historical museum. As the students wander the museum and complete tasks, they will be collecting data, pictures, videos, and text-based reflections on artifacts in the museum. All of that data will be stored in the GooseChase website for future reference and analysis. This gives the museum experience more purpose while the students are there and extends the learning throughout the year.

Teachers can also:

▪ Discuss how the activity students are doing with a technology application could also be done in the real world. For example, instead of using Excel spreadsheets to create charts from artificial data, use real-world data (such as statistics from a recent baseball game), which creates a more authentic purpose for students' work.

▪ Use technology tools that students can also use in their everyday lives. This makes transfer of skills easier, especially for younger students.

Technology, when not used effectively, can distract or disrupt a student. And yet increasingly, school leaders are faced with the pressures of incorporating flashy new tech tools, apps, and programs into the classroom. The Triple E framework can ease this pressure by providing a sound foundation to build engaging, enhanced, and extended learning through technology. The right questions and coaching from a school leader can ensure that students are learning through the tools provided to them-not in spite of them.

› Are you currently integrating tools or apps into your classroom or school? Has reading about the Triple E Framework inspired you to do anything different?

› How do you minimize student distraction when using technology?

› Which of the Triple E Framework components do you think is most important? Why?

References

Bebell, D., & Kay, R. (2010). One to one computing: A summary of the quantitative results from the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 9(2). Retrieved from http://escholarship.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1222&context=jtla

Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed. The School Journal, 54(3), 77-80.

Godwin, K. E., Almeda, M. V., Seltman, H., Kai, S., Skerbetz, M. D., Baker, R. S., et al. (2016). Off-task behavior in elementary school children. Learning and Instruction, 44, 128-143.

Guernsey, L., & Levine, M. H. (2015). Tap click read: Growing readers in a world of screens. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., Zosh, J. M., Golinkoff, R. M., Gray, J. H., Robb, M. B., & Kaufman, J. (2015). Putting education in "educational" apps: Lessons from the science of learning. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 3-34

Kay, R. H., & Lauricella, S. (2011). Unstructured versus structured use of laptops in higher education. Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice. Retrieved from www.jite.org/documents/Vol10/JITEv10IIPp033-042Kay840.pdf

Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140-154.

Wartella, E. (2015). Educational apps: What we do and do not know. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(1), 1-2.

Liz Kolb is a clinical associate professor of education technologies at the University of Michigan School of Education. She is the author of many books, including Learning First, Technology Second (ISTE, 2017).

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February 2019 | Volume 76 | Number 5 The Tech-Savvy School Pages 20-26 Liz Kolb Over the past decade, I have collaborated with school administrators on how to use research-informed strategies to coach teachers in using technology tools in ways that lead to academic and social-emotional growth.

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Ways to support EL students using Book Creator app.

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14 ideas to support your students when English isn't their first language.

We're delighted to announce that our latest ebook is now published online and to the Apple Books store. This series of books is now growing into an amazing library of resources for using Book Creator in the classroom. And with this latest book, we drew from a new source - enlisting the help of some Illinois-based educators to give a fresh insight into how they use Book Creator.

Supporting Language Learners with Book Creator is the work of Ramona Towner and Lucia Carrera, vastly experienced colleagues from Berwyn South School District 100. We approached them to author a book focused on helping students whose first language is not English, knowing that this would be their niche.

Despite not having authored a book before, Mona and Lucy were able to draw on their incredible experience of teaching in a district where the most common language other than English is Spanish. Students come from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Central and South America. They also have students that speak Vietnamese, Arabic, Tagalog, Russian and Bulgarian among others.
Read the book online
The book contains 14 tried and tested ideas for teachers of language learners and students acquiring a new language. Explore ideas such as cognates, Total Physical Response (TPR), Reading Response Journals and other ideas spanning the curriculum.

As ever, the authors are able to take advantage of the full range of multimedia options in Book Creator, including a video introduction, audio bonus features, and real-life student examples embedded right into the book.

Read the book now

You can read this book online on any device using Book Creator's own publishing platform on any device. Or, if you prefer to download and read the book offline, it's available now on the Apple Books store.

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Supporting language learners with Book Creator - Book Creator app

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14 ideas to support your students when English isn't their first language. We're delighted to announce that our latest ebook is now published online and to the Apple Books store. This series of books is now growing into an amazing library of resources for using Book Creator in the classroom.

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Educator resources-getting started guide

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.

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This is a great blog to follow for EL strategies/support!!

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Welcome | ML Instruction | Empowering ELLs

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Sharing ELL strategies that work. Helping ELL teachers implement classroom-tested, research-backed ELL strategies that develop social and academic language

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English Language Proficiency standards

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Strategies for Scaffolding

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Page not found – Center for Applied Linguistics

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It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try searching?

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"Technology will never replace a great teacher." Edweek article

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Education Week - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo

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The new "question-of-the-week" is:
What will ed tech look like 25 years from now?
The last 25 years has seen a big change in the use of tech in the classroom-computers and devices are ubiquitous, the use of virtual and augmented reality is growing, and one of my personal favorites-the document camera-has generally replaced the overhead projector, (Yay! No more transparencies!)

What will the next 25 years bring?

Mark Estrada, Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin, Sarah Thomas, and Tom Daccord share their answers today. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jenny, Mark, and Sarah on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Personally, my crystal ball tells me that the use of virtual reality might be the primary ed-tech difference. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes as widespread in a quarter century as computers are now.

You might also be interested in past posts here on Using Tech in the Classroom.
Response From Mark Estrada
Mark Estrada is the Superintendent of Lockhart ISD in Texas. He has experience as a middle school social studies teacher, middle school instructional administrator, and elementary principal. Estrada is a class of 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and doctoral fellow at the University of Texas-Austin Cooperative Superintendency Program (CSP). Follow Mark on Twitter @22southpaw:
As technology continues to quickly evolve, it is difficult to imagine what the world might look like 25 years from now. Think about how much the world has changed in the past 15 years-the leap from MP3 players and desktop computers to mobile devices that serve as phones, computers, cameras, video cameras, and broadcast devices all in one. Changes happen quickly, and with technology, advancements become possibilities previously unimagined. While I believe technology will never replace a great teacher, there will certainly be advancements in how we use educational technology to assess learning, communicate/report learning, learn content, learn skills, and improve the capacity of our brains to learn. Technology to enhance assessment: Technology promises not only efficiency of assessing formative and summative learning but, in time, will be able to accurately measure discrete learning that pinpoints data for teachers to use to scaffold classroom instruction. Important to note is that although many programs claim to already have this ability, far too many teachers are not able to utilize this type of data and/or disagree that the data is accurate. When technology is able to reliably measure learning and make it actionable for teachers, the promise of data-based decisionmaking will be realized. Technology to communicate/report learning: As practitioners across the country begin to personalize learning, the need to shift how we report learning to parents is coming to a crossroads. Technology has the potential to accelerate this paradigm shift. As technology improves in its ability to assess learning, so too will it in its ability to communicate learning to parents in a comprehensible format. Personalized learning will force out old, antiquated methods of report cards that utilize points on the 0-100 scale. Technology to enhance the learning of content and skills: Technology to enhance the learning of content and skills is the bedrock of educational technology and will only be improved in its ability to adapt to how each learner interacts with programs. Because of this, the brick and mortar model of education will continue to be challenged. I believe that schools will always be needed and in use. Even so, as technology improves, what kids come to school for will continue to change. Schools will focus more on teaching kids how to learn and how to best put their learning to work for them. Technology to enhance how the brain learns and the capacity the brain has to learn: The most promising feature of educational technology in 25 years will be technology's ability to wire the brain for learning or improve the functional capacity of the brain. As technology becomes better at assessing learning and using computer adaptation to help students learn content, it will push us all to go beyond teaching standards. Technology will shift our focus from teaching toward a minimum standard and redefine helping each child reach their potential. While we know that the common belief that we only use 10 percent of our brain is only a myth, most agree that kids have learning differences. I believe technology will help level the playing field for many kids who are talented but have neurological differences.
Response From Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin In time, we will see technology not as something that is used without any real change in learning to something that is used to create new tasks that were before inconceivable. Innovation is the key-not just doing the same things differently, but doing completely new things to push learning into new frontiers for our students. We are literally preparing our students for jobs that do not even exist with technology yet to be created. So what will educational technology look like in 25 years? In the future, ed-tech developers will do a better job examining and incorporating recommendations from researchers based on ed-tech study findings. This shift will improve ed-tech products' usability and value in helping students (while simultaneously making educators' jobs easier). Right now, ed-tech developers often (and should) solicit feedback from a product's users and from former educators on staff, but this is not enough information on its own. Users and former educators know what works for them but not necessarily what works for the full scope of users (such as power users' less-techie counterparts), and some research-uncovered realities are counterintuitive to what people think works well. Educators and former educators offer valuable information, but it is a starting piece in the inquiry puzzle. Some ed-tech companies go an extra step (as they should) and conduct research on their own products' efficacy. Again, this offers valuable information, but it doesn't uncover practices and possibilities the developers have not yet put into place and might not yet have considered. Meanwhile, many researchers of education and/or technology are studying product best practices that support usability and support educator and student needs. Rather than days of old when scholars only published in journals read by folks who say things like "regression analysis" and "crosstabulated Chi-Square tests" every day, researchers are seizing ways to disseminate jargon-free summaries of their findings to educators and the public. It's up to developers to investigate this research, and it's up to educators to voice their expectation that researchers do this.
Dr. Jenny Grant Rankin teaches the PostDoc Masterclass at the University of Cambridge but lives most of the year in California writing books for educators like How to Make Data Work and Sharing Your Education Expertise with the World. She has a Ph.D. in education and served as an award-winning teacher, school administrator, district administrator, and chief education & research officer. Dr. Rankin has been honored by the U.S. White House for her contributions to education:

Forge partnerships with universities and labs conducting ed-tech-related research.

Include study-minded questions in their ed-tech requests for proposals (RFPs) (like "What are some of your white papers on ...?" "With whom do you partner to research and inform product developments?" and "What research-based industry standards do you follow?").

Discuss ed-tech research at countywide and regional meetings, so districts can learn from one another without having to read every study that's released.

My latest book, Educators, ed-tech developers, and researchers should all share the expectation that ed-tech products reflect research-based recommendations. The improved communication and exchange of ed-tech-related research findings can only help students and educators (such as through improved product usability and value) if educators and developers are ready to read and apply these findings.
Response From Sarah Thomas Sharing Your Education Expertise with the World: Make Research Resonate and Widen Your Impact I've noticed that, in the past 15 years or so, major innovations in education technology have involved devices, artificial intelligence, and social media, as well as any combination of the three. I'm excited to see what innovations new combinations will bring, as well as the rise of blockchain.
Response From Tom Daccord , covers ways to do the above and more. Businesses are pouring billions of dollars into AI (Artificial Intelligence), and "machine learning" is expected to bring about tremendous changes to the workforce and society. AI will also likely result in drastic changes to the nature of the student-teacher relationship. The fundamental issue for schools is whether machines will replace teachers or whether machines will serve as subordinates. For years, I've said that teachers will not be replaced by technology. Parents and teachers strongly agree that the student-teacher relationship is a fundamental aspect of a child's education and personal development. Hence, it's hard to imagine parents being enthusiastic about their children being taught by robots. But I wonder if parents will have the same attitude in 25 years. There's growing evidence that we are becoming accustomed to interacting with nonhumans. We're already speaking and listening to computers regularly to conduct various transactions. Moreover, machines are becoming increasingly lifelike. Have you seen the video interview of the lifelike Sophia? It's not inconceivable that in the future we will become comfortable with machines leading classroom learning. Many parents believe that the student-teacher relationship is less important as a student ages. The socialization goals of a nurturing elementary classroom may not be as important as the academic goals in a secondary classroom. In other words, it might be more important to both parents and students to get a great score on a standardized test than to further intangible skills. Thus, it's not unthinkable to envision parents and students willing to accept nonhuman teachers if it's a surer path to academic "achievement." A scary thought, indeed, but one we have to consider.

In addition to the usual journals, publish in practitioner magazines (like ASCD's Educational Leadership) and sites (like Education Week) using accessible, succinct language.

Even when presenting at research conferences, liven up your presentation and make your content easy for anyone attending to understand (tell stories, get the audience to participate, give a hands-on demo, incorporate more graphics and photos into your slides, etc.).

Speak where educators and the public will hear you: Give a , get featured on , get interviewed for a podcast, etc.

Sarah Thomas, Ph.D., is a regional technology coordinator in Prince George's County public schools in Maryland. She is also a Google Certified Innovator, Google Education Trainer, and the founder of the EduMatch movement, a project that empowers educators to make global connections across common areas of interest. She is also a national adviser for the Future Ready Instructional Coaches Strand, and an affiliate professor at Loyola University in Baltimore:

Tom Daccord is an educational technology speaker, instructor, and author, as well as the director and co-founder of EdTechTeacher. Daccord works with schools, districts, colleges, and educational organizations all over the world. His book iPads in the Classroom: From Consumption and Curation to Creation explores education technology and shares real-world skills our students need for success:

Thanks to Jenny, Mark, Sarah, and Tom for their contributions.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Just a reminder;you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first seven years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar. This Year's Most Popular Q&A Posts Race & Gender Challenges Classroom Management Advice Best Ways to Begin The School Year Best Ways to End The School Year Implementing the Common Core Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning Teaching Social Studies Project-Based Learning Using Tech in the Classroom Parent Engagement in Schools Teaching English-Language Learners Reading Instruction Writing Instruction Education Policy Issues Student Assessment Differentiating Instruction Math Instruction Science Instruction Advice for New Teachers Author Interviews Entering the Teaching Profession The Inclusive Classroom Learning & the Brain Administrator Leadership Teacher Leadership Relationships in Schools Professional Development Instructional Strategies Best of Classroom Q&A
Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
Look for Part Two in a few days.
You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributers to this column.

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Response: 'Technology Will Never Replace a Great Teacher'

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The new "question-of-the-week" is: What will ed tech look like 25 years from now? The last 25 years has seen a big change in the use of tech in the classroom-computers and devices are ubiquitous, the use of virtual and augmented reality is growing, and one of my personal favorites-the document camera-has generally replaced the overhead projector, (Yay!

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U.S. Department of Education data show that English learners in grades K-12 in U.S. public schools in the 2015-16 school year numbered over five million students-about 10 percent of all enrolled students-and that roughly three-fourths of public school districts included students who are English learners. Many teachers, including those in small and rural districts, have one or more English learners in their classrooms-or soon will-and these teachers often use technology when instructing their English learners.

In other words, educators and technologists alike should be approaching EdTech with English learners' unique needs in mind. To help them do that, the U.S. Department of Education has developed toolkits that clarify what you should know, what you should ask, and what you should consider doing when it comes to using or building EdTech to support English learners.

The toolkit for educators offers five guiding principles for educators to apply in exploring new ways of working with and supporting their English learners through technology, starting with recognizing their students' unique needs and thinking through to the best technologies to help meet those needs.

The toolkit for EdTech developers provides guidance on the needs of English learners and their educators; supports to consider including with your product that may be especially useful for English learners; ways to communicate about products with districts and educators of English learners to facilitate adoption of your products; and the types of professional development and training activities that educators find most valuable.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education's Policy and Program Studies Service conducted a study on how districts and teachers support English learners through technology. The study collected data during the 2016─17 school year through a nationally representative survey of districts that enrolled English learners, a teacher survey that included both mainstream teachers and English learner specialists, and case studies of six districts to provide more in-depth information about district and teacher practices. Findings cover how districts and teachers identified digital learning resources (DLRs), how teachers used DLRs, supports for and barriers to DLR use, and suggestions for improving the usefulness of DLRs in instruction of English learners.

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EdTech for English Learners - Office of Educational Technology

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Expanding access to meaningful learning for English learners through EdTech U.S. Department of Education data show that English learners in grades K-12 in U.S. public schools in the 2015-16 school year numbered over five million students-about 10 percent of all enrolled students-and that roughly three-fourths of public school districts included students who are English learners.

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#ellchat
#Ellchat_BkClub
#FlipgridFever
#edtech

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the innovator's mindset: empower learning

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education : decision making & problem solving

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education/decision making & problem solving

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education / administration / elementary & secondary

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The Innovator's Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

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Kids walk into schools full of wonder and questions. How you, as an educator, respond to students' natural curiosity can help further their own exploration and shape the way they learn today and in the future. The traditional system of education requires students to hold their questions and compl...

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ell frontiers: using technology to enhance instruction for english learners

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english language - computer network resources

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english language - study and teaching - computer-assisted instruction

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english language - study and teaching - technological innovations

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language and languages - study and teaching

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education/teaching methods & materials - general

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teaching of students with english as a second language (tesol)

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ELL Frontiers: Using Technology to Enhance Instruction for English Learners

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Your GPS for improving ELLs' academic outcomes Grounded in the latest research on EL language and literacy development and technology integration, this timely book will serve as your road map for navigating the exciting new frontier of digital instruction. Learn how to improve academi...

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Selfie Kahoot blog post.

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What is a selfie kahoot? | Story of language learners

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Read this story from Kahoot! ambassdor Carol Salva sharing how her language students create selfie kahoots to better know each other.

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Background knowledge check, exit tickets, formative assessment.

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Host interactive online meetings | Poll Everywhere

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Planning page

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Please share how you use technology with your ELs to support learning of academic content.
FlipCode: eba0cbd4

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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@KarenNemethEdM
@Toppel_ELD
@ValentinaESL
@MsSalvac
@emilyfranESL
@Larryferlazzo
@gcouros
@judiehaynes
@ESLTechies
@AndreaHonigsfel

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#ellchat
-Monday's 9pm-10pm
#boostingachievement
-Thursday's 8pm-8:30pm