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How can tech help you?

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For the 45 states who opted into Common Core, using technology in the classroom is no longer a choice -- it's required. Common Core's Standards insist that for any student to be prepared for college and career requires they be digitally and technologically savvy.

From the English Language Arts Standards: Technology differentiates for student learning styles by providing an alternative method of achieving conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and applying this knowledge to authentic circumstances.

From the Math Standards: Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. These tools might include pencil and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a calculator, a spreadsheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical package, or dynamic geometry software. Proficient students are sufficiently familiar with tools appropriate for their grade or course to make sound decisions about when each of these tools might be helpful.

The standards themselves go into detail. Sprinkled throughout are constant allusions to the importance of using technology, its fundamental nature as the bedrock of education, and the necessity to weave it throughout the academic fabric, regardless the topic, skill or requirement.

Here are 13 reasons why this is a good idea. The first seven are directly from the Standards, the last six from my classroom experience.

2. Technology e nables students to build strong content knowledge wherever they find it. It's easy for students to pursue anything they're curious about with technology. Make available online dictionaries to quickly look up unknown words. Teach students the tricks of quick and accurate online research. Follow the lead of hundreds of schools nationwide that have added the Genius Hour to their curriculum, where students follow school academic guidelines 80 percent of the time and get to follow their own passion for the remaining 20 percent.

8. Common Core expects students to be active learners, authors, not just consumers. Technology makes that happen by asking them to publish, share, collaborate.

9. Students want to use technology. When students use iPads, Chromebooks, laptops, widgets, online tools and a plethora of other digital devices, technology provides a path to learning that students are eager to follow. Why ask them to unplug at the schoolhouse door?

10. Technology is its own assessment tool. To paraphrase James Paul Gee, a professor of literacy studies at Arizona State University: "When students use simulations, games, videos to learn, they have to problem-solve, critically think, transfer knowledge from other learning experiences." That's a good thing.

11. Learning with technology is connected. In a connected, technology-rich environment, students engage with peers, celebrities, relatives and experts worldwide. They like to do that. Why do you think social media is so viral?

12. Technology gives students an equal voice. Student value is in what they produce, not based on age or grade level. Their voices are important; they are listened to. If they publish an ebook, it is judged on the quality of writing, not their age. Where else can this happen?

13. Consider a video. For teaching, that is. Students can pause it, rewind, learn at their own pace. That's technology.
Use these 13 reasons to offset the three most popular excuses for not using technology:
1. It doesn't fit into my program.

2. I'm already juggling too much.

3. I don't have time to learn it or use it.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach once said, "Teachers will not be replaced by technology, but teachers who don't use technology will be replaced by those who do." Amen.
If you don't use technology in the classroom -- or wish you didn't have to -- share your reasons.
_________________________

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, a columnist for Examiner.com, tech expert, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. Currently, she's editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.

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13 Reasons for Using Technology in the Classroom

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For the 45 states who opted into Common Core, using technology in the classroom is no longer a choice -- it's required. Common Core's Standards insist that for any student to be prepared for college and career requires they be digitally and technologically savvy.

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Getting better sources.

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How NASA can help teach.

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Activities for the Classroom :: NASA Space Place

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Adaptable for grades 4-8, some for grades 9-12.

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Teaching astronomy in the classroom.

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Great video

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You can use Classroom in your school to streamline assignments, boost collaboration, and foster communication. Classroom is available on the web or by mobile app. You can use Classroom with many tools that you already use, such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar.

What can you do with Classroom?

Related topics

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You can use Classroom in your school to streamline assignments, boost collaboration, and foster communication. Classroom is available on the web or by mobile app. You can use Classroom with many tools that you already use, such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar.

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Too many to choose from.

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Educators and students are quickly becoming more comfortable with classroom technology, allowing them to shift from thinking about the technical side of integrating a new tool to focusing on how it improves learning. While the sheer number of education apps is still overwhelming, increasingly teachers have found what works for them and are sticking to them.

"The conversations I had were radically different than they were a year ago," said Michelle Luhtala, the librarian for New Canaan High School and host of an Emerging Tech webinar on edWeb. She tapped her professional learning network of educators, teaching all grades and located all over the country, to share their favorite tech tools.

'If it doesn't feel different than it did a year ago, that's alarming. It should feel the same, but better.'

"A year ago people felt like it was this new thing that was so overwhelming," Luhtala said, "and now it really seems much more comfortable."

Educators have become proficient with their favorite classroom apps and are getting more creative with using them to achieve teaching goals. "You are giving them an opportunity to improve their own expectations because they aren't just dealing with the technology," Luhtala said. "They are thinking about how to best integrate the innovation with content."

Rather than picking an app and trying to find a place for it in the classroom, Luhtala is hearing educators and their students describe what they want to do and then how they chose a tech tool to make that happen. "They're talking about what kids are doing in the classroom far more than they are about the devices and the apps," Luhtala said. "That's where we want to be."

Luhtala has also noticed some app fatigue among her colleagues. If they are using something that works well, they'll probably stick with it, even if another slightly better product comes along. Learning is hard and change is even harder, so once teachers have found a tool that meets their learning goals, they are unlikely to shift without a good reason.

"It's hard to get the teachers on board with this at all, so to say we're going to do it differently next year is a tough sell," Luhtala said.

The list of apps that educators favor this year shares some commonalities with last year's favorites. Teachers tend to drop apps if they become too expensive or sometimes if the updates are so overwhelming that they no longer know how to use the product. Luhtala explained it's a delicate balance: "If it doesn't feel different than it did a year ago, that's alarming. It should feel the same, but better."

The repeat apps that have made it to this favorite list added functionality without doing so too quickly. They also tend to target younger students - high school students mostly use their phones for personal computing and their laptops for school. The emphasis in the higher grades is still on reading and typing - teachers give students fewer opportunities to express their learning in creative ways, so the tools of choice tend to be basic. High school kids use Google Apps because they can easily collaborate.
APPS TO ACQUIRE INFORMATION APPS THAT HELP MAKE MEANING
The apps in this section help organize or share information that students or teachers have already found. "This is when we start shifting the knowledge around and owning it," Luhtala said. "It's not just ingesting knowledge, it's manipulating it."

Evernote and Notability: Both these apps are often mentioned. Evernote is free and cross-platform, but tends to compartmentalize. Notability has a charge associated with it ($1.99 per download) and is only for iPads. However, that allows it to integrate elements of Apple apps into the experience. Luhtala's sophomore students experimented with both apps and liked Notability better for school work. Luhtala believes the apps could have separate purposes, and users don't have to choose one or the other.

ClassDojo: This tool is a fun and easy way to keep track of student behavior, allowing teachers to take attendance quickly and give positive or negative reinforcement, depending on a child's actions that day. Each student gets a critter and some teachers find it very effective. It works on iPhones and iPads, as well as Android phones and the Web. It is free.
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER APPS
"Kids have ingested information, they've found ways to manipulate the information, and now they are ready to create something," Luhtala said.

Adobe Slate: While similar to its competitor Microsoft Sway, some educators reported this presentation tool to be more engaging. "When I did this webinar a year ago, I didn't feel there was a presentation tool that worked for me," Luhtala said. "Now there are." Adobe Slate works on iPads and is free. Microsoft Sway is free and Web-based.

Teacher Recommended: 50 Favorite Classroom Apps

Author

Katrina Schwartz

Katrina Schwartz is a journalist based in San Francisco. She's worked at KPCC public radio in LA and has reported on air and online for KQED since 2010. She's a staff writer for KQED's education blog MindShift.

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Teacher Recommended: 50 Favorite Classroom Apps

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Educators and students are quickly becoming more comfortable with classroom technology, allowing them to shift from thinking about the technical side of integrating a new tool to focusing on how it improves learning. While the sheer number of education apps is still overwhelming, increasingly teachers have found what works for them and are sticking to them.

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Better Future?

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Benefits of Technology in the Classroom - TeachHUB

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Technology has become an everyday part of our lives, and that’s true for schools, too. Learn more about the benefits of technology in the classroom.

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What else can they do?

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Google drive, launched on 24th April 2012, kickstarted a new era of synchronization and storage. By allowing users to store files in the cloud and share files and empowering users to collaboratively edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, the Google ecosystem has attracted more than a million active users. In addition to providing new collaborative features, Google services are often more secure and often cost less than competitors. Who doesn't love the cloud, right?

Google Drive is the file storage service portion of Google Apps. Sometimes indistinguishable from Google Docs, Google Drive is just one part of a large, comprehensive ecosystem. Similar to Box and Dropbox, there is so much that can be done through Google Drive, but what are some things you might not think to do? What are some of the coolest options available? Google Drive of course has a great search engine that is changing how people access files. Remember those huge, complex, nested hierarchical means of storing files - yah, no need any more. So, let's explore some other cool stuff you can do with Google Drive!

Save Layered Maps to Google Drive
You can create a layered map in Google Drive. This allows you to save multiple pieces of data in layers. For example, let's say you're attending a conference. The conference organizers might be kind enough to show you some great places to eat, some cool breweries to meet up in, and where all of the events for the conference are. Each could be in a layer so attendees can view or hide layers to find the things they want more quickly!

Use Recent items to keep up with what's going on
It's hard to communicate change to an organization. It's easy to look at your recent items for a document that you'd like to edit. An innovative approach to watching for change in organizations is to look at what anyone has changed, especially when there are only a few people (e.g. Human Resources) that can make changes to certain documents.

Use Starred items to go back to the important things
You can favorite a website by bookmarking it. You can also bookmark a file from Google Drive that you routinely need to access. But you can Star a file as well, which provides a third dimension to file access. You can view only your Starred files, sort them by the date they were last changed, and have a very quick way of performing change control, or change management of files.

Share files between users in the organization
We've been sharing files between users over a network since the inception of networked computing. So there's nothing innovative here. But given that all of the files in a Google Drive account live on "the cloud" you can also share them instantly to people, and once shared, people get an update that files are shared. You can also share files with users in other organizations without them needing to VPN into your network and do other complicated and technical tasks in order to access those files. When doing so, the user will access a Google Drive account using the email address used to share the files, thus meaning that they will have to authenticate. Keep in mind though, a typo on an address can cause a file to be shared to the wrong party!

Restrict documents from being shared outside your organization
Because of the dangers of sharing files with email addresses that might not exist and because organizations are increasingly concerned about data leaking outside of their control, you can also limit the ability for users in your domain to share files outside of your domain.

Install a desktop client
Desktop clients help to bridge the gap between the native experience of having files stored on your computer or having files on a file share, and using an online experience to access data. The desktop client also allows you to access files even when you're not in your office. But, doing so definitely restricts the native experience of accessing files through Google Drive, as they don't provide all of the features available using the web client.

Create a Google Form
Many of the surveys you've filled out are likely Google Forms. A Google Form is simply a set of fields on a web page that end users fill out. Ask questions, provide a set of responses or open text fields, and give visitors a native experience to a website by embedding the form on a page. And then, all of the data is accessible in a Google sheet (similar to an Excel spreadsheet). Surveys, signups for the latest pizza party, and other form-based needs have never been so cheap, or easy.

Draw all the things!
Google Drawings allow you to create flowcharts, diagrams, and other things that you just need a drawing tool to build. It's basic, but the options available in Google Drawings do a lot of what many people use tools like Photoshop for. And when you're finished creating or updating a drawing, you can save it as a .pdf, .png, .jpg, or .svg (which you can embed into a Photoshop shop file or open in Illustrator). In fact, sometimes I can get more done quickly in Google Drawings and then smooth out the rough edges of a file by starting a project as a Google Drawing.

Watch people work on Google Docs while they're working
I know I said this article wouldn't be about Google Docs, per se. But the first time I opened a Google Doc, I was absolutely amazed at how cool it was to be able to watch my coworkers type. I could see the position of their cursor, see what they were typing when they were typing, ask about what was being put into a cell in a Google Sheet, and make comments on the phone or during a Google Hangout on what they were typing. I believed (and still believe) that this was a game changer.

Convert all of your uploads to Google Docs
Users often employ tools that you just don't support. And when using Google Drive as part of your workflow, you can actually automatically convert supported file types to other file types. This allows for a normalization of disparate file types to help ease any manual document management in your workflows.

Manage music with DriveTunes
DriveTunes needs to be enabled manually. But once enabled, any file that is a song that gets saved to a Google Drive account can be listened to in a web browser using Google Drive.

Change color codes to build workflows
We've discussed using Starred files, Recent Items, and the dates a file was saved as part of a workflow in this article. But what we haven't discussed is color coding a file. As a Mac user, I've been doing this for years, even for files stored on Apple servers. However, to do this organizational for people no matter the platform they are accessing files through, is a great enhancement to how an organization accesses data. For example, each color can be used to indicate an attribute of a file, or a status of a job that the file describes (e.g. for a services business)

View the revision history of files
We've all had someone ask "who changed that file I was working on?!?!" And the fact that people changed our files has led to locking down which users in an organization can actually edit a file. With Google Drive, each of the changes in your file is tracked by date and who made the change. And inside each of those, you can see what was added, altered, or removed from the file. You can revert to a previously saved state of a file, or create a new document and paste lost content into the document. Yet another way Google is changing the way we access data: organizations are much less prescriptive in their management of files than with file servers where the journaled information of what was changed within a file is lost.

Use a Shareable link to share to the world
I have a web server with a blog on it because I've written thousands of blog posts. But what if I just had an easy document that I wanted to show people. For example, the terms and conditions for a product. Or instructions for driving to my house. Or a confession of my love to my dog. You can choose to limit who can access files, or you can just make them public, for anyone in the world to access, when you don't need to restrict that access to certain people.

Use folders to sort things
I know, I know, I said that you didn't need to use hierarchical means of accessing your files. But you can, because some people want to! And this is a great way of keeping files for specific projects, jobs, customer, etc, together.

Embed a folder listing into a web page
You can also share a folder, making it simple to disseminate press packs, customer assets, and historical notes, to name only a few examples. If you have a folder, you can create a file listing (as an iframe for the nerdy types) that can be embedded into a web page. Then you can show all the files and attributes of those files to the world, helpful for product documentation, public facing meeting minutes, etc.

Disseminate photos as a part of workflows
If you have the Google Drive iOS app, you can also backup your photos library to a Google Drive account. As a backup, this is built into iCloud as well, but real estate agents, building contractors and other job functions that need to quickly share photos will find the ability to backup your images to an account, sort them into a folder and then share them to customers to be an efficient means of providing access to these assets quickly and without using 3rd party tools to do so.

Research alert!
Working between several browser tabs or windows can become a problematic and disrupting process. With Research Tools - available in Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentations - you can search from within a project to find images, video, quotes, or references. Not only does Research Tools allow links and media to be swiftly inserted from the research panel, but illustration information can also be added as footnotes or annotations (since you should acknowledge all the things!).

OCR graphics to text
Google Drive comes with an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) function, allowing you to search for words in scanned documents. For example, finding a city or someone's name in an old newspaper article that was scanned and saved on Google Drive previously. The OCR function in Google Drive can be used to eliminate much more expensive OCR-based software in some workflows, while providing more automation around importing documents as text into a file.

Show you care by commenting on files
Google Drive lets you share photos and videos with your contacts. Similar to Google Docs, files can be commented on. A notification is automatically sent when a comment is posted in response to yours. This can also be used as a Question and Answer on files, or to commit refinements that don't belong within documents to the document. I've also used comments to provide instructions on how to use files, especially those that are difficult to use Google Sheets, Form Fillable PDFs, etc.

Deal with large files easily
Google Drive allows you to send large files to people you might not otherwise have been able to send to previously. Receivers will need a Google Drive account, but downloads are often faster through Google Drive than through other means of transferring, and storage is free for up to 5 gigabytes!

Open it! Open it!
Google Drive allows users to open countless types of files, like .ai (Adobe Illustrator) and even .psd (Photoshop) files.

There are so many other things you can do with Google Docs. From additional image recognition options (cities, monuments, etc) to voice comments on files, Google Apps is a great tool. And... Google Labs is an option that gives access to new features Google might not be ready to provide access to. And Google has an Add-on store, that allows you to find new features for Google Apps that extend the functionality in ways you may never have thought of. The possibilities are endless. Do you have any features about Google Docs that you love that we didn't mention?

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22 Cool Things You Can Do With Google Drive

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Google drive, launched on 24th April 2012, kickstarted a new era of synchronization and storage. By allowing users to store files in the cloud and share files and empowering users to collaboratively edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, the Google ecosystem has attracted more than a million active users.

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Exploring beyond

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Do you like apps? Do you use them in the classroom? Not every district, school, or parent has the ability to support apps in the day-to-day learning environment, but for those that can, there are some fun, effective, tried-and-true apps that can make a tremendous difference in the lives of diverse learners.

Many states now require incorporating technology into standardized testing, so the number of systems with the ability and willingness to support apps and software is also increasing. Many teachers and parents enjoy apps just as much as students. Naturally, the apps that are optimal for student learning are those so engaging that students forget or never know that these things were designed as educational tools. In addition to classroom use, apps are a terrific and effective way to encourage continued exploration and engagement over evenings, weekends, or summer break. There are tons of apps to explore, but here are a few favorites that may benefit your diverse learners!

Staying on Track

EpicWin is an organizational or executive function tool that is great for keeping students on task, keeping them from procrastinating, and using gaming to incentivize their tasks. Homework, projects, and chores become a lot more fun with this gamified role-playing app. The more of your everyday life tasks that you complete, the more your characters grow and develop within the game, leading to better scores and adventure. It's a great work/life balance game that is fun for teachers, parents, and students. Simply set up an avatar, enter tasks to complete, assign "epicness" or priority, finish the task, fight a battle, and earn rewards based on the task's epicness.

Picking Up on Social Cues

Sōsh helps students develop social skills and cope with stress or anxiety. It's ideal for students on the autism spectrum, especially those with Asperger's, but it can benefit any student who struggles socially or with anxiety. Sōsh is a fun interactive coaching app that offers a variety of features geared toward socialization and regulating behaviors. The app focuses on the 5 R's to help users:

Students can browse the emotions gallery, set priorities, shred their emotions in the shredder, or pump up the balloon to express their stress level. Sōsh Lite is the free version. While the paid version is pricey, it offers several additional features for enhancing social skills.

Prioritizing Time

Parents, teachers, and older students will appreciate RescueTime's approach to time management. This app is especially effective for older teens, or for anyone who has trouble regulating time. Whether the issue is time spent gaming, on the phone, or on social media, RescueTime helps optimize technology use by identifying wasted time. Students might discover that the time they spend on their choice of digital entertainment borders on addictive. Some may be surprised to learn that they're spending too much time on their phone. RescueTime reveals personal peak times that might be better spent on homework (or grading papers), and it provides visual data of the big picture. There's also a terrific RescueTime blog that shares how other users maximize their time with video commentary. Download the app, set preferences, goals, and alerts, and you're on your way to developing healthier habits and optimizing your time.

Strengthening Math

Todo will send younger elementary students on fun-filled, multi-leveled missions as they advance or as they show deficiency. It's entertaining and provides reinforcement that doesn't feel like reinforcement -- or even like work. Choose the mode of play, set the practice time for up to 15 minutes per session, and solve math quizzes or play along free style. There are multiple levels, and the content has been aligned to meet math standards. Todo has an educational charm that is appealing to diverse learners and abilities. (You can find a demonstration video on Todo Math's homepage.)

Sharpening Language

DuoLingo remains one of the best apps for teaching languages and is equally usable for English-language learners. The app teaches 16 languages and has earned the App of the Year designation from Apple. The best feature of this app is the cost: absolutely free! Getting started on DuoLingo is straightforward -- download, choose the language you want to learn, and you're ready to practice. They have a pictorial guide that can answer most of your questions. The app offers several methods of learning that will meet diverse learner preferences. You can even set timers to remind you to practice at bedtime or in the car.

When parents, teachers, and students partner to use apps for reinforcement, they can make a world of difference in the everyday lives of diverse learners. Mutual understanding of the apps' purposes and features, as well as consistently using them at home and at school, can be incredibly effective. And for most apps, the big plus is that they're free. If there is a cost involved, check with the creators or developers to see if educator or school district discounts are available. In many cases, they are!

What are your favorite apps for diverse learners? Please tell us about them in the comments below.

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Apps to Support Diverse Learners in the Classroom | Edutopia

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Do you like apps? Do you use them in the classroom? Not every district, school, or parent has the ability to support apps in the day-to-day learning environment, but for those that can, there are some fun, effective, tried-and-true apps that can make a tremendous difference in the lives of diverse learners.

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Have fun with your multimedia

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I came across an interesting website, Peace Gallery, where you can see thousands of images from hugely diverse cultures - many of young children - as viewed through the cameras of America's Peace Corps volunteers. At first glance, I noticed how different everyone looks - different skin, eyes, and clothing, But look closely, and you start noticing the similarities: People in the pictures are playing, eating, cuddling, crying, and laughing.

Today's early childhood classroom is the first "melting-pot" experience for many families. It may also be the first time children meet others who are "different" from themselves. Here are some ways you can use technology to help children better understand one another and develop an appreciation for other cultures.

Spotlight Similarities and Differences

Make a face gallery. Every family gets up in the morning and sends its best "cultural messenger" to you in the form of their child. Take your camera, turn the flash off, and zoom in close on each child's face. Capture every detail, and then print out each picture on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper and make a "face gallery" bulletin board. If you don't have a color printer, don't worry - the pictures look great in black and white.

Bring home to school. Ask students to bring in pictures of their home. If necessary, offer parents a classroom camera to take home for the weekend. Provide a "shot list" of ideas that includes their child's bedroom, pets, favorite toys, and so on. Use the photos to make a bulletin board that features that child.

Listen in on home. Encourage children to record the sounds of family members who may speak a different language, the music they enjoy, foods sizzling on the stove, and family activities. When you play the audio in the classroom, see if children can identify the different languages spoken or guess what kinds of foods are cooking in the kitchen!

Create a recipe book. Ask each family for a favorite recipe and design a class recipe book. Print a copy for each child and send it home. Have fun naming the dishes - Lucy's Lovely Lasagna, for example.

Websites That Support Curriculum on Kindness and Diversity

Here are some websites you can use to help introduce children to different places, cultures, and people. You can also recommend these to parents to support learning at home:
Anti-Defamation League
Can hate be "unlearned"? The group dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry has several articles for teachers, including "Talking to Your Child About Hatred & Prejudice".

Engaging Schools

This excellent online resource for teachers is designed to help children understand cultural diversity.

Teaching Tolerance

This site offers a nice variety of lesson plans designed to teach tolerance.

Precious Children

Sixty U.S. teachers are tracked during their trip to China. Learn more about the PBS documentary, and don't miss the wonderful collection of links and articles on teaching diversity.

Peace Gallery: Pictures from Around the World

Peace Corps volunteers display thousands of images from around the world. The pictures show the amazing diversity and similarities of people.

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Teaching With Technology: Tech That Explores Diversity | Scholastic

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I came across an interesting website, Peace Gallery, where you can see thousands of images from hugely diverse cultures - many of young children - as viewed through the cameras of America's Peace Corps volunteers.

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Making simple steps for the students

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How to Motivate Your Students: What Every Teacher Should Know but Doesn't - Online College Courses

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Whether you're a new teacher or an experienced one, try using these methods to motivate your students and to encourage them to live up to their true potential.

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Enhance the horizon

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All humans are citizens of the world, and teaching that fact to children in school can make them more sensitive to global issues and inspire them to look outside their own walls. A globalized classroom helps students to see the local significance of international events. How can you help your pupils adopt such a broad point of view? The following resources will inspire you to plan lessons that foster global awareness.

Gain Inspiration From Your Fellow Educators

Even if your classroom has maintained a global focus for decades, there is always space to learn from your peers. Some of the following resources highlight specific teachers' experiences while outline concepts that contribute toward a globalized classroom.

Edutopia shares an article entitled "How Do We Educate Global Problem Solvers?" wherein Zoe Weil, the president of the Institute for Humane Education, relates two strategies that can move students to think critically about global problems. The first strategy involves figuring out the "true price" of an item while the second encourages learners to think of solutions for complex global issues.

Scholastic highlights the experience of one teacher who promoted globalization in her kindergarten classroom by finding postcard pen pals for her class. The article features an interview with the teacher followed by steps on how you can start a similar program in your school.

Teachers for Global Awareness is an organization that seeks to heighten awareness of human rights issues across the planet. Their blog highlights current events that students can relate to, and it reports on the organization's ongoing efforts to get students involved in making the world a better place.

Teachunicef.org provides lesson plans, videos, news stories, and other materials that help teachers lead thought-provoking discussions about global citizenship.

Globaleducation.edu.au is an Australian website that gives teachers insight into how to teach about global awareness. The strategies cover how to discuss bias, controversial issues, stereotypes, and diversity, among other topics. There are also links to other relevant websites, so this is a great database.

An article from VIF International Education outlines the eight concepts that come into play when you're giving students a global education. The concepts include things like interdependence, social justice, conflict resolution, and diversity.

Global awareness is far from a new idea. This blog post from Udemy summarizes an essay written back in 1976 by Robert G. Hanvey and brings Hanvey's ideas into the 21st century. The post discusses five dimensions of global awareness.

VINCI Education discusses how to help young children become global citizens. The ideas discussed are simple in-class projects that can make children more aware of places beyond their personal experience. The suggestions include teaching your students to count to 10 in another language, finding children's books about another country, and encouraging them to cook an internationally inspired meal at home.

The Teaching Channel provides a half-hour video that showcases one school's method of approaching global affairs. The webpage's sidebar helps you pick out the video's think about how you can apply what you learned from the video.

Use Media to Bring the World to Your Students

Image via Flickr by woodleywonderworks
Last year, stageoflife.com surveyed teenagers and found that 83.5 percent of them pay attention to the news. You can use young people's interest in media to get them to think more deeply about world issues. These resources give you ideas on how to use books, videos, and technology to bring globalization into your classroom.

This article from Edutopia provides five ideas for using literature to teach global lessons to elementary school students. You can compare fairy tales from different countries, join a worldwide book club, and use books to break down stereotypes.

Some of the jargon used on regular news channels may leave your younger students feeling overwhelmed and confused. This list of news sources caters to children. The sources are from reliable names in media, including CNN and the New York Times.

The University of Washington provides a list of films that can foster globalization. The guide includes descriptions of the films and worksheets to go along with them. Each film also includes a note on which grade levels it is appropriate for.

As they describe it, the Global Nomads Group's mission is to "foster dialogue and understanding among the world's youth by bringing the world to the classroom via interactive technology." You can explore the details of their program that connects students around the world.

Humaneeducation.org briefly describes resources that you can use to get free films that explore humane issues. The list includes some obvious sources like YouTube as well sources like Sociological Cinema.

Explore a Hot Topic: Ebola

The threat of Ebola has the attention of the world, and exploring the topic in your classroom can raise your students' global awareness. Here are some compilations of resources that you can use as a launch pad for planning classroom discussions.

This list from educatorstechnology.com includes a video, news websites, and a discussion guide. All the resources are geared toward helping you get your students to think seriously about this current and important global issue.

The U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity provides parent and teacher resources that have to do with Ebola. The website also includes tips on how to keep young children from becoming unduly afraid of the disease.

Exploring an issue from various angles can help students to see beyond the issue itself to its potential repercussions. This compilation of videos from KQED covers how the Ebola virus works, how the U.S. is responding, and other topics connected to the outbreak.

A discussion guide from Education World will help you examine the Ebola outbreak with your class. The resources within the discussion guide include videos and websites along with questions that you can use to stimulate the world.

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The Globalized Classroom: 18 Resources for 2015

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All humans are citizens of the world, and teaching that fact to children in school can make them more sensitive to global issues and inspire them to look outside their own walls. A globalized classroom helps students to see the local significance of international events.

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Giving great choices

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Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success

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In Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind, noted educators Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick present a comprehensive guide to shaping schools around Habits of Mind. The habits are a repertoire of beh

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Great channel on youtube for introducing new content.

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Rome: The Punic Wars - I: The First Punic War - Extra History

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Support our Patreon to create more Extra History! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon **This video may be used freely in its original unaltered state for educational purposes!** Big thanks to Creative Assembly for making this happen!

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Fun way to teach something new.

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history lectures united states world study help teacher social studies

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The most important events in History explained by HipHughes, YouTube EDU Guru & TV Talking Head (History Channel/American Hero Network). Controls buttons appreciated! https://paypal.me/pools/campaign/112351254928726547 HipHughes History is a series of upbeat, personable and educational lectures designed for students and lifelong learners. Videos primarily focus on US History and Politics but span across World History and general interest.

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Flip the classroom

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Great way to fire up the class.

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There exists an amazing strategy that will dramatically increase student interest, motivation, and comprehension in virtually whatever you're studying.

It's so remarkable, in fact, that it will pull your students deeper into your topic than any other single strategy.

It will cause them to sit up bright and tall in their seats and capture everything you teach them-even the smallest details.

(Especially the smallest details.)

In just a half hour or less your students will learn more than they normally would in two weeks of following a paint-by-numbers curriculum, and it will prompt an enthusiastic desire to learn more and more and more.

The strategy is best employed at the beginning of a unit of study.

The way it works is that instead of giving your students a preview of what they're about to learn, instead of reading an introduction or teaching a more traditional first lesson . . . you will tell a story.

From start to finish you will walk your students through the key moments, events, and history of your topic-or the history behind your topic-all in the form of a narrative.

It's important to note that as you're doing your prep work, you must look for the humanity in your topic-the characters, the dramatic tension, the obstacles, the setbacks and victories.

If it has been deemed important enough to be part of your curriculum, then in all likelihood it will contain these remarkable themes, as well as many others.

The best way to begin is to stand silently in front of your students.

Before saying a word, take a lengthy pause for effect, letting curiosity peak. Don't write the name of the unit on an easel or whiteboard. Don't show any videos or pictures or artifacts. Don't even tell them what you're about to do. Simply take a deep breath and begin.

" There once was a man named Howard Carter who spent six years searching for the lost tomb of a boy king."

Now, granted, few stories are as compelling as Tutankhamun, but I think you'll discover that regardless of the topic, you'll find more than enough drama and intrigue to enchant your students.

The discovery of King Tut's tomb may only be one small part of your study of Ancient Egypt, for example, but the key is to weave the important background, vocabulary, history, and lifestyle of the people into the story. Everything has a story. Once you find it, you can increase learning in your classroom tenfold.

Here are a few more helpful hints:
Stay in storytelling mode.
Be careful not to get sidetracked writing out lists of facts or key points for your students. You can still include them, but make sure they're within the context of the greater story. The idea is to entice your students to follow you deep into a new and wondrous world they may know little about.
Act it out.
Capture the drama of the story by mimicking character movements and impersonating voices and facial expressions. Acting out key scenes rather than just narrating them will immerse your students into your new unit of study. So much so that when you finish, they'll be clamoring for more.
Be yourself.
Uncertainty over how you'll do or how the story will turn out is normal. Just be yourself and focus on giving your students a great story, and you can't mess it up. Once the room falls silent and you get into a flow, you'll have just about the best time teaching you've ever had.
Be creative.
Some subjects and units of study may lend themselves to storytelling better than others, but that doesn't mean it isn't doable. In fact, telling a story about a famous writer, mathematician, or scientist can bring dry and dusty topics to life for your students.

Note: Not every story has to be true. " I bumped into Iron Man at the grocery store yesterday, and I asked him about gravity and how he was able to fly. So he showed me."
Storytelling Fits Any Curriculum
Storytelling is the most flexible and dynamic medium available to teachers, and it will fit seamlessly into whatever standards or curriculum you've been asked to follow-Common Core or otherwise. Simply put, it's a surefire way to get your students excited about whatever you're learning.

It will deepen their understanding, provide a much needed and often-overlooked scaffold of big-picture context, and motivate them to want to learn and experience more about your topic. During your morning preview, you may even get a cheer when you mention the start of a new unit.

Storytelling will also add another layer to your goal of creating a classroom your students love being part of. And as you grow more comfortable using it to introduce units of study, you'll notice them becoming so emotionally invested that subsequent lessons become much easier to deliver.

For the great, wide world of inspired learning has opened up and shown them what they've been missing.

If you haven't done so already, please join us. It's free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

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How To Introduce Units Of Study And Set Your Students On Fire For Learning - Smart Classroom Management

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There exists an amazing strategy that will dramatically increase student interest, motivation, and comprehension in virtually whatever you're studying. It's so remarkable, in fact, that it will pull your students deeper into your topic than any other single strategy. It will cause them to sit up bright and tall in their seats and capture everything ...

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Keeping in touch

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Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference, in Phoenix, AZ, USA ISBN 978-1-880094-55-6 Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Chesapeake, VA

Abstract

It is understood that effective teachers are effective classroom managers, but how to develop classroom management skills in preservice teachers is a subject still being studied. In this study the discussion board of Blackboard5 is used to provide a method for preservice teachers to discuss classroom management. The methods course instructor provided classroom scenarios and questions to stimulate discussion. A post course reflection and analysis of the discussion board was done to illustrate how the discussions done via the discussion board assisted preservice teachers in developing effective classroom management skills.

Citation

McCarthy, D. (2005). Developing Effective Classroom Management Skills by Use of a Discussion Board. In C. Crawford, R. Carlsen, I. Gibson, K. McFerrin, J. Price, R. Weber & D. Willis (Eds.), Retrieved July 16, 2018 from Proceedings of SITE 2005--Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference (pp. 3986-3987). Phoenix, AZ, USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/19786/.

Keywords

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Developing Effective Classroom Management Skills by Use of a Discussion Board

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It is understood that effective teachers are effective classroom managers, but how to develop classroom management skills in preservice teachers is a subject still being studied. In this study the discussion board of Blackboard5 is used to provide a method for preservice teachers to discuss classroom management.

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Fan of keeping it simple.

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Classroom Management in the Tech-Equipped Classroom

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Successful technology integration includes always having a non-tech Plan B, staying with what works instead of trend-hopping, and minimizing the elements beyond your control.

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Great source for leadership roles