February begins a big push for research projects at school. 6th grade students learn about the Middle Ages, while 5th graders are researching a famous person.
With all the great new tools for research and inquiry, I sometimes long for the days of index cards, an encyclopedia, and a few books. (not really…don’t worry)
When a student [...]
I recently attended a presentation by online learning vendors who have been awarded a contract by our local BOCES. They offer online courses for students who need to make up missed or failed classes (credit recovery) or want to get ahead or take a low-enrollment class (credit accrual). The vendors offered to us through this [...]
Clear, articulate, concise writing is important for our students. The mind of a middle schooler may often be anything but clear, articulate and concise (and that is OK). What strategies can we use to help students acquire and integrate learning of the writing process?
Better Answers is a writing program we are working on [...]
Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom
Using a worksheet to research information on the Internet and fill in the blanks is a popular activity. In its most fundamental state, this is a form of the strategy cues, questions, and advance organizers. Students use questions on the worksheet to (hopefully) guide them through a website [...]
Not too long ago, I was with my son in the local toy store helping him pick something he could spend some gift money on. Rather quickly he decided on a Rubik’s Cube. The flashbacks started rolling in…
The first time Rubik’s Cube was all the craze (circa 1980), I had one like everyone [...]
Thanks to the staff who responded to the brief survey I sent out (it was easy & slick to do using a Google form ). While response wasn’t huge (25%), it is the end of the year and there are a million things to get done. I think the sample is big enough [...]
Here is an audio track to accompany this post, if you like: luminous-rain
Music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod
My recent purchase of an XO laptop moved me to finally dip into the writing of Seymour Papert and his often-referenced book, The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School In The Age Of The Computer. Being in the midst of lots [...]
Thanks to a presentation by Brian Smith, Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez at NYSCATE a couple of weeks ago, I get what the OLPC (one laptop per child) laptop is about. Its not about technology. Its not about schools. Its about kids, learning, and opportunity.
I watched and considered last year while the Give 1 Get [...]
Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom
Carrying on with a focus on the book Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the first planning question is: What will students learn? There is one instructional strategy associated with this question, setting objectives.
“…when students are allowed to set some of their own learning goals, their motivation [...]
Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom
We are familiar with Marzano’s research in Classroom Instruction that Works. In 2007, MCREL released a supporting book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. What is terrific about this book is that it puts technology in the proper place – as a tool to support research-proven instructional [...]