theinsidelane:

Show Me for iPad

Show me is a very popular iPad app among teachers. It can be used simply as a whiteboard allowing teachers to write up notes for their students. You can also import images and annotate them. But the best feature is the ability to record what you write or draw and publish the video on your Show Me account.

As you work out a maths problem or demonstrate how to do cursive handwriting, Show Me will record everything including audio. The resulting video can then be shared with your students via your Show Me account. You can also embed these videos on your blog or website. So instead of going over certain topics time and time again, your students can watch your videos in their own time. I have used Show Me this year to demonstrate some methods for working out maths problems and my students have viewed the videos numerous times at home to help them with homework.

Show Me can be downloaded for free from the App Store.

A new position paper released by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) states that the practice of prescribing cognitive-enhancing drugs (such as ADHD medications) to healthy children and teens is misguided.

The paper lists many factors against the practice of prescribing neuroenhancements for healthy children and teens.  These include the following: the child’s best interest; the long-term health and safety of neuroenhancements, which has not been studied in children; kids and teens may lack complete decision-making capacities while their cognitive skills, emotional abilities and mature judgments are still developing; maintaining doctor-patient trust; and the risks of over-medication and dependency.

(Source: gjmueller, via positivelypersistentteach)

gjmueller:

The 10 Skills Modern Teachers Must Have

1. Build your PLN
   
2. Establish real relationships in your PLN
3. Understand where edtech fits in
4. Know how to find useful resources
5. Manage your online reputation
6. Blog
7. Slow down
8. Make social media work for you
9. Don’t be afraid to fail
10. Know when to disconnect

You can print this image, the PDF is available here.

(via positivelypersistentteach)

laureateiu:

Education is always a wise investment and formal education increases your self-confidence, helps you reach your goals, improves your attitude by learning and sharing knowledge and increases your earning potential. Learn more from the following infographic.

(via positivelypersistentteach)

dot-ed:

storyboard:

Bringing Orchestra to the Social Masses

Kristi Seehafer, first violinist with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, started playing the violin in the fourth grade.The reason she picked up the instrument in the first place was out of grumbling necessity: She had to get her own because her brother wouldn’t let her touch his.

What began as sibling rivalry gave way to full-blown wonder and then, once she was older, to the discovery of her life’s calling, after she fell under the spell of a performance in her hometown by the Milwaukee Symphony. It was a night she remembers that something clicked, “and I knew I had to play in an orchestra.”

Her telling of that story is captured in a YouTube video clip. That it’s posted to the orchestra’s Tumblr page is revelatory. Physically, symphony orchestras perform at a considerable distance from their audiences, and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra is no different. Its home is the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which includes a 30,000-square-foot concert hall. Given that size, it’s not an easy task to foster a close bond between performer and listener.

Read More

world-shaker:

How A Teacher Turned To Technology To Solve A Thorny Problem And Raised $100K

The clincher, the thing that made Quick Key go viral, was a poorly-lit video of an excitable guy holding his iPhone up to a Scantron page, one of those test pages you used to fill out in school. He thumbs through page after page, making comments on students’ performance as the app scans the page and instantly reports a grade. The video was amazingly compelling. The creator, Walter O. Duncan IV, can barely contain his excitement. His app looked great, it worked seamlessly, and the video struck a nerve with students and teachers, pocketing 260,000 views on YouTube and popping up on the front page of Reddit.

gjmueller:

Charter advocates say it’s a fair fight because both types of schools are free and open to all. “That’s a bedrock principle of our movement,” said Jed Wallace, president of the California Charter Schools Association. And indeed, many states require charter schools to award seats by random lottery.

But as Reuters has found, it’s not that simple. Thousands of charter schools don’t provide subsidized lunches, putting them out of reach for families in poverty. Hundreds mandate that parents spend hours doing “volunteer” work for the school or risk losing their child’s seat. In one extreme example the Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove, Illinois, mandates that each student’s family invest in the company that built the school - a practice the state said it would investigate after inquiries from Reuters.

(via positivelypersistentteach)

world-shaker:

holtthink:

I really like mind maps, and I REALLY like mind mapping tools like Inspiration Software’s Inspiration Maps for iPad. I don’t know why Mind Mapping isnt used more frequently in classes, there tons of free ones out there like bubble.us. 

Click on the Title to go to the link.

Edudemic explains how the following activities can be enhanced by mind mapping–techniques that can be integrated easily into class to improve teaching efficiency and student comprehension:

• Brainstorming
• Teamwork
• Presentations
• Assignments

Loves me some mind maps!

gjmueller:

whatiscollegefor asks:

Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College?

Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000parking lot attendants. All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.

The relentless claims of the Obama administration and others that having more college graduates is necessary for continued economic leadership is incompatible with this view. Putting issues of student abilities aside, the growing disconnect between labor market realities and the propaganda of higher-education apologists is causing more and more people to graduate and take menial jobs or no job at all. This is even true at the doctoral and professional level—there are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with Ph.D.’s, other doctorates, or professional degrees.

Hmm. Again. I’d say if considering what to study, put away your passions. If you love writing don’t major in English. Unless you’re ready to move to LA or NY and actively pursue your dreams, go ahead and put English as a minor and study Finance/STEM major or something where employment is reliable. Like if you’re studying Film you have to be ready to HUSTLE. If not, then…go to a job interview and with Film on your resume, doors won’t exactly fly open. Because what skills does a Film, Economics, Political Science, or Art degree bring with it? It’s about being marketable. And about the PhD’s  Well the teaching market is changing. So a PhD isn’t a sure thing for a job; Obviously it’s about what you study as well.

Also it’s about grad school. A Women’s Study major may get limited play. But combined with an advanced degree it’s more marketable.

Pick degrees with caution.

from-student-to-teacher:

“Discussion Tables” - Pick a passage from a book you are reading and glue it to the center of bulletin board paper and have the students write their thoughts about the passage.

(via adventuresinlearning)