Nearpod is a great tool. Many teachers say the one detractor to it being perfect is the fact that you are tied to your desk while running a live session. Well, I hate to break it to you, but that just isn’t true! There is a way to run Nearpod from your phone/tablet.
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Day Two:
So today we started day two of our weeklong TeacherCon. I’ve gotta say, the energy of day one would have been hard to beat. I’ve also got to say, the Code.org team did it. Today was a phenomenal day of learning. Continue reading
You have likely seen it all over social media. It seems that Twitter is exploding with tweets about the Openebooks initiative. Being an English teacher who believes reading holds the key to many of life’s treasures, I jumped right in and took a look.
Ask a public school administrator about a cost effective way to try to go 1:1 in a school, and the odds are a good many of them will say to buy Chromebooks. We had the privilege of being asked to come to a school to pioneer paperless classrooms. We were always known as those teachers who were out there, dancing around the room, doing whatever we could to keep kids engaged. We were also known as those who were always looking for new ways to engage students. To us, this sounded perfect. Continue reading
PLEASE NOTE: DOCENTEDU IS NOW CALLED INSERT LEARNING. Look for an updated post soon on how to make use of this powerful tool.
In the past, I have written about both, Newsela and DocentEDU. At the time, I suppose one could say my vision was still developing regarding how to best utilize each tool. I have spent some time tinkering, playing, and trying to break them. I am happy to say, that not only have I found the perfect combination of each, I have utterly failed to break either… and I’m pretty good at breaking stuff.
To many, going paperless seems like a daunting task. Most teachers have gotten into a comfort zone. They know how things run, they know how long tasks take, they have it down. However, as we progress as educators, we must change with the times. Kids are growing up in a digital age, and it only seems logical that we would teach them the way they are growing up.
The age old pen and paper tests can often be digitized. Let’s face it, many of the tests teachers give are multiple choice. Google Forms is an excellent way to digitally deliver the same test. It saves paper, ink, and grading time. Yes, grading time. One of the chief concerns I hear from teachers is they don’t wish to go paperless because they don’t know how to test and grade tests on a computer. This is where the Google Sheets add-on Flubaroo comes in. Continue reading
I recently finished reading a great book, by Matt Miller, called Ditch That Textbook. For those of you out there who are at least considering the move to being more paperless, I highly recommend this book.
Miller describes his transition to getting rid of the traditional textbook in his foreign language class, a journey similar to what we have experienced doing the same in our English classes. I rather like that Miller does not just paint it as a happy go lucky experience, where everything went perfectly. He kept it real, which is what educators need. (though not always what educators want)
Over the years, Wikipedia has managed to create a chasm between educators. Some educators have preached that great evil resides in all things Wiki. Others, such as ourselves, have always said Wiki is a great place to begin research.
Wiki has many advantages over a standard dusty set of 10 year old encyclopedias. Obviously, the fact that it is probably more current is a huge one. Another is the fact that Wiki is searchable. That fact makes it extremely easy to find information that would otherwise be extremely tedious to find.
Wiki has stated that they are not a credible source, however, many educators in the K-12 and Higher Ed systems are beginning to accept Wikipedia citations.
We had the pleasure of presenting paperless classrooms at the Alabama Educational Technology Conference recently. While we were not presenting, we attended other concurrent sessions. One of those sessions was presented by Jeff Utecht. Jeff showed the audience things about Wiki that many of us were not aware of.
For example, all Wikipedia entries are ‘graded’. Entries that are ‘stubs’ or ‘starts’ are generally considered not accurate or credible. However, articles graded as a C level article could be considered credible, and A or B graded articles almost certainly are.
The key here is that you have to teach students how to tell what is credible. You can no longer just preach Wiki is bad, when in fact, it is often more up to date and more accurate than other sources.
So, the question is, how do we see what each article is graded? It is far simpler than we think.
First, let’s start with the Wiki quality scale. An example of this can be found by scrolling down on the following page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cricket/Assessment#Quality_scale
Next, in order to find an articles rating, you just click on the TALK tab near the top of the article.
You then see the screen that gives you some of the nitty gritty about it’s quality rating. This is where you see just how credible an article is.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2bkbfkwtz9fevlw/Screenshot%202015-06-12%2009.01.46.png?dl=0
So, the answer to the question… Is Wikipedia a credible source? The answer is changing over time… it could be credible.