Beyond Integration

I recently wrote a blog post about using VoiceThread to provide opportunities for students to engage in math discourse and how this type of engagement allows students to Present and explain ideas, reasoning, and representations to one another. Listen carefully to and critique the reasoning of peers Seek to understand the approaches used by peers Identify how different approaches to solving a task are the same and how they are different During this dialogue, teachers can recognize errors in context and reinforce that they are natural occurrences that enhance learning. This post will support the same strategy but uses digital manipulatives and screen recording as the process to present and explain their math reasoning and participate in math dialogue with both peers and teacher. Math Learning Center is a website that offers free manipulatives that PreK-5 students can use to practice and demonstrate their understanding of a mathematical problem. These manipulatives are available...

I think all educators would agree that making real-world connections to the content we teach in the classroom enhances the experience for students.  But how can we always know what the kids are interested in?  We can listen to the kids’ small talk or try to pick up what we can from the news but sometimes that just doesn’t cut it.  I know I for one eventually just gave up and made a fool of myself not knowing what the kids were preoccupied with but it is always a better strategy to integrate their interests into the learning. So how can technology help with that? Enter Google Trends ( trends.google.com ).  Scrolling down the page shows you what the population is searching for and will even break the data down into regional interests.   Once you find a search term to explore, clicking it reveals related search items along with news articles that may be great for prompting lessons or discussions in the classroom. Perhaps this quick, relative...

Oh, What a Night!   Each year our team coordinates a fabulous  Film Festival  opportunity for our  students, teachers and district level employees to build networks and customize learning experiences in ways that support the learning process. Students use a design process for creating a story through the use of multimedia tools. Through the planning, scriptwriting, shooting, editing and reviewing, students are setting personal goals and developing strategies that leverage technology use. Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes. Ultimately students create original works to tell their story. Perhaps the best part of our Film Festival is for the students involved in video production is the opportunity to display and be recognized for their work. And that was last night! We had a blast last night showcasing videos and celebrati...

We are excited about this year's SC Midlands Summit lineup. This year we have 2 new featured speakers and 2 returning featured speakers. Here is a peek at their topics they will focus on at the Summit, June 12-13th. There is something for you... Tom Murray, Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow's Schools, Today Leading with Purpose From Research to Practice, How to Create the Learning Spaces Kids Need Tech Tools for Student Engagement and Teacher Effectiveness Robert Corbin Keynote Speaker from Discovery Education - STEM and STEAM Focus Eric Curts Google Tools for Art and Music Education Google Tools for Struggling Students Holy Sheets! Google Sheets activities for all Subjects 360 Degree Learning with Google Tour Creator Googley Activities for Primary Students Awesome Google Drawings in your Classrooms Beth Holland The Pen is NOT Mightier than the Keyboard: Strategies to Embrace & Scaffold Digital...