Top ten skills needed to succeed as a teacher (and technology)

photo credit: davidsilver
This article started out as the top ten skills needed to use technology effectively, but as I wrote the list, I realized that technology shouldn’t be separated out. As we proclaim that technology is a tool, we also shouldn’t single it out when talking about what skills it takes to educate. The [...]

Next fall, every school district in Florida is required to set up an online school for K-8

In Florida, virtual school could make classrooms history — OrlandoSentinel.com
A new law that takes effect next fall requires every district in the state to set up an online school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

This is fascinating to me, and I’m surprised that this didn’t get more news coverage when the legislation was being passed in [...]

Why do students need email?

On the Ohio Technology Coordinator’s listserv this question was posted:
We already had one case of student to teacher generated e-mail that originated on a student computer inside the school. The FIRST question I got as the Tech Director was ‘Why are you allowing students to send and receive email in school?’
And my question would be, [...]

Interactive response systems

photo credit: swpermanAs we investigate ways to use mobile Internet devices in our classrooms, it hit me that they could be used as an interactive student response system (ISRS). Since current ISRSs are around $100 per person, why not invest in a more useful device such as the iPod Touch, Sony PSP, or Nintendo [...]

Film enjoyment can be contagious, applying this research to the classroom

Reading over at Slashdot.org and the original article at ScienceDaily it appears that film enjoyment can be contagious:
Over the course of the film, movie-watchers influence one another and gradually synchronize their emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant’s evaluation of the overall experience — the more in sync we are with the people [...]

NYT Lesson Plan: Active Reading

NYT Lesson Plan: Active Reading
In this lesson, students write encyclopedia articles focusing on topics in American history. They practice fact checking, assess their own ability to read actively and skeptically, and write memos that educate others on how to do so.