If you have Interactive whiteboards make sure to turn them off if you don’t plan on using them within the next 15 minutes. Also turn them off during lunch and at the end of the day. On another note, it’s not good to turn them on and off all the time.  Most projectors have a setting in the menu that tells them after a set time if there is no signal they will turn off by themselves.  To make this work, you have to make sure the computer screen is set to turn off after 15 minutes.  The only time this will not work is if a DVD or VCR is attached to the board and are turned on.  Just make sure to turn off the DVD or VCR when not in use.

While using the Interactive Whiteboards you may want to turn off some or all the lights in the room. This will save energy and also help to see the board better.

A few more tips for your overall classroom…

Turn Off the Lights, Stop the Drips, Close the Doors, and Reuse and Recycle.

Relevant Article:  http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/tips/schools.html

Here are a list of some of the apps I thought were pretty neat -

numberline
rat dissection
explain everything
neu.note
new.annotate
screen chomp
showme
stickies

Along with the apps, I also saw many FREE websites! Below are a few of these I believe would be great to use in teaching -

blabberize.com
voki.com
wordle.net
storybird.com
wallwisher.com
slideshare.net
voicethread.com
timetoast.com
prezi.com
livebinders.com
printwhatyoulike.com
animoto.com
museumbox.e2bn.org
screencast-o-matic.com

ASC’s certified trainers are now offering a cost effective, convenient way for teachers to receive professional development online with a live instructor.  Please contact us for further details.

* Don’t use any type of abrasive cleaners as these will scratch the surface of the board.

TIPS

- Marks made on the board with a dry eraser marker can be cleaned with dry erase board cleaner. Spray the cleaner on a rag first, then clean the board.

- Remove marks made with a permanent marker by first covering the mark with dry erase marker. Then clean with dry eraser board cleaner sprayed on a rag.

There are distinct benefits for instructors who utilize cloud computing to prepare for lecture, whether they are adding interactivity to their presentations with LectureTools, sharing slide decks on Slideshare, or storing files using Dropbox.

Access your files from anywhere

College or  instructors frequently edit and access content for their lectures from many different locations. Instructors often have different computers in their home, office, and classroom. The cloud makes it possible to access files from any device with an Internet connection. Saving files on your hard drive in “My Documents” or “Home” folders means that you are out of luck if you need to access your files from a different computer.

Dropbox ,Box.net  allows you to access your files from any web browser or synchronized computer by storing them in the cloud, while applications like Google Docs allow you to edit your documents and spreadsheets through the cloud.  The cloud allows you to be productive from any computer at any time without having to remember flash drives or other storage mediums.

Share content more easily

Most cloud-based applications make it very easy to share or change file permissions of what you’ve been working on. Generally you decide whether to keep a file private or whether to share. Since the data is already online, spreading your work to other users is incredibly simple.

Google Docs allows you to share documents with specific people or make them public so anyone can read or edit. With Dropbox or Box.net, you can share folders, making it easy to collaborate on projects that require each group member to access multiple files.

Evernote is a great tool for teachers and students to capture notes, save research, collaborate on projects, snap photos of whiteboards, record audio and more. Everything you add to your account is automatically synced and made available on all the computers, phones and tablets you use.

Where is education going wrong? This is a hot button with a lot of us. Blame is being put on the system, on the teachers, on parents, on teacher unions, on government … you name it, blame is being thrown in every direction. It makes my head spin.

Who are the victims? Don’t the students suffer as a result of all this blame being tossed around?

According to this broadcast, South Korea has what is considered one of the top performing education systems in the world. Their teachers are known as nation builders, and parents tend to place more emphasis on their child’s performance in education, spending around 20% of their income on tutoring. Students are in school roughly 8 hours a day for 205 days a year. If you crunch the numbers, this works out to the average South Korean student spending roughly two more years in school than American students. Education seems to be embedded in their culture.

Is there a downside to all this emphasis and pressure? Sure there is. South Korea has a much higher student suicide rate. So alarming is the suicide rate that there is a movement to lower the emphasis being put on the college entrance exams, thus lessening the stress placed on students.

Maybe the way South Korea has structured their education system isn’t your cup of tea. If you go to the far opposite end of the spectrum, you will find Finland. This report referred to Finland as being “on the surface the education world’s ultimate slacker.”

Why? In Finland, teachers are required to have a master’s degree, but assign less homework. In fact, students log fewer hours in the classroom, but surpass most of the world in academics. It’s that whole quality over quantity mentality, and perhaps it’s something to be considered. According to this report, Finland is ranked first in the world for science and second in the world for math. Finland does not place an emphasis on standardized tests; actually, there are no standardized tests! Furthermore, the national curriculum is used as a framework guide, and teachers are empowered to teach their students how they want and encouraged to collaborate not compete with each other.

Can you give me an “Amen!”

Think for a moment … are we really comparing apples to apples?

The United States has a higher percentage of poverty and is more diverse culturally when compared to South Korea and Finland. Is this an excuse? I think most would agree these are valid challenges US educators face, but is this why the United States education system is failing? Is this why the system faces such an uphill battle in the race for the title of best education system in the world?

At this point you might be thinking, “Ok Adrienne, what’s your take on it all then?”

I think most teachers, including me, would agree that standardized tests are not the best way to measure or gauge student learning. It’s how a student applies a concept. Performance should be considered when deciding whether a skill is learned or not.

I also think student engagement plays a huge factor in whether a concept is understood or not. If students are not invested in what is going on in the class, then chances are they aren’t going to retain any of what is going on in the class.

Another thing that is upsetting as a teacher and a parent are the cutbacks in art, music, foreign language and physical education classes in school. Aren’t we supposed to foster and nurture creativity? Hasn’t it been proven that these types of programs benefit students’ overall well-being and increase learning? Or am I mistaken?

So I ask myself, what are top performing education systems doing differently? How do their standards differ from the standards in the United States?

Do I think the answer to fixing the education system is simple and straightforward? No, but with all the reports I have read, the documentaries I have seen and through my own personal experiences as an educator, I think we are pointing blame in the wrong place. I think we need to start examining why the US education system is in a rut. Why are educators feeling the pressure so much that they resort to cheating on standardized tests? Why are some students able to attend a brand new school where teachers fight to work there, and other students are forced to attend a rundown facility struggling to find teachers to fill their classrooms?

My question to you is: Do we need to improve our standards by pursuing education excellence or equality? Is it possible to strive for both?

Remembering

For the first area in the revised taxonomy, remembering, the focus is on retrieval of information. Under the traditional Bloom theory, we would use phrases like recognizing, listing, describing, naming and locating. Churches indicates that as we head towards the digital world we might more likely use phrases like bulleting to mark key words or phrases for recall. Likewise, students might bookmark or favorite a web page or site for future use. Yet another aspect for this fundamental step in the taxonomy would be the social networking arena where links between people are critical. Social bookmarking, the online version of local bookmarking or favorites, is apropos and likely a tad more advanced because users could draw on others’ bookmarks. Lastly, educators should take note that Churches sees the most popular task, that of searching or “Googling” as another remembering concept provided the search does not move beyond the fundamental key word or term.
Understanding
Here the traditional taxonomy phrases become interpreting, summarizing, inferring, paraphrasing, comparing, and explaining. In the new digital world, Churches sees the step towards refining basic search techniques as a step along the path of understanding. Blog journaling would be another aspect as long as the focus was on simply “talking,” “writing,” or “typing” a task-specific entry. As but another example would be Twittering and answering the basic question, “what are you doing?” Churches notes that Twittering and journaling can easily move beyond the understanding level to higher levels of the taxonomy if these tools are used to develop greater understanding or if they are used to collaborate with peers. Churches notes two other digital areas fitting the understanding level, that of categorizing and of commenting/annotating files. The digital organizing and classifying of files clearly demonstrates a level of understanding while commenting and annotating web pages is likely analogous to taking notes.
Applying
Progressing up the Bloom’s ladder, the next level is referred to as applying. In the traditional Bloom format, we are talking about implementation, using information, and executing tasks. Here Churches offers several examples of students “doing.” For example, here we would find students initiating a program and/or operating and manipulating hardware and applications. Gaming technology would also fit as students would be demonstrating both understanding of the process and the skill set, then be applying them to the game task. Applying would also involve the uploading and appropriate sharing of materials on a site such as Flickr. It is at this point that Churches brings in editing skills and combines them with the understanding of tasks like Twittering and/or journaling. Lastly, the application level is where Churches places simple hacking, defining this term as “applying a simple set of rules to achieve a goal or objective.”

Analyzing
As we move ever further into the Higher Order Thinking Skills we move into analyzing what has been learned. Traditional Bloom’s taxonomy phrases are comparing, organizing, structuring, and integrating. Digital equivalents would involve mash ups where several data sources are melded into a single set of usable information. Churches also places the proper establishment of links within documents and web pages in the analyzing category. At this level, Churches indicates that though a wealth of data is available to students much of it may lack veracity. Therefore it is essential students be able to validate their information. Churches places this aspect in the analyzing category though this appears to involve both analysis and making judgments so we might be more inclined to slide this task to the next level in the taxonomy. Another aspect Churches lists here involves tagging, the “organizing, structuring and attributing online data, meta-tagging web pages, etc.” Certainly students must be able to understand the materials to be able to perform this step though there is some obvious overlap with the prior applying level. It is in this category that Churches places the reverse-engineering (possibly positive) and cracking (not likely positive) behaviors.
Evaluating
Under the traditional Bloom’s format, the fifth level of evaluating refers to hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging, testing and monitoring. As we noted above, this is where students begin to place informed judgments to start towards new ideas. Churches considers blog commenting and reflecting where students comment and reply to other postings as a simple example of this aspect. Essentially, students examining material in context and then replying must be doing some form of evaluation. For these comments, there is the posting of an appropriate, thoughtful, in depth response by one party and the potential evaluation or moderation of those posts by another party, so there are two very important distinct applications. Under the collaboration and networking aspect, Churches rightfully notes that “effective collaboration involves evaluating the strengths and abilities of the participants and evaluating the contribution they make.” Testing a product or application is also a key component at this level. For anyone to effectively test a process or tool the tester must have the ability to analyze the purpose of the tool or process. That demands both the knowledge of what the correct function should entail versus that which it currently does entail.
Creating
As we complete the Taxonomy, at the highest level we see students creating. Here the focus is on designing, inventing, constructing, planning and producing. Given this expectation, it is easy to see why more and more people are placing greater emphasis on creativity within the school setting. It is here we would find technology mixing heavily with the creative process. It could involve audio and video and come in the form of a film, an animation, a videocast, or a podcast. This arena features a heavy dose of mixing and remixing to ultimately produce unique products. Ultimately, there is publishing of some type here, so anything related to a written or video blog, even a Wiki would relate. Churches also offers additional digital equivalents at this level of the Taxonomy as the creation of a program application or the development of a game.