Pedagogy for the 21st Century
One of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences that’s challenging to teach is Interpersonal Intelligence. Interpersonal Intelligence doesn’t fall under the student learning outcomes of many curricula. If we want to teach it, we have to slip it into our teaching objectives ourselves.
Continue reading ‘Interpersonal Intelligence’
The army uses technology to recruit high school students. They’ve set up recruitment stations at malls in America where students can play “free” war-like video games. It’s a not-so-subtle conditioning and preparation for the real thing.
If the army is using technology to engage students, why aren’t you?
It doesn’t take a genius panel of marketers to know that technology engages students. Technology is a tool to make learning more comprehensive. Students will be faced with the proverbial “jobs that don’t exist yet” in a few years. Assign them creative tasks to accomplish on the computer. Help them empower themselves by giving them the confidence that they can learn anything they want. It’s only a few video tutorials away. Then those jobs that don’t exist yet will exist because your students will be the ones creating them.
Continue reading ‘What We Need to Learn from the Army’
Please don’t tell me you go over the syllabus for the entire class! There are some logistical things you must cover the first day of class, but please don’t spend the entire class period reading the syllabus. Everyone will be able to read it in detail later or, better yet, refer to it when necessary. Hit the important policies orally, then move on to something fun and engaging.
Teachers who care about their students, their subject, and about teaching will want to get to know their students right away and make sure that the students know each other. Reading the syllabus out loud for the entire class won’t accomplish any meaningful class objective or student learning outcome. In-class time is short.
Continue reading ‘What Do You Teach on the First Day of Class?’
The greatest teacher movie of all time? October Sky. 
Abcteach is a good (free) site if you are in need of some worksheets for just about any topic. Each worksheet opens as a PDF document which you can save and print later on.
Continue reading ‘Many, Many, Free Worksheets For All Subjects’
This is just the beginning. Those things that you’re primarily using to call and text people are going to replace your laptop soon. In fact, they’re better than a laptop in many ways–they have a GPS!
Now you can watch Netflix streaming movies on the iphone and itouch. The app is free. I’m not going to be surprised when cable TV can be streamed and TiVo(ed) into your phone, except it will be called PhoVo. We’ll see the day when every student will be using a cellphone in class for more than texting when the teacher is not looking.
TVs will become obsolete. There will be screens, however, and our phones will stream and project the movies.
Here’s the Netflix video:
Netflix iPhone App Video from Netflix on Vimeo.
Continue reading ‘It’s a Small Screen Revolution!’
Many of us have started teaching already, and most of the rest of us will begin in the next two weeks. If you’ve had the summer off or at least have had a few weeks off between summer school and the fall semester, I hope you’ve had a great break. I didn’t have a restful summer until last week when I took a vacation and went offline for a week.
For me, this intentional rest was essential before I began teaching this week. Sometimes, even when I have time off, I’m still online working on things–answering e-mails, correcting students’ essays, texting, browsing the web. Oftentimes, 2 or 3 hours go by without me realizing it. By the time I do realize how long I’ve been online it’s too late: I feel tired, apathetic, listless. The only cure at that point is going outside on a bike ride.
Continue reading ‘Sabbath Rest for Teachers’
Just like last year (2009) USA President Barack Obama is going to deliver what has become his annual “Back To School” speech on September 14th.
The speech will be broadcast online. Click the link above to go to the White House press release for more information.
Are you or a fellow teacher teaching students about earthquakes this year? Here is a way to incorporate technology into your teaching of them. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) has a very good page dedicated to everything there is to know about earthquakes.
Also, please share our blog and site with others so that technology integration becomes a part of every classroom.
Our students already know that. Whatever moderately difficult and doable task that you’re working on in your classroom does not need the above statement. Saying such things does not make the lesson any easier for our students. Why tell students that your lesson is not something that takes years of post doctoral work and years of experience to master? They’re intelligent enough to know that. Now who’s not the rocket scientist? Let’s face it, if it were rocket science we’d all be at NASA and not in a classroom. Let’s try not to utter the obvious, and let’s please refrain from making our students feel slow just because we cannot communicate our lesson properly.
Continue reading ‘It’s Not Rocket Science’
