Tips For Education

When students are working on long or short term projects, it is important for the teacher and the students to be able to easily track group progress. Trello does this in a very visual and drag-and-drop fashion. Signing up for Trello is easy, especially if you use the Google sign-in option.  The website uses the metaphor of a board where users create lists and cards. Each list can have multiple cards and users assigned to each card. Once the teacher creates a board and lists, students can easily be searched for and added to the board. Trello board for my students' screencasting project. Currently, my students are working on a video project with multiple steps. I have created a board for the project and a list for each step along the way. After adding my students to the board, they each create a card with explains where they are at on that step and who is in their group. When a group finishes a step in the project they simply drag their card to the next list, which is also the next s...

I have been doing a lot of thinking for a  presentation  on technology in the English Language Arts classroom I am planning for the end of January. In the course of my preparation I came across the SAMR model developed by  Ruben N. Puentedura  It provides a framework for how technology impacts pedagogy. This YouTube  video  does a great job briefly explaining each of the stages. As such, the SAMR model can help teachers think about their own implementation of various tech tools in the classroom. While thinking about the best way to present the model to teachers, I came across a  blogpost  by Tim Holt that compared the various levels of tech implementation to ordering coffee from Starbucks. A person ordering from Starbucks can simply substitute its coffee for the homemade version or order a Pumpkin Spice Latte, which truly redefines an espresso drink. This metaphor gave me the inspiration to create the following slide (included here as a stand alon...