Author, Educator, Researcher, & Speaker
The way we approach technology has a great deal to do with how we perceive it. Today, I had students working collaboratively with spreadsheets calculating costs for a pen-and-paper simulation. Their task was to supply three ships with men, women, children, cows, horses, etc.. for life in the New World. To allow for effective and …
Continue reading "How Kids Approach Tech. #edtech #mlearning"
I've been reading a great deal about K12 technology integration (#edtech) and mobile learning (#mLearning). Ok... so maybe most of my "reading" has been twitter tweets. And many of the topics, concerns, problems, etc... that come up can be solved with a little Jedi reasoning. Here's how Master Yoda, a little Jedi, would address the …
mLearning and Activity Theory The mobile learning (mLearning) community is in the process of a paradigm shift comparable to the transition of static internet (web 1.0) to the present-day dynamic internet (web 2.0) where interactivity, file sharing, and access are becoming more ubiquitous. Successful mLearning atmospheres must be designed to incorporate dynamic attributes that will …
Teacher Centered Technology Integration in K12 Instruction: The Missing Link in K-12’s Evolving Digital Learner? Successful technology integration is not so much a question of “Sage on the Stage” or “Guide on the Side” rather… it’s a question of prioritized preparation and implementation. This post explores how to best facilitate effective technology integration with educators …
"A page of history is worth a pound of logic." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. I spent much of last Spring wanting to update my iPhone 3GS but dreaded the fact that as soon as I purchased it, the next iteration (iPhone 5) would be released and my shiny new iPhone 4 would go the …
Professional Development (PD) in education has the responsibility of promoting teacher growth in a valid and practical manner. A community of teacher-learners can effectively promote this growth beyond what simple in-servicing (alone) can accomplish. Applied workshop and other in-service content to individual teaching environments will yield results which can only be magnified by a shared-experience …
The anywhere, anytime, read availability of the ever ubiquitous mobile technology still has a few hurdles to overcome. After a summer of mLearning research and my usual-summer-disconnect from my middle school teaching career-mode, I found myself ever reliant on my mobile device (iPhone). Email, Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, the news, the weather, the list goes on. …
Continue reading "Mobile Tech in the Classroom: Perception is Reality"
Social Networking's usage has exploded breaking down geographic confines and creating a smaller digital world. The successful increase of collaboration and communication excels at an unprecedented scale. Most historians would credit the printing press as the most important invention of all time.... but then came the internet and now web 2.0 technology, the "most important …
An interesting article on facilitated professional development. There are definite implications for mLearning asynchronous, always on, anytime, anywhere... "A facilitated format, experts say, adds three major benefits that can improve teacher engagement in ongoing training. First, it can maintain or even increase the level of interaction of an in-person class, because an online instructor or …
The training and development of present and future educational practitioners is a key factor in developing citizenship in our increasingly global community. Teaching professionals place great value on collaboration with their colleagues as a means to achieve positive professional growth. In an age of increasingly ubiquitous communication/social technology, we should be looking to create collaborative …
Continue reading "To know where we’re going, we have to know where we’ve been."