Social media is already transforming classrooms. If you teach, there's a good chance you've used Twitter, Facebook, and even Pinterest to draw your students' attention to their work in exciting new ways. But now there's a new app on the scene: Vine. Luckily the blog at OnlineUniversities.com was on hand to help us all become…
Tag: Teaching
Digital Learning Day Brings Technology into the Classroom
Yesterday marked the second annual celebration of "Digital Learning Day," the culmination of a year-long focus to utilize the power of technology in more classrooms nationwide. But we're not just talking about throwing iPads into classrooms in the hopes of engaging students' short attention spans. No, the ideas employed in classrooms and libraries around the…
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Why Children Make the Best Scientists
The intersection of science and play.
We are taught from a young age that authority in any academic realm must be allocated to adults only--or more specifically grey haired men in tweed jackets staring down their noses at us from in front of a chalkboard or behind a cluttered desk. But…
Powering Up: Social Media and the New Classroom
Just a few years ago, when kids began having their own phones in large numbers, schools freaked out. At my daughter's junior high, phones had to be hidden away in backpacks or lockers. Any teacher who observed a student with a phone was required to seize it. The phone was then taken to the office,…
World Class: Snapshots of Classrooms From Around the Globe
The ever-curious Brain Pickings yesterday shed light on a fascinating project, "Classroom Portraits." Since 2004, photographer Julian Germain has captured images of classrooms the world over, progressing from his small corner of North East England to include schools from North and South America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Collected in a new book, Germain's…
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Gatsby from Multiple Perspectives
After teaching The Great Gatsby for many, many years, I couldn’t help but get bored with the same old interpretation of the geography: East Egg represents the old rich, West Egg represents the new rich, The Valley of the Ashes represents industrialization. Blah, blah, blah. That’s why I was excited to find a totally different (although…
Drawbacks to the Kindle in the Classroom?
If you were to go back to the old copies of the novels and plays I still rely upon—To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet—to do my daily teaching, you would see all sorts of scribbled notes in different colored pens. You would see highlighters in every color imaginable. You would see small pieces…