Creating Innovative Students
Creating Innovative Students in an online classroom and making sure that the students can be successful in them is a craft,. A craft that instructional designers and instructors work on endlessly. Building online and blended content for the new technological classrooms requires more time and energy than the traditional classroom that most of us grew up with. However, online instruction offers something that the traditional classroom doesn’t offer – the ability of the student to actively engage in the technological learning process, and gain hands-on experiences that push them to really think about how things work in an innovative way within the field of emerging technology. That is one of…
Technology integration into the classroom now and into the future
Technology integration into the classroom now and into the future #BringItOn” I was standing outside the middle school talking with the technology guy for both the middle school and the high school a while back. Really great guy, a family man, well respected for his work with the school district. We were discussing the issue of Bringing Your Own Devices (BOD) to school, and how that would affect, not just the lives of the students, but his IT department, and all the teachers at both schools. While I am tremendously happy for our district, I also understand the challenges we face with technology. New Technology and Education New technology creates volumes of work for those in IT,…
Lectures in the field
Today I taught a lesson from a compilation of about 500 images that were taken using a cell phone during a self-help housing project back in 2011. I took those images over a six month period. The compilation was showing the process of building a house from the ground up. Below are a few images of the outside of the house showing the levels or steps of the construction phases.The classes I taught today consisted of students from the woodwork and construction classes, so the compilation was very appropriate for study. I was able to present material and connect with all the learning levels from 9th through 12th…
Edutainment – a Virtual World
Edutainment – a virtual world. It’s not a game – it’s an environment like a canvas without boundaries. The benefits are that you have an environment that can be changed for any reasonable circumstance. While the environment can be fun, it can be designed to be challenging at the same time. It might be interesting to see a virtual avatar of the instructor popping in and out like the Cheshire cat giving minimal guidance where appropriate. The tangible benefits of this type of environment can be many. The environment can be set up to allow learners to go back or retrace their steps in a process of discovery to correct an…
Phone etiquette 2.0. Meh!
When in doubt of who is calling, hang up! The days of answering your phone and believing that the person on the other end of the line is actually someone of importance to you, are gone. That isn’t to say that we don’t still get calls from loved ones, friends, and business associates. It’s just that we have those types of people already listed in our phone’s directory, along with a cool photo of them and some cute little emojis we share. I’m talking about spam, political ads, and of course the “you are delinquent – send me money to a foreign account”, type calls. Plus there are those who…
