The IT4Educators instructors joined more than 2,400 educators, administrators and technology specialists and over 100 vendors at the TIES 2010 Education Technology Conference in early December at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  We attended the conference as both participants and contributors.

Andi Bodeau presented Using Moodle as an Assessment Tool. During the session, she modeled and showed examples of the various Moodle activities that can be used to assess student learning. Participants also learned how mobile devices can be used as assessment tools in Moodle. Rojanne Brown presented a session called Google Search Discovered. Participants gained ideas on how to integrate Google tools such as Google Custom Search and Google Search Story into teaching and learning.

Amy Kretsch demonstrated BrightLink, Epson’s new interactive whiteboard solution – a short throw projector with interactive capabilities that does not require an interactive whiteboard.  Ryan Semans, presented a session on using SMART Response Systems to promote higher-order thinking skills, investigating how student response systems can support teacher and student learning with respect to assessment strategies, lesson intentionality, vision for extension activities and higher-order thinking skills integration.

In an earlier post, I described a course I was creating, Blogging for Teaching and Learning.  One of my online students is so excited about the idea of educational blogging that she asked me to link a few of the course articles so she can share her new passion with her colleagues.  In this course, you will:

• Register for a blog reader and add RSS feeds to your reader that you believe will help you develop professionally.
• Create your own professional blog.
• Create a lesson plan that fully integrates the use of a classroom blog.
• Reflect on your learning throughout the course.

Below are just a few of the course readings for the 3-semester credit Blogging for Learning course.  If it sounds intriguing to you, please join us in our online learning community.

Blogs in Plain English

Educational Blogging

Top 20 Teacher Blogs

Getting Started With Classroom Blogs

Blogging to Learn

Blogging is History: Taking Classroom Discussions Online

Some of us from IT4Educators are heading to Denver this weekend for the 2010 ISTE Conference.  We are looking forward to increasing our knowledge regarding cutting edge educational technology.  You’ll hear more about our conference adventures in future posts.

Differentiated Instruction is an instructional philosophy that increases learning for ALL students.  The concept of differentiated instruction is based on the fact that students come to school with a wide range of experiences and prior knowledge, variances in academic ability, learning styles, and interests.  When teachers differentiate instruction, they use a variety of practices and strategies to match learners’ needs with appropriate materials.

IT4Educators‘ courses offer instruction tools and strategies that fit right in with the differentiated instruction model.  Also, there is a myriad of Web 2.0 tools available for the educational setting that embraces differentiated instruction.  This wiki from Kent ISD is one terrific resource: Technology Tools for Differentiation

Hard to believe but YouTube is celebrating it’s 5th birthday! Seems like it’s been around much longer. YouTube can be a great educational tool for instruction. Check out these 100 videos which may inspire you to try it out. My favorite is #33, the Math Teacher Shadow Trick!

Course creation is tremendously rewarding and actually quite fun.  Courses we create at IT4Educators always have the characteristics of being professionally engaging to us and relevant to best practice in teaching and learning.

The course I am working on right now is a Google Search course.  Ryan already offers a Google Integration course which is a terrific survey course  allowing exploration of a myriad of Google tools.  My new course will be specifically related to all (or most) of the Google search tools.

I’m not talking about your grandmother’s Google.  I’m talking about cool, relevant tools specifically designed for classroom use.

When I was in Boulder last summer at the Google Teacher Academy, I was overwhelmed with new learning regarding all that is Google.  What really hit home for me was Google Custom Search, a solution I’ve been longing for.  Google Custom Search is a great tool for directed, intentional, safe web searches for students.

With Google Custom Search you can give your students authentic search experiences in a safe environment.  You determine the sites that students are searching, and you can also scaffold student learning by adding key word suggestions to the search page.

Google Custom Search is one of many Google search tools you will integrate into teaching and learning with the new course.

Watch for it to appear in our IT4Educators course listings in May or June.  Also coming soon, is a Google Docs course developed by Ryan.

So your district has Moodle and you’re about to start creating a Moodle course – but where do you start? What’s a Moodle course supposed to look like? I need help. I need ideas on how to use Moodle in my classroom.

These are frequently asked questions for any Moodle newbie and many of the same questions I was asked when training staff on Moodle.

One great place to start is the newly created resource on Moodle.org “Teaching and Learning with Moodle” created by Tomaz Lasic, who works as an Education Researcher at Moodle Headquarters in Australia.

The “Teaching and Learning with Moodle” course is by educators for educators and aims to serve the follow purposes

• Provide a clear, synthesised and relatively gentle ‘intro to Moodle’ to new users in education and training environments
• Become a generator and repository of Moodle-related (in)formal research in the use and design of Moodle
• Serve as an organised point for great ideas and resources for new and experienced users alike

One of the best parts in the course is the Moodle Recipes for Educators

This is a growing collection of teaching and learning ‘recipes’ of using Moodle in a range of educational settings. The recipes are contributed by educators for educators.

A few examples of “recipes” already in the community cookbook include

• English learners collaboratively complete and modify stories to improve their writing skills [source]
• High school, language students, glossary tool to learn correct use of new words in sentences [source]
• Students upload photos from the field trip to a class gallery and comment on photos to learn about the importance of zoo care [source]

Other materials in the course include 5 Myths about teaching with Moodle, Moodle Dos and Donts, Blooms taxonomy and Moodle, 5 Basic steps of using Moodle and much more.

The “Teaching and Learning with Moodle” course is not only for Moodle newbies, but for more advanced users as well. It’s a great place to see what other educators are doing in their district and to get ideas to use with your own class. You can also share your ideas and experiences and be a part of the great Moodle Community.

Enroll in the course today! (it’s free but you have to have a free Moodle.org account first)

Related Links

• Teaching and Learning with Moodle Course (log in as guest or use your Moodle.org account details)
• Moodle.org
• Follow @edumoodle on Twitter
• Follow Tomaz Lasic on Twitter

Today, I held an iPad in my hands. I realize for some people this may be old news. But for me, this was a BIG deal. I was awed by the beauty and simplicity of the iPad.

With my library media background, I was drawn to the iBook app. After I downloaded a book I was able to turn the pages, put in a bookmark, highlight text, and look at the pictures. Just like having the real book in my hands! In my mesmerized state, I thought this was the greatest thing ever! That is, until a colleague asked a similar question the editors of the New York Time have been asking, “Does the iPad offer users a new medium or is it merely an iPod Touch on steroids?”

What will be the impact of the iPad on education?

This is what I believe…

One, I found the iPad is highly engaging, motivating, and fun! Students would also.

Two, this is just the beginning. Apple will keep improving the iPad to include more and more features (eg. Flash, camera, etc).

Only time will tell and I cannot wait to see.

JeopardyLabs is a free online tool that allows you to create your own Jeopardy game or browse through the pre-made templates. This would be a great tool to use with SMART Notebook software to make an interactive review game.

Imagine students spending the school day immersed in projects, and then during “homework time” at home settling in at their computer, iPod or other device to watch or listen to on-demand podcasts from their teacher and other experts presenting content.

In an inverted classroom, passive activities such as listening to lectures and content presentations occur outside the school day.  During the school day, in the presence of their teacher, students engage in deeper learning through hands-on learning activities.  A result of the inverted classroom model is more quality time with the teacher, as opposed to the teacher often in front of the students delivering instruction.

The inverted classroom model is ideal for the university setting, where the in-class experience is currently more lecture oriented, but what could be the implications at the elementary setting?  Certainly something worth pondering…

One thing for certain is that there is an expectation that higher education students have off site access to wired technology.  But, this can’t be assumed for the elementary or even secondary student.  The question arises, “is digital access a right?”  Ease of access is critical to a discussion of inverting our classrooms.