Technology in Learning

I found Larry Lessig’s presentation “How Creativity is being Strangled by the Law” very entertaining. I agree with him that there needs to be artist choice and that copyright law needs reviewing and possibly changing; however, I disagree with his point that we are “making our kids live against the law”. He states [...]

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The other day at lunch I listened to a group of teachers discuss students who did not hear a thing they said during their lessons. They complained of students not facing them while they were reading a book or students who fiddled with things on their desks while the teacher was “teaching”. They [...]

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“The Collaborative ABC Project: Using Technology To Tell Stories”
By Kevin Hodgson, technology liaison with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project and Bonnie Kaplan Co-Director and Technology Liaison with the Hudson Valley Writing Project
In this presentation, Kevin Hodgson and Bonnie Kaplan detail their digital storytelling project using collaborative medium.  Bonnie gives a brief digital story overview of [...]

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“The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools”
By Patrick Ledesma, FCPS SBTS, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Patrick Ledesma provides steps to getting the technology specialist’s vision as teacher leader across to your staff.  How do we move from the reality (fixing hardware and ambivalent staff) to the [...]

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“Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools”
By Liz Kolb, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Madonna University in Michigan
Blog: http://toytotool.blogspot.com
Wow!  Where do I begin?  Liz Kolb’s presentation is on how we can turn cell phones into a “knowledge construction tool” and not just a “social toy”.  This presentation is full of good ideas, many we do [...]

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“Step by Step-Building a Web2.0 Classroom”
By Drew Murphy, a teacher at
Chatelech Secondary, British Columbia, Canada
In this presentation, Drew Murphy discusses how to get people started in Web2.0.  He suggests that since everyone has “hugely diverse” skill sets, you start with small steps to get everyone comfortable with the skills required for Web2.0.  He has defined [...]

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Students today grew up with the web and many of them use Web2.0 tools for fun at home. We should bring this fun into the classroom. Why? Web2.0 offers many tools that can get students to use higher level thinking skills (creating, evaluating, etc.). But, how do we get teachers who were not raised on the [...]

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Can I make copies of this CD for each of my students to take home to practice for our class play?
I referred to the CANI fair use principles for educators and the FCPS Guidelines for Print Music and Sound Recordings to help me answer this question. In order to answer the question, other questions must [...]

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I stated in my earlier blog that technology should be used as a tool so children can learn in the form most comfortable to them.  If a teacher allows students to use any technology tool for their project, does this create an assessment problem?  How does a teacher assess students’ PowerPoint reports, videotaped documentaries, and [...]

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I just finished reading a section from the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts & Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson.  In this section, “Weblogs: Pedagogy and Practice”, he states that “blogs facilitate what I think is a new form of genre” and calls this new genre “connective writing”.  Blogs can be considered a new [...]

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