Learn With Leah: Technology

Technology has the power to take a mediocre lesson and make it jaw dropping. To take an uninterested student and get them involved and excited. Technology can change EVERYTHING.

However, it is so important for us to keep the focus on the learning, on the engagement, on the skills and the take away. We need to only incorporate technology where it enhances the learning, when it breaks down barriers and takes learning to a new level. We do not want to have the focus of any lesson to be the use of technology. If you objective for the day is to "make a Prezi" you are sadly missing the boat. We need to focus on the learning at hand and look at ways where the technology can bring your teaching to life.

The Common Core Standards

Math Standards

English Language Arts Standards

Every Common Core Standard Related to Technology- From Ben Rimes, K-12 Instructional Technology Coordinator, Mattawan Consolidated School

General Sites

50 Resources for Implementing the Common Core for Teachers

Tools for Teaching- Great teaching. Inspiring Classrooms.

Better Lessons- Common Core: National Education Association

The College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing

The Production and Distribution of Writing

K-5

6. Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others

6-12

6. Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others

When I read this statement the tool that stands out (actually, it is more like standing on the roof top yelling its name!) is Google Apps for Education, Google Docs in particular. Google Docs allows you to collaborate with up to 50 people at one time and share your document with up to 200 other collaborators. When you share you can designate if you are giving editing rights, commenting rights, or just viewing rights. This tool is in the cloud and is a free. That means that as long as you have the internet, you are seeing the same thing as all of your classmates- as Google always gives you the latest version of the software. It evens the playing field between your wealthiest student and your poorest student. Google Docs keeps track of every single revision made on the documents- so you can look back at any time and see who contributed, what they wrote, and at what time. You are also able to restore the document at any time. AMAZING!

With the integration of Google Hangouts, you can "hangout" with up to 9 different people and work on the same document from 9 different locations all while seeing their face and hearing their voices.

Check out these links for more information on Google Apps for Education. But keep in mind, it isn't the tool that we need to focus on, it is the learning, the collaboration and the empowerment that matters.

Google Docs, Presentations, and Forms

Google Docs 101- Video Tutorial

Doctopus

The Lexile Framework for Reading- Enter your Lexile measure, select your interests, and find books you'd like to read!

Level It Books- Scan the barcode of the book and you will be given the Lexile score among other information

iBooks- Great source of digital text, particularly books in the Gutenberg Project. You are able to book mark, highlight, add notes, find specific words, change text size, have words read aloud and define words.

My Favorites

64 Sites for Storytelling and Information- A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet

English Language Arts Resources

Ohio Resource Center- Common Core English Language Arts Standards Find lesson plans, activities, and resources sorted by standard

Collaborative Writing and Digital Story Telling with Google Apps for Education

How Students Use the Internet for Research- Edudemic

Common Core Language Arts Lesson Plans

The Library of Congress

Achieve the Core

Math Resources

TED Talks- Dan Meyer- Math Class Needs a Makeover

IXL- Math practice by grade level and standard. First 20 problems a day are free. Yearly subscription fee.

Ohio Resource Center- Common Core Math Standards

Khan Academy- Thousands of video tutorials explaining mathematical concepts and practice problems available to support students in developing their understanding of math.

Common Core Math Lesson Plans

Learn Zillion Instructional videos and resources sorted by standard

Achieve the Core

PAARC Resources

PAARC Online- The PAARC site offers information about the online assessments our student's will be given

Technology Guidance from PAARC- Outlines the minimum requirements for new technology purchases

Smarter Balanced Practice and Pilot Tests- This is NOT used in Ohio but it is one of two major Common Core Testing Agencies (Parcc and Smarter Balanced)

Ohio Specific Resources

INFOhio Common Core Toolkit- Tools outlined here require a password that is available to every public school student and teacher in Ohio. Contact your technology coordinator or librarian for the password.

INFOhio Symbaloo of links

Apps

The Common Core... There's an App for That- Article from Tech and Learning

The Common Core... There's and App for That- Easy to Print Version- Henderson County Public School

APPitic- Amazing resources from Apple Distinguished Educators

The Padagogy Wheel- iPad Apps sorted by Bloom's Taxonomy level

Videos

Watch, Know, Learn. Videos from all over the web compiled in one place. The videos are teacher approved and rated then compiled and sorted by grade level and common core standard. AMAZING! They also have videos for many of the text exemplars!

First Grade Classroom
Second Grade Classroom
Third Grade Classroom
Fourth Grade Classroom
Fifth Grade Classroom
Sixth Grade Classroom
Seventh Grade Classroom

Interesting

One of my favorite graphics about technology in the classroom

The Rise of Blended Learning- Smithsonian

Five Requirements of Technology Before it Enters the Classroom- Edudemic

An amazing book about the integration of Google Apps for Education in the Classroom

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I am ridiculously excited about this! The site eBook Glue allows you to take your blog (or I guess anyone's really) and put all past posts as an iBook. All that you need to do is enter the sites web address or RSS feed address. Then virtually seconds later you have a downloadable ePub document and a link to share with your friends. Check out my iBook of this blog here: Link

For me, this serves several purposes. It is a way to back up your blog, you can have a somewhat physical product but what makes me really excited is that I now have a way to catch up on someone's blog who I haven't had time to read while driving. I don't have an iPad with 3G so when I'm on the go at times I'm limited. Now, if I have a long road trip I can have plenty of reading material to take along without spending a fortune on traditional ebooks. If you do a classroom blog where your students are the writers this would be a great way for them to see just how much they have written and an easy way to share with parents. I hope this makes you just as excited!

Integrating Tech In the Common Core