Week of Tuesday, February 28

In This Week’s Edition:

Microsoft Office Tip of the Week: Creating a Photo Album with PowerPoint

Top Tip Of The Week: TimeToast

Cool Websites of the Week: PBS Learning Media

30 Minute Afterschool Taste of Technology Training: NOTA

Technology Spotlight: Projects with PowerPoint, Prezi, and Museum Box

Feature Presentation: 10 Beneficial Facebook Pages For Educators To Check Out

Feature Presentation: Are Those Kids Off-Task Again? One Trick to Change Off-Task Behaviour

This week’s PowerPoint tip is Making A Photo Album with PowerPoint

Creating a photo album in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 from pictures on your hard disk or other storage media is a great way to share photographs or other illustrations. You can customize the album by using layout options such as frames of different shapes, and you can add captions to each picture.

This article shows how you can create a photo album in PowerPoint 2007 in just six quick steps. The example used in this article assumes you are creating a photo album with two slides: a title slide and a slide that displays four pictures of items being offered for sale.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/create-a-photo-album-in-powerpoint-2007-in-6-steps-

HA010217647.aspx

A Weekly Taste of What’s Cool

in Educational Technology

Every Tuesday

Kahla Middle School

If you ever have your students go through and memorize the time line of certain scientific discoveries then

give some online time lines a try. You can embed them into your site and they can be graphically intense.

TimeToast http://www.timetoast.com/

http://az.pbslearningmedia.org/

Educational Videos for Free as well as other Visuals for Education

What is PBS Learning Media?

A website dedicated to bringing educators and their students media resources that can be used in the classroom. Even though this blog will demonstrate access to their videos, this site is chalk full of many different types of resources which include, audio, video, interactive sites, documents and images.

What are some of the advantages over other video sites?

Videos can be found by National Standard, grade level, and subject. The sorting is great. Has other resources besides videos. Much of the content comes with links to additional material

that can go along with the video.

What are some disadvantages to using the site?

Some of the video quality is low. They force you to register after viewing three resources.

Tutorial: http://educationwebcloud.blogspot.com/2012/02/educational-videos-for-free-as-well-as.html

Cool Websites of the Week

Nota is casual collaboration.

Welcome to Nota!

Nota is a unique, cutting-edge collaborative web platform that allows users to create, share and collaborate on presentations and virtually any other form of online material. Using Nota’s proprietary toolset, users can instantly integrate text, video, maps, clip art, photos from web album or on the local computer, or license-free images from Flickr, and material from an ever-expanding array of sources. Users can then instantly embed their work in Facebook or blogs, and can share and collaborate with friends.

It's easy to use, even for someone with no computer experience. Fast load times mean near instant co-creation. Embed anywhere including your blog and social networks - and it automatically pushes

changes to all of these in real time. Also, it is purpose-built to work well with touch interfaces.

View the Tutorial: http://notaland.com/about Using Nota in the classroom: http://www.edgalaxy.com/journal/2009/9/15/nota-casual-collaboration-for-students-and-teachers.html

3:30-4:00 Taste of Technology

Training

Technology Spotlight

10 Beneficial Facebook Pages For Educators To Check Out

by K. Walsh from Emerging Ed Tech

A selection of Facebook Pages providing resources and dialogue

focused on education and instructional technologies.

Like most Facebook users, many educators use Facebook to connect with friends new and old, but the Internet’s

most popular site can also be a great learning (and teaching) tool. There are many Facebook pages that have

been created as a resource to collect, share, and disseminate information about education and education

technologies. Here’s 10 of our favorites.

Facebook In Education http://www.facebook.com/education

Facebook in Education examines ways in which Facebook is being used in an

educational context. Based on our search for pages focused on education, this is

by far the most widely recognized page in the category, with over 350,000 “likes”

(unfortunately, that level of popularity also means that many discussions are

somewhat polluted with inane input). There are some interesting topics discussed

here, and some worthwhile input from educators.

National Education Association http://www.facebook.com/NEA.ORG

A popular and active page. “The National Education Association represents 3.2

million members committed to ensuring a great public education for all students.

Use this page to learn more about NEA and to engage in discussion on how we

can work together to improve public education.”

ISTE http://www.facebook.com/pages/ISTE/8828374188

The ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education and their goal

is to provide “leadership and service to improve teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of

technology in education.”

NAEYC – National Association for the Education of Young Children http://www.facebook.com/NAEYC

Founded in 1926, “NAEYC’s mission is to serve and act on behalf of the needs, rights and well-being of all

young children with primary focus on the provision of educational and developmental services and resources.”

This popular Page lets users post on their wall, and there are a wide variety of topics there for consideration and

discussion.

ASCD

http://www.facebook.com/ascd.org “ASCD is a membership organization that develops programs, products, and

services essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead.” This is an active page, and we were impressed

with the content and types of dialogues under way there.

#EdChat http://www.facebook.com/EdchatPLN

This is a different type of group – #Edchat is Twitter based. In their own words, “#Edchat is a hashtag

discussion among educators from all over the world on education related topics. It happens every Tuesday at

Noon EDT and 7PM EDT. To join us simply follow the #Edchat hashtag on Twitter!” The Facebook Page

keeps users up on discussion topics, and provides additional resources.

Edutopia http://www.facebook.com/edutopia

Another popular page, supporting a non-profit organization. “Edutopia is where The George Lucas Educational

Foundation’s vision to highlight what works in education comes to life. Edutopia provides stories integrating

creative uses of technology with effective teaching and learning. Edutopia’s audience includes educators,

parents, school board members, university faculty, community-based organizations, and the business

community — all groups working to create better schools for the twenty-first century.”

Education Week http://www.facebook.com/edweek

“Education Week is American education’s newspaper of record. Our reporters, researchers, and bloggers cover

local, state, and national education news and issues from preschool through the high school transition to college

and career.”

Free Technology For Teachers http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Technology-for-

Teachers/191553219314?ref=ts&sk=wall

The Facebook Page for Richard Byrne’s popular web site and blog, providing a constant stream of new free

instructional technology resources for the classroom.

Connect A Million Minds http://www.facebook.com/ConnectaMillionMinds

“Connect a Million Minds is Time Warner Cable’s $100 million community commitment to connect youth to

ideas, people and opportunities that will inspire them to become the problem solvers of tomorrow.” These folks

are doing great stuff.

[Bonus Page!] EmergingEdTech http://www.facebook.com/EmergingEdTech

(Well you didn’t think we’d overlook our own Page did you? ) The EmergingEdTech Facebo0k Page is

certainly a worthwhile resource, where we share blog posts, video blog entries, free upcoming web events,

contests, and more. Be sure to stop by and check it out today!

Are Those Kids Off-Task Again?

One Trick to Change Off-Task Behaviour

By Lori Cullen

For many years as I taught grade school then transitioned into school administration we always seemed to talk about on and off task behaviour. In fact, I can remember people coming into my classroom with a stop watch and timing the amount of on and off task behaviour a student displayed over a half hour period of time. To this day, when students are off task they often get check marks, they lose privileges or get phone calls home. It was always about the student, and what was wrong with the students and how we could use coercive and persuasive techniques to increase on-task behaviour.

It hasn’t been until now, that a number of pieces of information, a few different books I have read, and the latest Professional Development I have been involved in did it become apparent to me that on or off task behaviour was not necessarily the fault of the child. In fact, off task behaviour in most cases falls directly on the shoulders of teachers. We as teachers cannot make a student be more on task, but we can design tasks that result in an increase in student engagement. In fact, in most cases, when tasks consists of elements that engage students, guess what? Students are engaged.

But why should we hold teachers responsible for designing tasks that result in student engagement? Shouldn’t students be required to complete the work assigned to them? This visual clearly speaks to the role of the teacher and the requirement for effective teaching. I realize there are many qualities that meld together to create a “high-performing” teacher but there is definitely no argument that one of the key qualities is the ability to design tasks that result in student engagement.

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So just what are tasks that result in high levels of student engagement? What are the attributes, components of these tasks? To answer these questions, I will include the information the staff at Erin Woods School recently compiled. In a two-hour work session, our staff came together to think, discuss, and synthesize the following information.

Here is the trick to changing off-task behaviour:

Lessons that are designed to engage students do just that! Listed here are the attributes of tasks that result in differing levels of engagement.

Low Level of Engagement Medium Level of Engagement High Level of Engagement

Listening Teacher telling Watching the teacher do Copying Individual tasks Memorizing Not challenging –

student finishes quickly and easily (low-level thinking)

The task is not easily differentiated (except by making less work or more work)

All students have the same task (no student choice)

Is teacher made (or made by a publisher)

Has right or wrong answers

Not linked to personal interest

Examples: Work sheets – pre-made

Yes/no tasks (one right answer)

Drills

Coloring

Fill in the missing word

Write a word 5 times

Word Search

Combination of two learning modalities (ex: visual and tactile)

Looking for information Partner work Students doing Some self or peer

assessment Increased use of visuals Combining some

personal knowledge to the new information

Examples: Mad Minute

Personal Dictionary

KWL Charts

Any searching, finding, looking for answer

Making Words

Work with more than one right answer

Linking to prior knowledge

Student generated/student created

Game-like Meaningful or related to

the student’s life or interests

Working together with peers

Results in a piece of work the student is proud of

Challenges the student but is attainable

Considers learning styles Allows for student choice

– completed work looks different

Can be extended or broadened into further learning

More than one right answer

Examples: Games or challenges

Hands on or multi-modal

Solves real life problems (math, social studies)

Experiments (with a hypothesis and solution)

What this information tells us is task design is the key to on-task, high engagement behaviour from students. In the end, it is not the student who is at fault. When those students so many years ago were timed for on or off task behaviour I don’t think we even considered whether or not the task they were being asked to do was appropriate for the learner or had the attributes of a task that often results in engaging behaviour. As educator Phil Schlechty says, There is a 0% chance that children will learn from work they do not do.” And we know they will not do boring, un-engaging, un-related, senseless tasks, would you?

Related articles

What Your Rules Say About You (attheprincipalsoffice.wordpress.com) Do Your Rules Lead to Student Engagement and Meaningful Learning? Nine guidelines… (kidsconsortium.org) Effective Techniques for Classroom Teaching (podiumproapp.wordpress.com)

Visit my personal blog www.attheprincipalsoffice.wordpress.com for more great reading!