WHAT WORKS IN EDUCATION The George Lucas Educational Foundation
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Blogs on Technology Integration

Technology Integration

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Discover fresh ideas for using technology in the classroom and at home to improve learning, encourage collaboration, and increase student engagement.

5
Your Classroom Is Not an Airplane!
Nicholas ProvenzanoNovember 7, 2011
Tags Classroom Management, Classroom Technology, Student Engagement, Technology Integration, Middle (6-8), High (9-12)

I was flying back from a conference the other day, and I noticed something very bizarre. As I waited for the plane to take off, I saw that the panel above me looked different than usual.

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3
Digital/Landscape: Breathing Real Life into the Virtual World
Autumn CrispNovember 1, 2011
Tags Classroom Technology, Expeditionary Learning, Primary (K-2), Project-Based Learning, Technology Integration, Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12), English Language Arts, History, Math, North Carolina

Cocooned in the safety of a library carrel, students can travel the world via Google Earth and see live video feed of the Doll's Festival in Japan. The haiku master Basho had to travel on foot for the same event, sleeping on hard floors in flea-infested straw. Today, students can peruse images of the English countrysides, full of the oxlips, nodding violets, and sweet musk-roses that inspired Shakespeare, without dampening their sneakers in dew or suffering the consequences of allergies. They can listen to the voices of strangers telling their life stories on podcasts and add their own stories to the voicethread of the world.

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2
The 21st Century Socrates: How to Implement a Powerful Hybrid Classroom Model
Blake WiggsOctober 31, 2011
Tags Blended Learning, Classroom Technology, Curriculum, Online Learning, Student Engagement, Team Teaching, Technology Integration, High (9-12), English Language Arts, History, Science

Throughout our first few months of team-teaching using Skype and a thirty dollar webcam to connect our two schools, we were extremely frustrated with our inability to incorporate Socratic seminars in World Dynamics. World Dynamics is a blended-curriculum course between two classrooms, twenty-three miles apart, where Earth Environmental Science, World History, and English I are taught simultaneously in order to give students a contextual understanding of the world.

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32
Teaching and Learning: Using iPads in the Classroom
Ben JohnsonOctober 31, 2011
Tags Classroom Technology, Curriculum, Mobile Learning, Teacher Development, Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12)

If I had thirty iPads in my class, what would I do with them? How would I use them to help my students learn better and help me teach better? Perhaps a better question is what would I do with them that I could not do with other tools that are available and cheaper? Certainly iPads are cheaper than computers, desktop or laptop, and they are more mobile.

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6
Should We Be Concerned About an "App Gap"?
Audrey WattersOctober 27, 2011
Tags Achievement Gap, Digital Divide, Mobile Learning, Technology Integration, All Grades

Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics restated its long-standing recommendations that parents limits the access to television of children under age two. But it's fairly clear that few people are actually heeding the advice. According to a recent study by Common Sense Media, children of all ages are spending more and more time in front of screens of all sorts -- not just television screens, but computer screens, iPads, smart-phones, gaming consoles and the like.

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8
Should You Flip Your Classroom?
Ramsey MusallamOctober 26, 2011
Tags Flipped Classroom, Online Learning, Student Engagement, Technology Integration, Chemistry, High (9-12)

At its core, "flipped instruction" refers to moving aspects of teaching out of the classroom and into the homework space. With the advent of new technologies, specifically the ability to record digitally annotated and narrated screencasts, instructional videos have become a common medium in the flipped classroom. Although not limited to videos, a flipped classroom most often harnesses different forms of instructional video published online for students.

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4
Digital Literacy is the Bedrock for Lifelong Learning
Vanessa VegaOctober 25, 2011
Tags Achievement Gap, Classroom Technology, Digital Citizenship, Digital Divide, Media Literacy, Technology Integration, All Grades

People often ascribe technological devices with magical properties, as though the inert objects in and of themselves can bestow us with the capacity to be "better, faster, and more productive." In actuality, it is the people making and using technological devices to achieve shared goals that produce the seemingly magical results.

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11
A New Understanding of the Digital Divide
Mary Beth HertzOctober 24, 2011
Tags Digital Divide, Primary (K-2), Technology Integration, Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12)

As an urban teacher whose students are often lacking access to a computer and the Internet at home, I have strong opinions and experiences with the digital divide. I decided to do some research to see where my students fit into the current trends.

What is the digital divide?

If you ask most people to define the digital divide, most of them would answer that it has to do with those who have access to technology and those who don't. Ten years ago, they would have been right. However, over the last ten years access to technology has become more and more ubiquitous.

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6
Why Wikis Still Matter
Audrey WattersOctober 18, 2011
Tags Classroom Technology, Online Learning, , Technology Integration, All Grades

Wiki is a Hawai'ian word meaning "fast" or "quick." As a technology platform, Ward Cunningham installed the very first wiki on the Web in 1995. That was two years before the word "weblog" was coined (and four years before that term was shortened to "blog"). Wikis predate Facebook and Twitter by roughly a decade. At sixteen years old, the wiki predates almost every other social media tool (other than email, of course, which historians of technology say turns 40 this year). Why then, in the face of rapidly changing technology -- all the new bells and whistles and Web 2.0 tools -- should we still use wikis?

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4
How One District Implemented a Hybrid Learning Program
Andrew MarcinekOctober 12, 2011
Tags Blended Learning, Classroom Technology, Online Learning, Technology Integration, High (9-12)

It's easy to get caught up in the educational discourse throughout any given day. Everyone has his or her thoughts and ideas on what should happen next in the educational landscape. While discourse is healthy, personally, I like to see and hear about this discourse in action.

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