WHAT WORKS IN EDUCATION The George Lucas Educational Foundation

Log In

We share evidence-based K-12 learning strategies that empower you to improve education.

Featured:

More School Time, Well Spent, Boosts Academic Achievement and Engagement at Edwards Middle School

high school girls in a step dancing class

Featured:

Five Keys to Successful Social and Emotional Learning

Featured:

How to Thank a Teacher

Blogs on Classroom Technology

More Blogs on Classroom TechnologyRSS

The Right Technology May Be a Pencil

Mary Beth HertzNovember 29, 2011

Tags Classroom Technology, Primary (K-2), Technology Integration, Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8)

As a tech integration specialist and a computer lab teacher, one can imagine that I have a special place in my heart for bringing current technologies into the classroom. At the same time, I find that sometimes pencil and paper do just as good of a job.

Flat Stanley Goes Mobile: Fresh Start for Popular Global Ed Project

Suzie BossNovember 15, 2011

Tags Classroom Technology, Global Education, Integrated Studies, Primary (K-2), Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12), All Grades

The Flat Stanley Project, one of the world's longest-running global education and literacy projects, has launched a new chapter. There's a brand-new website with increased interactivity and even a mobile app to track the globe-trotting adventures of Stanley Lambchop and his flat friends.

"My Teacher Is an App"

Will RichardsonNovember 15, 2011

Tags Classroom Technology, Online Learning, Professional Learning Network (PLN), Teacher Development, Technology Integration, All Grades

(This is a long one.)

So I hope no one minds if I continue to try to document the ways in which "education" is being reframed in this country at the peril, I think, of losing everything that is best about schools and teachers and classrooms.

Fifth Graders Go Global with Holiday Card Exchange

Donna RomanNovember 14, 2011

Tags Classroom Technology, Global Education, Project-Based Learning, Student Engagement, Technology Integration, Upper Elementary (3-5), Geography, World Language Learning

I shut off the lights to my classroom and lock the door behind me with a smile on my face. It's 8:00 pm in our town of Geneva, IL and we just wrapped up a video Skype call with students in Chi Yi City, Taiwan.

Mentoring and Coaching for Effective Tech Integration

Mary Beth HertzNovember 14, 2011

Tags Classroom Technology, Mentoring, Professional Development, Teacher Development, Technology Integration, All Grades

As schools bring more technology into their classrooms and teachers strive to put more technology in their students' hands, schools are also planning more and more time for teacher training and ongoing professional development for implementing these changes.

One Day in the Life: An Antidote to Insular Living

Chris BaerNovember 11, 2011

Tags Classroom Technology, Global Education, Project-Based Learning, , Technology Integration, Upper Elementary (3-5), Middle (6-8), High (9-12), Geography

I teach high school visual arts on the same island where I was born, a 45-minute ferry ride from the mainland. It's a small community here.

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.

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.

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.

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.