Tech Tips
July 2015: Volume 2 Number 15
Back to School!
Genius Scan
CamScanner
CamScanner Android--Scan and send to your Google Drive
Boomerang
Graphite
"Summer is a great time to explore new ideas for fall, and Graphite makes it easy to tech up your teaching. Browse our curated collections of the best apps, games, and websites. Boost your skills with our Teaching with Tech series, and get practical tips on lesson planning and best practices from the Graphite community."
"Effective teachers continually assess their students’ learning. Although some types of assessments, like standardized tests, are mandated, educators can use many other forms of evaluation to check for understanding.
I like to assess my students in many ways. Following the guidance of the ISTE Standards for Teachers, I look for authentic learning experiences that incorporate contemporary tools, and I gravitate to assessments that are engaging and fun for students."
School Neuroscience Unleashes Students' Brain Power
"Neuroscience has found that projects and hands-on learning strengthen students’ understanding of certain concepts because multiple senses receive such information. That means the learning is stored in more areas of the brain than when students simply listen to lectures, says Judy Willis, a neurologist who trains teachers across the country in how the brain works.
For example, students may simply memorize a teacher’s lecture on the principle of buoyancy in water but a more effective way of teaching the concept is to have students watch videos, discuss buoyancy in groups, build their own boat, make predictions about its seaworthiness and then test whether it floats."
Quick tips include:
- Encourage parents to test reading levels of children as young as possible to identify potential disabilities. Earlier intervention gives children far better chances of catching up.
- Train teachers in neuroscientific principles, particularity plasticity—or the way the brain changes physically during learning.
- Teach students about neuroscience, so they have greater knowledge about how their brains work and how they can control their own learning.
- Have students make predictions about the projects they are working on. It engages them more deeply in the outcome and encourages them to repeat the process.
- Make the “perception-action” cycle central to instruction. Students need to make observations and be active during their work.
- Use real-world ideas to help students understand difficult concepts, such as having them build model boats to study buoyancy.
- Consider neuroscience-based learning software that incorporates the concepts above.
- Make time during the day for relaxation sessions so students can rest between subjects. Movement and exercise also provide more oxygen to the brain, which helps in learning.
First Energy STEM Grants
STEM Classroom Grants
FirstEnergy proudly supports classroom projects and teacher professional-development initiatives focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
One of the ways we support these activities is by offering science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education grants of up to $1,000 to educators at schools and youth groups in communities served by our electric operating companies, other areas where we have facilities, and where we do business.
More than 1,000 educators and leaders of youth groups have received classroom grants since the program began during the 1986-87 school year.
Applications for the 2015-2016 school year are now available.
Color Code Your Email Labels in Gmail
"I don’t lose track of emails. If you tell me what topic an email was covering, I can find it in seconds, without the use of the search bar. You too can easily locate any email by topic with this little trick I use for organizing all my incoming emails. It all comes down to custom coloration...Simply adding categorized labels to everything coming into your inbox is a good step towards an organized life. But if you start color coding them you can really take your inbox organization to new heights. Keep in mind, the human brain can recognize a color nearly 20 times as fast as it can process a word."
Rethinking the Colorful Kindergarten
"A new study looked at whether such classrooms encourage, or actually distract from, learning. The study, one of the first to examine how the look of these walls affects young students, found that when kindergartners were taught in a highly decorated classroom, they were more distracted, their gazes more likely to wander off task, and their test scores lower than when they were taught in a room that was comparatively spartan."
SCS Instructional Technology Information
Contact me if you have any questions or would like help using these tools.
Email: vturner@scsmustangs.org
Website: http://www.strongnet.org/InstructionalTechnology
Phone: 440-572-7067
Twitter: @vturner8