Tech Tips
April 2019: Volume 6- Number 56
April Showers!
My Row Counter
"Have a pdf of a pattern? Import it into this app to help you stay organized and focused. My Row Counter also has a VOICE control so you don’t even have to touch your phone. Oh yasss, girl. This is one of the best free crochet apps and has excellent reviews!"
Crochet Stitiches
"This app would be best used by intermediate-level crocheters for inspiration, I think. If you’re wanting to crochet a baby blanket, for example, whip out your Crochet Stitches app and scroll through their collection of stitches until you find a pretty one."
Sew Awesome
"Sew Awesome is a program that helps keep tracking of everything related to sewing. This app has three main categories, sewing stuff, sewing tools, and sewing resources. With each of these categories contains ways to store your stash, converting calculators, rulers, sewing term glossary, diagrams, and more."
Why Learner-Centered Education Plays a Crucial Role in the Development of Children
excerpt:
"Children best learn by doing. When they do new things they are most engaged. A learner-centric learning environment allows not only a lot of doing, but actually a lot of interaction between students and teachers, based on students’ needs.
What are some of these student needs?
- For starters, they need a safe learning environment, a space where they know they can ask any question without the fear of being ridiculed. When the get the answers they need they’ll gain more confidence and make progress.
- They need instant feedback. They need reassurance when they’re on the right track of learning and when they do something wrong, they need to understand their mistakes and learn from them — as they happen, not at the end of the day or semester.
- They need diverse learning materials. Some students need more visual cues than others, others like to listen and watch first, others prefer to discover new things on their own. Every students learns differently, so they should be let to.
- They need to have a connection with the teacher. A human connection. Teachers can inspire students to learn all the things in the world, but only when they create a deep connection with them. Trust goes both ways.
- Ultimately, students need to have agency. Of course younger kids need more guidance than 12-year-olds, which in turn need more guidance than sophomore students. The teacher as a guide principle stands tall in all education years. But once a student knows something about themselves — how they best learn, what they prefer, what they like — they should be listened to and they should be able to steer their own learning journey. Once they see adults letting them learn their way, they’ll get more engaged in their learning process.
Student-centric learning meets all of the above student needs and more. When students feel safe, they’re not afraid to ask questions and also get their questions answered, they have access to diversity in terms of learning materials, connect with their teachers and feel their voice is heard, they learn more and they learn better. They discover new interests and develop in ways that may be surprising."
How Integrating Physical Art Into Digital Creations Expands Creativity
How Integrating Physical Art Into Digital Creations Expands Creativity
“Teachers don’t necessarily know how to teach creativity, but I think perhaps if we stop thinking about that as much and start thinking about building creative confidence, then we might be on the right track,” Hunt said. Creativity is a difficult concept to pin down, and many students get hung up believing they aren’t creative. But creative confidence comes from giving students lots of entry points to a project and focusing on the process instead of the end product."
Seen on Twitter
Excerpt:
In my first year of teaching at Wissahickon Middle School, I had the opportunity to work with an amazing veteran teacher (Jen Smith), who literally took me under her wing. One of the best things about working with Jen was her consistent goal of making the learning engaging in our classrooms. We both taught English Language Arts on the same 8th-grade team, and when we would meet to plan Jen would often say: “So this is how we did it last year, but I want to make it better. Any way we can use technology or some other idea to make it more engaging?”
This was design thinking and the LAUNCH Cycle in action. Jen would ask for us to Look, Listen, and Learn (Phase 1) before we started to Ask Questions (Phase 2). In one particular situation, we were struggling with Literary Devices. We began to empathize with our students before asking questions like:
- Why would our students care about literary devices?
- What would be the best way to learn the devices?
- What would be the best way to assess their learning without regurgitation?
- How can we engage the students in understanding their purpose and use in the real world?
As we answered these questions and looked at the work from previous years, we began to Understand the Problem (Phase 3). Literary devices had always been seen as boring. They were never presented as something exciting, but just something to check off the list of having learned in 8th grade (and needed on the State standardized tests). We started to brainstorm and Navigate Ideas (Phase 4) on how we could teach the devices in engaging ways. One of our co-teachers offered a piece of advice. She noticed that popular songs always had lit devices in their lyrics. With that we started to Create (Phase 5) our very own rap song called, “Welcome to Your Lit Device Education.” We had so much fun. As a team of teachers (most well into their careers) we created “Rapper names”, wrote a song script with lit devices, and I used a few beats from Garage Band. Then we worked for hours fixing the lyrics and song (Phase 6). We recorded it and then put it online.
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