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Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Teachers/Admins - What do you read?
Lurker here. I know there are a lot of teachers on this board. I recently started working at an education technology company, and I'd like to learn more about education trends to eventually move up the ladder.
So my question is.. what are the good blogs, magazines, periodicals, twitter feeds, etc. that teachers and administrators (K-12) are reading these days? If you have thoughts on the biggest challenges/concerns/opportunities about using technology in the classroom for grading/assessments/etc. I'd love to hear those too.
Just trying to get my feet wet really. Thank you!
Re: Teachers/Admins - What do you read?
There are two obstacles in my opinion in using technology in the classroom.
#1 is the obvious one, money. A lot schools can't afford the technology.
If you get past #1, I think reason #2 stops a lot of teachers from using technology: training and development time. For example, I have a smart board and I know I don't use it for all that it is worth. I don't have the time it takes to develop good lessons that utilize all of the smart board's features. Using it to teach high school science means there are not a lot of already made resources for me either (in my opinion it seems there are more for elementary grades). My principal asked me if I wanted a clicker system in my classroom and I said I really wouldn't use it unless I was given the time to develop activities that worked in my classroom. I see so much technology go to waste in our district because teachers don't know how to use it.
I didn't mean to go on like that! BTW, I am not one of the technology scared teachers, it allows us to do a lot of neat things. I use another piece of technology (Logger Pro & Vernier sensors) in my classroom all of the time and myself and my students are very proficient with it, but this has been developed for high school science so the resources are there. It also does not take a lot of labor to take an old lesson or lab and integrate the software and sensors.
Jenny McCarthy = Former Playmate and MTV host
Pediatrician = Doctor with extensive experience and education on children.
Bumpies = Don't get me started!
I know who I get my health advice from!
What are you looking at?
I think that this is a legitimate fear. Many of the district analytic tools I have seen recently have been largely focused around evaluating teacher effectiveness through use of technology in some form or another. Yet in most school districts, access and training seem to be huge obstacles to making any meaningful use of technology in the classroom.
A bit of anecdotal evidence... The district I was visiting last week has boxes and boxes of unopened classroom computers...... from TWO years ago. The old ones were still sitting in the classrooms. Supposedly they had no one to set them up, and were running into red tape getting rid of the old ones. Now they are looking into getting a grant for I-Pads...
I'm a business and technology teacher. I would love to get my hands on more technology FASTER. We do have the money to spend on various things each year, but I feel like we're always a couple of years behind. I just got a smartboard this past year. I just got digital video cameras for the students to work with videos/editing this past year. These technologies have been around for quite a while, but take so much time to get into the classroom. Even when they get into the classroom, most teachers are reluctant to use the technology because they don't know how to use it and are never trained. Professional development hardly exists but it's so necessary.
A place you could lurk are the message boards on teachers.net. I post there regularly under a few boards. You can ask questions of teachers in various levels, subjects, states, etc. I think you'd get better insight there since it's a site devoted to education.