eLearning Blog

First off, you might want to read my post on how to flip, but then, here are resources you can use with your classes.  I used to believe that teachers should create their own videos and still do if they are more suited for your students.  But having said that, there are many many resources out there that are far better than what a teacher can make.   The key to a flipped classroom is that during school hours teachers will have much more time and most of it one on one with students than they would have in a traditional setting.  Flippers need to start by going to the Flipped Learning Network and looking at their abundance of resources.  For example, here are a number of videos in different genres. CrashCourse  was started by author John Green and his brother Hugh who have used real teachers as their scribes and have created a wide range of videos for social studies, economics and science.  Each genre has a complete set of videos which cover an e...

This is a nice overview of Google Drive and its power.  If you are like me, you have almost completely (I recently found my first use for Microsoft Word in the last year).  The video above shows you many of the highlights and how to use them in just a few minutes.

I usually have 6-10 tabs open at one time - which inevitably slows down my laptop.  Well now if you use Chrome or Firefox, you can add the " One Tab " add on and with one tap it will decrease your tabs to just one.  Then you can add new ones on and "untap" and open your other tabs when you want them.  Thanks to Hiram Cuevas for this great tip. 

I copied this post from Jeff Feinstein on my other blogs (see side bar).   I have written about Remind extensively and swear it is the best thing I have ever done (and yes it does put the burden on the educator and not the students - but hey they do the work which I like). Remind creates a whole new communication stream with my students that transcends the 90 minutes we have face-to-face with each other every other day.  When I send them a text message I know that they received it on their phone instantly. I use it sparingly, however.  I want my students to be responsible to check our class Assignment Calendar (a Google Calendar linked from our class Blackboard site) on their own initiative.  For that reason I use Remind only to announce that I've posted a new assignment, or have made changes to previously-posted assignment deadlines. The consequence of my policy is completely foreseeable: Students forget (or neglect) to check the Calendar, and consequen...

So this is a great video that I found from one of my long ago students. It is a Ken Burns type look at Star Wars.  It would serve as a fun back drop for your students to make their own videos about various wars you are studying.  To do so you might want to use the collaborative video maker called WeVideo which also can be added as an app to Google Drive.   Here are videos showing how to use WeVideo. 

We normally start my classes with a five question quiz where my students can use their notes from their flipped video to answer the questions.  It serves a few purposes.  First I won't count the quiz grade if the notes aren't good enough as I want the kids to have a repository they can use later (which is easy with the search function in Google Drive).  Secondly the questions are the main points for the day so it tells the kids what their exercise is going to be about. But to the point.  I very rarely use the LCD in my classroom other than for when I am giving our opening quiz.  But the other day the my LCD lightbulb went kaput.  So I had to improvise by taking the url from the Google Drive document into a Tinyurl which I also personalized.  For example I am doing the fifth and sixth units in my for AP microeconomics called tinyurl.com/apmicro56 .  So I wrote the url on the board and didn't worry that we didn't have a LCD.  It also is n...

For those of you investing in Chromebooks the video above show you how to use them for secure test taking.  We use TestNav (Pearson) and fortunately this is one of the ones that can be used.   When you secure a Chromebook, the kids cannot get to any other sites except the one you are using for the exam.  

Two days ago my county's deputy superintendent spent part of a period with one of my classes.  He was curious how we were doing with our Chromebooks .  One of my students said something like she really liked the class because "We live in an interconnected world and that is how we operate in class from working constantly in groups to having access, using multiple modalities (my word meaning Chromebooks and smartphones), to a world of information." I am not doing her justice, but tomorrow I am teaching social studies chairs how "Flipping and grouping" can change the way they teach. First off, here is how and why you should consider flipping .   This year I am only teaching AP classes, yet my students only watch a 10 minute video at night from which they take notes for class. We start class with five questions which are the overarching points for the day.  The kids can use their notes and if they do poorly, they can stay after school to take the quiz again...

I like the video above as it talks about how you can incorporate technology into your classroom and even gives you an example of the higher level of application technology can allow.  I like the blog that it was found on as it address a recent WashPost editorial (which I might add has made it clear that it is against technology in the classroom).  The author of the editorial stated that she didn't like her iPads as it made the kids quiet, but the blog author notes that so does reading a book! Really it is time we stop attacking technology and stop citing all the biased findings that it hurts student retention.  Are we really serving our students if we fail to prepare them for an increasingly interconnected world?  If we use paper and pencil and paper for everything and continue to teach our students in rows and in concert how are our pupils going to be ready for the working world.  We need to adjust our teaching and work with our students in the highly connec...