My AI Education

My school system is spending a lot of time rethinking how we should educate our students as we move to a one to one solution.  The video above by Ken Robinson looks at the history of our school system and asks why we are still largely teach in an industrial factory type of way when few of our citizens are preparing for such work.  It is worth the ten minutes to look at this if you haven't seen it yet. 

A couple of months ago the admin teacher in instructional services was shown how to organize our projects using many colored sticky notes.  Of course, I started searching for a way to do this virtually. Our crack team beat me to it finding Trello .  It is amazingly intuitive and allows you to add multiple members and each project that everyone is working on.  It allows easily allows you to see where everyone is in their project without having to send multiple emails and what not. Above is a short tutorial showing you how to use it.  By the way, it's free! 

I have done a lot of studying about Finnish schools in the past few years (and am trying to find more on ones in Singapore).  Why you ask - because Finland and Singapore were no one's examples of fine school systems two decades ago.  But they figured it out and on most reviews are seen as #1 and 2 in the world.   Amanda Ripley's book " The Smartest Kids in the World " is an excellent in depth look at Finland.  For a quicker view watch this clip.  The principal has it correct.  If you have time between working,  you can process your learning and retain it better.  Imagine that - less homework equals better understanding and more learning (more found in " How We Learn" which looks at how your brain functions as you try to retain information.  But our highest level teachers in the US seem to think the more we pound the kids the more they will learn.   Michael Moore's new movie is definitely one I will be seeing when it comes out.   ...

I am researching ways to work with online students who are not faring well in their classes.  This short video gives a nice summary of a "shepherding" method used to reach out to students using mentors (who sometimes can even be the student's teacher). The one below is by George Mason University professor Jered Borup who is doing research on mentors for online students.

Have you ever wanted to show a portion of a video you find on YouTube rather than fumbling in class for the exact portion of it?  If you watch the top video you can create the url link very easily. Depending on the feed you have for YouTube, you can also do it right on YouTube (second video). If you have a list of videos (as most teachers do), below is how you can do it right from your playlist.

Thanks to Zak McNamara who found HubSpot that offers a number of digital opportunities for groups looking to market themselves.  But above it talks and shows what is meant by an infographic. They are free to create and would jazz up online communities/classes or student projects.   Here is where you get access to the templates. 

We use Blackboard Collaborate for our online student sessions.  The top video above shows how to use the most recent application of it.  If you are still using the older version, the video below will be helpful to you.