Where education meets technology and they become good friends
I don’t like mirrors, because I don’t always like what I see. I consider myself successful, efficient, and capable, but while preparing for this new school year, I took a deeper, honest look at my professional self and found some lurking flaws that need repair. There are several areas I need to improve in order to become [...]
Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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When it comes to maintaining the status quo and resisting progress, education is the master - still seemingly frozen in place like a museum diorama, still entrenched in the 1900s-style classroom. Any movement forward is teeny-tiny in step and super-slow in motion. In reacting to that, I’ve made some arrogant assumptions, blaming teachers for their ostrich-like [...]
Posted on August 16th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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First, the bad news… Teachers work long hours, many “off the clock.”
There’s nothing like the actual experience of teaching for a vicious shakedown of your idealism topped off by an icy shock of the cold, real world. Veteran teachers have war stories that will curl each other’s socks.
When I came into teaching, all gooey [...]
Posted on August 10th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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“Mass innovation comes from communities… It’s like building a bird’s nest where everyone leaves their piece.”
It’s contradictory that we isolate students from each other in school when learning or testing, yet we call on them to collaborate, share resources, and pool knowledge in the working world.
Shouldn’t we make the classroom more like the real world?
Video [...]
Posted on August 9th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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Most of the people I know in the real world offline don’t read blogs; even fewer write them. We bloggers tend to forget that we’re in the minority, because our virtual blogging environment seems ubiquitous and natural, as if everyone in the world is here with us and because bloggers have increased in number exponentially in the [...]
Posted on August 6th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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Spelling lists are boring! … But not with Spell with Flickr, a simple and quick application that allows you to grab typographic images from Flickr’s public site.
I used Spell with Flickr to make my banner (which one of my tactful friends said resembles a ransom note), and made the following video tutorial to share this [...]
Posted on July 30th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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The 1909 postcard above is from my paternal grandmother’s collection, and in case you can’t read the caption, it reads “Toot ‘N’ Be Darned.” It shows a grumbly old-world buggy driver blocking the road so that a newfangled car can’t pass.
I’ve compiled a few excuses reasons educators give for avoiding the use of technology in [...]
Posted on July 27th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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Need a handy way for students to read from a script without staring down at their notes?
Stage fright is crippling, and if you’ve watched a student freeze in front of a video camera, you know the embarrassment and frustration he or she experiences. I’m not talking about fun home movies where Frankie and his buddies [...]
Posted on July 26th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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It’s Friday night and it’s time to unwind after a long week. Try out a little creative cooking!
I can use this video as an alluring hook and inspiration for students before my next claymation activity!
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a2a_linkurl=”http://edutwist.com/elin/2008/07/creative-spaghetti/”;
a2a_color_main=”D7E5ED”;a2a_color_border=”AECADB”;a2a_color_link_text=”333333″;a2a_color_link_text_hover=”333333″;
Posted on July 25th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
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Education needs a twist. Or maybe it needs a kick in the pants. When naming this site edutwist, I considered all the various definitions of the word “twist,” applying them to the rising push to infuse more interactive technology into the classroom vs. the opposing, resistant pull away from it by many traditional educators. Just [...]
Posted on July 19th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
