Join in the Alliance for Excellent Education’s First-ever Digital Learning Day

[Kim Lightle]

The Alliance for Excellent Education invites you to join the more than 200,000 students and thousands of educators in the first-ever Digital Learning Day on Wednesday, February 1, 2012. Visit http://www.digitallearningday.org/sign-up to stay connected, get updates, and receive exclusive information on what you can do to support this effort by taking less than five minutes to sign up and join the wave of innovation and momentum that is building for this groundbreaking event.

This national awareness campaign is designed to celebrate innovative teachers and highlight instructional practices that strengthen and personalize learning for all students. The Digital Learning Day campaign explores how digital learning can provide teachers and students with the opportunities they deserve in an effort to build or become part of a workforce that is ready to succeed in college, a career, and life.

Celebrations and activities of all varieties are happening cross the country at the state, district, and classroom levels. In addition to the national campaign, twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia are hosting their own statewide activities to support digital learning efforts within their states. On Digital Learning Day, a virtual national town hall meeting will be held in Washington, DC along with a live webcast starting at 9:00 a.m. (ET). By developing these tools and hosting the first-ever national Digital Learning Day on February 1, 2012, the Alliance strives to build momentum for a wave of innovation that changes policies, shifts attitudes, and supports widescale adoption of these promising instructional practices nationwide.

To learn more about how to be a part of this groundbreaking event, sign up at http://www.digitallearningday.org. You can also “like” Digital Learning Day on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NationalDigitalLearningDay and follow the discussion on Twitter using the hashtag #DLDay.

Watch the official announcements of Digital Learning Day at http://www.digitallearningday.org/home-video/ and on Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN at http://ow.ly/6WvDH.

[Kim Lightle]

26 days and counting…

Tip of the Day: Look at these Instructional Tools & Ideas That Educators like You Use and Recommend!

Many teachers share websites, tools, and resources that they use on a regular basis as part of their instructional strategies to meet the needs of students.  You can view several recommendations that can be used immediately at http://www.digitallearningday.org/toolkits/lessons/.

 

A few of the tools and resources highlighted include:

• Animoto: This site allows students to create videos.  The students upload photos and music, or they can choose some from the site.  It also has the option to add your own video clips.   http://animoto.com/
• Glogster: Glogster is an online animated poster.  Students can be creative by upload music, pictures, and videos along with adding graphics and text.   http://edu.glogster.com/
• Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators: Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators contains links to websites and best practice in using digital sources. http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/
• Landmark Websites for Teaching and Learning (AASL): http://www.ala.org/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsite...
• Readwritethink.org (IRA, NCTE): Along with lesson plans and information for teachers, this site has many interactive graphic organizers and tools for students to use. http://www.readwritethink.org
• Top Tools 2011 Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies produces this for the Top Tools 2011.  http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/
• Voicethread: Voicethread allows students to post pictures or video clips while commenting and/or annotating on each slide.   http://voicethread.com/

[Kim Lightle]

22 days and counting…

Tip of the Day: Check out Project Based Learning Frameworks and Sample Lessons in the Teacher and Librarian Toolkit

Project Based Learning (PBL) affords many opportunities for teachers to personalize learning for students and allow students to use critical thinking and collaboration to learn about cross-curricular topics and address standards.  Technology and digital learning can expand the potential opportunities for students and teachers with PBL.  The PBL section of the toolkit provides frameworks from national experts and also content specific lesson examples.  You can view the details at: http://www.digitallearningday.org/toolkits/pbl/. 

Highlights include:

• The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) is dedicated to improving teaching and learning throughout the world by creating and disseminating products, practices and knowledge for effective Project Based Learning (PBL). Online resource for PBL: contains tutorials on the “nuts and bolts” of PBL, designing and managing a high quality project, and a collection of already created project plans.  In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Rigorous projects help students learn key academic content and practice the deeper learning skills needed for the 21st century (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking).
• Interdisciplinary STEM Education that provides links to a number of modules related to STEM education for elementary, middle, and high school level students. Many of these modules are interdisciplinary between the STEM fields and have hands-on approaches to applying techniques from different content areas. Examples of modules include designing batteries, learning about vehicle design, measuring wind speed, and investigating the importance of water.
• Holocaust Study Tour Blog, created at New Milford High School in New Jersey, provided students with the opportunity to travel abroad each year and critically reflect on their learning while students, teachers, parents, and other stakeholders comment back here in NJ and all over the world.
• The Mechanical Energy Physics Project, created by Peter Bohacek, uses high speed video to determine whether a roller coaster is an example of a system in which mechanical energy is conserved. Students use frame counting to measure the speed of a roller coaster as it heads up a hill, and then measure the speed as the roller coaster comes back down the hill. The outcome of the measurements depends on which part of the roller coaster they measure because a motor continues to propel the roller coaster until it begins to climb the hill.