Educational Technology

Google Docs is a popular tool among teachers and students and several of you use it in their daily instruction. It offers a number of interesting features that allow users to easily create and share documents. It also supports collaborative team work and enables users to collectively work on the same document, exchange feedback and edit each other’s work in real-time. There are tons of other important features that make Google Docs a must have tool in your instructional digital toolkit. We have covered several of them in previous posts here in EdTech and mLearning. Today, we want to draw your attention to the functionalities that are not supported by Google Docs but that can be easily added to it using add-ons. Google Docs add-ons are third party applications that you install on Google Docs to empower it with extra functionalities. Add-ons store can be accessed from your Google Docs by clicking on ‘Add-ons’ in the top menu and selecting ‘Get add-ons’. Add-ons are organized into five ma

Below is an infogaphic we designed for the post we  published earlier titled ‘ 5 of The Best Tools to Create Digital Portfolios in Class ’. The visual is too long to be included in the original post so we decided to publish it separately. It summarizes some of the key points we have covered about the concept of educational portfolios together with featuring a collection of some of our favourite web tools students can use to create and share digital portfolios. For more details about these tools and to access a list of curated resources to help you with the integration of portfolios in your classroom instruction, check out the original post. This infographic is also available for free download in PDF format from this page . Your feedback and suggestions are welcome, please share them with us on our Facebook page.   First appeared here

Digital portfolios are great teaching, learning, and assessment tools. In today’s post we are focusing on the learning part and are looking at e-portfolios from a student-centric perspective. To learn how teachers can leverage the powerful of portfolios in their instruction, check out Arter and Spandel (1992) paper (see reference list at the bottom of this page). By definition, a portfolio, according to Arter and Spandel, ‘is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits to the student, or others, her efforts or achievement in one or more areas’ (cited in  Baki and Birgin, 2007, p. 77). The key word here is ‘purposeful’, a portfolio is different from a folder in that it has a purpose and is guided by a number of learning objectives and expected outcomes. Without intentional planning, a portfolio becomes a mere receptacle of one’s work. Three processes are involved in portfolio creation: collection, selection, and reflection. Each of these processes trains students in a number o

Here is a collection of some very good mapping tools we curated from Google Earth Outreach . You can use these tools with your students to develop their geo-literacy. According to National Geographic , geo-literacy 'is the ability to use geographic understanding and geographic reasoning to make far-reaching decisions’. The educational strength of Geo-literacy is that it raises students geographic awareness, increases their decision making,   and helps them cultivate grounded understanding of the geographic world they are living in, an understanding that will help in the protection of natural and cultural resources and lead to  improvement of the overall quality of life on this planet. Some of the activities students will be able to perform using these tools include: create stylish and customized maps, explore the world’s geography in 3D, narrate and share contextualized stories based on specific locations on map using photos and videos, explore places from all around the world thro

If anything the Internet and web technologies have instigated a massive learning revolution analogous, in its grandeur and scope, to the one that marked the 15th century especially after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440. Gone are the days when you have to pay or attend specific formal settings (e,g, schools) to learn. Now, the world knowledge is just a click away. Independent learning, self-learning, life-long learning, self-directed learning are all forms of learning that have been radically redefined by this digital boom. There are tons of resources, educational materials, video tutorials, free online courses, and several other learning materials to help you take responsibility of your own learning and become an enlightened individual. In today’s post we are sharing with you a sample of some of the best iPad apps that will help you in your learning endeavour. They provide a treasure trove of knowledge covering a wide variety of topics presented in

“While the essential steps of planning and executing a project haven’t fundamentally changed since the construction of the pyramids, recent decades have seen a huge shift in the particular tools, attitudes, and approaches used in day-to-day project management. Take a look at what’s changed, and discover where the future of the field is headed” Infographic brought to you by Wrike This is a sponsored post by Wrike

Here is a handy visual we created for the post “ 9 Great Concept Mapping Tools for Teachers and Students ”. We summarized the main points from that post, for more details you can always refer back to the original article where you can also access a list of a wide variety of educational resources to help you make the best of concept maps in your instruction.  More specifically, we provided a working definition of  concept maps, their history and the theory underlying them, and then we talked about some of the main benefits and uses of concept maps in education and concluded with some web tools to help students create digital concept maps. As for the pedagogical strengths of concept maps, we stated that they: Provide students with nonlinear visual ways to understand, produce, and represent knowledge. Help develop higher-order thinking skills including analytical skills. Facilitate the recall and processing of information. Help students externalize their knowledge and show their understan

Comic strips and cartoons are two effective instructional tools to use in class with students from different grades. They are effective because they engage students in meaningful learning experiences where they get to practice key skills such as writing, reading, speaking and communicating. By definition,  a comic strip is "an open-ended dramatic narrative about a recurring set of characters told in a series of drawings, often including dialogue in balloons and a narrative text, published serially in newspapers" (Inge, p. 631 cited in Snyder, 1997). In today's post, we are sharing with you a some very good resources to help you make the best of comic strips in your teaching. pixton.com Why use comic strips in your teaching: Here are some of the reasons why you might want to include comic strips in your classroom instruction (see the list of sources  at the bottom of this post to learn more) Comics are fun, interesting and motivating. Comics promote a wide variety of skill

There are different assessment types teachers use to inform and guide their instruction, of particular important to us in today’s post is the one called formative assessment. Unlike pre-assessment (usually conducted before a lesson) and summative assessment (done at the end of a lesson or lesson unit), formative assessment is an ongoing form of assessment that takes place during students learning. In their book ‘ Literacy 2.0: Reading and Writing in 21st Century Classrooms ’,  Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher differentiated between assessment of learning (summative assessment) and assessment for learning (formative assessment). The purpose of formative assessment is to check students understanding during the learning process. Based on insights collected through formative assessment, teachers get to adjust their instructional  strategies to attend to students’ emerging learning needs better plan for future teaching/learning opportunities. There are several ways to carry on formative asse

The dynamics of engagement for 21st century students are different from those of students that were taught in the pre-Internet era. Today’s students are digital natives. Digitality is an essential part of their everyday life. As a result, the way they reason and think is influenced , to a large extent, by the use of digital technologies. They (students) tend to think “on multiple tracks at once, but have little patience with linear reasoning or delayed gratification”. (Prensky, 2001 cited in Carlton ). They work on short bursts of attention and thrive in interactive student-responsive learning environments. To cater to the learning needs of these students and to their engagement in the learning process, you will have to integrate the thing they love the most: digitality. One way to do this is through the use of games (all sorts of games). The benefits of game-based learning in education are well documented in the pedagogic literature . Games are proved to improve a wide variety of ski

Language, this great social and symbolic resource we possess, is amazingly mysterious. It has been the centre of contentious debates dating back to ancient Greek philosophers. One particular topic that has stirred a lot of discussion in linguistic and non-linguistic circles is that  of nature vs nurture . That is, whether language is an innate universal capacity humans are born with and are predisposed to automatically acquire or whether it is a learned competence that requires some sort of formal/informal instruction. Proponents of the innateness hypothesis (a.k.a linguistic nativism) argue that language is acquired because, as Chomsky contended, humans are born equipped with what he called language acquisition device (LAD). LAD is an inherent biological mechanism that enables us to  easily acquire and produce language. One strong evidence in favour of innateness hypothesis is the fact that we can understand and produce sentences and utterances we have never heard. On the other hand,

One of the best ways to show students that their work is valuable and important is through displaying it in public. Showcasing students work has several benefits: knowing that their hard work is going to be recognized and shared with others, students push the envelope and invest more of their skills and efforts into it. It becomes a source of inspiration, empowerment and motivation. Also, putting up students work for others to see  can boost students self esteem and ‘academic and artistic confidence’. Most importantly, recognizing students efforts provides them with a rewarding experience whose influence can positively shape the rest of their academic or even life journey. Recognition in this sense is not synonymous with praise, it is much more than that. ‘To affirm or recognize students work’, as Schlechty stated, ‘is not to approve or to disapprove; it is to declare that what happened matters and is important’. There are several ways you can showcase students work. Some of these in

As a teacher chances are you have already created a presentation of some sort or presented in front of an audience (e.g., in a conference, at school…etc). And as you know, presenting is a skill that requires practice at two levels: the first level is related to the creation process and the second one is related to the delivery of the final product, that is, the actual presenting before an audience. In today's post, we are  concerned  with the first level: how to create effective and professionally looking presentations. The first step in creating a successful presentation is planning . In the planning process you get to brainstorm ideas, organize your content, and write draft scripts that will make it into your slides. Of course, your scripts will go through several reiterations before you decide on the final content to use on your slides. Next, try to structure your content in such a way  that will make it easy for your audience to follow and understand your message. Decide on wha

Spelling is a learned activity that requires formal/informal teaching and practice. You may pick up the oral part of a target language relatively easily (depending on your cognitive capacities, linguistic environment, and the level of your motivation and dedication, among other factors).But when it comes to learning how to spell, read and write, things get bit slower and might require much more attention and careful practice. The widespread of web technologies and mobile application has tremendously facilitated language learning. You can now learn a foreign language from the comfort of your couch and for free. However, in today’s post we are focusing on one aspect of language learning: spelling. We have curated for you this collection of carefully vetted apps to use with your kids, students and anyone else keen on learning and improving their spelling skills. The apps provide guided practice, interactive games, lessons, quizzes, puzzles, and several other materials to make learning spe

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a digital library that provides K-12 teachers and students with a wide variety of math activities and virtual manipulatives. These resources are arranged into five main categories: Number and Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, and Data Analysis and Probability. You can find manipulatives for all grade levels. Top axis of the chart features grades from Pre-K-2 to grades 9-12. Click on the grade level you are interested in to view and access its resources. As a teacher you may want to draw on NLVM resources to enrich your math teaching and provide students with challenging activities to fortify their math learning and help them develop conceptual and mathematical skills. Caveats are that the site is a little bit old and is not that user friendly. It might take you some time till you get used to it.  Also, to view and make sure virtual manipulates applications work on your browser, you will have to install Java if your browser is

A working formula for a successful learning activity with kids involves three main elements: engagement, interactivity, and fun. The more of these elements a learning activity exhibits the better learning experiences it can generate. With the use of digital technologies, any teacher no matter what subject area he/she teaches can easily integrate these elements into their classroom instruction creating thus optimal learning experiences conducive to profound comprehension. Based on this learning philosophy, we have curated for you these educational science-centred websites to use with kids and young learners. The websites provide a wide variety of hands-on activities, interactive games, quizzes, virtual experiments, and several other materials to engage young minds in immersive learning experiences covering various science topics and phenomena. Using a mixture of science knowledge and technology, kids will get to explore the world of science in fun and engaging ways. 1- NASA Kids’ Club N

The rise of mobile technologies has triggered an unprecedented  learning/teaching revolution. They (mobile technologies) have destroyed boundaries, opened up new learning possibilities, and, most importantly, have  extended learning opportunities to include the virtual space. With this comes  flexibility and fluidity regarding the tempo-geographical dynamics surrounding learning. As a result, tons of learning resources have become available anywhere anytime. In today’s post, we want to particularly highlight one aspect of this mobile learning revolution that is digital grading. As every teacher know, traditional pen and paper grading is a tedious and time-consuming task. It might take one  many hours to grade assignments of a single class let alone if you have many classes. A dreaded nightmare for sure! But now with the use of technology, and in this case mobile technologies, things have become way easier for teachers. There are a wide variety of apps that are designed specifically to

The Internet and web technologies have radically transformed the information landscape levelling the ground for everyone to access, produce, and share knowledge anytime, anywhere. The world’s knowledge is just a click away and all you need is a computerized device connected to the Internet and you can browse through piles and piles of user generated data and right from the comfort of your couch. There is, however, a gloomy side to this information revolution. It is the widespread of the culture of amateurism. Having free access to means of knowledge production is one thing and misusing (and sometimes abusing) these means is another thing. What's the last time you Googled something only to find yourself drowned in a sea of trivial and outright banal content. Content authored by amateurs who think just because they can use a keyboard they can weigh in on any topic out there. In such a data-saturated world, the fine line between information and misinformation is getting alarmingly blu