WASA Conference

Today I presented "A Digital Age Classroom & Tools You Can Use"at the WA Small Schools Conference.  For those attending, I want to give you some of the resources I mentioned.

Canby School District has some data collected about their 1:1 ipod program: http://wiki.canby.k12.or.us/sandbox/groups/ipodusergroup/weblog/6a110/attachments/daa48/ipodachievementdata-20092010.pdf?sessionID=ce76f4bd163b934541fb3d7467215dd5e7e7fd34

I showed you my colleague's site on how to use iPads in HighSchool: Ipads In The Classroom

This is another site that has great info about tech; and some specific info for schools using iPads on a large scale:  http://learninginhand.com/ipad/

www.atomiclearning.com has technology tutorials and lessons

To get to my tizmo's page go to: www.tizmos.com/kgrade (has links to spelling city, googledocs, and more.)

storybird.com

I use the mimio interactive whiteboard in my class: http://www.mimioconnect.com/

Some of the iPad apps I mentioned were:  Montessori 100 Board,  Montessori Crosswords, Starfall ABC's (and their awesome website www.starfall.com), Louie Letter Challenge, Make a Word, Rocket Math, Park Math, Mathboard, Montessori Approach to Geography, Teach Me K and 1st, Tales2Go, Talking Tom, Tap to Talk, Dragon Dictation

A couple of sites I didn't get to: http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=63074 has resources for tech savvy teachers, and http://ieducationappsreview.ning.com/ is a site for educators to review apps, and lastly, some software I use to assess students; http://www.esgisoftware.com/ESGI/  -I love the reports I can generate from this program.

Some of the info I shared:


 "Three principles from brain research: emotional safety, appropriate challenges, and self constructed meaning suggest that a one-size-fits-all approach to classroom instruction teaching
is ineffective for most students and harmful to some." 
Teach Me Teach My Brain – A Call For Differentiated Classrooms - Carol Ann Tomlinson

Do not waste teaching time with technology; enhance teaching with technology.

improve traditional learning activities by:
1.)  saving time.
2.)  allow for differentiation to meet each child's learning needs.
3.)  motivating reluctant learners.
4.)  make learning fun.

Technology is NOT going to go away, and we are in the midst of a major sociocultural quantum shift. These technologies are revolutionizing the world our children will live in. So our task is to balance appropriate skill-development with technologies with the core principles and experiences necessary to raise healthy children.”
Modern technologies are very powerful because they rely on one of the most powerful genetic biases we do have — the preference for visually presented information. The human brain has a tremendous bias for visually presented information. Television, movies, videos, and most computer programs are very visually oriented and therefore attract and maintain the attention of young children. The problem with this is that many of the modern technologies are very passive.
The technologies that benefit young children the greatest are those that are interactive and allow children to develop their curiosity and problem-solving and independent-thinking skills.
ECT Interview: Bruce Perry Discusses the Effects of Technology on the Brain


Thank you for attending the session and asking such wonderful questions and sharing your own experiences.