Alan November says that "as we provide our students with models of how to use their 'digital containers' for learning, the role of the teacher will be more crucial than ever. The fact remains: These tools can be a major distraction from learning or they can be a major catalyst to it." He challenges us: "It will be the courageous educator who works with students to explore the power of these tools and in turn empowers students to be lifelong learners and active shapers of a world we cannot yet imagine."

Digital Storytelling Guide for Teachers

Digital Storytelling Guide for Teachers by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano -- a free download. I love free!

Robert Gagne’s Instruction Design Model; “The Nine Events of Instructions”

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Robert Gagne’s Instruction Design Model; “The Nine Events of Instructions”

View more presentations from Christopher Pappas.

Amazing Images of Earth From Space (Slideshow) : Planet Green

Amazing Images of Earth From Space (Slideshow) : Planet Green

YALSA Preconference: Promoting Teen Reading with Web 2.0 Tools

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

YALSA Preconference: Promoting Teen Reading with Web 2.0 Tools

View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

YALSA Preconference: Promoting Teen Reading with Web 2.0 Tools

During the school year, I introduced students to the abbreviation cpa, short for the term Continuous Partial Attention coined by Linda Stone. To be expected, all my students could relate to this cultural phenomenon and were quick to point out that it's not only their age demographic that falls prey to cpa. We read several articles as class assignments in preparation for our own Google Survey and argument essay. Our question was based on the Renny Gleeson TED presentation on the Culture of Availability: Can technology make us more human(e)?

Today, Dr. Kristen Purcell will be speaking at the Young Adult Library Services Association ALA pre-conference in Washington, DC, as part of a panel entitled "Promoting Teen Reading with Web 2.0 Tools." You can follow the preconference at http://sites.google.com/site/yalsareading/home or on Twitter with the hashtag #yalsareading.

Kristen Purcell's work is part of the Pew Internet & American Life Project

Check out this SlideShare presentation. I was most surprised by the statistics on texting.

YALSA Preconference: Promoting Teen Reading with Web 2.0 Tools

View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

Black Box

Last week, when Dr. Ackerman brought out the Black Box and asked us to connect to a learning theory, besides the Skinner connection, I thought of the Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black article Inside the Black Box.

The two use the black box as a metaphor for our classrooms and argue that what we teachers do to manage all the situations that occur in a class period to "help students learn immediately and in the future" is really what matters first. The standards and achievement scores and all the rest of the goals in our race to the top come after we start paying attention to "the processes of teaching and learning" in those black boxes.

Several years ago, I had the chance, along with some of our other teachers, to attend a week-long work session with Dr. Wiliam. We worked to learn just how difficult it is to come up with effective assessments that truly teach us what students know and where they are in the learning continuum. That's been part of the professional development I've been privileged to have.