Wednesday, August 12, 2015

How to install Windows 10 on a Mac

From c|net August 4, 2015.
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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Teacher Shortage--Real or Faux

On August 9, The New York Times published the article "Teacher Shortages Spur a Nationwide Hiring Scramble (Credentials Optional)". The crux of Mokoto Rich's article is:

Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education — a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers.


On the same day, writing for The Seventy Four, Kevin Huffman wrote an opinion piece titled: "Teacher Shortage Cry Misses Real Crisis in Teaching Supply" in which he claims:

Since I first entered the classroom as a bilingual first-grade teacher 23 years ago, education policy has been informed in large measure by a key alarmist claim: There is a massive impending teacher shortage.The claim comes and goes, but is enjoying a renaissance in recent weeks with an oft-expressed view that we are losing teachers rapidly, hence we should do everything we can to make the profession more desirable.The sentiment is admirable and important, but the underlying claim has a major problem. It simply isn’t true.


Huffman's argument is that the retirement stats used by anti-reformers are overstated and that the majority of teachers are happy in their positions.



Neither article backs up their claims with actual, national and state research findings over time, but Rich's chart depicting the decline in enrollment in California teacher preparation programs and the number of credentials issued is telling, at least for California.


2015-08-11_1942



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Saturday, August 8, 2015

te@chthought

This is a great site for all things educational K-20. If you haven't been there, go. It's worth more than a cursory look, possibly even subscribe to receive emails. This is from their mission statement:

TeachThought’s mantra is simple: learn better.


Our mission is to illuminate and actuate optimal learning for everyone, everywhere. This starts with helping smart teachers teach smart, and it extends to work with like-minded organizations to bring visibility and traction to their ideas.


The pie-in-the-sky goal is a modern enlightenment that results in healthy communities and interdependent citizens–and we believe that this can happen much more simply than it’d seem.


The secret is to change the way people think about learning. It’s possible more than ever to create learning spaces that are personalized, self-directed, social, and creative. This requires new tools and models, but more importantly a paradigm shift in how everyone–educators and otherwise–thinks about “education.”


In a couple of recent articles, the concept of disruption and its value in education is discussed (article 1, article 2). The second article gives examples. Disruption was extrapolated from a theoretical business model and attempts to explain events in education progress(?) somewhere between evolution and paradigm shift. Interesting reading but I'm not sure I want to add it to my very long list of forgotten models.

Here are Terry Heick's (te@chthought's director) thoughts regarding what's trending in 2015:

What’s trending up for 2015 school year in terms of education technology?


iPads are still the standard but other platforms are making headway. That should be fun to watch over the next 3-5 years.


Educators are getting better at spotting crap edtech, but waste still abounds. There are even some educators who are against technology in the classroom at all.


Schools are getting better at thinking tech-first (not in terms of priority, but design). But they are still struggling to meaningfully integrate edtech at the learning model and curriculum level.


Apps are getting downright brilliant in spots, but in-app purchasing? That’s getting a bit out of hand, isn’t it? And something has to be done about all of the usernames and passwords.


Below are 30 entirely subjective but hopefully somewhere close to reality takes on what’s trending up and what’s trending down in education and education technology for 2015 and beyond. A handful of these aren’t pure edtech items, but it’s all part of the same ecosystem yes?


Note that this list isn’t an endorsement–meaning this isn’t necessarily the way I think things should be, but rather what they seem to be–at least from my vantage point, right here, right now. Ask me again in August.


What’s trending up, what’s trending down, and what’s in that awkward middle ground of education and education technology? Below are 30 guesses.


The interactive list is available at the site, however, here is a non-interactive list:

Trending Up

  1. Teacherpreneurs

  2. Decentralizing academic standards

  3. Rethinking data in the classroom

  4. Adaptive learning algorithms

  5. Digital Citizenship

  6. Focus on non-fiction, digital media

  7. Depth of content

  8. Experimentation with new learning models (including flipped classroom, sync learning, blended learning, etc.)

  9. Teacher self-directed PD, webinars, streams, etc.

  10. College as a choice

  11. Collaborative learning

  12. Digital Literacy

  13. Focus on learning spaces

  14. Design thinking

  15. Mindfulness, meditation, downtime

  16. Teacher as guide-on-the-side

  17. Gamification of content

  18. Genius hour, maker hour, collaboration time

  19. Workflows

  20. Cloud-based word processing

  21. Mainstreaming + co-teaching

  22. Platform Agnosticism

  23. Librarian as digital media specialist

  24. YouTube channels, Google Chromecast, AppleTV

  25. Apps like Storehouse

  26. 1:1 tablets/devices

  27. Project-Based Learning

  28. Mobile-first #edtech design

  29. The innovation of apps

  30. Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive


Awkward Middle Ground

  1. Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.

  2. “Accountability”

  3. Professional Learning Communities

  4. Differentiation

  5. Computer coding

  6. Traditional reading lists of truly great literature

  7. Pure creativity

  8. Self-directed learning

  9. Massive in-person education conferences

  10. Colleges in general

  11. Experiential learning

  12. Cultural Literacy

  13. The physical design of most school buildings and universities

  14. Memorization of prioritized content that leads to design thinking

  15. Debate

  16. Pressure on systems

  17. Gamification-as-grading-system

  18. Tutoring

  19. To-do lists

  20. Cloud-based learning

  21. One teach, one drift/prompt/observe

  22. Moving from one OS to another (e.g., from Android to Windows Phone)

  23. Librarian/DMS as bibliophile

  24. Online encyclopedias

  25. Apps like Prezi

  26. Socioeconomic disparity

  27. Mobile learning

  28. Mobile assessment

  29. Honest-to-goodness free apps

  30. iCloud


Trending Down

  1. Mass education publishers

  2. Common Core standards, Race to the Top

  3. Data Teams

  4. Scripted curricula

  5. Draconian district filters

  6. Humanities

  7. Coverage of content

  8. “21st century learning” as a phrase or single idea

  9. The perceived quality of teacher certification & training programs

  10. College as the standard

  11. MOOCs

  12. Agricultural Literacy

  13. The traditional classroom

  14. “Low-level” recall of easily accessed data (facts) or skills (arithmetic)

  15. Lessons that favor “verbally expressive” students

  16. Pressure on teachers

  17. Standards-based grading; pass/fail; student retention

  18. Increased “instructional hours”

  19. Whole class processes

  20. Flash drives, hard drives, CDs, emailing files

  21. Alternative schools/classrooms for special needs students

  22. Apple-centric thinking

  23. Librarian as no-nonsense, ruler-wielding taskmaster

  24. Cable television, subscription-based content streaming

  25. Apps like PowerPoint

  26. Oversimplifying BYOD thinking

  27. “Doing projects”

  28. Mobilizing non-mobile content

  29. In-app purchase gouging

  30. Dropbox

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Friday, August 7, 2015

Another Long List of EdTech Resources

This one is from Education Technology and Mobile Learning:

         21st Century Teaching Resources


          Teachers Web Tools


          Google Tools for Teachers

          Educational iPad Apps

          Content Area Resources

          Educational Social Networking

          Teacher Resources

 
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Thursday, August 6, 2015

A Massive List of Technological Education Tools

This site can be overwhelming. I suggest you click the Browse around and explore button where you can search by category, subject, age, and platform. After you click on an item within one of the tools search areas you can filter the tools by price (free or paid), platform, subject, age, and category. Sorting is also available by popularity, dated added, and last update. The short (2-1/2-minute) video overview is helpful but getting inside and 'putzing' around is more valuable.
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Attention students and teachers: Check if you can get Office 365 for free now

From c|net.
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Professional Development

A successful professional development program has rules, rules that remain pretty much ignored:



  1. Focused at the site - district defined autonomy.

  2. Provide time.

  3. Eliminate workshop-based PD. Boring! Instead: professional learning communities; coaching and mentoring; school and other classroom visits (peer observation).

  4. The largest struggle for teachers is not learning new approaches to teaching but implementing them. Focus on in-classroom observation and critiques. Studies have shown it takes, on average, 20 separate instances of practice, before a teacher has mastered a new skill, with that number increasing along with the complexity of the skill

  5. In order to truly change practices, professional development should occur over time and preferably be ongoing. Studies show that effective professional development programs require anywhere from 50 to 80 hours of instruction, practice, and coaching before teachers arrive at mastery.

  6. Coaches/mentors are found to be highly effective in helping teachers implement a new skill. Numerous studies have shown coaching to be successful at changing teacher practice and improving student learning. Before coaching, however, teachers need to get a solid foundation of knowledge about the teaching strategy. This presentation of knowledge should be active, not passive. Further, modeling by the coaches has been shown to be very effective at helping teachers grasp a new teaching approach before they attempt implementation.

  7. Professional development is best delivered in the context of the teacher’s subject area. Teachers don’t find professional development on generic topics useful. Professional development that focuses on teachers analyzing the specific skill and concept they’ll teach in their discipline is not only well-received by teachers, but has also been shown to improve both teacher practice and student learning.

  8. Participate in or establish professional learning communities. Research shows that effective professional learning communities can change teacher practice and increase student achievement. Several studies have found that student achievement is higher in schools with strong professional communities, where collective responsibility, collaboration and collegiality among teachers are fostered


A quick overview of a technology-oriented PD effort:


  1. Long-term view - ongoing

  2. Administration's vision - focus on skills

  3. PLCs - organized by content

  4. In coordination with Department Heads, identify lead teachers and technologically competent students within each content area.

  5. Define student & teacher needs.

  6. Define desirable learning outcomes.

  7. Develop learning activities:
    a. 10% workshops - active learning
    b. 90% collaboration, observation, coaching, modeling, mentoring, and research at individual and small group level

  8. Execute. & manage (schedule, resource.etc.)

  9. Assess, review, adjust.

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