Korea International School EdTech Team

Image by Tech Coordinator, Ben Summerton (@bensummerton)

1st Grade Fractions Assessment with Comic Life

#Preschool student using #DoodleBuddy to show me Greek alphabet he learned from his dad. #edtech #education

Want to Be Appreciated? Create a Minecraft Club

Teacher Appreciation Day in Korea

Using Keypals as Student Assessment (Global Communication)

Keypal: a person with whom one regularly exchanges E-mails for fun (Dictionary.com)

Recently an ICT instructor at a Philadelphia school contacted me to ask if I would be interested in collaborating in a keypal assignment. We discussed on Skype that we would have our students share general information about themselves, their country, and their culture (My school is in Korea). We also decided that this would be a great opportunity to informally assess what the students have been learning in their homeroom class. We asked the students to email their keypals a detailed summary of what they have learned recently. My students chose to talk about the U.S. immigration and process of the early 1900s.

Here are tips I think would be useful if you decide to integrate the assignment into your class:

• Make sure to have your students Cc you in all emails so that you can have access to their content for assessment, as well as monitor  appropriateness. 
• Schedule a time for students to email one another.
• Provide question prompts for students so that they know what information they  need to provide their keypals. I found that 3rd graders can be vague in explaining what they learned in class. 

How to Use iPads in the Classroom (LeBaron presentation)

How to use iPads in the classroom from Lebarone

Scratch 2.0: 5 New Features for Students!

Here are 5 new features of the new Scratch!

1. Your old work from the original Scratch website will be transferred to the new Scratch 2.0 site.

2. You don't have to download anything when you want to start a new project. Just click "Create."

3. You can share your work by clicking "Share." Your work will also be automatically saved to your My Stuff page.

4. Your Profile page can be viewed by the public. However, you are the only person who will be able to see the My Stuff page, where you can find your projects.

5. Scratch 2.0 will continually be upgraded with new features and bug fixes.

Coursera Now Provides Professional Development Courses for Teachers

If you have some time on your hands, why not take a free online course to improve your pedagogy? According to the Coursera blog, the education company now provides online professional development courses for teachers. Click on the image below to see all the courses that Coursera offers. 

 

Minecraft EDU Creator Interview by PBS's Idea Channel

Provide Background Knowledge with Crash Course (High School)

Crash Course is a YouTube channel that posts entertaining videos of two brothers, John and Hank Green, teaching topics in core academic subjects. These subjects include U.S. and world history, chemistry, biology, ecology, and literature. 

Classroom Application: Background Knowledge

In "Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement," Robert J. Marzano explains how the background knowledge of students in a topic can indicate how successful they will be in acquiring new knowledge.  Since research shows that there is a correlation between academic achievement and background knowledge, it is important for teachers to provide students with information prior to the start of a lesson or unit. What better way to do this then require students to watch entertaining (and informative) Crash Course videos! For example, if the next lesson is on the War of 1812, you can have your students watch this video the night before.

The images in this post are screenshots from the Crash Course YouTube channel.

Google Chrome Experimental Features

chrome://flags

Google Gooru recently posted an awesome article about enabling experimental features on Google Chrome. Here are the steps to enable features:

• Go to chrome://flags
• Find a feature you would like to enable in the list provided
• Click on 'Enable'
• Restart your Chrome browser

WARNING: It is important to note that these features are experimental!

The warning at the top of the Chrome webpage explains that these features can "change, break, or disappear at any time." And the most frightening of all is that "your browser may delete all your data, or your security and privacy could be compromised in unexpected ways."

Watch Google Gooru's tutorial for more information!