Experiences: 01  02  03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12  13  14

How can we empower our students to become passionate and enthused about learning? How can we give them safe, but powerful learning environments to work within? What tools and mentoring can we provide them so they can create and share with the world?

Below are four Edutopia videos about the social brain. They are short, but very interesting. Please watch them...
Video: What is the Social Brain? (2:34) The research is in: Learning is a social endeavor.
Video: Masters of Social Learning (2:47) We’re hardwired from birth to decode facial expression, posture, and tone of voice—and to work collaboratively.
Video: When the Social Brain Misfires (2:47) Sometimes our powerful urge to belong can hurt us. We look at how stereotypes undermine learning.
Video: The Social Classroom (1:37) Increasingly, modern classrooms support group work and peer-to-peer collaboration. The science says that’s right on.
PictureSMART goals...
Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. Students:
  • articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.
  • build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.
  • use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
  • understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
This week, think outside of the box. How can we give our students more voice and choice in their learning? How can we mentor them as they set personal learning goals? How can we help them choose and learn technologies that will help them achieve those goals, and reflect on their learning? How can we help them develop learning networks and give them opportunities to collaborate with others - personally and virtually? How can we facilitate having them leverage technology to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways, not just with high stakes testing? How can we guide them to learn fundamental technology concepts, so they can choose, use, and troubleshoot them effectively - as well as transfer what they know to newer technologies as they arrive? We have some great material to share with you!

Also, this week, we are going to continue to train you in skills you will need to have in order to create your first lesson plan in experience 10. You'll be creating lesson plans that...
  • will creatively engage your students (future students) in experiences that will help them achieve one of their required core standards or objectives.
  • will use technology to assist you and your students in that experience.
  • will enable you or your students become one or more of the ISTE goals. (empowered learner, global collaborator, etc.)
  • will help other teachers who use your lesson plan because you've included great help and resources for them within it.
  • will detail a strategy for assessing your students' success at achieving the standard or objective.
  • contains your reflection about your lesson, and how it actually meets the standards, and how you will demonstrate that you've actually used and are comfortable with the technology you've incorporated into the lesson.

In experience 1, we showed you how to set up an AggieMail gmail account, which gives you unlimited storage in your Google Drive. In experience 2, we also had you go through some basic training on using Google Docs and Google Drive. We showed you how to share a file in Google Drive with anyone who has a link to it. This week, we are going to show you how and have you do a screencast. A screencast is a video recording of something you are doing on a computer (or mobile device), that includes your audio narration. There are many tools that will do this, but to simplify this for everyone in the class, we'll have you use Screencast-o-matic, a web-based tool that has both free and paid versions. We'll have you use the free version.  So, here's an example of a screencast. Please watch it...
If you could design your classroom to facilitate learning and to empower your learners, what would yours look like? Do any of the images below spark ideas? These are technologies, too! Click any image to view its source... 
Video: Screencast-O-Matic 2017 Tutorial Screencastomatic Screen Recording Tool (11:09) Learn how to create your own screen recordings and screencasts by using a free tool called Screencast-o-Matic. Great for creating tutorials, this tool can also be used along with Microsoft Word, Pages, or Google Docs to help you teach anything. You can use those word processors as your "whiteboard" or "chalkboard" and use Screencast-o-Matic to record your lesson.
  • Reflect upon and synthesize the content we'll share with you in sections 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D
  • Join in the Experience 3 class discussion in Canvas, where you'll share your thoughts and take-aways from what you've learned this week.
  • Do a screencast where you'll share a technology tool or resource that you have found to be beneficial to you, and share that with the rest of the class in a second class discussion in Canvas. The purpose of this is to work as a class team to share some great resources with one another.  I'll provide some examples in the first posts.  Then, here's a collection of screencasts previous students have created.
  • Section 3A: Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.
  • Section 3B: Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.
  • Section 3C: Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
  • Section 3D: Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
  • Section 3E: Skill: Creating a Screencast.
Use Module "Week 3 - Students = Empowered Learners" in Canvas! Be sure to look through the assigned discussions and their scoring rubrics!
In the list below read and view (some contain video) at least two that are particularly interesting to you.
Scan through the following:
Material on this website - other than curated internet videos and resources linked to within - are copyright 2018 by Nathan M. Smith Jr. - ​Updated August 6, 2018