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Showing posts from 2018

Growth Mindset, Grit and Technology

Last year I wrote a post  Blogging and Growth Mindset, More Connected Than You Think.  which detailed how you can leverage the reflection process built within blogging to grow the growth mindset in yourself and your learners. I would like to continue that conversation here with what I intend to be a series of posts on developing conscious thought patterns that lead us toward the Growth Mindset. First, let's continue on the thought pattern that reflection can lead us toward a growth mindset. Beware, I'm about to go down a rabbit-hole, but I swear it'll come full circle! The stories that you tell yourself about yourself, your habits, your abilities are all an echo chamber and a self-fulfilling prophecy. These stories are running in the background of your mind each time you make an action or choice. When I make a silly error tell yourself the story that "I'm not good with technology.", whether you voice it aloud or you tell yourself the story silently in your

Drop Everything and Reflect!

Who else remembers DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) from their school experience… Okay, you can all put your hands down now! DEAR can be more than Drop Everything and Read, it can also Drop Everything and Reflect . The reflection process solidifies learning, give facilitators a gateway into learner's understanding, as well as, teaches others and invites a continued conversation about the content at hand.  John Dewey is quoted as saying, “We don’t learn from experiences, we learn from reflecting on experiences.” There are many great options to have learners reflect on their learning, especially those when you amplify them with Asynchronous Collaboration  through reciprocal reflection and peer feedback. Schoology  Discussions allow learners to post a reflection  on a given question(s), while allowing others in the course to respond and reflect on the explanation of learning.  (Remember that you can hide learner replies from one another until an original submission has been

Deeper Learning: Defining Twenty-First Century Literacies

"Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy we're living in today." "In today's world, being literate requires much, much more than the traditional literacy of yesterday." The  4 Cs: Communication, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Creativity are all life skills  that will allow our learners to think of solutions to problems that exist in the unforeseeable future. These 4 interconnected and critical skills are broadly applicable to every subject area at every grade and age level. The 4 Cs can be applied through technologies both analog and digital.  Check out the linked video/article feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section on:  Why the 4 Cs are important for our kids and how we can support their usage in the classroom! In this video/article combination, you'll hear one learner's story of how the 4 Cs and 21st Century Literacy has impacted his learning. This kid gets it! Check out the linked fantastic,

Clips: Creativity, Communication, SAMR, and Blooms

As everyone looks toward the testing season, remember the key role of creativity in making lasting meaningful memories tied to content for our learners. Being able to tie facts (semantic memory) to those more personal connections (episodic memory) will increase learners chance of remembering content for the long haul and make it more meaningful.   Clips is a new app that allows you and learners to create short and just-in-time videos that can be used standalone or as part of a larger project. We all know that creating is the peak of Blooms Taxonomy, with Clips learners are creating while having to reflect, summarize, analyze and evaluate information that they learned in class. One of the best parts, it’s really simple! Open the app, point the camera, shot your video; with the click of a button you can add closed captions that are created just by you taking the video. Clips is a great way to augment or modify (SAMR) your summarizing strategy for a lesson or assignment.   ICT