Here are some of the resources we’ll be using in today’s Blended Learning workshop. I’ll keep it updated as the conversation continues.
Pre-Reading Assignment
Two contrasting views of blended learning.
Cities for Educational Entrepreneurship Trust publishes this website to promote blended learning, including the Rocketship School model. Watch the video at the top of the page.
Dan Meyer discusses the evolution of the Rocketship model.
Blended Learning Basics
This article on Classifying K-12 Blended Learning, sponsored by the Innosight Institute, gives clear definitions of what blended learning could mean.
Assessing Blended Learning Techniques
If we change our teaching in the hopes of improving something, how do we check if it worked? This video about the effectiveness of science videos proposes a few ideas.
Resources on Blogging for Teachers
See the list at left, under “I’m Reading About,” for a list of topics including educational technology, literacy, teaching science and technology, and teaching problem-solving.
Resources on Document Scanning
I’ve written a number of posts about using a phone, tablet, or camera to capture quizzes or assignments, share in-class work on the projector, etc. See especially The Scanner In My Pocket.
Resources on Flipped Teaching
Does a flipped classroom work better with before-class videos or before-class readings? What are the pros and cons? Student Preparation For Class and Khan Academy Is An Indictment of Education should get you started, and lead to lots more resources.
Resources on Mind-Mapping
Maria Andersen uses Mindomo to archive links, store videos, and keep notes about games for learning in every topic from music to astronomy to economics. I use it for annotating and archiving collections of resources that wouldn’t fit on my computer. Finally, I have an easy way to tag my bookmarks, do parameterized searches, and access them from any online device.
Resources for Reading Comprehension
Some ideas about using reading instead of videos in “flipped”-style teaching. Includes examples of the kind of thinking students were doing while reading.
An exercise for helping students notice where they get confused.
Examples of “reading comprehension constructors” I’ve used in class, asking students to give examples, draw diagrams, ask questions, and the ever-popular “vocabulary bingo”.
All of these techniques are taken from Cris Tovani’s book Do I Really Have To Teach Reading Comprehension.
Resources for Screencasting
Free software for making screencasts includes Jing (download to your PC) and Screencast-o-matic (cloud-based, no download — works well in classrooms). Here are some screencasts I created — one to introduce a new topic, one to walk through the solution to a math problem. Neither of those approaches were very successful — students didn’t absorb or understand the information. On the other hand, screencasts explaining procedures in software have been a big time-saver.
Resources for Making Educational Videos
Dan Meyer makes beautiful videos and gives them away. He also shares some secrets: use a tripod. No, seriously — that’s one of the biggest differences between great and awful. The other is this: use the video to show phenomena, not explanations. Get the students hungry, then let them ask for the instructions and info. Here’s an example where he takes a weak textbook problem and shows you how to make it shine. He writes about math but I suspect this is widely applicable.
