Weekly Tech Tip - Game-Based Learning Environments and Self-Selection

Weekly Tech Tip:

Related Links:

• Team - Drill Head (Ananth Pai's Classroom Website)
  
• Tutpup (Web)
  
• Tumblebooks (Web)
  
• iCivics (Web)
• Manga High (Web)
• Raft Race (Web)
• Timez Attack (PC)
• Personal Trainer Math (DS)
• MathBlaster (DS)
• Learn Math (DS)
• Brain Age (DS)
• Learn Geography (DS)
• Bookworm (DS)
• Scribblenauts (DS)
  

Video Festival:

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Link Stew:

• Eden Prairie OKs changing school lines (Star Tribune)
• Facebook vs. Twitter Infographic
• Books Ngram Viewer
• Future of Education Talk With Alfie Kohn (December 16th) Recording
• List of Resources for Developing AUPs
  

Blog Carnival:

• I Don't Give a Crap by Dean Shareski on Ideas and Thoughts
• Ban fiction from the curriculum by Grant Wiggins on ASCDEdge
• Backwards by Design by Bill Ivey on Independent School Educators Network
• The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time by Al Franken on Huffington Post
• Tip of the Week – 65 History Twitter feeds by Glenn Wiebe on History Tech
• A week without technology? by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• Crowdsourcing Alternatives To Delicious by Alec Couros on Open Thinking
• What Makes Kids Creative? A Box or a Spaceship? on The Daily Riff
  

Retweetable Tweets:

MDE approved two more charter schools authorizers: Audubon Center of the North Woods and Northfield Public Schools, http://ht.ly/3sQpuless than a minute ago via HootSuiteMn Dept. Education
MnDeptEd

I find it odd that an infant will ask "why" 300 times a day yet adults are infatuated with asking just "how".less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneJoe Bower
joe_bower

#TIES10 STEM Panel Discussion

On Monday at the TIES Conference I attended a panel discussion on STEM. I was most impressed with what third grade teacher Ananth Pai was doing with technology in his classroom. Mr. Pai is a second career 4th year teacher who says that in his first year he realized that he had to make a change in his classroom. He started collecting technologies that could enhance learning in his classroom including many that some would find surprising like the Nintendo DS and other small portable devices. What struck me most about his approach was not so much how he integrated the technologies but how he selected them. His principal, three of his students, and their parents attended the session to support and share the good things that Mr. Pai is doing in his classroom. What struck me was their testimony about how much their teacher listens. Mr. Pai says he starts with what technologies the kids tell him they think they should be using admitting that they know more about what will engage them than he does. I absolutely love this approach and hope to visit his class sometime in the next couple of weeks to discuss more with him about his strategy for assessing technology and creating a student-centered learning environment. I highly recommend you check out his class webpage.