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Jul/Aug 2010: Features |
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Student response systems, also called "clickers," are handheld devices that help teachers poll students during class sessions and tabulate the responses. This technology is the same as that used when audiences are asked to vote on something during a television quiz program. The advantages of student response systems include increasing student involvement and allowing rapid and accurate assessment of understanding, knowledge, or interest. In this month's roundup, author Charles Doe provides a look at a representative sampling of these systems.
Part 1 of this article, which appeared in the May/June issue, looked at a range of safety and security issues affecting educators as we all strive to attain the vision enunciated at the beginning of that feature. Part 2 addresses universal digital media safety and literacy education as well as targeted youth risk online prevention.
For this story, Victor researched and describes a couple of real-life ways in which curriculum content is moving in the direction of an all-electronic format. He looks first at a school district's move to acquire interactive, digital textbooks from publishers in place of traditional paper-based books. Then he discusses Discovery Education's adaptation of its rich content into digital "basal textbook" format—but "basal textbooks" like you've never seen before!
In "E Is for Explosion …" Victor Rivero sets the scene with an overview of recent happenings in the world of e-reading devices as well as etexts, then focuses in on more than 15 kinds of electronic texts and content and their producers/providers.
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Jul/Aug 2010: Product Reviews |
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Susan Hixson reviews Early World of Learning, the newest addition to the World Book Classroom series, which focuses on preschool and early reading education. The online program supports educators as they help students build vocabulary, comprehension, phonics, and reading fluency.
Charles Doe reviews the subscription-based Study Island SAT and Study Island ACT test preparation programs.
Susan Finley reviews the Student Bullying and Violence Prevention Program, which provides online training and resources teachers can use to communicate with students about bullying and violence-related issues.
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Jul/Aug 2010: Columns |
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Last time, Stephen wrote about some of the issues facing us in the transition to a new and much more complicated ebook ecology, exploring our understanding of ebooks and how they differ from traditional books. In Part 2, he looks at emerging standards, legal issues, and what's in the pipeline for ebook devices, plus strategies for school libraries and their learners.
This month, Mary Alice offers advice and discusses tools, such as Edmodo and VoiceThread, that will help you and your students do lots more than they have in the past with primary source materials they have gathered.
Having written a column several issues back entitled "What Kids Know (and Don't Know) About Technology," Mary Ann has now been inspired to address the same subject and questions to teachers and then also to administrators. So this is what she'll be covering in this month's column and the one to follow.
Like most educators, Johann has logged in to her fair share of webinars. These seminars, conducted through the internet, have some distinct advantages over the traditional, face-to-face group meetings. But they're "different," so Johanna has used this month's Tech Effect column to talk about how you, as a webinar instructor or presenter, can make them work well.
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Jul/Aug 2010: In the Spotlight |
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The BenQ GP1 Mini Projector offers a vibrant image, lamp-free 3LED technology, and the ability to project multimedia directly from a USB flash drive, digital camera, video camera, DVD player, HD television receiver, computer, iPod/iPhone/cell phone, or gaming console.
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