Collaboration came in at number three, in the flipped classroom you should encourage students to “seek explanations from their peers.” The idea behind this being that one engages more with a subject and learns more when they have to teach someone else about it. An important part of the flipped classroom is celebrating your learners, commending them on their achievements. Recognizing hard work and progress is a great incentive for students and inspires them to work harder. The last tip Linda gave was to give second chances. When given a chance to really do better on a quiz, Gutierrez gives her students a chance to do so if they achieved a minimum standard she sets.

Do you agree with the tips for the flipped classroom that Linda presented? What are some other tools and practices you use in your flipped classroom that work for you and help your students become successful leaners?

Meet Amy Ahearn, a Graduate Student in the Learning, Design and Technology program at Standford School of Education. She’s in a one year masters program that is focused on designing tools for learning in formal and informal education settings. Amy is really passionate about designing tools for literacy and health education in the developing world. Before Amy started the graduate program at Stanford, she was in international development in Washington DC, and was also a teacher in Malaysia. Amy discovered Pathbrite from the Director of the Stanford Folio Thinking Initiative, Helen Chen. She needed to develop a portfolio that would showcase the designs, projects, and products she would develop and build over the course of the one year program.

Pathbrite has been easy for Amy to use and customize, it allows her to visually document the work she’s completed as well as her own learning and reflection. Amy can also share her portfolio with a broader external audience which may include potential collaborators or employers in  more interactive and visually pleasing manner. By interacting with Pathbrite in grad school and seeing how well it may be used to document her own learning process and her reflections, it’s clear Amy can see the potential benefit portfolios in classrooms may offer. Keep the great work up Amy; your portfolio looks great!

Facebook pages are usually created for businesses or various clubs, a place where the audience may engage and kept up to date on information, etc. The page could very much function in the same manner for the classroom, it’s an great space to post assignments or even post updates. Posting in an environment that students usually interact with more than once on a daily basis really prevents frustration, excuses for incomplete assignments, and also creates a sense of community for your class.

Twitter is another great opportunity to communicate with busy parents and your students. Tweets can serve as quick reminders on assignments coming up. Just as Facebook does, Twitter can “increase parent-teacher communication.”

Pinterest is a social media platform that revolves around a visual orientation. Pinning photos of your classroom or of events and assignments may offer an opportunity to really give parents an idea of what their children’s daily interactions look like. Be sure to double check your students’ photo releases before taking any photos.

Blogging no longer has to be only a separate activity students par take in outside of the classroom. Educators can assign blogging assignments as part of their English lesson plan, or as a reflective assignment. In order to successfully use blogging as writing practice and an outlet for thoughts and expression, it’s integral to set guidelines for students. A classroom blog, where students take turn blogging could be a great repository to share with parents and administrators.

Students who are exposed to social media in their classrooms are more likely to develop valuable experience they will be able to use as an adult in their “personal and business lives.” Connect with your students and encourage an open communication system with parents to ensure successful integrations of social media in your own classroom.

1. Keep the students’ attention during transitions in the classroom by projecting videos, current events, or even images that the students could then write or blog about.
2. You could even take students on a virtual field trip on the ipad, check out the ability of seeing things up close and personal via The Google Wonders Project
3. In a flipped classroom model, an ipad could record and then publish lessons for students to reflect back on.
4. The iPad is also a great tool for students to try creating videos that refer and reflect back to learning outcomes or lecture topics.
5. Use the endless amounts of tools in the form of downloadable apps on the iPad in combination with your lesson plans for a more efficient classroom.

Oxnevad’s embracing attitude towards change and using technology in her classroom will surely bring about a great iPad implementation, and her ideas will inspire other educators to continue to experiment and take advantage of technology in their own classrooms. To read the article yourself, check it out here.

NewSchools Venture Fund was created to support implementation of technology into K-12 schools, and this week they talked about their plans to further expand their reach. Their partnerships with Rethink Education and Zynga.org will help pair “cutting-edge technology with forward thinking capital on behalf of kids’ learning,” NewSchools’ CEO Ted Mitchell explained. These new sectors in both public and private investors seek to truly impact the state of education and help fund more ed tech project development. Read more about what Zynga.org plans are in the original article by Venture Beat here.

1. They always start with the why
2. They are malleable and can easily adapt
3. They embrace change
4. They share, share, and then share some more
5. They think win-win-win-win
6. They are extremely thorough and think two steps ahead
7. Tehy actively care

Read more detailed descriptions on each habit here. What are some other habits that are important that weren’t included?

Young has found that the students have enjoyed engaging more in class and sees that the incentives in the game are strong enough to encourage more participation. Since the game divides students into teams, it forces them to collaborate and work together to achieve goals. Despite possibly being considered a technology integration into the classroom, the game actually doesn’t require consistent computer access, and it also does not “directly measure students’ content mastery.” Instead, the game is another “layer” on top of the class, more about the experience and practicing soft skills like team work, communication, and responsibility.

Young has since launched a funding campaign via KickStarter to create a “web-based version of the game that can be accessed by students and teachers worldwide.” Since Young’s game concentrates on the experience, do you think there is a way to incorporate gamification with academic content learning by making it an experiential process?

The study found that the way students wanted to interact with their mobile devices while learning actually depended on their grade level. Elementary and Middle school kids wanted more involvement with mobile devices in the classroom  than the high-school and college students surveyed wanted. It is becoming more and more apparent that mobile devices are becoming part of the everyday lifestyle of students today, and educators have constantly experimented with successful ways of integrating them as tools to enhance the learning process. While it certain that mobile devices could potentially improve education, the question remains with how exactly teachers will go about that. How do you think mobile devices would work most efficiently in the classroom and different grade levels?

At the 2013 StartOut Awards on Friday, April 19th, Pathbrite CEO, Heather Hiles, was honored as the recipient of the Pillsbury Winthrop Innovator Award for her work towards revolutionizing education and education technology. The event was a great celebration and gathering of a community that showed great support for one another. Senator Mark Leno kicked off the night with an inspiring speech congratulating all of the award winners and recognized how the LGBT community and StartOut are impacting the tech sector and innovation around the world. Learn more about StartOut here.

Congratulations to Heather and all of the award winners at the event.  The entire Pathbrite team is extremely proud of you!

Between 2001 and 2009, the average yearly number of miles driven by 16- to 34-year-olds dropped a staggering 23 percent. The Frontier Group has the most comprehensive look yet of why younger Americans are opting out of driving. Public transportation use is up 40 percent per capita in this age group since 2001. Bicycling is up 24 percent overall in that time period. And this is true even for young Americans who are financially well off.

Derek Thompson finds that young people “have swapped student loans for mortgage and auto loans”: