LA Technology Department

Teachers know that students don’t always check their email readily…they may be quicker to respond on SMS and chat these days more than email. Here are couple of ways to communicate with students via SMS.

1. Remind 101 This startup allows you to send reminders to students via SMS without collecting their actual cell phone number.

2. Use a Google Spreadsheet to mass SMS a class.  This method is a bit more work up front but might be easier to quickly send a message to a class. Students have to provide you with their cell number to make this work.

3. Use Google Apps to send SMS. For most of the Google app methods, you must know student’s numbers.

4. Teach students how to set up their GMail to forward to their phone via SMS. I give one method here.

Maybe we need a student panel like this at LA for the start of the year?

Duluth teens and others chip in on tech-savvy teaching strategies | Duluth News Tribune | Duluth, Minnesota.

At the ISTE2011 conference talking about these issues and came across this great post.

10 Reasons to Ban Pens and Pencils in the Classroom | MindShift.

Well, well.  A study published in the venerable Science, co-authored by a Nobel prize winner that includes the following quote:

“It’s almost certainly the case that lectures have been ineffective for centuries. But now we’ve figured out a better way to teach” that makes students an active participant in the process, Wieman says. Cognitive scientists have found that “learning only happens when you have this intense engagement,” he adds. “It seems to be a property of the human brain.”

This should be fun to watch!

A Better Way to Teach? – ScienceNOW.

• How to focus intently on a problem until it’s solved.
• The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
• How to read critically.
• The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
• An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
• How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
• Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
• Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
• An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
• Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

Seths Blog: Whats high school for?.

Inkling signs with major publishers to bring 100 textbooks to iPad by 2012, no actual ink

Two major publishers – Pearson and McGraw hill have just signed on to publish e-textbooks for the iPad.  Best part?  They are 35% less the print editions!

Woz to educators: “be brave, use the new technology”.

Many useful tips for Google users at LA.  Social studies teachers should check out #4 and biology teachers will love #2.  Everyone who has to deal with finicky printers could try #1!

Source Seeker: Top 12 Google Labs experiments | Network World.

Two tech tools that teachers find very useful for saving information and syncing files in many places are Evernote and Dropbox.  Read more about them below:

More on Evernote in Education:

How My Students Started Using Evernote: http://note.io/enschool

10 Evernote Tips for School: http://note.io/studenttips

10 Tips for Teachers Using Evernote: http://note.io/enteachertips

More on DropBox for teachers:

http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/86024.aspx

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) has released a couple of useful new resources – a collection of biology articles, and a new series of articles on biology education.  The first article is super cool – making art from bacterial pigments.

Elvis Art using bacteria: