April 22-24
For 48-72 hours across the world, problem solvers like you join us for NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge, one of the largest hackathons in the universe. Empowered by open data, you collaborate with strangers, colleagues, friends, and family to solve perplexing challenges in new and unexpected ways — from designing an interactive space glove to natural language processing to clean water mapping.
The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate. Students begin by determining their goal or thesis. They then identify three reasons to support their argument, and three facts or examples to validate each reason. The map graphic in the upper right-hand corner allows students to move around the map, instead of having to work in a linear fashion. The finished map can be saved, e-mailed, or printed.
Participating teachers advance through a series of inquiry-based professional development modules. Teachers are awarded a digital badge for the successful completion of each 10-hour module. To accomplish this, they must complete the following steps: 1) study module content, 2) participate in a focused discussion with peers working on the same module, 3) create an original inquiry-based global lesson plan that incorporates new learning, 4) implement the original lesson plan in the classroom, 5) provide evidence of classroom implementation and 6) reflect on and revise the lesson created.
The final product of every module is a tested, global lesson plan that articulates learning objectives, activities, assessments, and resources for each stage of inquiry. Upon completion, teachers may publish finalized lessons in a resource library where they can be accessed by other educators. As designed, the HISD badging system will be a four-year, 16-badge approach that equates to 160 hours of professional learning for teachers.
five key features that taken together increase significantly the likelihood that the learning experience for a teacher will lead to results in the classroom for students — which, after all, is the point of professional development:
Badging requires demonstrating understanding and implementation of a target content or skill.
Badging provides recognition and motivation.
Badging allows for knowledge circulation among teachers.
OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits sharing, accessing, repurposing—including for commercial purposes—and collaborating with others. They include educational materials, such as lesson plans, games, textbooks, tests, audio, and video. In addition to being free, these no-cost teaching and learning materials are available online for anyone to use, modify or share with others.This use, reuse, and remixing of instructional materials is a powerful way to gain and share knowledge. Because OER are customizable and flexible, they can be used very effectively to support students to achieve their learning goals.
OER Commons is a digital library where educators can find resources to develop, support and amplify their maker space practices. The site is searchable by subject, grade level or standard. Users can also filter results to include topics, such as activities and labs, games, videos, lesson plans, and interactive tools.
Amy Brown, M.Ed. is a K-12 education strategist for CDW·G. January 20, 2016
According to the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition, schools all over the nation have begun promoting content creation over content consumption.
When evaluating equipment, administrators need to consider how it will work with the space.
More about school media places and the future for information media in academia: