Thanks to all those who participated in the Blended Learning workshop.  Below, you’ll find links to the resources we used in the workshop.  There are also resources for several topics we didn’t have time to explore.  If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, don’t hesitate to let me know, by email or by leaving a comment at the bottom of the page.

 

Pre-Reading Assignment: Two contrasting views of blended learning.

Cities for Educational Entrepreneurship Trust publishes this website to promote blended learning, including the Rocketship School model.  Watch the video at the top of the page.

Dan Meyer discusses the evolution of the Rocketship model.  Skip the video if you don’t have time — the article speaks for itself.

Blended Learning Basics

This article on Classifying K-12 Blended Learning, sponsored by the Innosight Institute, gives clear definitions of some of the possibilities of what blended learning could mean.

Assessing Blended Learning Techniques

If we change our teaching in the hopes of improving something, how do we check if it worked?  This video about the effectiveness of science videos proposes a few ideas.

Resources on Blogging for Teachers

See the list at left, under “I’m Reading About,” for a list of topics including educational technology, literacy, teaching science and technology, and teaching problem-solving.

Resources on Document Scanning

I’ve written a number of posts about using a phone, tablet, or camera to capture quizzes or assignments, share in-class work on the projector, etc.  See especially The Scanner In My Pocket.

Resources on Flipped Teaching

Does a flipped classroom work better with before-class videos or before-class readings?  What are the pros and cons?  Student Preparation For Class and Khan Academy Is An Indictment of Education should get you started, and lead to lots more resources.

Resources on Mind-Mapping

Maria Andersen uses Mindomo to archive links, store videos, and keep notes about games for learning in every topic from music to astronomy to economics.  I use it for annotating and archiving collections of resources that wouldn’t fit on my computer. Finally, I have an easy way to tag my bookmarks, do parameterized searches, and access them from any online device.

Resources for Reading Comprehension

Here’s the exercise I demonstrated during the workshop, demonstrating the difference between “skimming for the main idea” and “finding the questions.”  I included a handout I use with my students, which you can download and modify.  Helping students notice where they get confused

Some ideas about using reading instead of videos in “flipped”-style teaching.  Includes examples of the kind of thinking students were doing while reading.

Examples of “reading comprehension constructors” I’ve used in class, asking students to give examples, draw diagrams, ask questions, and the ever-popular “vocabulary bingo”.

You can read about these techniques and more in Cris Tovani’s book Do I Really Have To Teach Reading Comprehension.

Resources for Screencasting

Free software for making screencasts includes Jing (download to your PC) and Screencast-o-matic (cloud-based, no download — works well in classrooms).  Here are some screencasts I created — one to introduce a new topic, one to walk through the solution to a math problem.  Neither of those approaches were very successful — students didn’t absorb or understand the information.  On the other hand, screencasts explaining procedures in software have been a big time-saver.

Resources for SmartBoards

Eric has created some how-to videos for getting the most out of your SmartBoards.  If you’re on the NSCC network, you can access them at S:\KI Staff\Sullivan, Eric.

Resources for Making Educational Videos

Dan Meyer makes beautiful videos and gives them away.  He also shares some secrets: use a tripod.  No, seriously — that’s one of the biggest differences between great and awful.  The other is this: use the video to show phenomena, not explanations.  Get the students hungry, then let them ask for the instructions and info.  Here’s an example where he takes a weak textbook problem and shows you how to make it shine.  He writes about math but I suspect this is widely applicable.