"Small can be beautiful. You don’t need to expend a huge amount of effort or time to get something right. Take this post. I’ve put the toast under the grill and i need to have it finished by the time it’s done.
It’s so easy for the small slices of time to slip by, unnoticed and unloved. But we can achieve amazing small things as well as huge and time consuming ones. Giving feedback to someone, saying thank you, having an idea: none of these things take much time, but they’re all worthwhile.
We can learn in small chunks too: a degree takes three years, but you don’t need a degree for everything. You can learn a lot in ten minutes over a cup of tea. Why not try it today. Go to Wikipedia and type something that interests you. Satellites, caving, the history of tea. Learning doesn’t have to be focused or long, it can be short and fun. See what you find out before the toast burns."
Although I am researching new ideas and topics daily, I usually delay writing about them until I have a formal occasion or requirement prompting me to do so. And that is a shame (it feels good to break the rules by starting a sentence with "and"), because I am missing an opportunity to percolate ideas and develop my thinking independently as well as within an online community of learners.
Julian's inspirational words have motivated me to be more proactive about blogging my daily educational discoveries, even if they are still raw and unprocessed. We can negotiate these ideas by exploring and synthesizing research, analyzing divergent points of view, and developing new understanding together!
Carpe Diem!
Recent Educational Discoveries:
1. Screencasting:
After playing with a free, downloader application called Active Presenter, I was able to create the Blogging Tutorial posted on my Blogging Basics page. The software is a little clunky and took me a few hours to figure out. Overall, I thought it was a decent tool until I discovered the one below!!
ScreencastOmatic
This is an AMAZING tool that empowered me to create continuous screen capture recordings in ONE click. Take a look at this tool immediately--it will have profound impact upon the teaching and learning process.
2. Flipped Classrooms:
Chemistry teachers Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann have recently developed an instructional model in which students watched online lectures at home and completed homework, labs, and other activities in school with Sams and Bergmann's guidance. I'm reviewing some research about this model and considering the advantages and disadvantages...more to come!
3. Avatars:
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=7288716&height=133&width=100
3. Avatars:
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