A digital backpack is mobile technology in backpack that includes detailed hardware, software, and instructional support materials to provide for project-based learning experiences in various formal and informal environments.
Simulations have the potential of providing students with an engaging and authentic opportunity to investigate, hypothesize, analyze and share data. Many of the Math and Science Curricula Outcomes can be demonstrated through the use of simulations.
Learning is a consequence of thinking. Students’ understanding of content, and retention of content, increases when they think through—and with—the concepts and information they are investigating. Thinking through issues is not a solo, but rather a social endeavour. In classrooms, as in the world, there is a constant interplay between the group and the individual. We learn from those around us and our engagement with them.
Fostering thinking requires making thinking visible. Effective thinkers make their thinking visible, meaning they externalize their thoughts through speaking, writing, drawing, or some other method. Proficient thinkers are also metacognitive – they use a variety of strategies to plan, monitor, and assess their thinking. They can then direct and improve those thoughts. Visible thinking also emphasizes documenting thinking for later reflection.
Educreations - Educreations turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. Creating a great video tutorial is as simple as touching, tapping and talking. Explain a math formula or create an animated lesson. With voice recording, realistic digital ink, photos and text, and simple sharing through email, Facebook or Twitter, now you can broadcast your ideas from anywhere.
How does the artifact convey the student’s understanding?
How do visual tools help student be metacognitive of their learning?
How can visual tools be used for formative assessment and responsive instruction?
How does the artifact convey the student’s understanding?
How do auditory recordings help student be metacognitive of their learning?
How can auditory recordings be used for formative assessment and responsive instruction?
Voice Memos - Record using Voice Memos, an app that is pre-loaded on the iPod
How does the artifact convey the student’s understanding?
How do textual responses help student be metacognitive of their learning?
How can textual responses be used for formative assessment and responsive instruction?
When we “shift” the focus from teacher centered to a student centered classroom we need to use technology purposefully. Just because a technology is available or is popular doesn’t mean you have or should use it. As with any resource, make sure the technology will enhance your efforts to strengthen the classroom community and make learning active, interactive, and student-centered.
Technology uses enable new learning tasks not possible without technology. Bernajean Porter offers the following:
Student roles expand to include explorers, producers of knowledge, communicators and self-directed learners
Teacher roles expand to include facilitators, designers, learners, and researchers
Learning and assessment practices are changed
Students initiate technology uses as they create their own learning experiences.
Project Based Learning is an instructional approach built upon authentic learning activities that engage student interest and motivation. These activities are designed to answer a question or solve a problem and generally reflect the types of learning and work people do in the everyday world outside the classroom.
An Introduction to Project-Based Learning
From Worms to Wall Street: Projects Prompt Active, Authentic Learning
More Fun Than a Barrel of . . . Worms?!
At Newsome Park Elementary School, assignments in project-based learning are helping students learn more, participate more, and want more.
The flipped classroom is Focus on your Learners by Involving them in the Process – a reversed teaching model which encompasses use of Internet technology to leverage the learning in your classroom, so teachers can spend more time interacting with students instead of lecturing The technology, such as videos or podcasts, allows individualization as students can revisit content and access support when needed. Classtime is now flipped from a delivery of instrution through lecture to a workshop where students can inquire about content, apply new knowledge, and collaborate with one another in hands-on activities and projects.
Responsive technologies support the teacher in implementing educational and pedagogical best practices of formative assessment and can create the conditions for a student centered classroom. Providing students with timely, specific and consructive feedback is possible when using responsive technologies. For the teacher, responsive technologies can assist the teacher in monitoring student progress and adjusting the lesson as needed. For the student, responsive technologies have the power to provide the student with information as to where they are in relation to the learning outcomes and what they need to do to get there.
Responsive Tools
Immediate Responsive Systems provide the student and teacher with instant information through surveys, polls and quizzes.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
“Via BYOD, each student has direct access to the entire world’s information, to events, to places, to organizations, to people—in particular, to fellow students. With their computers, students can manipulate whatever they access and can create new content that they can contribute to the world’s information base. In a “We learn” classroom, as the teacher mentors, guides and tutors the students, the teacher, along with the students, learns content, instructional strategies and 21st-century skills. – Cathlene Norris, Oct. 2011
Students can conduct their inquiries
Students can collaborate with teachers and peers
Students can personalize their learning to ensure engagement
It allows for opportunities to have choice- to experiment, research, demonstrate
It acts as a platform for student voices
It provides access to digital content that provides multiple pathways to the learning
It helps student connect locally and globally that add authenticity to their school work
It provides platforms for meaningful and authentic learning about Digital Citizenship
It allows opportunities for students to construct opinions, arguments and ideas and evidence based reasoning within a collaborative framework
The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education’s renewed curricula emphasizes the development of an inquiry stance – the fostering of “inquiring habits of mind that lead to deeper understanding of their world and human experience” (Saskatchewan English Language Arts Curriculum 2009).
SPS Digital Backpack
