Learning for Life

 Understanding and Serving Gifted Students PD The Google Slides presentation that we shared during the faculty meeting is linked below. The web resources from the presentation are linked in the slideshow.  Understanding and Serving Gifted Students Presentation Check out the Handout from the presentation below

 Artificial Intelligence for Teachers: Using AI in the Classroom       Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. Today's students will need to have an understanding of its uses in order to be ready for the work place of tomorrow. "Skills such as critical thinking, teamwork, and communication are common to both; however, it is clear that new graduates will also need AI literacy as a core job-readiness skill. They will need to articulate how well they use AI and what human quality enhancements they can provide" (Bowen & Watson, 2024, p.41). To accomplish this goal, it is imperative that teachers embrace new technology instead of shying away from it. This is certainly easier said than done. In this blog post, I plan to highlight some ways that teachers can begin to use AI as a tool. As the old adage goes, knowledge is power. The more we understand something, the less we are afraid of it. " Given that AI is increasingly prevalent in tech circles and is being integrate...

  Integrating Education and Social Media       Like it or not, social media is here to stay. It certainly has many pitfalls, but as with anything, knowledge is key. As educators, we must teach students to use social media appropriately. "But the ugly reality is that we must figure out a way to contend with social media, to be more ethical users of social media, to educate our legislators about its effects and how it works and to explore ways that we can combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation, while also looking toward science and psychology to understand how social media affects us behaviorally and mentally...." (Lawrence, 2022, p.50). Teachers can help students learn to identify misinformation online by showing them ways that they can vet information. Google Fact Check Explorer, FactCheck.org, and Snopes are all good resources.       Students must also hone their digital writing skills by carefully considering their content b...

 Reflection on Instructional Design Strategies       "An instructional designer's job is to create something that enables a person or group of people to learn about a particular topic or develop or improve a set of skills, or to encourage the learner to conduct further study. The 'something' created can take many forms: a lecture, a multimedia presentation, the curriculum for a year's study, a piece of computer software, an in-person demonstration, or a test-preparation booklet" (Brown & Green, 2024, p.33). Using different instructional design strategies in training helps to keep learners' focused and engaged. Multimedia such as videos, gamification, or digital presentations are especially useful. Some of the most engaging trainings that I have personally attended have employed multimedia such a as YouTube videos (TED Talks) and gamification sites (Kahoot). "Multimedia technology helps simplify abstract content, allows for differences from individ...

Creating Digital Writing and Media in the Elementary Classroom Utilizing digital writing in the classroom can be an effective tool in engaging students with the content they are learning. Often students are disengaged with traditional paper and pencil learning. This is likely due to the fact that their world is so digitized. It is incumbent upon teachers to incorporate digital writing and media in the classroom in order to teach students the skills they will need to join the workforce of tomorrow. "The provision of tablet computers using educational software can support narrative writing strategies: planning, idea generation, and organization of ideas, and visual memory by providing learning support with videos, and sound recordings. These features greatly facilitated students to produce more interesting words, thus improving the length of the writing and the quality of story products (Wen & Walters, 2022, p. 8). Digital writing skills will be used in many ways in the fut...

 Infographics in The Classroom: Why are They an Effective Form of Visual Rhetoric?       "If rhetoric is the ability in a given case to understand the available means of persuasion, then visual rhetoric is the art of using visuals to persuade" (Lawrence, 2022, p. 105. Visuals are used in most digital media and are useful in selling products in advertisements and influencing people on social media. Eye catching media of all kinds helps to capture the attention of the intended audience. Infographics use pictures to share information or data. They are especially useful in the classroom. Students and teachers alike can use infographics to disseminate the information they'd like to share with the class. The pictures and bright colors on infographics help keep students engaged and provide a quick reference point to easily access important information. Altan and Calgitay (2022) studied student eye tracking using an older science textbook with few pictures versus a newly rev...

Digital Misinformation: Can We Teach Our Students to Recognize It?   In a digital world where everything is seemingly at our fingertips, it is increasingly important to understand how to recognize misinformation or information that is being intentionally skewed to influence our thinking. "Rhetoric is the art of persuasion" (Lawrence, 2022, p. 12). Three rhetorical devices commonly used to persuade audiences are ethos, appealing to the author's trustworthiness or character, pathos, appealing to one's emotions, or logos, the use of logic or reason.  Ethos, Pathos, and Logos Explained:  "Rhetoric is also the critical framework through which we can analyze digital media and the ways it manifests in the world and appears on our screens. What does the media want us to do? How does it want us to behave or think?" (Lawrence, 2022, p. 12). It is imperative for students both young and old to be able to read an article or a post on social media and determine the source...