Tag: Book Reviews
Book Review: 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The all-in-one K-8 toolkit for the lab specialist, classroom teacher and homeschooler, with a years-worth of simple-to-follow projects. Integrate technology into language arts, geography, history, problem solving, research skills, and science lesson plans and units of inquiry using teacher resources that meet NETS-S national guidelines and many state standards. The fifty-five projects are categorized by subject, program (software), and skill (grade) level. Each project includes standards met in three areas (higher-order thinking, technology-specific, and NETS-S), software required, time involved, suggested experience level, subject area supported, tech jargon, step-by-step lessons, extensions for deeper exploration, troubleshooting tips and project examples including reproducibles. Tech programs used are KidPix, all MS productivity software, Google Earth, typing software and online sites, email, Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, internet start pages, social bookmarking and photo storage), Photoshop and Celestia. Also included is an Appendix of over 200 age-appropriate child-friendly websites. Skills taught include collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, creativity, digital citizenship, information fluency, presentation, and technology concepts. In short, it’s everything you’d need to successfully integrate technology into the twenty-first century classroom.
God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World.
Here’s a book I think you’d enjoy. I discovered it through a fellow blogger, Yankee Sailor. It’s a testament to the strength America derives from our concept of religious freedom. That’s a freedom we take for granted, but few other nations in the world share that attitude:
The Soft Power Of Religious Freedom
Posted by Yankee Sailor in Foreign Policy, Religion on 22Jun09.
Foreign Policy notes two British scholars find soft power in an unexpected place: (more…)
You Have Permission to Disrupt Class
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Clayton Christensen offers a believable and intuitive approach to fixing our staggering American educational system. In a nutshell: people learn in different ways (no surprise here; it’s a well-documented theory). Teachers too often teach one way (or two or three–the point being, teachers standardize. I understand. I’ve been a teacher most of my life. One of us and many of them in a classroom). His solution: Use 21st century technology and Web 2.0 to individualize lessons to suit needs. (more…)
