Rigor, Relevance, and Project Based Learning

» 06 November 2011 » In How To, Presentations, Strategies, Visualizations » No Comments

Solar Sprint 2010 Chicago
Solar Sprint 2010 Chicago

I'm giving a daylong workshop (pdf) at the SW Wisconsin Business and Education Summit at the Lenz Conference Center at Southwest Tech in Fennimore WI. My workshop notes and resources are available here. For more of my posts on PBL click here.

Your students explore their world with an expectation of choice and control that redefines traditional notions of learning and literacy. Increasingly educators are discovering that they can motivate students with a PBL approach that engages their students with the opportunity to think like professionals while solving real-world problems. This workshop gives participants the why, what, and how (to get started) of PBL.

I'll focus on six reasons why PBL can build skills and engage students.

  1. Traditional instruction is based on “teaching as telling.” PBL creates learning experiences.
  2. A new information “culture” demands a new literacy. PBL can build those skills
  3. We need to increase the rigor in the classroom. PBL moves students to higher levels of Blooms.
  4. PBL makes learning relevant - student take responsibility for their progress.
  5. Usually the audience for thinking is the teacher - PBL shifts the focus to real world application.
  6. Now that life’s become an open book test, memorizing facts and performing routine tasks are devalued.

You can follow the #PBL tweet stream at the visualizer below. Direct link to my visualizer at Wiffiti.

Image credit: flickr/Argonne National Laboratory

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3 Ways to Use Social Media to Crowdsource and Blog a Conference Backchannel

» 29 March 2011 » In Events, How To, Social Web, Visualizations » 3 Comments

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One of the goals of my blog is to research, curate and effectively share information with my audience. Conferences are a great aggregator of expertise and information that have inspired some of my most popular blog posts. Here’s how to gather the conference backchannel using Wiffiti, Twitter StreamGraphs, Prezi, and Storify. A “how to” with sample visualizations.

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2 Twitter Visualizers: Follow the Backchannel at ITSC 2011 Conference

» 18 February 2011 » In Events, Social Web, Visualizations, Web 2.0 » No Comments

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I’m pleased to be invited as a guest blogger to the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference 2/20-22 in Portland, Oregon. To help live and virtual attendees follow the backchannel here’s two Twitter visualizers based on the the conference hashtag #ITSC11.

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Five Ways to Engage Students and Other Audiences – Tips for Teachers and Presenters

» 30 August 2010 » In How To, PD, Presentations, Strategies, Students, Teachers, Visualizations » 16 Comments

Here’s five themes to keep in mind if you want to engage your students or any audience. Including – backchannel, modeling, choice, responsibility and reflection. Tips and links for presenters and teachers.

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Follow the Twitter Backchannel at Cy-Fair’s 2010 Leadership Conference

» 09 June 2010 » In Ed Tech, Leadership, Presentations, Reflection, Strategies, Visualizations, Web 2.0 » No Comments

I’m presenting at Cyprus Fairbanks ISD’s “Rigor, Relevance and Relationships Leadership Conference” near Houston Texas. (June 9-11, 2010). My keynote, “The Reflective Principal / the Reflective School,” is based on my Taxonomy of Reflection. To follow the conference Twitter stream, I created this Wiffiti visualization based on the conference hashtag #RRRCF.

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ASCD Conference 2010: My Arrival – a Prezi

» 06 March 2010 » In Ed Tech, Events, Visualizations » No Comments

I arrived at the ASCD conference in San Antonio today. So much to plan for over the next few days. Thought I'd try to capture it in a Prezi. Click the arrow, give it moment to load, then click to advance and navigate. For a full screen version  - click ASCD 10 Friday      Made with PreziFor more of [...]

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Use Wiffiti to Follow the Twitter Backchannel at ASCD Conference 2010

» 01 March 2010 » In Ed Tech, Events, Visualizations, Web 2.0 » No Comments

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I’ve posted this Wiffiti screen which is coded to gather Tweets marked with the hashtag #ascd10. It’s a great way to keep up with the latest comments via Twitter.

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Twitter Visualization: What are the Key Words being Tweeted at ASCD Conference 2010

» 01 March 2010 » In Ed Tech, Events, How To, Visualizations, Web 2.0 » No Comments

I’ve posted this StreamGraph visualization that displays a flowing graph of the words most frequently used in the latest 1000 tweets marked with the hashtag #ascd10.

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Harness Twitter and Your Audience Backchannel with Wiffiti

» 01 September 2009 » In Commentary, Ed Tech, How To, Presentations, Visualizations, Web 2.0 » No Comments

Recently I posted about trying out Wiffiti in my professional development sessions. "Use Wiffiti to Engage Your Audience." Since then I've used it a few more times with great success. I thought I'd share a live Wiffiti screen with my readers. This is from my most recent training session at Pomperaug High School in Southbury [...]

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Use Wiffiti to Engage Your Audience – Big Screen Live Presentation of Feeds from Twitter, Flickr and Text Messages

» 12 August 2009 » In Commentary, Ed Tech, PD, Presentations, Visualizations, Web 2.0 » 5 Comments

I’m always looking for ways to make my presentations more engaging and interactive. (A must if you’re advocating more student-centered instruction.) I’ve been using a TurningPoint ARS for years with great results and have tried live blogs at my larger workshops. As a convert to Twitter, I thought it was the logical next step.  I’ve experimented with [...]

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