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6 Strategies for Creating a Nurturing Classroom for Your LGBT Students

As a teacher, odds are that you will have at least one student who is gay or lesbian in your classroom. Regardless of how you feel about the LGBT community, as a teacher you have an ethical duty to protect and nurture all of your students. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create a nurturing environment for your LGBT students. Here are several strategies that you can use to accomplish this: 1. Let all of your students know that they are protected in your classroom. No bullying or harassment will be allowed, no matter what. This …

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Strategies for Seamlessly Integrating Technology into Your Classroom

Words like “technology,” “digital devices,” and “modern media” sound flashy and attractive. Of course teachers want to have those buzzwords in the classroom! But when it comes from moving to virtual reality to concrete curriculum, what does introducing technology in the classroom actually look like? What do all those buzzwords really mean? Technology-focused education is based on a constructivist approach to learning. As described earlier, the teacher in a technologically advanced classroom is seen as a facilitator rather than a pure instructor. A teacher’s function is to help students use the technological resources appropriately to find the information rather than …

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Closing the achievement gap using iPads

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding a P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.** By Kristi Meeuwse, ADE Where’s the Beef? Show me the money! What’s the bottom line? In today’s results-oriented, data-driven mentality in education, we all fall under the large accountability umbrella of test scores. Certainly, there are skeptics who question putting iPads in the hands of young children. It is asked, “How can we justify …

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3 Drawbacks of Bringing Tech to the Classroom

As much progress as technology can help a classroom make, it isn’t always a positive force. There are some drawbacks to trying to introduce technology into classrooms, even when the implementation is done in the most thoughtful and well planned out of ways. Most dramatic shifts in how humans act and interact are accompanied by difficulties, especially at the outset. Though these difficulties may not outweigh the benefits of the new paradigm, they are nevertheless real. Technology in schools is no exception. Here are some of the problems associated with technology: Technical difficulties. We all have memories of a teacher …

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How to revolutionize STEM education amongst millennials via social media channels

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.** A guest column by Dahlton Grover Millennials grew up in a unique era of transition as the Internet began to flourish and social networking was born. They were the first generation to have seemingly unlimited resources to learn from, which altered the way they learn, think about and feel about knowledge. The result is a world …

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Online school provides unique curriculum in rural areas

By Barb Meidinger — The North Dakota Center for Distance Education on-line learning opportunities provide the perfect venue for inquisitive students who want to explore the world through their fingertips, without ever stepping foot into a classroom. They have made it one of their priorities to expand the minds of students in rural areas by offering unique online classes and a high school diploma program to students who never thought it was possible to learn in this unique manner. In largely populated areas students are typically able to choose from a wide variety of core and elective level classes with …

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10 Ed Tech Companies You’ll Absolutely Love

I have been blogging about education reform and innovation since 2010, and over that time span I have spotlighted a lot of ed tech companies and organizations. I thought it would be important to highlight a few ed tech companies that I really love and believe in. Without further ado, here are ten that will amaze you: Class Charts ClassCharts presents teachers with data-rich information that they need to make informed seating decisions and to tackle behavior issues. When integrated between classrooms, teachers can see how the behavior of their students ranks compared with other places, and together educators can …

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Ask An Expert: K-12 Online Learning as a Life Skill

Question: My district recently announced that 30% of our high school courses will now be offered online, and this percentage will increase in the coming years. I think its a great idea, but most of my colleagues are totally against it, citing that it will dehumanize the learning process, among other things. Do you that my district is on the right track? Nicole C. Answer: Nicole, here is my take on the topic. Online learning is more than a fad. The facts are staggering: According to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, there are nearly 1.9 million K-12 enrollments …

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Internet Access is the “Toll Road to Equity”

By Lydia Dobyns While access to technology and the internet are not silver bullets per se, the absence of these critical tools and resources present significant impediments to achieving “college and career readiness” for students. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said: “Most schools have about as much internet bandwidth as your house,” during a conference in Washington, D.C.   “We are denying our teachers and students the tools they need to be successful. That is educationally unsound and morally unacceptable.” In my travels throughout the country, I’ve visited many schools where teachers are constrained in the resources they can provide their students. …

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4 Benefits of Virtual Labs

It seems that there is nothing that cannot be done online anymore. On a personal level, we do everything from paying bills to scheduling entire vacations in a matter of minutes because of online access. Think about it for a moment: What daily online activities do you do today that were not an option 10 years ago? Five years ago? Last year? Now consider classroom technology and how it is also evolving rapidly. Implementation of technology in the classroom goes beyond Google searches and reading apps. It stretches into every area of learning, including the sciences. Virtual laboratories are popping …

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