As a group, we recently had an opportunity to be a part of an incredible wave of information coming forward about the Common Core Standards and how they would be implemented in the classroom. As iPad advocates and users, we were thinking that this would be the perfect way to get a ton of apps for our website that we could share with everyone. However, something more happened - we learned.
Being a huge advocate for technology can be difficult sometimes. We constantly push for more tech in the classrooms and for our teachers to be properly trained. The Common Core is going to be a giant wave of change that impacts all of us in education and the technology needs to be ready to handle that demand. The solution for the district may or may not be tablets, but it is technology in some form or fashion.
Probably the greatest draw from this CUE Learning Tour we were honored to attend was that the Common Core standards are not going to be much of a paradigm shift for those of us who are integrating technology into our project-based classrooms already. Essentially, there are products that students will need to create throughout the CCSS... Isn't that what an iPad does? The CS Core app does a great job of laying things out for those of us who live in Calfornia, but you can also download other Common Core apps for your state.
Presentations, recordings, transcripts, depictions, analyzations, charts and graphs, and so many other dynamics of education will be called to the front line of assessment and we as proactive educators need to be on the front lines. Our students are waiting for the day that they walk into a school and don't have to sit down for 90% of the day, listening for 70% of the class period. They are hungry for change in the way that we, the adults, prepare them for the next level. It may or may not be an iPad. It may or may not be a laptop. Fortunately for our students, there is something out there, either large or small, that is powerful enough to keep them motivated and active throughout the day that allows them to demonstrate their true level of understanding by creating an artifact rather than filling in a bubble.
Unfortunately, there is no app that will help you fill in a bubble (yet). We can only hope that it stays that way.\
By: John Stevens
jstevens1@psusd.us
Twitter.com/jstevens009
http://mrstevens.weebly.com
Probably the greatest draw from this CUE Learning Tour we were honored to attend was that the Common Core standards are not going to be much of a paradigm shift for those of us who are integrating technology into our project-based classrooms already. Essentially, there are products that students will need to create throughout the CCSS... Isn't that what an iPad does? The CS Core app does a great job of laying things out for those of us who live in Calfornia, but you can also download other Common Core apps for your state.
Presentations, recordings, transcripts, depictions, analyzations, charts and graphs, and so many other dynamics of education will be called to the front line of assessment and we as proactive educators need to be on the front lines. Our students are waiting for the day that they walk into a school and don't have to sit down for 90% of the day, listening for 70% of the class period. They are hungry for change in the way that we, the adults, prepare them for the next level. It may or may not be an iPad. It may or may not be a laptop. Fortunately for our students, there is something out there, either large or small, that is powerful enough to keep them motivated and active throughout the day that allows them to demonstrate their true level of understanding by creating an artifact rather than filling in a bubble.
Unfortunately, there is no app that will help you fill in a bubble (yet). We can only hope that it stays that way.\
By: John Stevens
jstevens1@psusd.us
Twitter.com/jstevens009
http://mrstevens.weebly.com
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