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Picnik caught my eye as a simple online tool for teachers and students to use to edit photos for projects and class assignments. Picnik offers a number of effects, touch-up tools and fonts, as well as editing tools for things like cropping or adjusting exposure of a photo. It integrates with Facebook and a number of photo storage partners such as Flickr and Picasa.
Friday the 16th marked the end of the first semester of summer school at Fairmont Prep. While we've just begun digging into the data and don't yet have a full case study to publish, we found it very interesting that 14% of a student's semester grade could be attributed to the amount of times that students accessed the LMS system in this hybrid classroom/online summer school format.
Posted by Alan Rudi, Principal Solutions Strategist
This summer, we're launching this blog to talk about innovation in learning. To kick it off, I wanted to take a moment, as Courtney did, to introduce myself and share some initial thoughts about education and innovation.
Today we hear a lot of bad news about budget cuts in education and the unfortunate consequences to educators and students. While this news is at times emotional and difficult to understand, at Thesys we feel a measure of hope in the belief that is also an exciting time in K-12 education. Why and how can I possibly arrive at such a conclusion? Well necessity is the mother of invention – the pain will lead to change for students because the best teachers and administrators, in the end, are more passionate about education and kids than they are constrained by budgets.
While the budget cuts are painful, it is causing more and more people to rethink education models. The good news is that there are lots of ideas for change to not just survive, but to thrive in this new world of education. That’s the way we see things at Thesys.
Through our sister schools in the Fairmont Education Group, we see teachers increasingly embracing technology and innovation for the purpose of continually improving the learning outcomes of students. Teachers are developing electronic lessons for use on interactive whiteboards, using real-time assessment tools in the classroom, integrating their curriculum into a Learning Management System, and using measurements of learning to target curriculum and teaching improvements. It is not easy, and there is a long way to go, but it is worth it.
Admittedly, my background is in both business and in education. I have learned, however, that the principles of business and innovation are equally applicable in education. Why? Business and education are both about people. Here is what Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, says: "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have...it's about the people you have, how they're led, and how much you get it."
What stimulates innovation? Peter Drucker, a great business and education leader, says innovation is driven by “how we think” when analyzing the potential sources of innovation (i.e., unexpected outcomes, reexamining our assumptions, process needs, industry changes and shifts, demographic changes, exploring other perceptions, and gaining new knowledge). Do we gain a real understanding of the world around us and its opportunities, or do we think we can’t change?
Successful innovation requires us to examine our own thinking while leading people to also learn and think. After all, education is about people/kids learning to think, and learning to improve through change, despite their constraints. Necessity is the mother of invention. These are great days for those who choose to lead.
High quality streaming of full documentaries for free? The answer is yes with SnagFilms, a handy tool for teachers and students. This site ethically archives documentaries that are uploaded by filmmakers and distributors. SnagFilms is easy to navigate, allowing educators to search by popularity, by topic or by an A-Z list.
As we get ready to celebrate stars and stripes this Fourth of July, it's time to talk about the Thesys stars. Or are they really stars? This question has caused much debate among the Thesys team. It seems that everyone has their own interpretation of what these glyphs represent. Here are a few of the team's ideas:
