Crucial Thought Rss

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Chris selected as K12OnlineConference keynote speaker Each year the K12OnlineConference provides tremendous professional development for free, and entirely online. This year, they have selected me as one of their keynote speakers. I am thrilled to have been chosen and look forward to participating in the conversation. Read the full post announcing all the keynote speakers here.

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Two quick links on Cognitive Load Theory I've been fielding lots of questions lately about Cognitive Load Theory. Here are two quick links that may be useful. First is an article talking about the practical implications of CLT on the design of learning. The second are some "recent" (as of 2003) developments regarding CLT. Happy reading! Update: I clarified the second...

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Practical advice on kids and Android app development After hearing about my students' success developing an Android app, I've gotten several emails asking for more details as to how I practically worked with my kids. Here are some pointers that I offered to the first person that emailed me, perhaps they are of some use to you. Please note that your mileage may vary. It's ok to not be...

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Publishing an App Inventor app to the Android Market As I mentioned earlier, my students and I published an Android app to the Android Market. See those links for more information on the background. This post is decidedly technical. First, once we finished the coding process, we packaged the app for to download to the computer. This is an option in App Inventor. This downloaded an .apk file....

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Designing and publishing an Android app with kids This post is designed to provide some context around how/why we decided to build this app. The more technical details of the code and how we published it will come in a future post. My students and I recently completed and published an Android app, and here's how we did it. First, the genesis for this goes back to a question I asked...

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Sep

23

TeachJeffSpanish dot com – need a new idea

Posted by cmcraft | Comments: (2)

Category : General

Tags:

Hi faithful readers!

I need some creative help. My kids and I want a new idea for TeachJeffSpanish.com. He knows about it, and will be watching this year. Last year’s idea of a Scavenger Hunt was so great it’s hard to top. The ideas kids have come up with they admit to not really wanting to even do. Our goal is to come up with an overarching idea that could carry us through the year.

A few caveats…

1. I want something that is fun, new, and fresh. I want something explicity not “schooly” to borrow a term from Clay.

2. I want something that my kids would watch if they happened upon it on YouTube. That’s sort of my litmus test. If it’s not interesting enough to get you to watch it, why bother?

3. I want something not cheesy. Kids come up with ideas that seem to fit the school mold but are unable (seemingly) to come up with something more creative. Granted, my kids are 11-12 years old so developmentally they’re just not there yet.

That said, I want something that folks can learn along with us. Something fun, interesting, and that also teaches Spanish. I think teaching Jeff is a fun gimmick that folks might want to learn along with Jeff.

Ideas?

Thanks..

Chris

Feb

22

Education World Article about yours truly

Posted by cmcraft | Comments Off

Category : General

Tags:

Thanks to the DEN folks, I found out that Education World has an article about me and the TeachJeffSpanish.com folks.

The project is a bit beleagured since I lost my hosts, and I’m not sure what direction it will take. Anyway, here is the link..

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/teacher_feature/teacher_feature174.shtml

Fun stuff! Thanks to Cara for the great write-up.

Dec

09

How to create more buzz around TeachJeffSpanish.com

Posted by cmcraft | Comment: (1)

Category : General

Tags: , , ,

I am just so darn proud of my kids. I can’t help it! I’m brimming with excitement for the amazing work my 6th graders are doing!

Have you taken a look lately at www.teachjeffspanish.com?

I’m most impressed with the Scavenger Hunt for Spanish episodes (1,2)which are written, directed and edited by students.

My question is, how can I get more folks to come and see the goodness we’ve got going on over there? I mean, we’ve got Youtube video love, a cool ClustrMap going on, word-of-the-day posts, and a whole lot more!

So what should I add to the site to make it better? Stickier?

What about you? Have you subscribed to the iTunes feed to get new episodes of the show? Are you subscribed to the feed to get new posts? You should be.

Anything you think I could add to make it better?




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