Triptico: A Powerful and Free Instructional App

Harrison and Gilmartin160By Kathlyen Harrison and Michael Gilmartin

As every teacher knows, there is an overloading number of websites and tools available to educators, some free and others with registration costs. Most of these tools are geared toward specific content, and the trick can often be trying to sift through all of the different types to find the ones that suit your needs, skills, and even your personality. Triptico offers a wide variety of creative, interactive, and visually engaging apps. The best part is that you have access to numerous apps for free. Not to mention that the developer of this program is constantly creating new apps to use for free.

Figure 1 - Triptico App Launch Screen

Figure 1 – Triptico App Launch Screen

About Triptico

Triptico.co.uk is a web tool that allows you to create and use various types of activities, tools, and quiz makers to help improve the classroom and engage students. Triptico is a free app available for download with an option to upgrade for a small fee. There are four different categories of programs: tools, timers, selectors, and quizzes. Each has interactive apps that you can use and adapt to your class. The different interactive modes allow you to bring creativity and uniqueness into the classroom, diversifying the ways in which students learn, review, and practice various skills. Triptico is simple to use yet sophisticated in content with apps color coded to denote type and categories.

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What the Deaf Blind Have Taught Us About Thinking and Communicating

Frank B. WithrowBy Frank B. Withrow

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” -Helen Keller

As a child I met Helen Keller. She was one of the most fascinating people I have ever met. I have met other deaf blind people who are amazing. Leonard could place his hand on your face and understand your speech. Leonard and his deaf blind wife lived independently and worked in an electrical product plant assembling electric insulators.

In 1963 we had learned how to ensure women who were pregnant and contacted rubella could bring their babies to full term. Thus we produced some 60,000 multiply disabled infants. Five thousand were deaf blind. Congress passed a law that created centers for deaf blind services. I was the Director of the Division of Education Services in the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped and administered the deaf blind services.

Helen Keller. Photo from Helen Keller International.

Helen Keller. Photo from Helen Keller International.

I have a deaf blind grand nephew that is now two years old. I have given considerable thought to the education of deaf blind children. They explore and know their world through the near senses of touch, smell, and taste. Of these three, touch is dominant because it is the sense that they will use to organize their world. My nephew has two cochlear implants and appears to enjoy music. As yet we do not know if in deaf blind children cochlear implants will lead to the development of speech and language.

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More Than Morale at Stake: Teachers in the U.S. Need to Take the Lead

Jim ShimabukuroBy Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

(On 21 Feb. 2013, Bonnie Bracey Sutton, ETCJ associate editor, shared Valerie Strauss’s “U.S. Teachers’ Job Satisfaction Craters — Report” [Washington Post, 21 Feb. 2013] in our staff listserv. In response, I posted the following comment, which I’ve revised for this publication. -js)

Thanks, Bonnie, for sharing these stats. With teacher morale so low, the outlook for U.S. schools is bleak. For me, the elephant in the room is the impact of poverty. As a nation, we can’t continue to blame teachers for the consequences of poverty. We can’t expect them to resolve the causes of poverty. This is and always has been a social issue — not a pedagogical one.

What’s the answer?

For me, reading between the numbers, it means we ought to stop pushing highstakes testing and the common core. We need to allow teachers to do their job. They’re trained to determine where their students are and where they could be in terms of their classes, and for each student and each class, the profiles vary widely. This “diagnosis” is not only academic. In many if not most cases, it includes affective factors. Thus for variable portions of their classes, the teacher’s challenge may be motivation, attitude, rather than academics. For example, in writing instruction, the hurdle may be pull rather than push. How to attract students to writing may be the primary question — not how to push them toward earning higher scores on a standardized test that purports to measure writing competence.

To generate pull, teachers may decide to put their red pencils down and work with the language that students bring from their homes and neighborhoods. It may not be pretty in terms of common core standards, but it’s the reality. Preliminary goals may be to simply get students to enjoy writing and sharing their interests and concerns, in their most intimate and affective language. Giving them personally meaningful reasons for learning to write may be the fundamental pull that’s necessary to gradually incorporate the pushing of our beloved standards. We must find ways to recognize and reward teachers who are able to pull, to motivate, to change attitudes rather than simply move the needle in standardized tests.  Continue reading

The Future Is in Team Learning

Frank B. WithrowBy Frank B. Withrow

The Total Learning Research Institute’s Space Explorers model of team learning emphasizes full participation of all of the members whatever their individual skills or knowledge may be. The five foundation principles of team learning are:

  1. Treat others as you wish to be treated.
  2. Walk the talk.
  3. Respect and value other team members’ ideas and contributions.
  4. Be part of the solution and not a part of the problem.
  5. Hang together, not separately.

Team Learning can be applied to any educational level from preschool to graduate school and can be used to model principles that are used in many professions and businesses. It is famous for its use in NASA missions. Everyone on the team contributes to the overall objective. Teams often first define the objective or problem to be solved.

"Taking education to new heights..."

“Taking education to new heights…”

Team learning happens when a group of students work together to coordinate their efforts toward meeting a specific goal. The team uses the skills and talents of all its members to reach a specific goal. It not only meets the team goal, but it also meets the personal goals of its members.  Continue reading

Language: Evolving Over Time and Space

Frank B. WithrowBy Frank B. Withrow

The English language is the most used language in the world. Many of its 1,000,000 words are adapted from other languages. English has 44 sounds that are represented by the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. The 26 letters are combined 196 ways to represent the 44 sounds of English. Therefore, English is only a semi-phonetic language in its written form. English adapts many words from other languages but often retains the spelling of the original language while anglicizing the pronunciation of the word. For example, “bouquet” from the French language is pronounced as “bokay” in English while retaining the French spelling. Spelling bees are thought to have originated in the USA, and the reason is probably because English spelling must often rely on memorization.

Constitution

Vocal sounds and hearing are used as the warning system for humans and animals. A dog will bark to express its awareness of danger in its environment to alert other dogs. Many animals have vocalizations that are used to warn others of impending dangers. Vocalization superimposed on the eating and breathing systems is the expressive mechanisms used to warn and alert others. Hearing is the receptive sense that alerts individuals to danger.  Continue reading

Congressman Miller’s Tech Legislation Misses the Mark

Frank B. WithrowBy Frank B. Withrow

While I am delighted that Congressman George Miller has introduced new technology legislation*, it has weaknesses as I read it. All of the items are worthwhile, but in my opinion they are not the central issues. We need leaders who have insight and a new vision of what the digital world is bringing us. Already five year olds are iPad literate. How will schools treat these new five year olds and how will we bridge the gap between the digital home and the non-digital home?

Congressman George Miller, senior Democrat of the House Education and Workforce Committee and chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee.

Congressman George Miller, senior Democrat of the House Education and Workforce Committee and chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee.

Just as fifty years ago broadcast television forced schools to acknowledge Sesame Street, Mister Rogers Neighborhood and other television influences, today we must adjust to iPad home users. To meet these challenges there must be:

  1. An Assistant Secretary for Technology and Information sciences in U.S. DOE that provides national leadership.
  2. A staff-training program for both teachers and administrators that rebuilds the staff to use the new digital resources.
  3. A national digital library accessible via cloud technologies. The library should contain both commercial and government developed video, computer programs and ebook materials. Users must be able to access it 24/7 year round.
  4. A research and development program that creates new materials modeled after comprehensive multiple media products such as The Voyage of the Mimi.
  5. A digital assessment system for all materials used to reach the common core curriculum.
  6. A public awareness program that provides the public with knowledge about the changes in schools and the importance of these new learning and teaching tools and how they are used both in the home and classroom. The little red school house with the all knowing teacher is obsolete.
  7. A training program for administrators and school boards to understand a digital year round school model.
  8. A wide range of very different experiences in schools, including laboratories, camp experiences (space camp, for example), team building projects, and community experiences. The digital world opens the world as a resource for learning.

Change will take place. It will be nice if our leadership has the wisdom to understand the digital world and how important it is to be a leader rather than a follower. We need radical rethinking, not tinkering with the obsolete current educational model.

These changes will take place regardless of whether or not we provide national leadership because the technology is here. The question is whether we will have wise enough leadership with a systematic vision that guides these Earth-shattering changes. If we are wise, we will guide the radical shifts from the old model to the new model of learning and teaching.

Every child deserves the best education we, the people, can give. It is up to us to make it happen.
__________
* Webcitation alternative.

What Happens to Schools and Teachers in the Digital Age?

Frank B. WithrowBy Frank B. Withrow

The purpose of schools is to transfer the skills, knowledge and history of one generation to the next. In the past this was most often done through apprenticeships. About five thousand years ago writing of the spoken word was developed. This allowed mankind to transfer knowledge over both time and space. The printed records in books and libraries transferred information across generations and across geographic boundaries.

Learners had to develop moral, literacy, scientific and most importantly self-government qualities and skills if they were to serve as citizens in a modern scientific participatory democratic society.

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For many years knowledge was transferred via apprenticeships. With the printing press and libraries modern schools could be developed where learners came together with teachers to learn in a classroom in a school. Knowledge and history were stored and retrieved via books and libraries. Teachers guided learners through the books. The apprenticeship model of learning gave way to classrooms and teachers. Learners were brought together in classrooms within schools to be guided by teachers through the stored knowledge of the society. In the 20th century learners could be gathered together and guided through the knowledge and experience retrieved from books and libraries.

In recent history, films, videos and computers have supplemented books as the storehouse of human experiences and knowledge. In the last few years the digital age has transformed the way we store and retrieve all information. As print on paper has been transferred to the digital format we now have vast libraries of full motion color videos, printed materials and even interactive simulations accessible to the learner. A student studying World War II can not only read about the speeches of Churchill and Roosevelt, but they can see and hear them. They can see videos of the battles and in addition they have access to fictional movies about the war. In addition, there are German and Japanese primary resources available.  Continue reading

Robert E. Yager Discusses ‘Hands-On’ Science Education

picture of Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

Dr. Yager is a Professor of Science Education at the University of Iowa and the Iowa Academy of Education. He has a long career in this area, and we should pay attention when he writes.

He has just written a short article for Science Education Review (11.3 [2012], pp. 54-55), “Does ‘Hands-On’ Indicate Real Reforms of Science Teaching?”* It begins with the following sentence. “Too often the reform of science for K-12 students is described as being ‘hands-on.’“ Everyone seems to be calling for reform these days. So, this is a valid discussion. Many of the reformers are “hands-on” advocates and even extremists who insist that no science education should be anything but “hands-on.” The short piece, just 1.5 pages, is well worth reading for anyone involved in science education.

Robert E Yager

Robert E Yager

Dr. Yager makes the point that involving muscles does not necessarily involve the mind. Indeed, as I also have seen, just the opposite is often the case. Science is about exploring. According to Dr. Yager, “One uniqueness of humans is their interest in exploring the natural world.” This uniqueness can drive the excitement and engagement of students with science. Losing it tends to do exactly the reverse.

Further on, he says, “Hands-on may be needed to develop tools to investigate student ideas.” Then, he counters with, “Often collecting evidence involves technology, not science!” He’s saying that you might use hands-on to collect evidence for your scientific investigation, or you might use technology. The hunt for dark matter is all technology. The Mars rovers are distant technology. Neither is truly hands-on. However, I take the view that science and science education are not the same thing. Just because scientists are trending away from hands-on, does that mean that students should too?

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