Free: Showing Evidence Tool… Collaboratively Construct, Evaluate, And Defend!

Welcome to the third in a series of articles based on Intel Thinking Tools, an amazing set of free tools from Intel. The resource I include today is called the Showing Evidence Tool , another of Intel’s amazing Online Thinking Tools. This tool is perfect for those teachers who wish to engage students to collaboratively and critically provide evidence to support an idea. Before exploring please take a moment to sign up for future posts via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter at (mjgormans).  Now, discover another new and amazing  free 21st century tool! Have a great week! – Mike

Showing Evidence Tools –  “People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.”  A statement by Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936) an English writer.

How many of your students have a great opinion or found some information on the web, but lack the ability to back it up with well articulated thinking and research? Real learning requires students to come up with opinions, hypotheses, and thesis arguments. More importantly, they must learn to support their ideas with factual details. This is true whether students are exploring science, discussing social studies, explaining a math problem, or writing a language arts paper. This skill is the foundation of Intel’s free Showing Evidence Tool. This resource facilitates student learning by providing a tool that helps construct well-reasoned arguments that can  prove a case, theory or hypothesis  with credible evidence. It does this by providing a visual framework to make claims, identify evidence, evaluate the quality of the evidence, explain how the evidence supports or weakens a claim, and allows students to reach conclusions based on the evidence. Research shows that an argumentation tool such as Showing Evidence extends learning regardless of subject or grade level. This is accomplished by preparing students for real world problems, helping students develop higher-order thinking skills, increasing content knowledge, and encouraging thoughtful students discussion.

Intel states, “The Showing Evidence Tool provides a scaffold to support students as they create a claim and then support or refute it with appropriate evidence. When an argument is complicated, the components of the tool help students think through justifying a claim. The Showing Evidence Tool prompts students to consider the quality of the evidence (Do they trust the source?), and the strength of the evidence to support their claim (Is the evidence central to their argument?). Students use the tool to explicitly link evidence to their claim and provide their reasoning as to why the evidence supports their claim (What general principle or idea allows them to make that connection?).

Take a moment and watch this video to get a better understanding. Be sure to explore Intel’s resources of units and plans for this tool. Perusing these lessons will provide you with ideas to integrate this tool into your past, current, and future lessons. There is even a tutorial that will guide you through building an activity. You may also wish to look at both this elementary demo or secondary demo.  Intel also includes an  excellent set of instructional strategies.  Best of all, Intel has included a private project area for teachers to set up lessons, class lists, and collaborative groups. Students then log in to the secure teacher area. Collaboration can occur from any computer at school or at home. Teachers have the ability to monitor and assess student work on line, and even leave important feedback. Take a moment and explore the Showing Evidence Tool. It really is a first class resource that will apply to any curricular area and grade level while enhancing 21st Century Skills. Best of all, it’s free!

Thanks for joining me once again on the important journey of transforming education to fit the 21st century. Remember to sign up via email or RSS and also,  follow me on twitter at (mjgormans). I also have hundreds of resources available for free at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! Enjoy the week as you introduce new tools that encourage your students to think! – Mike

A Free Paperless Tool That Can Aid Student Research As It Saves Trees

Welcome to another mid week posting where I try to introduce a  free resource that will assist you in the 21st Century classroom. This week I will highlight a tool that I believe will assist students in online research, save money in the paper budget, and contribute to the needed green movement. It is a valuable resource that every school classroom and library should be aware of and take advantage of. Enjoy the post and you are invited to follow me on twitter at (@mjgormans), I will return the favor and we can learn from each other. As always, please feel free to visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki filled with the latest free resources geared toward 21st Century education! Have a great week – Mike

Update from author – Please note that I tested with with Chrome and Firefox. It has been reported by some that this web site is not totally compatible with Internet Explorer. Any feedback would be appreciated.

If you are like me you have visited a printer spewing out countless papers from a student requested internet page filled with pictures, ads, and text that was not needed for the required research topic. The result ends up being an inflated paper budget, unnecessary information that students must later sift through, and a few less trees in all of our futures. Introducing  The Awesome Highlighter, a free web resource that allows students to save only the text needed, keep it in a digital format, archive the resource it came from, and print only the information necessary!

The site is valuable because it allows use by both registered and unregistered users. An unregistered user is able to perform most tasks with the exception of saving in the Awesome Highlighter Archive. Upon entering the site, the user is asked to enter the desired web address to be highlighted. Once entered, the user is able to highlight up to 2000 characters at once. The highlighted text is then saved to a new web link and an option is given to highlight more text, copy unique URL for an online archive, post in a social network or blog, copy to clipboard, or email for later reading. Options also exist to post notes on the highlighted web page, and share the highlighted page and notes with others using its unique URL. Since it also saves the highlighted text  in an area that can be emailed, copied and pasted to a document or web page, shared via a blog or social network site, or accessed later (for registered users), the need for paper is immaterial. Best of all, students have started the process of filtering through necessary information rather than trying to sift through stacks of printed web pages and resources later. The archive also allows users to save web pics, and videos along with the desired texts. All archived items can be searched by date saved, media type, web domain accessed from, and tags that can be attached to media. The short link web pages with all highlights and notes can be revisited and shared at any time along with the original web link. This comes in handy for creating necessary reference citations.

Users of Firefox can add a bookmarklet to their browser. “A bookmarklet is an applet, a small computer application, stored as the URL of a bookmark in a  browser.” It looks like a normal bookmark. In the case  of Highlighter the bookmarklet allows the user to highlight any page on-the-fly without having to copy & paste the page URL to www.awesomehighlighter.com. The user simply clicks on the bookmark  and the highlighter toolbar appears. Whether is is used from the web site or the browser, Awesome Highlighter is a great tool facilitating student research while keeping down paper and printing costs, and even saving a few trees here and there! It is definitely a highlight you do not want to miss!

Thanks for joining me in the middle of the week! Be sure to return and even subscribe to the feed via RSS or email. you are invited to follow me on twitter at (@mjgormans), I will return the favor and we can learn from each other. As always, please feel free to visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki filled with the latest free resources geared toward 21st Century education! Have a great week – Mike

It’s Free – Intel Provides An Amazing Tool To Assess 21st Century Skills

 

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler an American futurist.

This quote found on the front page of the Intel’s Assessing Project Tool web site gives a foundation  and premise for Intel’s  free educational resource . For those trying to assess 21century skills, this site provides some practical tools and resources to answer this question. Not only does Intel provide a unique interface to construct a rubric, it includes theory, rational, best practices, and outstanding examples. It is more then an assessment tool, if used correctly it allows teacher’s to truely transform their practice using a planning process that starts with the end and involves on-going assessment. Please take a moment to read over my review and explore the links that will highlight some of the outstanding attitibutes of this site. As always, take a moment to visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki .  If you have 21century skill assessment practices to share please post a reply or send an email. I enjoy reading and make it a practice to answer each and every e-mail. – Mike (mgorman@sacs.k12.in.us)

The biggest question I get from teachers when conducting workshops on technology integration and 21st century skills remains, “How do you assess the 21st century skills?”  While it is important to make sure content standards are integrated and assessed in student projects, many times the 21st century skills are loosely incorporated and assessed . This leaves students often confused with the attempted integration of  21st century skill, resulting in a goal never achieved. Once again, as most research suggests, it is important that all projects are designed with the end in mind. The conclusion includes both content standards, and the 21st century skills that are to be acheived by students. This end, is a part of the planning process that is communicated to students in the form of a rubric. The rubric must act as a guide while students engage with the project’s on-going process.

This preparation can be time consuming for the educator, which is why I invite you to explore Intel Education’s Assessing Projects Tool. I am a long time fan of the Intel Thinking  Tools. I am just as impressed with the Assessing  Projects Tool.  Intel states, “When assessment drives instruction, students learn more and become more confident, self-directed learners. Assessing Projects helps teachers create assessments that address 21st century skills and provides strategies to make assessment an integral part of their teaching and help students understand content more deeply, think at higher levels, and become self-directed learners”.

The site overview page  gives the benefits of assessing projects, numerous references and authoritive writings,  and some outstanding assessment based websites  based on 21st century education. Learn more about the purpose of assessment, various assessments that go beyond tests, papers, and oral presentations, and how formative assessment which is continuous and ongoing promotes real achievement. Additionally, while higher-order thinking such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and metacognition, can be a challenge. this tool explores methods for assessing thinking. Last, this tool explores what components are necessary for successful assessment in a school.

Intel gives you the opportunity to Try It.  Here you can try a Demo to explore the Assessment Library and examine checklists, rubrics, and scoring guides on thinking skills, processes, products, and performances. There is also a video tutorial that allows you to see how features of the Assessing Projects application work in the classroom. You can also view a great animation of the process which helps simplify the process. Explore some example project assessment forms for both the elementary and secondary level. Intel states that assessment strategies can be broken into five main categories. While not all methods within a category are needed, all categories should be included in an assessment plan. The categories included are Strategies for Gauging Student Needs ,  Strategies for Encouraging Self-Direction and Collaboration,  Strategies for Monitoring Progress,  Strategies for Checking for Understanding and Encouraging Metacognition,  and Strategies for Demonstrating Understanding and Skill. There is also an area that describes the planning of assessment, the changing of assessment strategies, and some sample lesson plans complete with timeline of project, venn diagram, table, and assessment timeline. I find it useful to use the large selection of pre-made rubics and modify and save them to my Intel Work Space. From here they can be exported as a Word or Excel file.

In conclusion, Intel offers a top of the line tool that is free to educators. There are other tools which I will explore in future posts but I do suggest that anyone exploring assessment of 21st century skills take a look at the Intel Assessing Projects Tool for its ease of use, vast resources of information,  on-line productivity, and theory behind practice. While it acts as a rubric machine, it goes much farther by transtorming educational practice. Please feel free to email or post. I am interested in learning about other tools available for 21st century assessment.  While taking your journey in 21st century education, please visit my 21centuryedtech Wiki. Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from you – Mike (mgorman@sacs.k12.in.us)