This week we will be looking at a website called Learning for Justice and see what the website offers and understand the primary point(s) it is looking to achieve. Is it a valuable and reputable website? Let us dive right in!

A Long-Lasting Project Backed by Reputable Sponsors

Created in 1991 Learning for Justice seeks to highlight social injustices through articles and lessons provided by journalists free of charge. This is free through the vast amounts of sponsorships and backing they have such as NBC as well as Storycorps. With great sponsors the community of employees they currently have express great interest in interactions with users of their site and provide ways to reach them and even volunteer to arrive in person to schools!

Variety That Creates Harmony in Learning

In terms of students attempting to learn what this website offers; eight total focal points of injustices are touched upon each topic containing various pages of articles to highlight injustices that are being faced in today’s society. I found myself going back and forth between articles but felt like they all helped guide me to a specific view that felt almost unique to any other learning website I have visited. While all topics are broad in their respective ways, they can all tie in together beautiful still providing ease of reading to many viewers of the site to all ages.

Aid to Help Teachers Develop Lesson Plans

Teachers can easily benefit from this website as well to disperse information to their students. Workshops that are offered weekly help teachers figure out how to discuss these topics to their respective grades. Along with workshops, premade lesson plans are available to those that seek them for all eight topics they cover. Looking to make your own with a little help? Look no further because their generative A.I will help guide you through the process! I personally would 100% use this in future lesson plans for students!

A Vastly Impressive Website That Needs More Attention

Before closing my blog post I would like to quickly highlight just a hint more of positives that Learning for Justice provides.

• Podcasts for auditory learners
• A collection of current and past magazines to grab quick articles to read if you are in a rush
• Provides educator funds to help futher spread awareness

As you can see for yourself, this website provides so many tools and awareness that I personally hold dear to my heart. Growing up in a city that is faced with serious social injustice, it brings me great relief that websites are dedicated to raise these issues to other’s attention and not seek any profit. If you have a moment, please check this website Learning for Justice | Education Resources to experience these tools yourself.

Until next time everyone have a blessed day and follow me on X!

We have all come to know of the recently developed program of Microsoft Teams that can be used for a vast number of applications in different scenarios. While Teams can be seen as a primarily business platform in which corporations can engage and disseminate information to one another, a great use of this software can be seen with the classroom itself. Patrick Moorhead, a senior collaborator at Forbes, details the new features Teams has provided to gain a competitive edge over different platforms all while enhancing the overall learning experience for students. So, what do these features entail? Can we rely on a seemingly multi-use platform to help our kids learn? Well let’s dig into the features and gauge for ourselves.

Enhancing The Classroom Setting with Increasing Participation

It is a fact that Teams has exponentially grown overall with the increasing downloads of their program. It is at the time grown over a total of 150 million users with 28,000 users signing up daily solely in the educational side of teams. Now what can be an issue with an increase of students within the platform? The availability to be seen and heard within the classroom. Teams Solution was to integrate a 7×7 video classroom setting allowing a total of 49 students to engage with the class and show when a question is needed. Furthermore, on the aspect of the educator side, Teams has implemented new features in which students can be disseminated information of documents as well as track the overall attendance and participation of students.

The Ability to Do More for Less

Another feature Teams has implemented is the ability to change backgrounds and blur them as well. Now this can be seen as a fun and goofy addition to Teams as a whole. The reasoning behind this is to allow further engagement with students to further expand on topics being discussed. We can be talking about the great pyramids and imagine that we are truly there with these changes. While yes in my previously described blog, I stated how VR can ultimately be the new way to truly engage on topics such as this. However, this can be shown as a very cost-efficient way to allow students to understand the same point.

So, what do you think? Do you believe more collaborative programs like Teams is truly promoting student education? I believe it has greatly promoted student interaction with teachers and other classmates on a technological standpoint. Furthermore, it develops the student’s technology use overtime which is what the world is ultimately leaning towards. Be sure to follow me on X!

Written proficiently well by author Emma Green, Virtual-Reality School Is the Next Frontier of the School-Choice Movement details the newest approach to technology with the classroom itself. This idea is to take the online format created during the overall global pandemic and enhance it. While we have in the past used VR to overall enhance the classroom by integrating with in person lessons, the idea is to now take it to the students’ homes to get rid of the old school module of schooling. Now you may wonder how this will benefit the student educational, but you must see how it also promotes economical and community involvement.

Student Education

• The State of Florida has already integrated this concept with their school-choice system showing a vast improvement to the learning and education of the student.
• Many classes within Optima are synchronous allowing the group classroom setting that many are familiar with to not deter families to think the student is learning on their own while providing a vast amount of different classes.
• The afternoon classes are purely asynchronous to allow students to gain self-paced knowledge to enhance on portions needed to be looked at by the student more and promote outside interests and family time.
• The ability to connect globally to other students allows an engagement of global communication that many would not be able to have due to restrictions of social media and approachability.

Economical and Communal Involvement

• Families will see the payment of Optima Ed through their taxes similarly to school taxes for public schooling.
• This allows an excess of money to occur through the limiting of transportation for the student
• The ability to not purchase extra clothing for uniforms throughout the school year.
• Promotes allocations to enhance activities for students to try new hobbies and interests that the student may not have been previously able to do.

Overall global integration of VR as the overall new way of school will indeed take time. Many obstacles will be faced with the overall providence of internet and technology to those in lower world countries. However, it has been undoubtedly noted the positives this type of learning can have on a student and the possibilities the learning could go. However, what do you think? Do you see this overall taking overall the style of teaching as a whole? Please feel free to let me know in the comments!

Follow me on X to see any future updates and other interesting topics @randyrn55