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"I thought I would share them here. I started blogging in 2006 and it has been some of the best professional development for me that I have ever done. Blogging forces me to think, reflect and write about my experiences. Blogging helps me retain my learning and connects me to others who help and support me in my endeavors. If you don't yet have a blog, I recommend giving it a try. You don't have to blog every day or every week. Just establish a place Online to share your thoughts. If you give it a chance, I think you will find it a rewarding experience."
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"Recognize Women's History Month (March), by exploring the many important contributions of women, with our printables, lesson plans, and more. Find biographies and worksheets about accomplished women in American history, including Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sacajawea, Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Toni Morrison, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Anne Frank, Helen Keller, Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth, Pocahontas, Wilma Rudolph, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Abigail Adams, Charlotte Brontë, and many more! "
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"I spent the better part of it buried under hateful emails from a district technology director in Louisiana who had read my recent post arguing that Interactive Whiteboards were a waste of money. "
Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'
links for 2010-03-05
March 5, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized
links for 2010-03-04
March 4, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized
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"I spent the better part of it buried under hateful emails from a district technology director in Louisiana who had read my recent post arguing that Interactive Whiteboards were a waste of money. "
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"Urtak lets you make smart, sticky polls where participants can ask and answer questions."
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"Ordinarily we bloggers don’t repost someone else’s entire blog post. But I just had to for this recent post by Seth Godin, It's easier to teach compliance than initiative. Read it and weep."
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"There was an interesting letter to the editor in our wonderful local paper The Herald here yesterday. The writer nailed it spot on, so I want to share it here. On the same page as this “letter to the editor” was a cartoon outline of child’s head. Inside the shadowed head, a oval circle dotted line with the distinct shape of scissors cutting along it, removing what could be interpreted as the brain. The text read something to the effect “Here is the next cut from the education budget.” I wish I had saved yesterday’s paper to snap a photo of it."
How about those dragons?
March 2, 2010 · No Comments · 21st Century, literacy, Uncategorized
Sailing over the Edge: Navigating the Uncharted Waters of a World Gone Flat: Kylene Beers gracefully addresses the problems gone wrong in public education. Today I was lucky enough to spend four hours with Kylene in Columbia, SC for a literacy workshop with the South Carolina Department of Education. She reminds of the new changed world that we live in which literacy is defined so differently than when I was in grade school. Being literate in the 21st century has to do with images, texting, writing, communicating, problem solving, layering images with sound, voice, and text and so much more. The world no doubt is much flatter and so many lives are connected through the intricate strings of the World Wide Web. And literacy will continue to be redefined as technology continues to transform us.
Saturday, February 27th, I was amazed while tuned to CNN to watch a possible Tsunami hit the coast of Hawaii. I was not hoping for the worst for Hawaii but amazed how far technology had brought us. Our country has a system to predict these possibilities even though it is not absolute. I was anxious to watch this play out on TV and in the Twitter world. It is amazing how far we have come in my 50 years of life. If we are able to use this technology in 2010, where is it to help our learners learn? Oh yes, we bought them all textbooks. Oops! I forgot!
How can decision makers in this day and age not demand more change? How can we as educators at the client level not see how bored learners have become? How can we continue skilling learners instead of engaging them? Disruptive forces are at play. We can hope when NCLB is renewed next year we will see massive changes in assessment and the learning that should be happening in schools.
Today I heard Kylene retell her Presidential Address at NCTE 2009 Sailing over the Edge: Navigating the Uncharted Waters of a World Gone Flat. She reminds us of the dragons that lay in our way and hinders our quest to make every learner in K-12 ready for the 21st century. Today we must embrace the technologies that our students are accustomed to using. We must embrace the tools that are their birthright.
Furthermore, she targeted another dragon that pulls so many of learner down: Poverty. Some 40% of our children live in poverty. We know that children of poverty come into our classrooms daily and struggle. I am not saying these children don’t have a chance, but too often they enter our classrooms behind and lack the support from home. Many of these kids struggle with having enough food to eat, health care, parental support at home, share household with several families, homes below poverty level, and so much more.
Another dragon we must face is the state of assessments- The State Test. In many classrooms our teachers begin the year by preparing them for the end of the year state test. I do believe the good dragons are on the way to rescue us from the bad dragons. I hope the come sooner rather than later.
Tags: Kylene Beers·literacy
links for 2010-02-28
February 28, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized
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Great place to find work that can be adapted, modified, or build upon. This great search engine is excellent for you and your students.
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" New Student Interactives
Online games for Language Arts, Math, Health, Social Studies and more."
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Best place to find rubrics….check it out…
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"In my previous article, I wrote about receiving podcasts. This time around, I'm walking through the steps required to record and post your own podcast using tools virtually everyone has or can easily acquire on a tiny budget. Ultimately, if you decide to podcast on a regular basis, some equipment upgrades such as the podcast recording kit I recently detailed at "
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"1. Tune into the History Channel's Black History Month Web Exhibit and listen to MLK's I have a Dream Speech, watch clips from the History Channel's Black History "
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"imply enter some text and create your word cloud!
* Customise many settings
* Share your word cloud (or keep it secret!)
* Embed it on your own website" -
"ince all of us are parents or prospective parents, I found this from Forever, Erma by Erma Bombeck. For those of you young'uns, she was a nationally syndicated columnist in the '60s-'90s and known for her downhome humor. Most of us will have no problem relating."
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"My podcast is a story I began last week with my Creative Writing kids. Can I just share how much I love that class? My kids are awesome. They would literally write for 90 minutes a day if I let them, except for sharing time. They can't wait to share with the rest of the class what they've written, and they insist that I write and share too. This class is really refreshing, and they have encouraged me to retune my creative voice.
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"This story was written by a fifth grade student. This was a Pass Writing practice prompt. Pay attention to the descriptions. "
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"VocabAhead Study Room provides a distraction free environment with over 1000 difficult words explained using Vocabulary Videos and Flash Cards. More vocab videos continuously added. Join us, it's FREE"
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"One of the key elements in teaching ESOL is getting our students to increase their vocabulary .
They are expected to make connections among words thinking about their meaning and incorporating them into their active vocabulary . By getting our students to dig into the meaning of words, we are helping them better "
links for 2010-02-26
February 26, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized
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"The map as history
The largest on-line collection of animated historical maps* For students: a learning tool to increase comprehension and retention
* For teachers: a ready-made teaching tool to add visual impact in the classroom
* For history buffs: new technology to add new perspectivesOur on-line maps use animation, color and narration to bring history to life.
On-line animated maps
145 animated maps are already available in 8 separate series"
links for 2010-02-25
February 25, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized
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"I have been following this project from almost the very beginning and it still fascinates me week after week of the secrets being read by now hundreds of thousands of people. These secrets sometimes stay with me for hours, weeks, and years, the pure raw human emotion behind them still intrigues me long after they have been read. Some try to say that they can't possibly be true, but I beg to differ, why can't they? They are unbelievable at times, but then again, what is the definition of a secret?
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links for 2010-02-24
February 24, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized
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Silvia Tolisano, author of the excellent Langwitches blog, has an awesome free ebook about digital storytelling. Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators is a 120 page guide to using digital storytelling tools in your classroom. The guide offers clear directions for using tools like Audacity, Google Maps, Photo Story, VoiceThread, and other digital media creation tools. Silvia's directions are aided by clearly annotated screenshots of each digital storytelling tool.
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Historical Scene Investigation is a fun way for students to investigate history through primary documents and images. Historical Scene Investigation presents students with historical cases to "crack." Each of these thirteen cases present students with clues to analyze in order to form a conclusion to each investigation. The clues for each investigation come in the forms of primary documents and images as well as secondary sources. HSI provides students with "case files" on which they record the evidence they find in the documents and images. At the conclusion of their investigation students need to answer questions and decide if the case should be closed or if more investigation is necessary.
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Stat Planet is a thematic mapping website. Stat Planet relies on data from UNESCO is a project of SACMEQ. Stat Planet can be used to create thematic maps based on a variety of development indicators from the fields of education, health care, and economics. Stat Planet can be used online in your browser or you can download Stat Planet. Downloading Stat Planet gives you the option to include your other data sets and create a custom map.
