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"In celebration of Media Awareness Week (November 2-6, 2009) we are encouraging students, teachers, and the general public to create videos, digital stories, text, images or any digital media that showcases the different ways they are Media Literate. To get things started, we have created a video that is hosted here on our YouTube Channel (also located at http://drop.io/medialiteracyvideo). Watch the video and then we encourage you to create your own short digital representation of media literacy. Anyone can then upload their video responses or link to any digital artifact you create here in the comments to this video. Celebrating and Sharing: Teachers and students are encouraged to take part in this exposition of student media literacy, we encourage you to promote your activities with local media outlets and draw attention to the critical importance of developing media literacy in the digital age. We hope you choose to participate in this exciting event with your students. You may attend the Media Literacy evening in person on Monday, November 2, 2009, from 7:00 - 8:30 PM CST at the St. James-Assiniboia School Division's Professional Staff Development Centre (PSDC) - 150 Moray Street (access off of Portage Avenue) or via our uStream channel (http://www.ustream.tv/lwict) where everything will be archived. If you have any questions regarding any aspect of this event, leave us a comment here. Category: Education Tags: lstu manace literacy medialiteracy mediaawarenessweek media education lwict "

Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a collective that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

"Recently the Center for Teaching Quality launched a #Teachingis campaign for teachers to tweet different visions and realities of teaching. The responses were varied and poignant. As we know, teaching is ever changing and virtually indescribable in its complexity. Reading the tweets of "what #Teachingis" helped me think more deeply about the multilayered identities that we have as teachers. These many roles and identities change from moment to moment, and shift throughout the course of a school year. "

"This report introduces connected learning, a promising educational approach that uses digital media to engage students' interests and instill deeper learning skills, such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. The report lists four elements constituting connected learning's emphasis on bridging school, popular culture, home, and the community to create an environment in which students engage in and take responsibility for their learning."

"n a 1:1 classroom, I regretted not having a digital contract developed with my students last year. There were many times last year where I wished I had something to pull out of my files and point to when a student wasn't being responsible with their iPads. Thankfully I have this year to make changes! I wanted a contract that showed some student character to it so that it meant something to them. I think it's very important that the contract isn't pre-made by the teacher. Here's how I started:"

"Every day, your students are tested with each post, search, chat, text message, file download, and profile update. Do they connect with like minds or spill too much information? Do they behave creatively or borrow ideas recklessly? Do they respect relationships or inadvertently damage reputations? Join us for Digital Citizenship Week and engage students, teachers, and families in your community in thinking critically, behaving safely, and participating responsibly online. It's a great way to celebrate Connected Educator Month, so dive into the suggested activities and resources. And be sure to post what you're doing to the Connected Educator Month calendar and tag your plans as "DigitalCitizenshipWeek" to inspire others to get involved."

"You'd heard about this parent from other teachers. This parent was a handful. Rude. Combative. Aggressive. Even litigious. In response, you worry, if just a little. You have enough to deal with, and butting heads with an angry parent-especially one angry just because-doesn't sound like fun. You don't get paid enough for that hot mess. So you keep calm and hope to ride the year out. Maybe they won't call. Maybe they'll skip parent-teacher conferences. You've even considered grading their child a little easier just to avoid the hassle of it all. We've all been there. Nothing can solve this problem, but there are ways to take the edge off so that you can open up the lines of communication and deal with the parent on equal terms so that they're child has the best chance for success."

"Last weekend I published a chart comparing 9 popular student response systems. That chart seems to be popular so I decided to create a similar one about tools for creating mind maps. That chart is embedded below as a PDF"

"Wow, what can we say! This past summer we decided to start a learning space design challenge on ClassroomCribs.com to highlight all of the amazing "cribs" that you have designed for students. Instead of just "aesthetics" we focused this challenge on brain-friendly learning spaces that promoted deep learning and engagement through design. And we were blown away by the response! Over 4,000 educators have joined our Classroom Cribs learning community and many of you sent in videos of your learning space as part of the challenge."

"There is one education trend that is, well, trending. It's called project-based learning (some refer to it as PBL) and it's essentially a way to organize in-classroom learning around dedicated projects that the students oversee and are responsible for completing. There are keys to mastering PBL if you're a teacher and the always great Edutopia has assembled a quick video that explains exactly what the keys are. Below is a fun little graphic we adapted for this video if watching videos isn't your thing (or you don't have the time right now)."

"Whenever you get called to speak in public, do your palms sweat? Does your tongue get tied up - it's embarrassing, isn't it? Feel nervous? Not many people are natural public speakers - in order to impress your audience, you need practice and the right guidance. If you're responsible for appearing in front of a large audience to deliver speeches or talks, then work your way through this cheat sheet. It's a collaborative effort between London Speaker Bureau and datadial, and will certainly help you overcome your fear of public speaking."

"If you are planning to incorporate iPad in your classroom teaching then you definitely need to work on some preliminary stuff before anything else. These are basically formalities and conventions students need to abide by when using iPad in class. Making students explicitly aware of their responsibilities behind using iPad in class will certainly help you tap into the full educational potential of this versatile gadget. I have gone through my archive and picked out these handy visuals for you to use with your students."

"It just might be that in a society where information is abundant, thinking habits are more important than knowledge. Somewhere beneath wisdom and above the "things" a student knows. Laws of economics say that scarcity increases value. It's no longer information that's scarce, but rather meaningful response to that information. Thought. And thought has a source-a complex set of processes, background knowledge, and schema that we can, as educators think of as cognitive habits. And if they're habits, well, that means they're probably something we can practice at, doesn't it?"

"This week's question is: What are your suggestions for effective classroom management strategies? At various times, I would imagine that classroom management is a challenge to many of us who teach -- it certainly is to me!  New years, new classes, new students (who all come from different backgrounds and previous school experiences) all can contribute to an occasional or often challenging environment.  How can we respond in effective and positive - not punitive - ways?"