ChisholmCC

"SAN ANTONIO - Several Texas A&M professors know something that generations of teachers could only hope to guess: whether students are reading their textbooks." They know when students are skipping pages, failing to highlight significant passages, not bothering to take notes - or simply not opening the book at all.

"This is the first post in a dialogue between Patrick Honner and me concerning rigor, testing, and the new Common Core Math Standards. Each installment in this series will be cross-posted both here and at MrHonner.com. We invite readers to join the conversation. Please post any comments at Patrick's site so that they are all in one place."

"It's been around for a few years now and had plenty of interest from around the world already, but Mr G Online has only just discovered Maths Maps. From first impressions, I am absolutely blown away by the idea. The brainchild of leading UK educator Tom Barrett, (now based in Australia), Maths Maps uses Google Maps as the launching pad for Maths Investigations. Barrett's vision was for teachers around the world to collaborate on building Maths Maps, examples of some seen in the screenshots on the left. Here is a brief description of how it works from the Maths Maps website. Elevator Pitch Using Google Maps. Maths activities in different places around the world. One location, one maths topic, one map. Activities explained in placemarks in Google Maps. Placemarks geotagged to the maths it refers to. "How wide is this swimming pool?" Teachers to contribute and share ideas. Maps can be used as independent tasks or group activities in class. Maps can be embedded on websites, blogs or wikis. Tasks to be completed by students and recorded online or offline."

"Evernote has transformed the way I organise myself as a teacher. Using Evernote as an organisational tool in the classroom has changed the way I assess students, keep notes and records and complete many day to day tasks. I am a big believer in not making more work for myself than I need to and using Evernote effectively makes things much easier"

Rubrics can be an incredibly useful tool for your classroom. Aside from being one of those cool words that sounds a little weirder every time you say it, using a rubric can help your students understand the assignments in your classroom, and will make your grading process clearer, faster, and more objective and consistent. Online rubric makers can make rubric creation pretty simple, so we've collected a few sites that offers online rubric makers (some of them are free) that can help you out in your classroom. There are many sites out there that also offer shared rubrics from other users that you can use as well - quite a helpful tool if you're either in a pinch, or at a loss for where to start.

Since keeping students on track is not always easy, sometimes the digital horse blinders need to be put on. Thankfully, this handy set of visuals from Primary Possibilities offers a guide to keeping students focused while using technology.

"AITSL is initiating a project focused on student engagement in learning. Learning Frontiers will support practitioners to develop professional practices which optimise the true engagement of learners. This we believe is a prerequisite to realise the goals of the Australian Curriculum in our new context of complex challenges and amazing opportunities."

While iPads might be taking up a lot of buzz in the classroom technology world, laptops are still a widely used tool for both personal and classroom use. Choosing a laptop may not be a simple task, either - there are a lot of choices out there. Making sure it has the right tools you need and falls into a price range that works for you tend to be the top two factors for most people who are in the market for a new laptop. So we thought it'd be useful to tackle the best laptops for teachers in a world filled with iPads and smartphones.

Technology impacts society in many ways - some of which are obvious and others more subtle - and those changes often call for changes in behavior. Etiquette is an important social construct that we tend to forget or ignore, but I would argue that etiquette has never been more important than now. One misstep could permanently damage or fracture your relationship with another.

"AC History Units Developed by the History Teachers' Association of Australia"

This week the focus is iPad and Web 2.0 Tools Tutorials. These tutorials will support teachers to effectively embed technology into their Literacy and Numeracy programs.