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How to create large tiles on Symbaloo

"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat

Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.

Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.

Most word cloud programs work in the same, straight-forward way; the more a word is used in the text, the bigger it is shown in the cloud. A glance at a cloud is an easy way to preview a passage, or to analyze text.

We have developed computational methods to measure historical significance through analysis of Wikipedia and other data sources. We rank historical figures just as Google ranks webpages, by integrating a diverse set of measurements about their reputation (including PageRank, article length, and readership) into estimates of their fame, explained by a combination of achievement (gravitas) and celebrity. We correct for the passage of time in a principled way, so we can fairly compare the significance of historical figures of different eras. - See more at: http://www.whoisbigger.com/#sthash.6tN6cebp.dpuf

1. OWNERSHIP is key. For this project, the students were not listening to me on why Twain was or was not a racist, they were showing me and the rest of class what they thought. They were invested in winning their argument. They knew that their work was going to determine if he was guilty or not. Although I gave the assignment, the students were in charge the rest of the way. It was their project and they wanted to do it win. When students feel they own what they are doing, they will work harder. When the audience is larger, they want to impress everyone. These are not crazy ideas, they are the results of owning the work they are doing. OWNERSHIP is a major factor in the value of PBL. 2. CREATIVITY is the another major part of the PBL and is closely linked with OWNERSHIP. Students were allowed to be creative in their work as a lawyer or witness. Witnesses needed to stay within character, but could add their own elements on the witness stand. Allowing the students to create gives them a bigger sense of OWNERSHIP. 3. Another part of the PBL is the COLLABORATION. Students were working with each other trying to decide the best plan of attack. Witnesses would meet with their lawyers and discuss how the questions they were going to ask and how they should dress. The Jury worked on group projects researching the previous public opinions on Twain and his writing. Students were sharing ideas freely with one another. I had three sections of American Lit at the time, so I had three trails running. Lawyers would help others in the other classes and trash talk the opposing lawyers as well. It was all in good fun, but the collaboration had students working hard with one another to accomplish this goal. 4. Depending on how you set up your project, CRITICAL THINKING, is also an important part of PBL. With my Twain Trail, students needed to think about both sides of the argument. Students needed to prepare their witnesses for potential cross-examination questions. They needed to

I'm rubbish at Maths' are words that regularly come out of mouth during my adult life. This fixed mindset is deep rooted. When faced with a Maths challenge I have immediate flashbacks to those bottom set Maths lessons where everyone else were given more complicated problems with bigger numbers to solve. I may have a fixed mindset in terms of my own capabilities, but I believe every child has the capacity to be a fantastic Mathematician, if they are given the opportunity and are encouraged to have the belief in the 'power of yet'.

A fun dice game where you need to invade other areas by rolling a bigger number. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Educational+Games

"The iPad revolution in academia isn't coming. It's already here .. The school district in question has just purchased 26,000 iPads, each of which will be distributed to students in the classroom beginning at the end of this summer as the new school year begins. Although San Diego isn't the first place where this sort of thing has been done, it's never been done bigger anywhere else."

"Last year, Apple introduced the iPad, a computing device many have struggled to classify. It's bigger than a smartphone or iPod, smaller than a computer, but can do some things you'd otherwise do on both of these. You can type a document in Pages or find your way with GPS and Google Maps. So what makes it so special? "

Nice analogy that sits well for teachers trying to figure out where tablet devices fit into schools filled with traditional computers.

5 minute video is available - tutoral is also available in screenshots - bigger issues regarding copyright are not addressed though there is attention paid to proper citation of use of cover art, for example

Settle the argument of who's is truly bigger with this planet size comparison tool. View a image of each planet as it's real ratio. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

Settle the argument of who's is truly bigger with this planet size comparison tool. View a image of each planet as it's real ratio.

"Over time, we as educators have become used to listening to and reading from gurus with simple truths. So many of us feel that we are well below the expertise of these edugurus (and I don't mean to single out the examples above as being the only ones going around) so we pack into venues, feverishly copying dot points from slideshows, handing over cash to buy the book and match up the dispensed wisdom against our own learning, our own classrooms and schools to see if we are headed in the prescribed direction"

word clouds with style. Create shapes with word clouds

To Gerald Carey - As an English teacher, word clouds are a great tool. Taking text from literature or even from your own students' writing and placing it in a word cloud builder allows students to find theme words because the words used the most often are bigger than the others. I've used my students' quickwrite entries about a chosen piece of text and shown them that they are all thinking through the literature the same way. It's pretty eye opening for an English class!

Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning word cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.