This is a great site tha enables you to create 3D animated cartoons. It's like a cross between Dvolver and Xtranormal.Fantastic. Select different motions for the characters chose backgrounds and add their dialogue.
This is something every teacher, myself included, should keep in mind when students struggle. Help them, but only enough so they can finish the race on their own. Zone of proximal development.
On our overhead, I enter the choices in side-by-side columns and give examples of the difference between the two.
I really enjoyed this post by Larry Ferlazzo (thanks to Meredith Stewart's retweet). Got me thinking about the sort of classroom culture I'd like to help create with my students.
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From 1960 to 1980, our supply of college graduates increased at almost 4 percent a year; since then, the increase has been about half as fast. The net effect is that we’re rapidly moving toward two Americas—a wealthy elite, and an increasingly large underclass that lacks the skills to succeed.
in education, despite massive increases in expenditure, we don’t see improved results
That leads too many people to suspect that poverty is destiny, that schools can make only a small difference, and that therefore we’re unable to fix this problem, regardless of its seriousness. So why try?
That Kafkaesque outcome demonstrates precisely the way the system is run: for the adults. The school system doesn’t want to change, because it serves the needs of the adult stakeholders quite well, both politically and financially.
“Listen, they’re trying to get rid of a principal in my district who runs a Democratic club for us. If you protect him, you’ll never have a problem with me.” This kind of encounter was not rare.
President Obama was on to something in 2008 when he said: “The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of [students’] skin or where they come from. It’s not who their parents are or how much money they have. It’s who their teacher is.” Yet, rather than create a system that attracts and rewards excellent teachers—and that imposes consequences for ineffective or lazy ones—we treat all teachers as if they were identical widgets and their performance didn’t matter.
The result: too few effective math and science teachers in high-poverty schools.
Many have candidly told me they are burned out, but they can’t afford to leave until their pension fully vests. So they go through the motions until they can retire with the total package.
And why give all teachers making $80,000, or more, a 10 percent raise? They’re not going to leave, since they’re close to vesting their lifetime pensions. By contrast, increasing starting salaries by $8,000 (rather than $4,000) would help attract and retain better new teachers.
I found these exciting projects, too. I would ask teachers to require kids NOT SPOIL the plot -- or, at least to warn viewers of spoilers. My students could not watch any of the SPEAK trailers for this reason.
5 trailers for unique books-- great to inspire reading, or to serve as examples of the clear thinking that goes into creating a great review. My kids were fascinated, great discussion ensued as we plan our PechaKucha book reports
This would be a great piece of controversial visual rhetoric to explore with students. It could be compared to the controversy created with the photograph of "The Falling Man" - http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN