Group items tagged

Useful Forms and Readings If you know what you're looking for you will find it below listed alphabetically.  If you're new to WRG you want the file called "I Want It All".

many meta-cognitive formatives!

"Is fiction good for us? We spend huge chunks of our lives immersed in novels, films, TV shows, and other forms of fiction. Some see this as a positive thing, arguing that made-up stories cultivate our mental and moral development. But others have argued that fiction is mentally and ethically corrosive. It's an ancient question: Does fiction build the morality of individuals and societies, or does it break it down?"

"A simple way to place useful, formative classroom lessons over any Web page. "

Science evangelist Ainissa Ramirez reveals the questionable origins of the multiple-choice test and questions whether this is truly a valid form of assessment.

Being literate in a real-world sense means being able to read and write using the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. For centuries, consuming and producing words through reading and writing and, to a lesser extent, listening and speaking were sufficient. But because of inexpensive, easy-to-use, and widely available new tools, literacy now requires being conversant with new forms of media as well as text, including sound, graphics, and moving images.

Jane Austen's fiction manuscripts are the first significant body of holograph evidence surviving for any British novelist. They represent every stage of her writing career and a variety of physical states: working drafts, fair copies, and handwritten publications for private circulation. Digitization enables their virtual reunification and will provides scholars with the first opportunity to make simultaneous ocular comparison of their different physical and conceptual states; it will facilitate intimate and systematic study of Austen's working practices across her career, a remarkably neglected area of scholarship within the huge, world-wide Austen critical industry. Many of the Austen manuscripts are frail; open and sustained access has long been impossible for conservation and location reasons. Digitization at this stage in their lives not only offers the opportunity for the virtual reunification of a key manuscript resource, it will also be accompanied by a record in as complete a form as possible of the conservation history and current material state of these manuscripts to assist their future conservation.

The Birthday Party by Katherine Brush     They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married. They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in a big hat. There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an occasion-in fact, the husband's birthday. And the wife had planned a little surprise for him.     It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played "Happy Birthday to You" and the wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help was needed, because the husband was not pleased. Instead he was hotly embarrassed, and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.     You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, "Oh, now don't be like that!" But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table, and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath-some punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn't bear to look at the woman then, so I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was still crying when I finally glanced over there again. Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.  

Google doc form used to collect and publish book reviews

doctorow's take on why we need not just twitter and facebook and diigo but also older methods of socialmedia--blogging

this is the best analysis on why we need the varied forms of social media in the classroom--and in life

An outstanding take on Google Forms by David Wees. Great use of the format of creating multiple pages to make a choose-your-own-ending story. Will be sharing this one.

The English language, which arose from humble Anglo-Saxon roots to become the lingua franca of 600 million people worldwide and the dominant lexicon of international discourse, is dead. It succumbed last month at the age of 1,617 after a long illness. It is survived by an ignominiously diminished form of itself.

From Mark Rounds: Web-Ed Tools Paper.li: "The art of online storytelling is all about presentation. As a non-linear storytelling engine, Projeqt gives creatives the ability to weave together stories dripping with style and personality from Flickr photos, RSS feeds, tweets, YouTube or Vimeo videos, and any media stored on their own computers.Users can craft "projeqts," whatever their purpose may be, by adding content in the form of slides. Create a slide, name it, add tags, and fill the slide with a photo, text, video or feed. Slides are published to create the web story and be can reordered via drag and drop. Users can also create a projeqt within a projeqt to serve as a story inside a story.In private beta right now... It took me a week to get my invite."

"This is the play-date generation. ... There was a time when children came home from school and just played randomly with their friends. Or hung around and got bored, and eventually that would lead you on to something. Kids don't get to do that now. Busy parents book them into things constantly-violin lessons, ballet lessons, swimming teams. The kids get the idea that someone will always be structuring their time for them."

A great article, worth 15 minutes.

Teachers as guides to move students beyond the social piece to forming a learning community.