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Adam Babcock

VocabGrabber : Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus - 17 views

www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber

edtech writing english vocab

shared by Adam Babcock on 17 May 10 - Cached
  • VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context. Just copy text from a document and paste it into the box, and then click on the "Grab Vocabulary!" button. VocabGrabber will automatically create a list of vocabulary from your text, which you can then sort, filter, and save.
Adam Babcock

Transcript: Obama's State Of The Union Address : NPR - 4 views

www.npr.org/...-obamas-state-of-union-address

education history

shared by Adam Babcock on 26 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • What we can do — what America does better than anyone — is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn't just change our lives. It's how we make a living.
  • This is our generation's Sputnik moment.
  • That's what Americans have done for over two hundred years: reinvented ourselves
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own.
  • the biggest impact on a child's success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom. In South Korea, teachers are known as "nation builders." Here in America, it's time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect.
  • If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation; if you want to make a difference in the life of a child — become a teacher. Your country needs you.
Patrick Higgins

Reading Rockets: The Six Ts of Effective Elementary Literacy Instruction - 7 views

www.readingrockets.org/96

literacy elementary reading

shared by Patrick Higgins on 16 Feb 11 - Cached
  • The issue is less stuff vs. reading than it is a question of what sorts of and how much of stuff. When stuff dominates instructional time, warning flags should go up.
  • In less-effective classrooms, there is a lot of stuff going on for which no reliable evidence exists to support their use (e.g., test-preparation workbooks, copying vocabulary definitions from a dictionary, completing after-reading comprehension worksheets).
  • In these classrooms, lower-achieving students spent their days with books they could successfully read.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • In other words, in too many cases the lower-achieving students receive, perhaps, an hour of appropriate instruction each day and four hours of instruction based on grade-level texts they cannot read.
  • No child who spends 80 percent of his instructional time in texts that are inappropriately difficult will make much progress academically.
  • These exemplary teachers routinely offered direct, explicit demonstrations of the cognitive strategies used by good readers when they read. In other words, they modeled the thinking that skilled readers engage while they attempt to decode a word, self-monitor for understanding, summarize while reading, or edit when composing. The "watch me" or "let me demonstrate" stance they took seems quite different from the "assign and assess" stance that dominates in less-effective classrooms (e.g., Adams, 1990; Durkin, 1978-79).
    • Patrick Higgins
      Patrick Higgins on 16 Feb 11
       
      This makes great sense: children need to see what experts do when they read.  
  • I must also note that we observed almost no test-preparation activity in these classrooms. None of the teachers relied on the increasingly popular commercial test preparation materials (e.g., workbooks, software). Instead, these teachers believed that good instruction, rich instruction, would lead to enhanced test performances.
MIchael Heneghan

Let Kids Rule the School - NYTimes.com - 16 views

www.nytimes.com/...15engel.html

shared by MIchael Heneghan on 16 Mar 11 - No Cached
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 16 Mar 11
       
      The motivating power of choice.
  • Leslie Healey on 16 Mar 11
     
    I think I need to try a few of these strategies--I especially liked the independent project that each student undertook.
Adam Babcock

The Failure of American Schools - Magazine - The Atlantic - 3 views

www.theatlantic.com/...8497

education politics

shared by Adam Babcock on 01 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • recalcitrant
  • 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
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • 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.
Dennis OConnor

Education Week: E-Learning for Special Populations - 3 views

www.edweek.org/...index.html

E-Learning special populations ell special education online at risk online

shared by Dennis OConnor on 31 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • This special report, another installment in Education Week's series on virtual education, examines the growing e-learning opportunities for students with disabilities, English-language learners, gifted and talented students, and those at risk of failing in school. It shows the barriers that exist for greater participation among special populations, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of this approach. It also looks at the funding tactics schools are using to build virtual education programs for special populations and the evolving professional-development needs for these efforts.
  • Download the interactive PDF version of the report, E-Learning for Special Populations.
Dennis OConnor

Education Week Teacher: High-Tech Teaching in a Low-Tech Classroom - 6 views

www.edweek.org/...barnett_hightechteaching.html

education Low-Tech 21st century skills ed-tech blended learning

shared by Dennis OConnor on 04 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • How can we best use limited resources to support learning and familiarize students with technology?
  • get creative with lesson structure
  • Take advantage of any time that your students have access to a computer lab with multiple computers.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Relieve yourself from the pressure of knowing all the ins and outs of every tool. Instead, empower your students by challenging them to become experts who teach one another (and you!) how to use new programs.
  • "Pass it On" Buddy Method
  • Students assist one another in creating digital products that represent or reflect their new learning. It’s a great way to spread technological skills in a one-computer classroom.
  • Group Consensus Method
  • Small groups of students engage in dialogue on a particular topic, then a member uses a digital tool to report on the group's consensus.
  • Rotating Scribe Method
  • Each day, one student uses technology to record the lesson for other students.
  • Whole Class Method
  • Teachers in one-computer classrooms often invite large groups of students to gather around the computer. Here are a few suggestions for making the most of these activities
  • When we are faced with limited resources, it is tempting to throw up our hands and say, "I just don't have what I need to do this!" However, do not underestimate your ability to make it work.
  • Dennis OConnor on 04 Sep 11
     
    Might help create a blended classroom, even when you have to share the blender.  Common sense advise for the real world of underequipped classrooms and stretched thin teachers.
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