English Companion Ning Group

by Lessig insightful, creepy

The possibility of the National Writing Project being killed by the Senate makes me physically ill.  Follow up on this article, call your senator. Stop the destruction of a national educational resource that we cannot let die.

"Well the iPad has really hit the news in education circles since it's release last year. I'm sure lots of teachers are wondering whether it's hype and what the true potential of these devices are as tools for learners. I've had my iPad for about 8 months now, so I've decided to share my reflections so far on what I like about the iPad, what potential I feel it offers for developing course books and course materials and some of the problems."

Well the iPad has really hit the news in education circles since it's release last year. I'm sure lots of teachers are wondering whether it's hype and what the true potential of these devices are as tools for learners. I've had my iPad for about 8 months now, so I've decided to share my reflections so far on what I like about the iPad, what potential I feel it offers for developing course books and course materials and some of the problems.

Rating Characteristics 4 Exceptional. The blog post is focused and coherently integrates examples with explanations or analysis. The post demonstrates awareness of its own limitations or implications, and it considers multiple perspectives when appropriate. The entry reflects in-depth engagement with the topic. 3 Satisfactory. The blog post is reasonably focused, and explanations or analysis are mostly based on examples or other evidence. Fewer connections are made between ideas, and though new insights are offered, they are not fully developed. The post reflects moderate engagement with the topic. 2 Underdeveloped. The blog post is mostly description or summary, without consideration of alternative perspectives, and few connections are made between ideas. The post reflects passing engagement with the topic. 1 Limited. The blog post is unfocused, or simply rehashes previous comments, and displays no evidence of student engagement with the topic. 0 No Credit. The blog post is missing or consists of one or two disconnected sentences.

Great introduction and resources for teaching Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Educational site for teachers & students to use Twitter in class.

Robbing the Bard: The story of how a stolen Shakespeare First Folio appeared in the Folger Shakespeare Library. Narrated by David Tennant.

For those wanting more on teens seeing privacy as controlling meaning not access, audio of recent talk on the topic: http://bit.ly/h55Sqp

There is a time for everything, and that includes capitalizing words. If you want to know just when the funding is expected to write, to read the steps below. Once you know the rules, remember. Getting them right will make a lasting impression. Get the bad as well.

The merchant of Venice lesson plans by ShakespeareHelp.com

Teacher videos, resources and lesson plans. Discover great ideas and strategies to use as a teacher with this collection of videos covering Math, Science, English, History and more.

"Odyssey Characters"

This site contains hundreds of visual aids (illustrations) that can be used to support instructional tasks such as describing objects and people (i.e., teaching vocabulary) or describing entire events and situations (i.e., teaching grammar). Illustrations pour l'enseignement des langues étrangères"Ce site contient des centaines de supports visuels (illustrations) qui peuvent être utilisés pour supporter les tâches pédagogiques tels que des objets qui décrivent et des personnes (c.-à-enseignement du vocabulaire) ou décrivant des événements et des situations entières (c.-à-enseignement de la grammaire)."Plus de 400 dessins au trait, consultables et consultable, libres d'utiliser à des fins éducatives, repéré par Larry Ferlazzo. The illustrations were created as part of the Visuals for Developing Communication Skills in Foreign Language Classes project, initated by Paul Toth, former Director of the Less-Commonly-Taught Languages Center.

" dyslexic in one language but not another. It shows that readers of Chinese use a different part of their brains to readers of English. eported prevalence of dyslexia is much higher in English (about 5-6%) than Chinese. I surveyed 8,000 schoolchildren in the Beijing region, with Yin Wengang of the Chinese Academy of Science, and found that about 1.5% were dyslexic. English, French and Italian dyslexics all showed the same abnormal activity involving the brain system underlying phonemic analysis. In Alan, this theory predicts accurately that the affected language will be English, since Japanese does not require analysis into phonemes.a key peak in brain activity in Chinese readers fell outside the network typically used by European readers. The second surprise was that dyslexics showed lower activation in several key reading areas compared with normal Chinese readers, but this was in a very different brain area from Frith's European dyslexics. Chinese dyslexia may be caused by a different genetic anomaly than English dyslexia."

What do you think?