Mess around with web pages. This is from David Warlick's post on Educon that I posted as part of the daily news. You're not REALLY changing the page but changing it locally on your machine, but is is still a lot of fun. There are also links to using this site to teach how to make websites.
Examples of how wolfram alpha can be used in the classroom. From math to physics to research and economics, you can use this data crunching engine in very powerful ways. Another important tool for students and authentic researchers of all ages.
Shelly Terrell has a marvelous livebinder on learning with mobile devices with tons of great resources and information. If you're looking into this, take a look.
Gamification is one response. By embedding diverse achievements into activities and assessments, learning progress can be refracted infinitely. These systems would be able to more flexibly respond to unique learner pathways and abilities, and would further serve as encouragement mechanics -- instead of one carrot stick, there are hundreds. And not just carrots, but every fruit and vegetable imaginable.
Really 197 channels for learning? Well, there are many, but if you're like me, you're building a subscription list for your content areas and starting to curate (and perhaps create) some channels. Building a good YouTube stream is becoming part of curation and PLN building - so here's a great place to start.
This is an absolutely incredible blog post regarding the influx of stimulus money for 21st century classrooms and how it will (or won't) impact student learning without attention paid to instructional practices.
There are some GREAT books on Emotional intelligence, but Debra Sanborn, Program Director at Iowa State University, is using an emotional intelligence assessment as part of the "toolbox of assessments that she relies upon for identifying issues challening students in the first weeks of college."
She says that EQ has an 85% predictor rate of success in college. The EQ-i assesses 5 aras: interpersonal, intrapersonal, stress management, adaptability and general mood."
Who is using this in high school? I read a book on this to help my two kids with learning disabilities but if there is a test or profile that would help us with these kids - to develop emotional intelligence, then we should do it.
Life success is SO MUCH MORE than test scores! Hate that we have to have a "test" to measure this one - although the result is more an indicator of a person's behavior, albeit self-reported.
One of my favorite web 2.0 tools shown last year at necc wasn't on a computer, it was a keychain used by Kevin Honeycutt. These are amazing and this is a photograph of that. These were given to the teacher at his school in sort of a swap meet - people wrote about what it was and links on one side and the name on the other side along with the name of a person who could be contacted to help with that. Each teacher had to bring two to share with the others.