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Build an Online Debate Community for Your Classroom! Host debates and assign effective homework. Students evaluate, analyze, and synthesize topics on a deeper level through intellectual interaction with their peers.

Build an Online Debate Community for Your Classroom! Host debates and assign effective homework. Students evaluate, analyze, and synthesize topics on a deeper level through intellectual interaction with their peers. I learned of this product at either NECC 09, or the Sloan Consortium Meeting in San Francisco. I was impressed with the ideas underlying an online system that promotes the great critical thinking tools of debate. Just got a trial account. Hope to delve deeper soon. Early adopters can probably get the free 90 / 10 seat deal I was offered. This is a startup and I was impressed by the young thinkers behind this idea.

A simple checklist kind of approach to ICT use in the classroom. Very practical...

Interesting article about a teacher receiving an unsatisfactory evaluation for not keeping lesson plans in the designated location.

Transformational Leadership Coach and mother Elena Aguilar explains her version of evaluating a teacher's effectiveness. 

Excellent discussion about Blogging in the classroom from Rob Kamrowski on the Flat Classroom Ning. Rob says: "The presenter, Konrad Glogowski, an eigth grade writing teacher, discussed his use of blogs as a "third place" for students to express themselves. The first place being students home, the second school, and the third, a sort of place where they are free to creatively express themselves. At the begining of the year, Mr. Glogowski challenged his students to "grow" a blog. He presented them a visual to assist them in planning their creation and, pretty much, allowed them the freedom to make their own product. He watched as the blogs and classroom community grew. Fellow students commented on one another's blog entries, offering advice and building fellow classmates confidence in their writing. Mr. Glogowski's role as teacher evolved into a reader of work and a partner in learning rather than an evaluator and expert of information. By the end of the year, his students had great pride in their work, bonded as a communtiy, and were better, more confident, writers. The likely hood that they would continue to work on their blogs and writing was extremely high. Mr. Glogowski's strategy and his educational philosophy towards blogging was a success." This person did not attend necc, but watched Konrad present via ustream via Will Richardson's blog. Ascyhronous conferences are so important. Can we make it part of conference best practice?

Overview of Konrad Glowgoski's presentation for necc.

And what counts as "writing," or "composition?" Is a tweet a text, or a piece of a larger text?3 Is a rambling audio podcast, recorded from the driver's seat of my car, a composition on par with a Master's thesis, or an essay? So long as a test or assessment or evaluation of a text occurs within a limited finition of what counts as writing, are these other forms valid? How do we who is a "good" writer? What is "good" writing?

Very interesting app if you're using Edmodo and have ipads. Here's what it will do as per the company who contacted me: "It's a versatile mapping tool for creating timelines, and an assessment platform for Edmodo users.     myHistro Extended in a nutshell.  - What makes it better than other apps out there? Its comprehensive digital archive with stories created by historians. An unique way of generating tests. Hassle free and easy grading system and evaluation of students' answers." MAny teachers are using Edmodo and Timelines are important prewriting and graphic organizing tools. I'm very fascinated to see how this works and will see if there is someone out there using it so we can link to it from my blog.  - Who's it for? Teachers. First and foremost History, Social Studies and Geography teachers. And for everyone else, who are looking for innovative ways teaching their subjects through dynamic storytelling.   - What is the coolest feature? Generating tests with a few clicks. Removing the location, time, description or/and the title from all the public stories, and forming it into tests. 

Fascinating article from a teacher thriving in the standardized testing environment. Fascinating. "Last year, working with the same cohort of students (by then fifth graders), I tried to find more learning opportunities that focused on data. We used math websites like TenMarks that enable students to learn about their own learning even as they practice new skills. We analyzed information graphics and dove into ways of presenting numerical information. We explored how numbers shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. And much of their enthusiasm and curiosity for these tasks came out of their interest in numbers from standardized testing. I've thus come to believe there's a role for standardized testing within education. As a limited portion of a multiple measure evaluation system, it helps teachers understand how well we've taught over the course of a year. It also helps students understand how much they mastered over that year and makes them agents in their own learning."

I'll be spending time to AJ Juliani, Steve Mogg and Rosie Esposito from Wissahikon school district. Here's a copy of their Graduation project required to graduate from their school. I think all schools should have graduation projects. There is information and manuals if you want to look into this for yourself. I saw this in Evansvlle High school as well. This can be part of your genius work. "As part of graduation from Wissahickon High School, every senior is required to complete a graduation project.  The projects include research, writing and an oral presentation to assure that students are able to apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluation information and communicate significant knowledge and understanding.  This is culminating project in one or more areas of concentrated study under the guidance and direction of the high school faculty. "

"Graph functions, plot tables of data, evaluate equations, explore transformations, and more - for free!" Via #gafesummit Ontario

Great article by Larry Cuban on the Washington Post that you should forward to principals. "Yet studies of principal behavior in schools makes clear that spending time in classrooms to observe, monitor, and evaluate classroom lessons do not necessarily lead to better teaching or higher student achievement on standardized tests. Where there is a correlation between principals' influence on teachers and student performance, it occurs when principals create and sustain an academic ethos in the school, organize instruction across the school, and align school lessons to district standards and standardized test items. There is hardly any positive association between principals walking in and out of classrooms a half-dozen times a day and conferring briefly with teaches about those five-minute visits.The reality of daily principal actions conflicts with the theory."

I'm not partisan. There are some things that Aaron Maurer says in this post that make a lot of sense. "What bothers me is this "punish the whole system method" employed in the education world. I agree that teachers need to be held accountable. However, I know that state test scores do not show what I teach. What happens in schools is that we never address the specific issues at hand. If a teacher is not doing their job, then call them out. Tell them, show them how they are messing up, and then give them a plan to improve. Help them with necessary skills. If they choose not to improve or they simply don't improve, then you let them go. No more of this keeping teachers for 30 years and for 30 years they have been bad. That affects too many children that need good quality teachers. Hold us accountable like we should be holding our students accountable."

A nice reflection on what is happening to reading with Common Core. I find the overemphasis on literary nonfiction problematic, unless, the fact that math and history are primarily nonfiction allows literature to remain 60-70% fiction, however, for those schools who just have "reading" in literature (that would be sad), this is going to have issues. This is a great read. "The CCSS mandates that by the end of high school, 70% of what students read should be informational texts -- specifically, complex and non-narrative literary nonfiction. Furthermore, students should be able to identify central ideas and articulate their development, summarize, analyze, draw inferences, identify an author's purpose, evaluate the effectiveness of rhetorical features, and figure out the meaning of words. In short, the CCSS has reclaimed a technique popular in the 1940s, close reading, or sustained interpretation of, in particular, the wording of a text."

An article/ ebook on creating new learning spaces in the classroom. this one talks about the "pod room." I love the 7 spaces for learning that Ewan McIntosh wrote for us in our Choice Chapter in the Flat Classroom book - he espouses many of these same thoughts. 

Ravitch evaluates Arne Duncan on the progress made in education during his tenure, or lack thereof it.  Provides a clear chronology of the shifts in education since the inception of NCLB and public education being taken apart, piece by piece.

Higher education, a field that gathers an astonishing array of data about its "customers," has traditionally been inefficient in its data use, often operating with substantial delays in analyzing readily evident data and feedback. Evaluating student dropouts on an annual basis leaves gaping holes of delayed action and opportunities for intervention. Organizational processes-such as planning and resource allocation-often fail to utilize large amounts of data on effective learning practices, student profiles, and needed interventions.

This is a course for Spring Branch ISD which uses a blog as the framework. I also love how 9 hours of professional development is being given for the educators in this course. We need more embedded PD that gives teachers an opportunity to embed their learning in their daily activity. Embedded PD is the key to transformational learning. While there is a time and place for getting away, we have traditionally only used that "away" method when we also need to use the "learn right here" method of delivery as well. Take a look at what Karen is doing here as you evaluate your pd delivery methods.