Group items tagged

Diane Ravitch calls it. Read her blog post on this major ethical issue. I think we need an independent testing company. Isn't there a conflict of interest here when a company creates textbooks and the test? "I am an 8th grade teacher in Xxxx, NY. On Day 1 of the NYS ELA 8 Exam, I discovered what I believe to be a huge ethical flaw in the State test. The state test included a passage on why leaves change color that is included in the Pearson-generated NYS ELA 8 text. I taught it in my class just last week. In a test with 6 passages and questions to complete in 90 minutes, it was a huge advantage to students fortunate enough to use a Pearson text and not that of a rival publisher. It may very well have an impact on student test scores. This has not yet received any attention in the press. Could you help me bring this to the attention of the public?"

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 think those who think that we will not need keyboards are missing a few important points. Here's the issue - I can type faster than I can talk. Also, in the classroom - 20 kids talking to their computers it would be chaos and a mess. Typing, however, has a speed benefit and doesn't require a "cone of silence" as a everyone talking to their glasses would. I think keyboarding will remain part of the productive equipment of most of us - until our devices can read our brain waves. For those who type less than 30 words a minute and work in a quiet office, this is likely to be true. Meanwhile, this is a great read about what will happen in our homes, at least.

One of the concerns about ipads is the inability to use flash or javascript. This can be done. Here are the top 10 flash players. If you limit down to those that can do Flash AND java - the options are a bit pricey - Cloud Browse does both but only lets you have 10 minute browsing sessions. Virtual Firefox ($4.99) and Virtual Browser for Chrome (19.99) each can allow Java and Flash and also bookmark/sync services with your desktop browser (5.99 and .99 respectively.) This may be a tad expensive but show it can be done. The highest rated is virtual browser for chrome. I think the chrome browser is a tad pricey. You do have to be 17 to download these apps, I guess because you can use them to access video. 

BlogBooker is a free site that turns your blog into a PDF book from all the blog's entries and comments. It works with WordPress, LiveJournal and Blogger blogs. It is very simple. You export your blog (slightly different process for each blog service - BlogBooker has instructions for you) and then upload it to BlogBooker. It then assembles everything into a high-quality PDF file. This can take a few minutes or longer depending on the size of your blog. This is a great way to print your BlogBook or make an archive/backup of the blog. It could also be useful for students and educators as a way to save a blog as a portfolio item.

"Record a video of less than 2 minutes with a teaching idea that you would like to share as part of UKEdChat's Teaching Idea Advent Calendar throughout December."

"Warning: Surfing the internet in class is now linked to poorer test scores, even among the most intelligent and motivated of students. Michigan State University researchers studied laptop use in an introductory psychology course and found the average time spent browsing the web for non-class-related purposes was 37 minutes. Students spent the most time on social media, reading email, shopping for items such as clothes and watching videos."

"Detailed and engaging video about how the surface of the Earth has changed over its billions of years long history."

This is how you link to a specific starting point in a YouTube video. Basically, just add #t=XmYs to the end of the video URL.  X is the number of minutes and Y is the seconds you want skipped when the video is viewed.

Right after posting this, I realized there is now a Share option on the YouTube site that you can use to make this even easier. While viewing the YouTube video: 1) pause the video at the point where you want others to start watching, 2) click the Share button, 3) click options (directly under the link), 4) put a check in the Start at box, and finally 5) copy the link provided by YouTube. Note that you can also type in the start at time as minutes:seconds. The #t part of the link that makes the video start at the spot you specified is included in the link.

Make a sleek looking flash webpage easily in minutes with Flavors Me. Just upload your media and click and drag the items you want in to place. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

SKR keynote highlights broken down into 8 videos. Videos are 2 minutes long on average.

This sort of thing strikes fear in the heart of every administrator. So, I let them customize their lessons and they come up with word problems about how many times a slave would be beaten in a minute at a certain rate. It is offensive on so many levels but also because we see an uproar over slavery in words (in this worksheet) but not in deeds. Fact is, there are 29 million slaves in the world today, more than ever in history and they are being beaten and forced to work. We don't see an uproar over that and we should. Both the worksheet and the bigger problems deserve attention.

This is a video I made in just 2 minutes on my iPad. I didn't have to go to educreations' website first but did everything on my iPad. I cannot watch the web version, however as it is flash based. You can create public or private classes and easily share the videos. Very cool implementation of simple screencasting. This would be great for ll schools with 1:1 iPads. Need to get if you can view class content from their app without going to web. Very easy. Wow.

Nice tutorial. But if you'd done it as a screencast video and had uploaded it to YouTube, you would be able to view it in their HTML5 player.

The ubermix is an all-free, specially built, Linux-based operating system designed from the ground up with the needs of education in mind. Built by educators with an eye towards student and teacher empowerment, ubermix takes all the complexity out of student devices by making them as reliable and easy-to-use as a cell phone, without sacrificing the power and capabilities of a full operating system. With a turn-key, 5 minute installation, 20 second quick recovery mechanism, and more than 60 free applications pre-installed, ubermix turns whatever hardware you have into a powerful device for learning. via James T. Sanders

Kaplan has released a free SAT turbo test. In 90 minutes, they say that you'll know approximately what your score will be on the SAT. This could be something you could do with students. They've made it so you can use your web browser and take this on the ipad. I'd like to see the output that comes at the end of it.

Five minute science content videos

I got this notice from Moby Max. There are a proliferation of websites that let you check and have kids working in online spaces like this. Remember that these can be helpful, but you should and must have students programming and inventing with computers. These can be very helpful but are only one use of the computer. Below is what they sent me about the service. Please let me know if you're using this (educators only, please). "MobyMax has just released the easiest way to get your students motivated and start the year off right-a free 119 prize school contest. Within the first ten minutes of releasing the free 119 prize contest on Monday with no announcement, 22 schools signed up! Not only are the contest and 119 prizes free, but MobyMax curriculum is free as well. (You may remember that teachers can upgrade to the Pro version for just $79 per year, but the prizes, contest, and curriculum are completely free whether you upgrade or not!) We are also proud to announce our students' results from the last school year. The results from over 600,000 students showed that those who used MobyMax for 40 hours averaged more than a 1.4 grade level increase in math and a 1.5 grade level increase in language. Students answered over 1 million problems in MobyMax's new reading module released this summer."

Successful TED talks are 60% stories but, as this example shows with Sheryl Sandberg, it can mean being vulnerable and sharing the personal side of yourself.

So, if you want to peek inside Finland, there are 3 videos on this BBC Wales site that will give you what you want. This Diary of a math teacher in Finland gives you a peek. There's also two other great videos "Let teachers teach, say Finns" and "Finland Classroom Success Secrets." You can embed these that I can find, so you'll need to share the links and watch them on the site. These short videos are just under 4 minutes and would be great to share in a staff meeting.

This is an awesome sliderocket about how to use Google Docs to facilitate a Writing Workshop created by Susan Oxnevad. Look for links to examples within the presentation so you can use everything she shares. This slide show shares not only best practices in running a writing workshop but also is a best practice itself in creating a stand alone presentation that instructions in a powerful way. Writing teachers everywhere should take 10 minutes to work through this slide show this week.