Upcoming free webinar from Scholastic
Tuesday, April 5, 1pm ET 10 am PT - my friend Tyler Reed says:
"Scholastic has an exciting video webcast for students and classrooms coming up with Ruth Culham (of "Traits of Writing" fame) and the authors of The 39 Clues series to help inspire good writing in kids.
It features four of the authors from the book series, and is anchored by writing instruction from Ruth. The idea is that these authors and The 39 Clues series are perfect "writing mentors" and "mentor texts" for kids."
Teens write a lot, but they do not think of
their emails, instant and text messages as
writing. This disconnect matters because
teens believe good writing is an essential
skill for success and that more writing
instruction at school would help them.
Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.
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.
Expand your curriculum with our timesaving educational resources that use technology to improve instruction across all content areas and grade levels. Find current resources that align with standards, promote higher-order thinking, and support the development of writing skills. Monitor student research and writing, evaluate student performance, and create bilingual online lessons, classroom calendars, and quizzes in less time than traditional methods
Instructions: paste or compose a document below. Click Check Writing to get feedback on your writing. Click an underlined spelling error, grammar suggestion, or style suggestion to see more options.
How many of us emphasize the first 60 seconds of a presentation students give?
Summers and other leaders from various companies were not necessarily complaining about young people's poor grammar, punctuation, or spelling—the things we spend so much time teaching and testing in our schools
the complaints I heard most frequently were about fuzzy thinking and young people not knowing how to write with a real voice.
Employees in the 21st century have to manage an astronomical amount of information daily.
There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively it almost freezes them in their steps.”
Personal learning networks and RSS readers ARE a HUGE issue here. We need to be customing portals and helping students manage information.
“People who've learned to ask great questions and have learned to be inquisitive are the ones who move the fastest in our environment because they solve the biggest problems in ways that have the most impact on innovation.”
How do we reward students who question teachers -- not their authority but WHAT They are teaching? Do we reward students who question? Who inquire? Who theorize? Or do we spit them out and punish them? I don't know... I'm questioning.
want unique products and services:
developing young people's capacities for imagination, creativity, and empathy will be increasingly important for maintaining the United States' competitive advantage in the future.
Drill and test is what we've made. Mindless robots is what we'll reap. What are we doing?
reading from her notes,
Each group will try to develop at least two different ways to solve this problem. After all the groups have finished, I'll randomly choose someone from each group who will write one of your proofs on the board, and I'll ask that person to explain the process your group used.”
Every time I do a team project, the "random selection" is part of it. Randomly select -- classtools.net has a random name generator -- great tool - and it adds randomness to it.
a lesson in which students are learning a number of the seven survival skills while also mastering academic content?
students are given a complex, multi-step problem that is different from any they've seen in the past
how the group solved the problem, each student in every group is held accountable.
ncreasingly, there is only one curriculum: test prep. Of the hundreds of classes that I've observed in recent years, fewer than 1 in 20 were engaged in instruction designed to teach students to think instead of merely drilling for the test.
Not in my class, but in many classes - yes. I wonder how I'd teach differently if someone made me have a master "test" for my students at the end of the year. I'd be teaching to the test b/c I"m a type "A" driven to succeed kind of person. Beware what you measure lest that determine how you grow.
. It is working with colleagues to ensure that all students master the skills they need to succeed as lifelong learners, workers, and citizens.
I have yet to talk to a recent graduate, college teacher, community leader, or business leader who said that not knowing enough academic content was a problem.
critical thinking, communication skills, and collaboration.
seven survival skills every day, at every grade level, and in every class.
College and Work Readiness Assessment (www.cae.org)—that measure students' analytic-reasoning, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and writing skills.
Would like to look more at this test, however, also doing massive global collaborative projects requiring higher order thinking is something that is helpful, I think.
2. Collaboration and Leadership
3. Agility and Adaptability
Today's students need to master seven survival skills to thrive in the new world of work.
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination
I conducted research beginning with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether U.S. schools are teaching and testing the skills that matter most.
“First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “We can teach them the technical stuff, but we can't teach them how to ask good questions—how to think.”
This is a great aspect of project based learning. Although when we allow students to have individual research topics, some teachers are frustrated because they cannot "can" their approach (especially tough if the class sizes are TOO LARGE,) students in this environment CAN and MUST ask individualized questions.
This is TOUGH to do as the students who haven't developed critical thinking skills, whether because their parents have done their tough work for them (like writing their papers) or teachers have always given answers because they couldn't stand to see the student struggle -- sometimes tough love means the teacher DOESN'T give the child the answer -- as long as they are encouraged just enough to keep them going.
“I want people who can engage in good discussion—who can look me in the eye and have a give and take. All of our work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well with other
Last Saturday, my son met Bill Curry, a football coach and player that he respects. Just before meeting him, my husband reviewed with my son how to meet people. HE told my son, "Look the man in his eyes and let him know your hand is there!"
After shaking his hand, as Mr. Curry was signing my son's book, he said, "That is quite a handshake, son, someone has taught you well."
Yes -- shaking hands and looking a person in the eye are important and must be taught. This is an essential thing to come from parents AND teachers -- I teach this with my juniors and seniors when we write resumes.
Engagi ng customers requires that a person stops thinking about their own selfish needs and looks at things through the eyes of the customer!!! The classic issue in marketing is that people think they are marketing to themselves. This happens over and over.
Role playing, virtual worlds, and many other experiences can give people a chance to look at things through the eyes of others. I see this happen on the Ning of our projects all the time.
Work has changed, school hasn't. In fact, I would argue that schools are more industrial age than ever with testing and manufacturing of common knowledge (which is often outdated by the time the test is given) at an all time high. Let them create!
Over and over, executives told me that the heart of critical thinking and problem solving is the ability to ask the right questions. As one senior executive from Dell said, “Yesterday's answers won't solve today's problems.”
We give students our critical questions -- how often do we let them ask the questions.
I say to my employees, if you try five things and get all five of them right, you may be failing. If you try 10 things, and get eight of them right, you're a hero. You'll never be blamed for failing to reach a stretch goal, but you will be blamed for not trying.
If our students get eight out of 10 right, they are a low "B" student. Do we have projects where students can experiement and fail without "ruining their lives." Can they venture out and try new, risky things?
He says risk aversion is a problem in companies -- YES it is. Although upper management SAYS they want people willing to take risks -- from my experience in the corporate world, what they SAY and what they REWARD are two different things, just ask a wall street broker who took a risky investment and lost money.
not only end-of-year tests similar to those in use now but also formative tests that teachers will administer several times a year to help guide instruction
students are given a problem — they could be told, for example, to pretend they are a mayor who needs to reduce a city’s pollution — and must sift through a portfolio of tools and write analytically about how they would use them to solve the problem.
"(...) not only end-of-year tests similar to those in use now but also formative tests that teachers will administer several times a year to help guide instruction (...)"
Excited to be heading to Kendallville, Indiana this summer on June 13 to keynote the second day of the Knight-Time Technology Conference about how to influence change in the 21st century, how to flatten your classroom, how writing is being reinvented and how you can use it in your classroom and differentiating instruction with technology. It will be exciting. If you're interested, this it the link to find out more information.
Edit PDF documents with this great site. Just upload or link to an online PDF, add text, free hand writing/drawing and images, then download. Great for adding additional instruction or hand in dates to the PDFs you find online. No sign up require to use most features.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools
This web application could be used with the following:
-Research/ Reports in any content area
-Lab reports
-Data collection/ analysis (research journal/ log, data trail, notes, formation of ideas and early possible findings, etc.)
-Pre- and post-assessment
-Ogranizer
-Group or whole-class projects
-Self-paced instruction
-Journal writing exercise spanning an extended timeframe
-Group/ Project management
This web application could be used with the following:
-Research/ Reports in any content area
-Lab reports
-Data collection/ analysis (research journal/ log, data trail, notes, formation of ideas and early possible findings, etc.)
-Pre- and post-assessment
-Ogranizer
-Group or whole-class projects
-Self-paced instruction
-Journal writing exercise spanning an extended timeframe
-Group/ Project management
-In IDT 7/8052
"In the award-winning documentary Children Full of Life, a fourth-grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo, learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori. He instructs each to write their true inner feelings in a letter, and read it aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates."
Excellent write up on the uses of technology integration information from the Florida Center for Instructional Technology. This is an incredible example of how a good blogger (like Richard Byrne) can take what looks very complex and help his readers understand what they will get out of it.
Of course, I could have written my own take, but since Richard does such a good job, why should I. Which brings us to another point about blogging - we give credit and don't "snarf" blogposts from others as many of the trolls out there are doing.
My point is, how far are we to go with other educators? If we instruct on the technological skills, isn't our responsibility done? Isn't it the responsibility of individual educators to swim?
It seems that too many, I have met them too, educators lack the drive to do things for themselves. We all went to college where we had to study on our own, write papers on our own, take tests on our own.
I fail to understand the mindset.
A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.
Some might call this multitasking... but "good" multitasking needs to be purposeful. Those who can filter those attention scattering and diffusing interuptions just may be getting smarter.
Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.
He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).
And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.”
Nothing's different here. In fact, I might argue that it is even more important that we have "proper instruction".
They would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.”
emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm.
Instructions: Cut & paste your students paper or homework assignment into the box below, and click the "check" button. This free plagiarism detector will find plagiarized text in homework and other essays/reports