Group items tagged

"This could be an interesting tool for creative writing prompts and/or vocabulary work. Here are a couple thoughts on how you could use Endless Interestingness in the classroom: Challenge the students to find a "string" of 5-10 photos in a row and connect those images by writing a creative story that incorporates the subjects, themes, moods, etc. of those photos. Provide the students with a vocabulary word. Have the students go to the website and choose one photo that best represents that word. Students could explain and justify their choice to the rest of the class. A Padlet wall would be a great tool for this assignment, so that all students could quickly share their work and view their classmates' ideas."

"Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought."

"Unleash your creativity Produce beautiful notes, quickly and easily. Share them with friends and colleagues to enhance your ideas collaboratively. All for free!"

"Unleash your creativity Produce beautiful notes, quickly and easily. Share them with friends and colleagues to enhance your ideas collaboratively. All for free!"

Learning tool using musical intelligence, creative

"Are you an aspiring rap lyricist? Have I got the tool for you! RapPad is a site where you can compose your raps with the help of rhyme lookups, syllable counters, and a library of beats. It also puts you in touch with a community for discussion, feedback, and online rap battles. But even if you're not planning on writing raps, it offers a unique kind of linguistic fun. With the "Generate Line" feature, you can give RapPad a line, and it will write the next line for you by pulling from a library of successful rap songs. I entered a bunch of famous first lines from literature, and got RapPad to give me back some gems. Are they literature? Are they rap? Let's call it raperature. Or maybe literatrap? Anyway, here are 18 literary first lines paired with rap lyrics." I don't know what the lesson is exactly, but there's some sort of lesson on creativity, writing, vocabulary, etc. waiting to be created here...

"He cites Socrates's parable of the Egyptian god Theuth and how he invented writing, offering it as a gift to the king of Egypt, Thamus, who met the present with defiant indignation: This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

"The Spatial History Project at Stanford University is a place for a collaborative community of students, staff, and scholars to engage in creative spatial, textual and visual analysis to further research in the humanities. " Data visualizations that are tied to geography. Quite a few are applicable to US History SOLs

"In order to help educators integrate technology effectively, we have compiled a list of technology tools focused on learning goals consistent with the CRCD framework. Unlike other lists that promote "cool tools," yet leave teachers wondering about purposeful educational integration, our list is driven by specific learning goals that promote critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, and community-mindedness. " Great list of resources including sites for web based timelines, publishing writing online, guided research activities, etc.

I was reading a blog this morning and ran across this link to a search engine for pictures and graphics that let's you search in a variety of ways including creative commons and flickr. It's a little easier to use than searching there for me. Try it and see what you think.

A friend shared this with me and it's a good read. It also summarizes the way that many of our teachers think, and could be an interesting article to share with a teacher and have a discussion about. Ultimate, I have a huge problem with the assumptions and conclusions that are being made here: "Now I'm not calling for abuse; I'd be the first to complain if a teacher called my kids names. But the latest evidence backs up my modest proposal. Studies have now shown, among other things, the benefits of moderate childhood stress; how praise kills kids' self-esteem; and why grit is a better predictor of success than SAT scores. All of which flies in the face of the kinder, gentler philosophy that has dominated American education over the past few decades. The conventional wisdom holds that teachers are supposed to tease knowledge out of students, rather than pound it into their heads. Projects and collaborative learning are applauded; traditional methods like lecturing and memorization-derided as "drill and kill"-are frowned upon, dismissed as a surefire way to suck young minds dry of creativity and motivation. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. And the following eight principles-a manifesto if you will, a battle cry inspired by my old teacher and buttressed by new research-explain why." Why are these seen as two completely different and opposing philosophies of education? That's my question. From my experience, teasing knowledge and understanding out of children stresses the hell out of them. They struggle to give you an answer initially, but when when you are unwilling to spoon feed them or provide them with a "drill and kill" answer, they finally make a connection. In doing so you show the students that their grit and determination has helped them gather a better understanding of the material and become a better student and learner in process.

I may write a decent response to this. She plays just about every false argument card in the book. It needs this treatment - http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/10/huntsville_teacher_common_core.html

This take down of Gladwell's dyslexia chapter http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8123 makes for a similar parallel.

"Technology, the Law and Education October 19, 2013. Chickahominy MIddle School, Mechanicsville 9 am- noon ​Join Jon Becker and friends for a thought-provoking presentation and small-group discussion. This event is free of charge, but space is limited and registration is required.  ​More and more educators are finding creative ways to integrate technology into the teaching and learning process.  Sometimes, though, those teachers are stymied by legal or regulatory roadblocks.  In some cases, the laws and regulations are applied properly.  However, in many instances, laws and regulations are misinterpreted and/or misapplied.  At this workshop, attendees will have an opportunity to explore, discuss and bust some myths around issues at the evolving intersection of educational technology and the law."

free images from creative commons and other free image site

This could be a structure/concept that we could use as a word exploration/association possibility. There are a lot of possibilities and Alan Levine has been working on creating a generic WP theme for this.

"While preparing for the upcoming school year, Twisted Sister's epic protest song began playing as I read the Declaration of Independence. Obviously my mind drifted to imagined Thomas Jefferson and John Adams letting their hair down and dancing around the streets of Philadelphia during a break from drafting the epic document. I realized then that I serendipitously uncovered something that I could use in the classroom - pairing music to primary documents to demonstrate understanding!" Taylor - I read this and immediately thought of you. Assignment for student - Remix the text of a primary document or famous historical speech with a song or multiple songs that add to the theme of the document/speech. Example included in the post.

Best Slate Article Ever? You decide

"Set up your own private area for creating and playing interactive stories and text-based games. Find out more"

Why technology matters for out students. May be useful for a faculty meeting, PD session, etc.

"When we sit down to try thinking up new ideas, it doesn't feel like we're connecting things. It feels like a strain-like you're trying to create something out of nothing. But the truth is, ideas really do come from connections." Intereresting article that can be applied to the way teachers plan AND the experiences that students have in the classroom.