Group items tagged

From archive.org - please don't ever do this by hand.

Some useful enhancements for multisite.

links to 75 different twitter forms- some interesting ideas 

"The strategy that has worked best for me over the years has been to create a non-threatening atmosphere in which teachers can experiment and explore without repercussions as they become more familiar with technology tools. The key is to cultivate a climate of discovery and experimentation as opposed to one of judgement and unattainable standards. After all, we don't expect our students to be perfect the first time around. We encourage them to experiment and take risks. If everything had to be perfect right away, we'd never get anything done!" Interesting post to share with teachers

"This game is HARD. It took me at least 10 minutes before I even made it past the first pair of pipes. And it's not just me who finds the game difficult. Other folks have taken to Twitter to complain about Flappy Bird. They say the game is so difficult, that the physics must be WRONG." This is a really interesting application of logger pro. And just downright fun.

"Basically Rewordify takes a block of text or website and replaces difficult words and phrases with text that is easier to understand. The site claims that this helps students read more, understand difficult English faster, and learn words in new ways. I'd throw in that the site can help you and your students break down difficult primary documents." Rewordify tool as primary document decoder

For math people, this guy is very solid on how you develop the patterns of thought and understanding.

On Monday, Google released a beta version of something they're calling Tour Builder. It doesn't let you create a full-fledged Google Earth tour with all the bells and whistles but it is a very quick and easy way for you and your students to develop a pretty sweet product.

5 minute template based lesson plan

Possible base/tool for a future stats lesson

"Mark talked about the idea of using Evidence-Based Arguments as a starting point. Every historical investigation needs to begin with a great question. Then they asked kids to do research and create videos. But what they got was disappointing. What they got was basically text with pictures, a script with a background. It wasn't a story, it wasn't engaging, and it often didn't really answer the question.  They begin to realize that they needed to learn more about how to create high-quality documentaries, how to use images and video to actually tell a story. And eventually they came up with a Four Step Process that students work through to create high-quality documentaries:" 4 Step Process for creating HST videos. I don't necessarily agree with the author's thought that tech should not be introduced until step #4, as tech can enhance 1-3 just as well. The teacher just needs to model good behavior and help students develop structures for the work in these phases for it to be successful.

"Can we use primary sources and technology to promote civic engagement? Richard Hartshorne and Scott Waring of University of Central Florida say yes. They shared a great set of resources to help you structure your use of technology in the classroom.  They didn't really share specific examples about civic engagement activities with these tools - mostly a review of the different tools - but they do have one lesson idea online." Various thoughts on how to use technology in a history classroom.

"Just a quick post- we started a unit on percents today.  Found this activity from Illuminations, but I needed it to be a little bit more.  The activity takes the BMIs and weights of season 14′s contestants and students need to find the percent lost for each in order to find out who won the game.  We then had a discussion on why the show does not award the prize to the person with the most weight lost, but the highest percentage." You could find some good video/media to go along with this to hook students - Maybe a before/after picture video which I'm sure you could find online. Have the students use the video to predict the winner then get into the worksheet. There are some pretty good extension activities embedded here as well: Research how BMI is calculated, Determine whether percentage of weight lost is the best method to determine the winner, etc.

"Google News is already an awesome tool for finding resources for current events around the world. But if you know where to look, Google News is also great for finding old newspapers for use in your instruction."

Are we questioning the status quo? An interesting innovation website focused more on the business community, but the concepts can be applied in education. Site contains innovation model and pyramid: Question >Observe>Network>Experiment>Associate>Innovate

"Teachers: A Simple (Not Easy) Pedagogy Assessment" A lot of these questions could lead to interesting discussions with teachers.