HCPS ITRT

"The big problem is not that they think too highly of themselves. Their bigger challenge is conflict negotiation, and they often are unable to think for themselves. The overinvolvement of helicopter parents prevents children from learning how to grapple with disappointments on their own. If parents are navigating every minor situation for their kids, kids never learn to deal with conflict on their own. Helicopter parenting has caused these kids to crash land." Although I'm not a parent, I am a teacher. And this article (especially this annotation speaks to me). Teachers shouldn't have to be the primary individuals that teach children how to think for themselves, grapple with disappointments, and deal with conflict - that should be the parents. But if we build our curriculum and class activities correctly, we can help to teach these characteristics.

"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.

"A good lecture is not merely a piece of writing read aloud. It is a performance art in which the sound of the lecturer's voice, his body-language, and the visual materials used are part of the performance." Interesting take on lecture. Could be a good read for teachers who consider themselves to be story-tellers and not necessarily lecturers. I agree that there is a time and a place for lecture in most subjects, but most of the "lectures" that I see (and plenty that I gave when I was in the classroom) don't follow these particular pieces of advice.

"Welcome to the Documentation site for Voyant Tools, a web-based text analysis and reading environment. Here you will find some help for getting started, more complete documentation for tools (including a collection of screencasts), useful resources (tutorials, workshops, examples), and general information about Voyant Tools." Amazing textual analysis tool. View word frequency, word relationships and more. H/T Tom

"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.

"There's a contest called Math-O-Vision, which your students should enter. Here's the premise: The Neukom Institute for Computational Science, at Dartmouth College, is offering prizes for high school students who create 4-minute movies that show the world of equations we live in. In 240 seconds, using animation, story-telling, humor, or anything you can think of, show us what you see: the patterns, the abstractions, the patterns within the abstractions." Two interesting things going on in this short blog post: 1. It introduces a contest which might be interesting for some of your students. I looked at the winning video from last year (linked in the post) and know that our students are capable of making something of similar quality. 2. The articles provides an interesting insight on math as a "product." This is quite an interesting discussion when thinking about how/why to assign this type of activity to your students.

"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.

Free professional publication resources here to inform practice.

"Textual analysis has its limitations, of course, but word counting can illuminate the tendencies of writers in a way that word reading may not." Textual analysis leads to a discussion on author's style. You could do this type of activity with various Word Cloud Generators.

theories of learning connectivism

"25 Things Influential People Do Better Than Anyone Else"

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.

Several examples of timeline creators

"Okay, I may have done the math wrong. But whatever the number is, it's a bunch of very cool and useful Twitter feeds. Grab a couple or three of them and expand your Personal Learning Network."

"Add "Would You Rather?" to your bookmarks. Phrasing math problems in terms of "Would You Rather" is simple and brilliant. I love this framework for three reasons:" Interesting framework for solving math problems. This post links to a resource of "Would you rather" problems that could be useful in a variety of different math courses.

"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

5 minute template based lesson plan

Nice set of Internet Safety assessmnet + drag and drop for practice for SOLs

passage banks are used by teachers for comprehension assignments. Schools who did not pass the SOLs are being asked to use them