Independent School Collaboration

Welcome to Historical Thinking Matters, a website focused on key topics in U.S. history, that is designed to teach students how to critically read primary sources and how to critique and construct historical narratives

The YouTube Wars Prof. Akalın was probably pleased last week when, for a few days at least, we lost our access to that Eurovision winning song. In response to a satirical video that was offensive to the memory of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, a Turkish court shut down any access to YouTube.com. The offending video was uploaded supposedly by Greeks wanting to antagonize their neighbors, and it prompted a war of offensive and counter offensive videos and endless (and pointless) comments.  It is against the law here to insult Atatürk, but since the offenders were "out there" somewhere beyond prosecution on the Internet, punishment was levied on Turkish Internet users instead. The story is even sadder as I remember attending a conference in Athens last fall with several Turkish colleagues, and we were pleasantly surprised at the warmth of so many Greeks, including several who spoke with us in Turkish.

Blogs on Educational Blogging

personal (and personable) support in the classroom is the key to the success of any technology-rich program, and 21st century literacy is no different.

CommentPress is an open source theme for the WordPress blogging engine that allows readers to comment paragraph by paragraph in the margins of a text. Annotate, gloss, workshop, debate:

esigned to accurately measure authentic classroom technology use. The LoTi Framework focuses on the use of technology as a tool within the context of student based instruction with a constant emphasis on higher order thinking.

The LoTi Classroom Teacher represents a series of online courses designed for classroom educators, mentors, and building administrators to improve and refine the manner in which learning technologies are used to promote student engagement and achievement. The LoTi Classroom Teacher series explores the concepts of higher order thinking skills, differentiation, collaboration, and the use of technology to build effective communities of inquiry that help students develop 21st Century Skills as articulated by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

High school seniors seem to love the idea of being treated like celebrities.

At other times, she uses the wireless Internet access in the college's classrooms to do some online shopping or chat using instant messenger. "If it's material that I know, most of the time I will surf the Internet a little bit," says Ms. Mei, a junior.

"They claim that they're taking notes — and they may well be," he says. "But it still is annoying."

"A couple of them have said, 'I don't have any paper,'" says Mr. Aylesworth. He had them borrow some from classmates.