Middle College National Consortium

""Describe your preparation for and participation during discussion: note-taking, responding to e-mailed discussion questions and prompts, office hours, addressing or raising questions during discussion. How would you like your own participation to change, develop, or continue?"" I encounter a version of this "you didn't inform us" from students and teachers who can't find items in the top two topic blocks of their community. I don't know how to redesign the community to achieve more clarity. Maybe the answer lies in having "open office hours online" to offer digestible (i.e., not too long) explicit orientations to the community.

provocative article, March 10, 2011, about asking one question about your work: You know you've really done your job when [what happens]?

drawing online applications

Article by Amy Cavender on issues and gains from using eportfolios with college students. Mentions several eportfolio possibilities in article and in comments, such as Google Sites, Mahara, Yola, Weebly, or WordPress.

TED has set up an education Brain Trust of short lectures that it says anyone may contribute to. Should be fascinating.

This research is why I was encouraging host ambassadors to upload their pictures and profiles--they can be far more successful than I at engaging their peers in Polilogue-learning prior to the Conference.

professional development 30 day challenge to engage students through blogs

Elmore's current writing on the instructional core; Harvard Graduate School of Education Usable Knowledge website

blog and newsletter site for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, includes Richard Elmore's writings

Book on Collaborative Learning Techniques; seems well regarded; already 7 years old

Second edition book with practical for small measures of student learning--strengths and weaknesses. Has 3 sections: assessing course-related knowledge and skills; assessing learner attitudes, values and self-awareness; and assessing learner reactions to instruction.

Second edition of Engaging Ideas by John C. Bean

Website for grammar building exercises by Robin L. Simmons, professor at Valencia Community College in Florida. Very clever and engaging!

film about the earth and climate change

PechaKucha is a presentation format: 20 slides x 20 seconds.

SIL Team, Doris told me about this and Eric Markinson sent it to me. It's an awesome idea to share with your students as they go out to present, but it's also something you could organize in your School, Local Community, etc. Terry

a short and clear explanation of evaluating PD

Video on wikis in plain English by Common Craft at YouTube

Richard Byrne's blog on Free Technology for Teachers always comes up with excellent resources. This one is the Story of Bottled Water produced in 2010. I noticed below on this page videos about plastic and how 1 cheeseburger=15,000 Googles. I assume the last one is about the environmental costs of technology.

Educational videos on wide range of subjects for students grade 1-college

While I didn't see anything that would work for Habitat and Humanity, other videos looked really good, such as the disappearance of bees and why that matters, domestic abuse in the Artic and how they deal with it, children with abilities instead of disabilities, etc.

Civic engagement resource from EnCorps, an organization concerned with CE, website

Hey, guys, this is a resource that Jason, Wes, and Jacque found in their Task Force development. Pay special attention unit 6.