"Isn't it great when students write and read because they love to? Or, when a child or young adult values his or her library card as much as the latest electronic game? At Pine Tree Poetry, we believe fine writing nourishes everyone's soul. It exercises brains with creative thinking and adds a palette of words and colors to life.
We've created Pine Tree Poetry to interlace students, their peers, parents, teachers and school librarians in a quest for poetry writing excellence. Rarely do students earn kudos or trophies for their writing, but at Pine Tree Poetry, we are dedicated to rewarding the fine writing achievements of students who are 5 - 18."
I often get a look of confusion when I tell my students to, "Go mess up, will ya'." Their eyes widen and they turn to a neighbor for a lifejacket because I just threw them in the deep end of technology. Come on, it's only a computer. Using tech in the classroom requires trust. Are they going to mess up? Sure. Are they going to add another call to your list, a dreaded call to the technology department? Maybe. Are they thinking? Absolutely.
"Guy Kawasaki last week wrote an item describing 'ten things you should learn this school year' in which readers were advised to learn how to write five sentence emails, create powerpoint slides, and survive boring meetings. It was, to my view, advice on how to be a business toady. My view is that people are worth more than that, that pleasing your boss should be the least of your concerns, and that genuine learning means something more than how to succeed in a business environment.
But what should you learn? Your school will try to teach you facts, which you'll need to pass the test but which are otherwise useless. In passing you may learn some useful skills, like literacy, which you should cultivate. But Guy Kawasaki is right in at least this: schools won't teach you the things you really need to learn in order to be successful, either in business (whether or not you choose to live life as a toady) or in life.
Here, then, is my list. This is, in my view, what you need to learn in order to be successful. Moreover, it is something you can start to learn this year, no matter what grade you're in, no matter how old you are. I could obviously write much more on each of these topics. But take this as a starting point, follow the suggestions, and learn the rest for yourself. And to educators, I ask, if you are not teaching these things in your classes, why are you not?"
This weekend I had the great pleasure of participating in my first webinar: The 3rd Virtual Round Table Online Conference. It was an amazing experience, I had the pleasure of "running" into many friends from my PLN and loved the sessions I was able to attend.
During the Unconference we all decided on some topics of interest and then each went to a virtual conference room to discuss the theme we had chosen. In the room I went to we talked about error correction - ways we do it, when we do it, etc. We shared ideas, our experiences. There were some great ideas, and I chipped in with an activity I really enjoy doing and the students have the greatest time with it. But most importantly, I believe it to be one of the most effective ways of error correction, because the correction is made by the students; they correct sentences they've written. (By the way, for those of you who were in the room, I am sorry if I stumbled or did something wrong - I was extremely nervous about speaking there!)
Graphing 2.0
Information graphics give us new ways to understand and think about information. They include a huge category of visuals that are capable of communicating in diverse ways through charts, maps, diagrams, data visualizations and technical, instructional and scientific explanations. It seems that infographics become more valuable as our need to understand a complex world increases.
The ProProfs website has lots of free online games for gifted children, but the best place to start is with the logic games. Leapfroggies, Chess, Sliding Block Puzzles, Mazes, Nonograms, and SHOT are all great games to get started with, as each involves some kind of higher level thinking in order to be successful. There are many more online games that would also be suitable for gifted children in the Brain Teasers
or Brain Training sections. Just click the links at the top of the page and explore.
Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/family/articles/70813.aspx#ixzz0nVoWEgOF
Some very cool and easy to implement ideas to get your kids blogging, you could have this as a checklist so you don't have to always be thinking how to get kids/parents interacting on the blogs.
"Do you need a new way for your students to express themselves or show what they know? Google Search Stories Video Creator may be the way. Students just type up to seven search terms and search types into a field. Then they choose the music and publish. The results are embeddable and linkable. "
Our "30 days to get your Students Blogging" Challenge is all about guiding you through the process of blogging with your students.
This challenge is open to anyone and everyone - and you don't need to be a user of Edublogs at all or have participated in the first challenge.
Wherever you're at - we'll step you through the weekly tasks to increase your skills while providing mentors who'll support your learning.
Could be something here for every teacher either Blogging or thinking about Blogging.
The brain training learning games at ProProfs are a great way to engage your students in some higher level thinking skills. Currently they have 26 games and they represent a good variety of the kind of skills you would expect in this genre of learning software. So, it's no wonder that ProProfs is often rated among the best online games for gifted children. The 60 Second Brain Game is an intense visual and audio test, while Double Bubble and Colour Balls are equally challenging, and get harder the more you play them. There are also a whole collection of other educational games on this site, so if you haven't been here before, you should definitely check it out, because there is a lot to like on this site.
Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/106947.aspx?p=2#ixzz1EGalJbua