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Garth Holman

What is Curriculum Theory by William F. Pinar (Multiple Participant Book Review) | Joy ... - 1 views

www.academia.edu/...tiple_Participant_Book_Review_

Pinar Currere Research

shared by Garth Holman on 10 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • primary of which is the idea that curriculum is a “complicated conversation.”
  • Pinar argues that curriculum  –  or  currere    –  is an organic idea rather than a Socraticmessage that never changes (Pinar, 2011) Teachers must discover this currere for themselvesthrough methods of self reflection and self discovery.
  • Pinar has a good grasp of the situation stating “standardization makes everyonestupid,” and “to deny the past and force the future, we teach to the test.”
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  • What knowledge is of most worth (pg. 210)? This is a difficult question that requiresreflection into what is the most at stake for us as teachers and for our students as learners.
  • The conflict within this text focuses on the loss of power and privilege of teachers over the teaching profession. Pinar (2011) states, "How could we have so fallen in the public's eyethat we are no longer entitled to professional self-governance, the very prerequisite for  professionalism?" (p. 69).
  • The inability for teachers to have a voice results in an environment in which the professionalism aspect of a professional group has been diminished to a non-existent level.
  • illiam F. Pinar‟s purpose in writing this book is to ask us [the student] to question this  present moment and our relation to it. In doing so, we are to question the very reason behind what it means to teach, “To study, to become “educated” in the presen t moment (Pinar, 2011)
  • Pinar vision of schooling is   to "understand, not just implement or evaluate thecurriculum" (Pinar, 2011). He urges educators to know what they are teaching. Reciting from a text and reading from a manual is not teaching in his opinion and it‟s not teaching in ours either. As students we are asked to brainstorm and use our imagination to picture the perfect scenario.Pinar is asking teachers to do the same
  • Pinar describes curriculum theory as: an interdisciplinary field in which teacher education is conceived as the professionalization of intellectual freedom, fore fronting teachers‟ and students‟ individuality (originality), their creativity, and constantly engaging in ongoing if complicatedconversation informed by a self-reflexive, interdisciplinary erudition (Pinar, 2011)
  • By tying the curriculum to student performance on standardized test, teachers were forced toabandon their intellectual freedom to choose what they teach, how they teach, and how theyassess student learning (Pinar, 2011). Failure to learn has been the result of separating the   WHAT IS CURRICULUM THEORY? 8 curriculum from the interest of students and the passion of teachers.
  • Contemporary is referring to a person in thesame field or time period as you. Pinar is trying to emphasize that we are not all moving at thesame speed when it comes to educating middle and elementary students
  • Teachers are then empowered tohave a voice to influence the curriculum in such a manner that positively contributes to studentlearning. Pinar is urging teachers to take back their classroom. Take the initiative and leadwithout boundaries. Instruct without guidelines and open your mind to learning indirectly fromyour students
  • Students are set up to fail but it is not really their fault.   They attend school where the system begs for learning to equate to test scores and they become “consumers” of  educational s ervices rather than “students” This system also encourages drop-outs becauseschools only want to teach students that have acceptable test scores which benefits the school‟s accountability. Students do not experience an environment that places importance on the development of ideas and critical thinking but rather the successful completion of atest.
  • Demonization of the teacher has been the result of the current political and economic powers have placed the teacher in an unimportant position in the educational hierarchy andassume that business leaders know more about the curriculum and teaching than the teachersknow themselves. Teachers have become “technicians” because of school deform and are encouraged to replace ideas and know ledge with “cognitive skills” that will fit into the  jobsettings of the future. According to Pinar, these skills result in historical amnesia, political passivity and cultural standardization.
  • He invites us to become “temporal” subjects of history, living simultaneously in the past, present, and future  –  aware of the historical conditions that haveshaped the current situation, engaged in the present battles being waged over the course anddirection of public education, and committed to re-building a democratic public sphere.
India Robertson

Ways to use Facebook effectively in class | ZDNet - 1 views

www.zdnet.com/...15269

facebook

shared by India Robertson on 04 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • Here are ten ways to use Facebook in class:
  • Set up a dedicated Facebook group for your class A Facebook group can allow your students to create discussion boards, communicate with each other and their teacher, and can be linked with online projects & other classroom groups. Teachers can use these groups to send out mass messages, reminders, and potentially even post homework assignments.
  • Use Facebook Apps Facebook is more than a place to tag photos from last night’s not-so-clever encounter with tequila. It is now a platform that runs on mobile devices, and can be integrated with applications designed for learning. From news to learning a new language, there are many apps that allow searches and sharing across the platform.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Follow news feeds If your students are working on a project involving anything from current affairs to piracy, Facebook news feeds can be an alternative to Twitter in order to enrich a project with real-time opinion and commentary. Not only this, but you can sign up and join groups focusing on certain areas; such as student education, U.S. healthcare, or politics.
  • Practice foreign languages As a traveler and advocate of language learning, I found Facebook to be one of best resources in which to find ‘language buddies’ to practice your writing skills in a secondary language. There are groups that are dedicated to this — and you can get feedback on your attempts. It is also possible to find events and links to language-based resources.
    • Jay Martinez
      Jay Martinez on 13 Sep 13
       
      Cool. It is very helpful in this aspect.
  • Follow figures of interest This can be done on both Twitter and Facebook, especially since the Timeline roll-out and subscription service began. You do not have to be friends with the person you wish to follow — as long as they allow subscriptions to their profile, any public updates
  • Use the Facebook Timeline for class projects The Facebook Timeline feature may not be the site’s most popular update, but it can be used to create a project more interesting than a traditional Power Point presentation.
  • Use Facebook Questions and polls Why not upload a photo to your class Facebook group and ask your students to comment? There are cases of this feature being used as a way to ask questions or set a class task — such as identifying a species of animal or important figure. Polls can be also used for research, opinion, or to generate a later classroom discussion.
  • India Robertson on 04 Apr 12
     
    ten ways to use in class
Michael O'Connor

As Children's Freedom Has Declined, So Has Their Creativity | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...clined-so-has-their-creativity

creativity psychology crisis Testing education

shared by Michael O'Connor on 11 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • In Kim’s words, the data indicate that “children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.”
  • During the immediate post-Sputnik period, the U.S. government was concerned with identifying and fostering giftedness among American schoolchildren, so as to catch up with the Russians (whom we mistakenly thought were ahead of us in scientific innovation). 
  • creativity is the central variable underlying personal achievement and ability to adapt to unusual conditions.
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  • The Torrance Tests were developed by E. Paul Torrance in the late 1950s, when he was an education professor at the University of Minnesota.
  • Well, surprise, surprise.  For several decades we as a society have been suppressing children’s freedom to ever-greater extents, and now we find that their creativity is declining.
  • Creativity is nurtured by freedom and stifled by the continuous monitoring, evaluation, adult-direction, and pressure to conform that restrict children’s lives today.  In the real world few questions have one right answer, few problems have one right solution; that’s why creativity is crucial to success in the real world.  But more and more we are subjecting children to an educational system that assumes one right answer to every question and one correct solution to every problem, a system that punishes children (and their teachers too) for daring to try different routes.  We are also, as I documented in a previous essay, increasingly depriving children of free time outside of school to play, explore, be bored, overcome boredom, fail, overcome failure—that is, to do all that they must do in order to develop their full creative potential.
    • Michael O'Connor
      Michael O'Connor on 11 Oct 12
       
      I know of several local school districts that believe that their students cannot fail. How does this prepare a student for his/her real life? It does them great harm to continue to pass them on. They will never learn to overcome the impediments that occurs in life. You will also have an apathetic student on your hands! It is necessary to allow students to fail. Not to make them feel bad about themselves...but to allow them to understand there are second chances in life (sometimes) and that they are not beyond redemption.
  • In the next essay in this series, I will present research evidence that creativity really does bloom in the soil of freedom and die in the hands of overdirective, overprotective, ov
  • If anything makes Americans stand tall internationally it is creativity.  “American ingenuity” is admired everywhere. We are not the richest country (at least not as measured by smallest percentage in poverty), nor the healthiest (far from it), nor the country whose kids score highest on standardized tests (despite our politicians’ misguided intentions to get us there), but we are the most inventive country.  We are the great innovators, specialists in figuring out new ways of doing things and new things to do. Perhaps this derives from our frontier beginnings, or from our unique form of democracy with its emphasis on individual freedom and respect for nonconformity.  In the business world as well as in academia and the arts and elsewhere, creativity is our number one asset.  In a recent IBM poll, 1,500 CEOs acknowledged this when they identified creativity as the best predictor of future success.[1] 
  • judgmental teachers and parents.
Michael O'Connor

A Warning to Young People: Don't Become a Teacher | Randy Turner - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...to-young-people_b_3033304.html

teacher teaching TeacherPay education

shared by Michael O'Connor on 05 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Teachers are being told over and over again that their job is not to teach, but to guide students to learning on their own. While I am fully in favor of students taking control of their learning, I also remember a long list of teachers whose knowledge and experience helped me to become a better student and a better person. They encouraged me to learn on my own, and I did, but they also taught me many things. In these days when virtual learning is being force-fed to public schools by those who will financially benefit, the classroom teacher is being increasingly devalued. The concept being pushed upon us is not of a teacher teaching, but one of who babysits while the thoroughly engaged students magically learn on their own
  • But there is no way that eighth graders' opinions should be a part of deciding whether I continue to be employed.
  • It is hard to get past the message being sent that our teachers are not good enough so we have to go outside to find new ones
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  • Merit pay and eliminating teacher tenure, while turning teachers into at-will employees are the biggest disservice our leaders can do to students.
  • The teaching of history, civics, geography, and the arts have shrunk to almost nothing in some schools, or are made to serve the tested areas.
  • Even worse, in some schools weeks of valuable classroom time are wasted giving practice standardized tests (and tests to practice for the practice standardized tests) so obsessive administrators can track how the students are doing
  • . Pearson
  • received the contract to create the tests, has a full series of practice tests, while other companies like McGraw-Hill with its Acuity division, are already changing gears from offering practice materials for state tests to providing comprehensive materials for Common Core.
  • Common Cor
  • Why would anyone willingly sign up for this madness?
  • I cannot remember a time when the classrooms have been filled with bad teachers. The poor teachers almost never lasted long enough to receive tenure.
  • there are exceptions
  • here is nothing to stop administrators from removing those teacher
  • tenure
  • provide teachers with the right to a hearing. It does not guarantee their jobs.
  • Times have changed. I have watched over the past few years as wonderfully gifted young teachers have left the classroom, feeling they do not have support and that things are not going to get any better
  • That framework is being torn down, oftentimes by politicians who would never dream of sending their own children to the kind of schools they are mandating for others.
  • After all, what other profession would allow me to make $37,000 a year after 14 years of experience and have people tell me how greedy I am?
Michael O'Connor

Drive, By Daniel Pink: What motivates students? Part Two - Implementing 21st Century Sk... - 0 views

www.teachersfortomorrow.net/...tivates-students-part-two.html

drive daniel pink teaching resources tools

shared by Michael O'Connor on 10 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • nk/203).
  • century.  Drive says for 21st Century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery & purpose." (
  • Dan's main point in Drive, according to his twitter summary: "Carrots & Sticks are so last
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  • Motivation comes from within, not external threats or bribes
  • -"People to contribute rather then just show up and grind out their days." (100) -What teacher has not wanted this?
  • -"Control leads to compliance: autonomy leads to engagement...only engagement can produce mastery" (110-111) When was the last time you had true engagement and what caused this engagement?
  • -"Do the workers refer to the company (school) as "they"? Or do they describe it in terms of "we"?" (129)  Do your students see school on their team?
  • First, Student's need to gain autonomy, not empowerment (we love this word, it gives the impression that students have power in the system).  Autonomy is self direction. Second, Mastery of the topic (big word in education ten years ago).  And third, purpose (education likes to use meaning or relevance).
  • the system right now makes this very, very hard to do
  • I find it very difficult sometimes to convince students that I am not grading a project, or that they can take a quiz whenever they are ready.  Students have learned that they will be told and shown how to survive in education. 
  • We need to encourage students to be independent thinkers that formulate their own methods to their own answers.  The data collection systems of education need to change to meet the new education system of the 21st century; we need to stop attempting to make new methodology fit into old data collection routines.
Jenny Sommers

Teaching Math To Visual Learners - 0 views

www.time4learning.com/g_math_to_visual_learner.shtml

teaching math learners visual education resources

shared by Jenny Sommers on 16 Oct 13 - Cached
  • hey much prefer to learn from whole-to-part,
  • it is important to bring attention to all the ways math is relevant to everyday life
  • Bring your visual learner along shopping with you and be sure to have him or her help you figure out how much money you will need for your purchases. Letting them have a piggy bank, and counting the money often will also be helpful. Math is plentifully available in cooking together, clipping coupons, saving for a special toy, and even in building with blocks or cutting play-dough into fractional parts. Math can be almost everywhere when you are looking for it.
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  • Color, color, color!
  • Make a picture.
  • Use multimedia software when available.
  • Manipulatives are key.
  • using color to differentiate between addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems can be very helpful. In learning sequential step problems, highlighting each step in a different color can also overcome this natural difficulty.
  • What To Avoid With Visual Learners
  • Rote memorization and drill will not only be mostly impossible for your visual learner, but will also sap his natural love of learning.
  • Visual learners also tend to “visualize” time passing, so timed quizzes and tests put almost tangible pressure on them, causing unnecessary anxiety
  • not always be able to “show their work.”
  • , be prepared for a visual learner to
  • It is important to help them to understand that their visual learning style is not a disadvantage, but simply a different way of acquiring knowledge
  • Jenny Sommers on 16 Oct 13
     
    visual learners: what they are; how they learn; things to avoid; techniques for teaching math to them
matt swango

How to Avoid an IRS Audit - Yahoo! Finance - 0 views

finance.yahoo.com/...avoid-irs-audit-162008144.html

taxes audit finance

shared by matt swango on 25 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Tax season is upon us, with most Americans putting together the materials they need to file their returns, gathering receipts, and searching for other tax deductions to maximize the amount they get back from the federal government.
  • If the IRS begins to suspect that a tax return isn't entirely truthful, the filer might be in for an audit.
  • Only about 1.1 percent of people who file a 1040 [the most common tax return] for the 2010 tax year were audited ... [or] about 1.5 million," says Rozbruch. "However, the audit rate is 12.5 percent for people earning $1 million or more in 2010.
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  • audits are most often triggered by the kind and amount of deductions taken
  • a professional should be hired in all audit cases.
  • For example, after widespread fraud was discovered, the IRS audited most taxpayers who claimed the First-Time Homebuyer Credit," Reed says. "The Earned Income Credit and the Adoption Credit are also common audit targets, but these are also credits that are often abused, so it makes sense for the IRS to verify that taxpayers qualify for them."
  • Two common examples are receipts for contributions to charity and mileage logs. When taxpayers try to recreate these expenses, they discover it is hard to remember events that happened more than a year ago," Reed says. "In the absence of good records, the deductions are disallowed when audited."
  • According to Rozbruch, the best track to take when an audit begins is to attempt to make things right immediately.
  • Reed adds that if the taxpayer is not maliciously trying to cheat the government, the IRS can be lenient.
  • matt swango on 25 Jan 12
     
    Tax season is upon us. Here's some tips to avoid an audit
Garth Holman

Chrome Smashing: Creating the Inconceivable | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...the-inconceivable-beth-holland

chromebook edtech apps smashing chrome

shared by Garth Holman on 14 May 14 - No Cached
  • Similarly, smashing multiple apps can lead to extraordinary learning artifacts, so why not apply it to Chromebooks? In four steps, we have the potential to create and share something entirely new.
  • As teachers, we should look to incorporate smashes because we want our students to demonstrate their understanding, to reflect on a process and to envision creating a learning artifact that was previously inconceivable. We want students to take ownership of their learning process, develop technology fluency (2), and identify the best possible means to "show what they know." When there are no limitations to what can be created with the available tools, then there are no limitations to how students can demonstrate their growth as learners.
  • Essentially, our goal as educators is to help our students develop into creators and innovators. When we know that smashing is a possibility and introduce this potential to our students, we not only empower them to take ownership of their learning process, but also teach them to go beyond the initial obstacles in order to problem solve for better learning and expression.
Michael O'Connor

Visual Learners | Online Learning Tips - 0 views

onlinelearningtips.com/...visual-learners

learners online online learning learning tips

shared by Michael O'Connor on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Visual learners learn best through their eyes.
  • If you find yourself doing a search for videos and podcasts then you should focus on tuning your skills in the auditory direction
  • Visual learners learn best through their eyes. In a traditional classroom they prefer to sit where they can best see what is going on in order to have an advantage when reading a teacher’s body language, studying charts and graphs, watching video, following visual presentations such as PowerPoint, observing demonstrations, and so on.  When learning online visual learners benefit from the ability to replay simulations or videos, trace an outline on the screen, note color coding, interpret pictures, and interact with a wide variety of interactive visual media.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • There are some tactics a visual learner can employ to maximize learning. These learning methods can include: constructing graphic organizers to represent information that may have been presented orally studying diagrams outlining notes locating sites or placing symbols on a map watching videos, demonstrations, simulations, and reenactments color coding notes drawing pictures to represent events writing summaries direct copying of notes and vocabulary using flashcards
  • Auditory learners attain information best through their ears. In a traditional classroom they tend to sit away from noisy distractions, where they can hear best the teacher or other instructional media such as video, recorded books, poems, or songs. 
  • They have an advantage in listening to lectures or relating to auditory cues.  When learning online auditory learners benefit from being able to replay recordings of lectures, videos, and other auditory sources of information. 
  • Tactile learners, sometimes referred to as kinesthetic learners, learn best through their hands. In a traditional classroom they prefer to be able to move around, touch objects, conduct physical experiments, perform reenactments, and change their physical proximity with learning materials.  When learning online tactile learners do not have a distinct advantage, but may recall spelling via the muscle memory of keyboarding.
Mary Bednar

Classroom Interventions for Students with Traumatic Brain Injuries - 0 views

www.brainline.org/...ic-brain-injuries_pageall.html

TBI

shared by Mary Bednar on 31 May 12 - No Cached
  •  Because the recovery process can take several months or  even years, many of these children continue to have rehabilitation needs and cognitive impairments and will return to school while still in the recovery stages. It often becomes the responsibility of the educational system to facilitate ongoing recovery and to provide needed services to help these children progress in their academic and social functioning .
    • Mary Bednar
      Mary Bednar on 31 May 12
       
      Since so many changes occur during the healing process, how often should a TBI patient have their IEP reviewed? Whose responsibilty is it to monitor this?
  • Because the recovery process can take several months or even years, many of these children continue to have rehabilitation needs and cognitive impairments and will return to school while still in the recovery stages. It often becomes the responsibility of the educational system to facilitate ongoing recovery and to provide needed services to help these children progress in their academic and social functioning
  • even years, many of these children continue to have rehabilitation needs and cognitive impairments and will return to school while still in the recovery stages. It
Mr. D D

Constructivist Learning - 1 views

www.personal.psu.edu/...construct.htm

shared by Mr. D D on 05 Oct 13 - Cached
  • Constructivism is an epistemological belief about what "knowing" is and how one "come to know."
  • rejects the notions
  • Constructivism, with focus on social nature of cognition, suggests an approach that
  • ...66 more annotations...
  • learners the
  • learners the
  • learners the
  • opportunity for concrete, contextually meaningful experience through which they can search for patterns, raise their own questions, and construct their own models.
  • engage in activity, discourse, and reflection
  • take on more ownership of the ideas, and to pursue autonomy, mutual reciprocity of social relations, and empowerment to be the goals.
  • "knowledge proceeds neither solely from the experience of objects nor from an innate programming
  • but from successive constructions."
  • and the effect of social interaction, language, and culture on learning.
  • This movement occurs in the so-called "zone of proximal development" as a result of social interaction.
  • disappointed with the overwhelming control of environment over human behavior that is represented in behaviorism.
  • recognized two
  • internalization
  • basic processes operating continuously at every level of human activity
  • internalization and externalization
  • complex mental function is first an interaction between people
  • becomes a process within individuals
  • This transformation involves the mastery of external means of thinking and learning to use symbols to control and regulate one's thinking.
  • the claim is that mental processes can be understood only if we understand the tools and signs that mediate them
  • the gesture of pointing could not have been established as a sign without the reaction of the other person.
  • Bruner's key concepts
  • mode of representing past events through appropriate motor responses
  • which enables
  • perceiver to "summarize events by organization of percepts and of images
  • symbol system which represents things by design features that can be arbitrary and remote, e.g. language
  • Bruner's influence on instruction
  • Translating material into children's modes of thought:
  • enable learners to develop cognitive growth: questioning, prompting
  • discovery as" all forms of obtaining knowledge for oneself by the use of one's own mind
  • Interpersonal interaction
  • Discovery learning:
  • Spiral Curriculum:
  • promote concept discovery, the teacher presents the set of instances that will best help learners to develop an appropriate model of the concept.
  • cognitive constructivists
  • sociocultural constructivists
  • focusing on the individual cognitive construction of mental structures;
  • emphasizing the social interaction and cultural practice on the construction of knowledge
  • Promote discovery in the exercise of problem solving
  • Variables in instruction: nature of knowledge, nature of the knower, and nature of the knowledge-getting process
  • Feedback must be provided in a mode that is both meaningful and within the information-processing capacity of the learner.
  • Intrinsic pleasure of discovery promote a sense of self-reward
  • Knowledge cannot exist independently from the knower;
  • Learning is viewed as self-regulatory process
  • Cognitive constructivists focus on the active mental construction struggling with the conflict between existing personal models of the world, and incoming information in the environment.
  • Sociocultural constructivists emphasis
  • in which learners construct their models of reality as a meaning-making undertaking with culturally developed tools and symbols
  • and negotiate such meaning thorough cooperative social activity, discourse and debate (
  • Learners are active in making sense of things instead of responding to stimuli.
  • learners " make tentative interpretations of experience
  • requires invention and self-organization
  • Errors need to be perceived as a result of learners' conceptions and therefore not minimized or avoided.
  • the learners are responsible for defending, proving, justifying, and communicating their ideas to the classroom community.
  • humans seek to organize and generalize across experiences
  • According to TIP's
  • Theory Into Practice
  • Spiral organization:
  • Going beyond the information given:
  • Readiness:
  • learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
  • learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
  • learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
  • that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
  • Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the student
  • learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
  • learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
  • Bruner's major theoretical framework is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge.
Samuel Fickes

Literary Disco - 1 views

www.literarydisco.com

resources

shared by Samuel Fickes on 15 Sep 12 - No Cached
    • Samuel Fickes
      Samuel Fickes on 15 Sep 12
       
      They answer as many questions posted by listeners and readers
  • Which is one that appeals equally to writers and readers. And one that is smart without being hyper-intellectual, or too "insider." Everywhere we looked, book talk seemed shallow or snooty.
  • As we looked around at the collection of podcasts, NPR shows, and Oprah Book Club-spinoffs that are available in the world, it occurred to us that it was hard to find the kind of literary discussion we love
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • ABOUT US Welcome to Literary Disco. We're Tod, Julia, and Rider -- three good friends who also happen to be huge book nerds. We're writers, but we've always been readers first and foremost. Since the three of us have been talking and arguing about books for years, we decided to start recording some of our conversations. As we looked around at the collection of podcasts, NPR shows, and Oprah Book Club-spinoffs that are available in the world, it occurred to us that it was hard to find the kind of literary discussion we love. Which is one that a
  • is one that
  • But we also want to hear what writers are reading. So instead of doing simple interviews, we'll bring authors on to the podcast and have them select a book for all of us to read and discuss together
Jenny Sommers

How To Increase Higher Order Thinking - 0 views

www.cdl.org/...HOT.php

hot thinking questions education resources tools learning

shared by Jenny Sommers on 18 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Parents and teachers can do a lot to encourage higher order thinking, even when they are answering children’s questions
  •  “Don’t ask me any more questions.” “Because I said so.”
    • Jenny Sommers
      Jenny Sommers on 18 Oct 13
       
      Garth- this reminds me of our conversation of how we shut children's learning down.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Level 1. Reject the question.
  • Level 2. Restate or almost restate the question as a response.
  • Level 3. Admit ignorance or present information.
  • Level 4. Voice encouragement to seek response through authority.
  • Level 5. Encourage brainstorming, or consideration of alternative explanations.
  • Level 6. Encourage consideration of alternative explanations and a means of evaluating them.
  • Level 7. Encourage consideration of alternative explanations plus a means of evaluating them, and follow-through on evaluations.
  • When brainstorming, it is important to remember all ideas are put out on the table. Which ones are “keepers” and which ones are tossed in the trashcan is decided later.
  • Encourage Questioning. Divergent questions asked by students should not be discounted. When students realize that they can ask about what they want to know without negative reactions from teachers, their creative behavior tends to generalize to other areas. If time will not allow discussion at that time, the teacher can incorporate the use of a “Parking Lot” board where ideas are “parked” on post-it notes until a later time that day or the following day.
    • Jenny Sommers
      Jenny Sommers on 18 Oct 13
       
      I like this idea of the "parking lot" board. Students do need to feel like asking questions is ok- this doesn't stifle them but lets class continue on track.
  • Students should be explicitly taught at a young age how to infer or make inferences.
  • a teacher may use bumper stickers or well-known slogans and have the class brainstorm the inferences that can be drawn from them.
    • Jenny Sommers
      Jenny Sommers on 18 Oct 13
       
      I like this example.
  • How to Answer Children’s Questions In a Way that Promotes Higher Order Thinking
  • Jenny Sommers on 18 Oct 13
     
    interesting read- especially the section on "how to answer children's questions in a way that promotes higher order thinking
Michael O'Connor

EyeVerify's Mobile Authentication Technology Relies on Eye-Vein Scanning to Let You Vie... - 0 views

www.technologyreview.com/...software-just-checks-your-eyes

mobile authentication technology scanning view sensitive information mit review tools interactive emerging

shared by Michael O'Connor on 03 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Typing a password into your smartphone might be a reasonable way to access the sensitive information it holds, but a startup called EyeVerify thinks it would be easier—and more secure—to just look into the phone’s camera lens and move your eyes to the side.
  • EyeVerify’s software identifies you by your “eyeprints,” the pattern of veins in the whites of your eyes. Everybody has four eyeprints, two in each eye on either side of the iris. The company claims that its method is as accurate as a fingerprint or iris scan, without requiring any special hardware
  • Rush says the software can tell the difference between a real person and an image of a person. It randomly challenges the smartphone’s camera to adjust settings such as focus, exposure, and white balance and checks whether it receives an appropriate response from the object it’s focused on.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The look of the veins in your eyes changes over time, and you might burst a blood vessel one day. But Rush says long-term changes would be slow enough that EyeVerify could “age” its template to adjust. And the software only needs one proper eyeprint to authenticate you, so unless you bloody up both eyes, you should be able to use EyeVerify after a bar fight
  • Indeed, EyeVerify still needs to do more to prove that. Rush says that in tests of 96 people, the eyeprint system was 99.97 percent accurate. The company is working with Purdue University researchers to judge the accuracy of its software on 250 subjects—or another 500 eyes.
Michael O'Connor

In Maine, a laptop for every middle-schooler - Technology & science - Back to School | ... - 0 views

www.msnbc.msn.com/...25782209

maine laptop technology school

shared by Michael O'Connor on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Statewide test scores haven’t changed much.
  • “Maybe the full potential of the laptop isn’t being realized,”" he said.
  • How to offer every child the same opportunity at a quality education
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The laptops might help breach the economic barrier to school success. Silvernail found that on statewide writing exams, economically disadvantaged students using laptops did outperform advantaged students who didn’t use their computers.
  • Still, the laptop program has faced setbacks. Maine wanted to expand its laptop program to all high schools four years ago, but state budget cuts have prevented that.
    • Michael O'Connor
      Michael O'Connor on 30 Nov 12
       
      At the higher levels, do a BYOT program.
  • Still
  • “What we need to look at is the broader impact on student improvement,” said Timothy Magner, the director of the Office of Education Technology, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education. “One of the key metrics is test scores. We’re keenly interested in that.”
    • Michael O'Connor
      Michael O'Connor on 30 Nov 12
       
      They are keenly intrested in ... test scores! What a suprise! You would think this initative would have the backing of the US government and all its Allies! But no, we are worried about test scores...
  • Some schools’ programs around the country have faced widespread computer glitches, teachers not knowing how to teach with laptops — and to a much lesser degree, yet way more publicized — the issue of students using the Web to cyberslack, cheat and view porn.
    • Michael O'Connor
      Michael O'Connor on 30 Nov 12
       
      yep, this is the down side. Kids mishandle internet or tech devices. or a pencil, or a book...nothing very new here...constant monitoring/good filter systme should be used
  • spawning original ideas.
  • But whether its program can measure up to the federal government’s key yardstick — improvement in standardized test scores — is another question.
Michael O'Connor

Where Speech Recognition Is Going - 0 views

mashable.com/...re-speech-recognition-is-going

speech recognition emerging technologies tools interactive

shared by Michael O'Connor on 03 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • “I think speech recognition is really going to upend the current [computer] interface.
  • “We’re at a transition point where voice and natural-language understanding are suddenly at the forefront,
  • Jim Glass, a senior research scientist at MIT who has been working on speech interfaces since the 1980s, says today’s smart phones pack as much processing power as the laboratory machines he worked with in the ’90s. Smart phones also have high-bandwidth data connections to the cloud, where servers can do the heavy lifting involved with both voice recognition and understanding spoken queries. “The combination of more data and more computing power means you can do things today that you just couldn’t do before,” says Glass. “You can use more sophisticated statistical models.”
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Siri,
  • But voice functionality is built into Android, the Windows Phone platform, and most other mobile systems, as well as many apps
  • Nuance is at the heart of the boom in voice technology
  • , Nuance hopes to put its speech interfaces in many more places, most notably the television and the automobile
  • Meanwhile, the Sync entertainment system in Ford automobiles already uses Nuance’s technology to let drivers pull up directions, weather information, and songs. About four million Ford cars on the road have Sync with voice recognition. Last week, Nuance introduced software called Dragon Drive that will let other car manufacturers add voice-control features to vehicles
  • “It’s astonishingly accurate,” says Brian Phelps, CEO and cofounder of Montrue and himself an ER doctor. “Speech has turned a corner; it’s gotten to a point where we’re getting incredible accuracy right out of the box
  • Sejnoha believes that within a few years, mobile voice interfaces will be much more pervasive and powerful. “I should just be able to talk to it without touching it,” he says. “It will constantly be listening for trigger words, and will just do it—pop up a calendar, or ready a text message, or a browser that’s navigated to where you want to go
Michael O'Connor

Gunman kills 26 at Conn. school, commits suicide - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/commits-suicide-022814026.html

school shooting yahoo news

shared by Michael O'Connor on 15 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • "There's no words," Wilford said. "It's sheer terror, a sense of imminent danger, to get to your child and be there to protect him."
  • "Evil visited this community today and it's too early to speak of recovery, but each parent, each sibling, each member of the family has to understand that Connecticut — we're all in this together. We'll do whatever we can to overcome this event," Gov. Dannel Malloy said.
  • "It has to stop, these senseless deaths."
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • "Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children."
  • "Everyone was just traumatized," he said.
  • Also, a custodian ran around, warning people there was someone with a gun, Varga said. "He said, 'Guys! Get down! Hide!'" Varga said. "So he was actually a hero." The teacher said he did not know if the custodian survived.
  • He said the shooter didn't utter a word.
  • The 20-year-old killer, carrying at least two handguns, committed suicide at the school, bringing the death toll to 28, authorities said.
  • NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A man killed his mother at their home and then opened fire Friday inside an elementary school, massacring 26 people, including 20 children, as youngsters cowered in fear to the sound of gunshots reverberating through the building and screams echoing over the intercom.
Michael O'Connor

Teaching Visual Spatial Learners - Time4Learning - 0 views

www.time4learning.com/visual-spatial-learners.shtml

teaching learners time learning

shared by Michael O'Connor on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The truth of education is that most of traditional schooling methods are based on auditory-sequential instruction. This is unfortunate for visual-spatial students, who can begin to feel "dumb" in a regular classroom. In actuality, visual-spatial children are often highly gifted, but their classroom work may not adequately reflect their intelligence. Or, commonly, V-S kids will have incredibly high grades in subjects that appeal to their visual learning style, but might struggle to keep even passing grades in subjects such as phonics and math computation, where visual skills are seldom accessed. They also suffer exceedingly under the drill and review method of teaching. While continued practice and repetition is highly beneficial for auditory-sequential learners, visual-spatial students find it to be completely unnecessary. Once a V-S learner has mastered a concept, the learning is permanent, and does not need to be reviewed. Any type of review that highlights a visual-spatial learner's mistakes can be especially damaging to their self-esteem.
  • Although much of the traditional school environment is designed with the auditory-sequential learner in mind, there are things that teachers or parents can do to make learning more accessible for visual-spatial learners. The most obvious of these is the copious use of visual aids in learning. Any auditory instruction needs to be accompanied by something that the student can see with their eyes, or manipulate with their hands. Visual-spatial learners also usually grasp reading more easily if they are taught using the sight, or whole-word method, rather than with phonics. Pre-tests are another good idea for V-S learners, so that you do not waste time teaching them what they already have mastered. When possible, instead of writing out their work, allow them to represent their learning in visual and creative ways. Creativity is key for a visual-spatial learner.
  • The computer is an indispensible tool for a visual-spatial learner.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The computer takes some of this pressure off by allowing the keyboard to do some of the work. Visual-spatial learners also enjoy the computer because of its visual impact. In fact, both the computer and the internet were inventions by people who were very likely visual-spatial learners themselves!
Nick Martin

Ten Steps Toward Universal Design of Online Courses: Home Page - 0 views

ualr.edu/tenstepsud

accessibility design udl OnlineLearning

shared by Nick Martin on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Another way that color is sometimes used to convey meaning is to differentiate items in a list. For example, a professor may write the following: "All assignments in red must be completed in APA style." This poses a problem for students who are blind and students who are color blind. The use of color is not discouraged altogether. There are definite advantages for other students. It is possible to meet the needs of all of these students, as illustrated in this example:
  • 9) Convert PowerPoint™ to accessible HTML.
  • 10) If it's auditory make it visual; if it's visual make it auditory.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Students who use assistive technology - Currently, some of the testing tools have compatibility problems with some screen reader technologies. This occasionally results in the screen reader program crashing during an exam. A good practice would be to have a mock exam available for students to try so that they will know ahead of time if their assistive technology will work with your exam. If it does not, an alternate version of the exam will need to be provided
    • Nick Martin
      Nick Martin on 17 Feb 14
       
      Having a test exam for learners with disabilities is something that I never thought about before, but it is a great idea!
  • Black text on a white or light background is the most readable.
    • Nick Martin
      Nick Martin on 17 Feb 14
       
      Black and white might sound really boring, but it does make it more readable!  I'm sure that we have all come across some websites with some wacky color combinations that make our eyes hurt :(
  • Teach students using a PC to right click on the content they wish to print and choose print. This will allow them to print only the content in that frame.
  • Use concise, meaningful text for links. Like this: Writing Good Link Descriptions Not this: Click here for information on writing good link descriptions
  • Nick Martin on 14 Feb 14
     
    This website provides good suggestions for making online courses accessible for both students with disabilities and without disabilities. This website also applies many of these suggestions in its actual design!
Michael O'Connor

Apple case seen as possible spur to tax action - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/GNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3

apple case possible tax action technology history

shared by Michael O'Connor on 22 May 13 - No Cached
    • Michael O'Connor
      Michael O'Connor on 22 May 13
       
      This is the bottom line. They don't have enough money to pay the deficit off...so lets punish successful companies to do so
  • The focus on Apple's taxes comes at a time of heated debate in Washington over whether and how to raise revenues to help reduce the federal deficit
  • "We pay all the taxes we owe — every single dollar," Cook said. "We don't depend on tax gimmicks."
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • He punched out words when stressing the 600,000 jobs that the company supports, and underscored that Apple is the nation's largest corporate taxpayer.
  • Cook did so voluntarily
  • In effect, Apple is holding out for a lower corporate tax rate, and Cook spent some of his time in the spotlight to advocate for one, as well as a streamlining of the tax code to eliminate deductions and credits.
  • At the same time, lawmakers must tread lightly as they attack Apple, a company held in high esteem and whose ubiquitous products are seen as both innovative and indispensable
  • "What Apple is doing is pretty mainstream," said accounting expert Robert Willens, in an interview. Shifting around the intellectual property rights has a minor effect compared to the simple avoidance of U.S. taxes by not repatriating profits, he said.
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