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Katie Day

182 Questions to Write or Talk About - NYTimes.com - 3 views

learning.blogs.nytimes.com/...estions-to-write-or-talk-about

writing_workshop opinions

shared by Katie Day on 23 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Katie Day on 23 Aug 13
     
    a list of weekly Student Opinion questions - good for writing prompts or examples of opinion writing
Katie Day

The Learning Virtues - NYTimes.com - David Brooks on book "Cultural Foundations of Lear... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ooks-the-learning-virtues.html

learning cultures east_vs_west books

shared by Katie Day on 03 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Katie Day on 03 Mar 13
     
    "In the Western understanding, students come to school with levels of innate intelligence and curiosity. Teachers try to further arouse that curiosity in specific subjects. There's a lot of active learning - going on field trips, building things. There's great emphasis on questioning authority, critical inquiry and sharing ideas in classroom discussion. In the Chinese understanding, there's less emphasis on innate curiosity or even on specific subject matter. Instead, the learning process itself is the crucial thing. The idea is to perfect the learning virtues in order to become, ultimately, a sage, which is equally a moral and intellectual state. These virtues include: sincerity (an authentic commitment to the task) as well as diligence, perseverance, concentration and respect for teachers. "
Katie Day

Misunderstood Minds . Introduction | PBS - 0 views

www.pbs.org/...intro.html

learning_support learning children cognitive_science

shared by Katie Day on 22 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Katie Day on 22 Sep 10
     
    "This site is a companion to the PBS special Misunderstood Minds, and profiles a variety of learning problems and expert opinions. It is designed to give parents and teachers a better understanding of learning processes, insights into difficulties, and strategies for responding. "
Katie Day

Clean Water at No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits - NYTimes.com - 1 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...o-cost-just-add-carbon-credits

water pollution global_concerns

shared by Katie Day on 17 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • If you are a hiker or camper, you may have heard about Vestergaard Frandsen’s LifeStraw. It’s a hollow stick equipped with a series of filtering membranes. You put the end of the stick in a river or puddle ─ or a toilet, for that matter ─ and suck on it. By the time the water hits your lips, it is clean and safe ─ its filters are fine enough to trap virtually all bacteria, viruses and parasites. The product has a bigger cousin called the LifeStraw Family. You hang it on your wall, pour dirty water in the top, open the tap and clean water comes out the bottom. No power or replacement parts are required. Each unit cleans about 18,000 liters of water ─ enough for a family for three years. The market cost of the unit averages out at a penny per ten liters of water purified. Vestergaard Frandsen will distribute the LifeStraw Family for free. It is helping to sponsor a traveling campaign through the western part of Kenya set for April, 2011, that will reach 4 million families. The campaign bundles various products ─ each family that attends will get insecticide-treated bednets to protect against malaria, AIDS tests and counseling and a free LifeStraw Family.
  • Katie Day on 17 Nov 10
     
    discusses the economics of innovations like the LifeStraw which allows people to drink clean water... in places like Africa....
Katie Day

What Should Children Read? - NYTimes.com - 1 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...what-should-children-read

books reading recommendations longreads essays nonfiction usa standards

shared by Katie Day on 28 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • There are anthologies of great literature and primary documents, but why not “30 for Under 20: Great Nonfiction Narratives?” Until such editions appear, teachers can find complex, literary works in collections like “The Best American Science and Nature Writing,” on many newspaper Web sites, which have begun providing online lesson plans using articles for younger readers, and on ProPublica.org. Last year, The Atlantic compiled examples of the year’s best journalism, and The Daily Beast has its feature “Longreads.” Longform.org not only has “best of” contemporary selections but also historical examples dating back decades.
  • Adult titles, like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” already have young readers editions, and many adult general-interest works, such as Timothy Ferris’s “The Whole Shebang,” about the workings of the universe, are appropriate for advanced high-school students.
  • In addition to a biology textbook, for example, why can’t more high school students read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”?
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • What Tom Wolfe once said about New Journalism could be applied to most student writing. It benefits from intense reporting, immersion in a subject, imaginative scene setting, dialogue and telling details. These are the very skills most English teachers want students to develop.
  • In my experience, students need more exposure to nonfiction, less to help with reading skills, but as a model for their own essays and expository writing,
  • Common Core dictates that by fourth grade, public school students devote half of their reading time in class to historical documents, scientific tracts, maps and other “informational texts” — like recipes and train schedules. Per the guidelines, 70 percent of the 12th grade curriculum will consist of nonfiction titles. Alarmed English teachers worry we’re about to toss Shakespeare so students can study, in the words of one former educator, “memos, technical manuals and menus.”
  • Louise Phinney on 28 Nov 12
     
    "A striking assumption animates arguments on both sides, namely that nonfiction is seldom literary and certainly not literature. Even Mr. Coleman erects his case on largely dispiriting, utilitarian grounds: nonfiction may help you win the corner office but won't necessarily nourish the soul. As an English teacher and writer who traffics in factual prose, I'm with Mr. Coleman. In my experience, students need more exposure to nonfiction, less to help with reading skills, but as a model for their own essays and expository writing, what Mr. Gladwell sought by ingesting "Talk of the Town" stories. I love fiction and poetry as much as the next former English major and often despair over the quality of what passes for "informational texts," few of which amount to narrative much less literary narrative. What schools really need isn't more nonfiction but better nonfiction, especially that which provides good models for student writing. Most students could use greater familiarity with what newspaper, magazine and book editors call "narrative nonfiction": writing that tells a factual story, sometimes even a personal one, but also makes an argument and conveys information in vivid, effective ways."
  • Katie Day on 01 Dec 12
     
    "What schools really need isn't more nonfiction but better nonfiction, especially that which provides good models for student writing. "  Totally supports my belief that nonfiction longreads are out there on the internet and are not being taken advantage of by teachers -- enough.
Katie Day

The Essay, an Exercise in Doubt - NYTimes.com - Philip Lopate - 1 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...the-essay-an-exercise-in-doubt

essays writing critical_thinking

shared by Katie Day on 28 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Katie Day on 28 Feb 13
     
    "The essay's job is to track consciousness; if you are fully aware of your mind you will find your thoughts doubling back, registering little peeps of ambivalence or disbelief. According to Theodor Adorno, the iron law of the essay is heresy. What is heresy if not the expression of contrarian doubt about communal pieties or orthodox positions? This is sometimes called "critical thinking," an ostensible goal of education in a democracy. "
Keri-Lee Beasley

How Might Video Games Be Good for Us? - 0 views

www.bigquestionsonline.com/...w-might-video-games-be-good-us

gamechangers gaming mcgonigal article technology games

shared by Keri-Lee Beasley on 12 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • What is it about games that is transcendent? Perhaps it’s the fact that games are optional, they are obstacles that we volunteer to overcome. Games are what we choose to do. They are what we are drawn to when we have a choice about how to spend our time and energy.  Games are freedom.
  • There is something transcendent about playing games that lifts us up and out of the tedium and pain of everyday life.
  • When we ask “Are games good for us?” we should take more seriously the idea that games helps us feel better, in the moment, and that this is important work. Reducing the time we spend experiencing negative emotions and increasing the time we spend experiencing positive emotions is a fundamental good in and of itself. Even if games don’t change anything else in our lives, the power to change how we feel in the moment is a very good thing indeed.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Parents who spend more time playing games with their kids have better relationships with them
  • improve children’s ability to manage difficult emotions
  • Children who spend more time playing videogames score higher on tests of creativity.
  • Gamers of all ages perform better than non-gamers on tests of attention, speed, accuracy, and multi-tasking.
  • Scientists have found a wide variety of cognitive, emotional and social benefits to gaming
  • Is gameplay good for us?
  • Sean McHugh on 12 Feb 13
     
    Based on research not just opinion. What is it about games that is transcendent? Perhaps it's the fact that games are optional, they are obstacles that we volunteer to overcome. Games are what we choose to do. They are what we are drawn to when we have a choice about how to spend our time and energy.  Games are freedom.
  • Keri-Lee Beasley on 04 Mar 13
     
    Article with lots of links to research around the subject of games being good for us.
Louise Phinney

What the heck is your kid's teacher talking about? Here's a glossary. - The Washington ... - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...2-a050-b83a7b35c4b5_story.html

teacher talking glossary

shared by Louise Phinney on 17 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Louise Phinney on 17 Feb 13
     
    "What is new is the talk of "inclusion" and "self-regulation," "authentic assessment" and "DIBELS" and "scaffolding" and, no joke, "positive behavioral interventions and supports.""
Keri-Lee Beasley

Glean Comparison Search: An Information Literacy research tool to compare search result... - 1 views

www.gleancomparisonsearch.org

research search strategies searchengine digital_literacy technology

shared by Keri-Lee Beasley on 30 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Keri-Lee Beasley on 30 Oct 12
     
    A website that allows you to search for information comparing & contrasting differing viewpoints.
Keri-Lee Beasley

Handwriting Just Doesn't Matter - The New York Times - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...riting-just-doesnt-matter.html

handwriting typing technology literacy history uwcsea_east

shared by Keri-Lee Beasley on 22 Aug 16 - No Cached
Sean McHugh liked it
  • Perhaps, instead of proving that handwriting is superior to typing, it proves we need better note-taking pedagogy.
  • Many students now achieve typing automaticity — the ability to type without looking at the keys — at younger and younger ages, often by the fourth grade. This allows them to focus on higher-order concerns, such as rhetorical structure and word choice.
  • Some also argue that learning cursive teaches fine motor skills. And yet so did many other subjects that are arguably more useful, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry, and few are demanding the reintroduction of those classes
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Most students and adults write far more in a given day than they did just 10 or 20 years ago, choosing to write to one another over social media or text message instead of talking on the phone or visiting.
  • Because they achieve automaticity quicker on the keyboard, today’s third graders may well become better writers as handwriting takes up less of their education. Keyboards are a boon to students with fine motor learning disabilities, as well as students with poor handwriting, who are graded lower than those who write neatly, regardless of the content of their expressions. This is known as the “handwriting effect,” proved by Steve Graham at Arizona State, who found that “when teachers are asked to rate multiple versions of the same paper differing only in legibility, neatly written versions of the paper are assigned higher marks for overall quality of writing than are versions with poorer penmanship.” Typing levels the playing field.
  • In fact, the changes imposed by the digital age may be good for writers and writing.
  • The more one writes, the better a writer one becomes
  • The kids will be all right.
  • There will be no loss to our children’s intelligence. The cultural values we project onto handwriting will alter as we do, as they have for the past 6,000 years.
  • Keri-Lee Beasley on 22 Aug 16
     
    "Perhaps, instead of proving that handwriting is superior to typing, it proves we need better note-taking pedagogy."
Miles Beasley

RealClearHistory - Opinion, News, Analysis and Videos - 2 views

www.realclearhistory.com

history real_clear_history singapore_ww2 ww2 maps

shared by Miles Beasley on 15 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Miles Beasley on 15 Feb 12
     
    Found this on twitter!! Looks good
  • Miles Beasley on 15 Feb 12
     
    looks like a really good resource for history teachers
David Caleb

What Machines Can't Do - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...oks-what-machines-cant-do.html

machines nytimes nytimes com technology

shared by David Caleb on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • David Caleb on 14 Feb 14
     
    Things that we need people to do that machines can't
Keri-Lee Beasley

How to Get a Job at Google - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...ow-to-get-a-job-at-google.html

google employers leadership skills 21stCenturySkills technology

shared by Keri-Lee Beasley on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • intellectual humility
  • “They, instead, commit the fundamental attribution error, which is if something good happens, it’s because I’m a genius. If something bad happens, it’s because someone’s an idiot or I didn’t get the resources or the market moved.
  • . Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it).
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.
  • Keri-Lee Beasley on 25 Feb 14
     
    Very interesting article from NYTimes about what google looks for in its hiring.  I like the notion of "Intellectual Humility," and there are also some mindset info you might connect with too.
Katie Day

A 10 Year Checkup on Global Goals - NYTimes.com - 0 views

dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/...0-year-checkup-on-global-goals

global_concerns global united_nations future

shared by Katie Day on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Katie Day on 22 Sep 10
     
    "Ten years after the world's nations pledged to cut deeply into the problems afflicting the world's poor by 2015, a  Millennium Development Goals Summit is being held at the United Nations today through Wednesday to assess progress. The event overlaps with a batch of related meetings in New York City, including Climate Week and the Clinton Global Initiative."
Katie Day

Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE ... - 0 views

www.educause.edu/...213922

teaching attention howard_rheingold social_media literacy

shared by Katie Day on 18 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Howard Rheingold (howard@rheingold.com) is the author of Tools For Thought, The Virtual Community, Smart Mobs, and other books and is currently lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University.
  • I focus on five social media literacies: Attention Participation Collaboration Network awareness Critical consumption
  • lthough I consider attention to be fundamental to all the other literacies, the one that links together all the others, and although it is the one I will spend the most time discussing in this article, none of these literacies live in isolation.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Multitasking, or "continuous partial attention" as Linda Stone has called another form of attention-splitting, or "hyper attention" as N. Katherine Hayles has called another contemporary variant,2 are not necessarily bad alternatives to focused attention. It depends on what is happening in our own external and internal worlds at the moment.
  • As students become more aware of how they are directing their attention, I begin to emphasize the idea of using blogs and wikis as a means of connecting with their public voice and beginning to act with others in mind. Just because many students today are very good at learning and using online applications and at connecting and participating with friends and classmates via social media, that does not necessarily mean that they understand the implications of their participation within a much larger public.
  • ut how to participate in a way that's valuable to others as well as to yourself, I agree with Yochai Benkler, Henry Jenkins, and others that participating, even if it's no good and nobody cares, gives one a different sense of being in the world. When you participate, you become an active citizen rather than simply a passive consumer of what is sold to you, what is taught to you, and what your government wants you to believe. Simply participating is a start. (Note that I am not guaranteeing that having a sense of agency compels people to perform only true, good, and beautiful actions.)
  • I don't believe in the myth of the digital natives who are magically empowered and fluent in the use of social media simply because they carry laptops, they're never far from their phones, they're gamers, and they know how to use technologies. We are seeing a change in their participation in society—yet this does not mean that they automatically understand the rhetorics of participation, something that is particularly important for citizens.
  • Critical consumption, or what Ernest Hemingway called "crap detection," is the literacy of trying to figure out what and who is trustworthy—and what and who is not trustworthy—online. If you find people, whether you know them or not, who you can trust to be an authority on something or another, add them to your personal network. Consult them personally, consult what they've written, and consult their opinion about the subject.
  • Finally, crap detection takes us back, full circle, to the literacy of attention. When I assign my students to set up an RSS reader or a Twitter account, they panic. They ask how they are supposed to keep up with the overwhelming flood of information. I explain that social media is not a queue; it's a flow. An e-mail inbox is a queue, because we have to deal with each message in one way or another, even if we simply delete them. But no one can catch up on all 5,000 or so unread feeds in their RSS reader; no one can go back through all of the hundreds (or thousands) of tweets that were posted overnight. Using Twitter, one has to ask: "Do I pay attention to this? Do I click through? Do I open a tab and check it out later today? Do I bookmark it because I might be interested in the future?" We have to learn to sample the flow, and doing so involves knowing how to focus our attention.
Katie Day

Fighting Bullying With Babies - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...fighting-bullying-with-babies

bullying empathy babies schools students psychology

shared by Katie Day on 17 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • It seems that it’s not only possible to make people kinder, it’s possible to do it systematically at scale – at least with school children. That’s what one organization based in Toronto called Roots of Empathy has done. Around babies, tough kids smile, disruptive kids focus, shy kids open up. Roots of Empathy was founded in 1996 by Mary Gordon, an educator who had built Canada’s largest network of school-based parenting and family-literacy centers after having worked with neglectful and abusive parents. Gordon had found many of them to be lacking in empathy for their children. They hadn’t developed the skill because they hadn’t experienced or witnessed it sufficiently themselves. She envisioned Roots as a seriously proactive parent education program – one that would begin when the mothers- and fathers-to-be were in kindergarten.
  • Here’s how it works: Roots arranges monthly class visits by a mother and her baby (who must be between two and four months old at the beginning of the school year). Each month, for nine months, a trained instructor guides a classroom using a standard curriculum that involves three 40-minute visits – a pre-visit, a baby visit, and a post-visit. The program runs from kindergarten to seventh grade. During the baby visits, the children sit around the baby and mother (sometimes it’s a father) on a green blanket (which represents new life and nature) and they try to understand the baby’s feelings. The instructor helps by labeling them. “It’s a launch pad for them to understand their own feelings and the feelings of others,” explains Gordon. “It carries over to the rest of class.”
  • Katie Day on 17 Nov 10
     
    how bringing babies into schools can help students develop empathy... and lessen bullying and aggression.... 
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