Webheads

This page shows how a student website can be created and maintained. The topic is "digital health and wellness" or "digital citizenship" but can be revised and improvised on for other topics. The plan shows how teams are created, expectations for individuals within the team, grading, tasks, etc. Great lesson planning for a problem-based learning experience. T/H to J. Brueck on Diigo in Education.

"The U.S. Library of Congress offers a wealth of fantastic online resources for teachers and students. A quick jump into the teachers resource page will lead you to things like these primary source analysis guides that I have used with students in the past. The LOC also offers a couple of good iOS apps that are worth noting." Shows how various apps can be used with the teachers' resource pages at the U.S. Library of Congress. Great authentic materials for research papers and projects. H/T to R. Byrne

This article has a nice video that shows a teacher in class explaining copyright and fair use to students using a document linked from the article. I tend to disagree that teachers making multiple copies for classroom use is a "fair use," however. Always check what the author says, and use Creative Commons if you don't want your ideas ripped off without permission.

A really nice collection of graphic organizers and literacy strategies tools as well, some online, some in blackline reproducibles. Take advantage of these tools to work with literature and other types of reading.

This is a jumbled collection, but links to a few interesting new things, such as Incredibox, which allows you create music, record, share, and download your composition.

"If we hope to construct enduring understanding in our students, it's critical that, now more than ever, we know their strengths and interests. By incorporating students' strengths and weakness into authentic learning experiences from the beginning of each unit, while at the same time including opportunities for feedback, metacognition and revision, we promote a variety of cognitive and emotional benefits that can lead to academic success. " A thoughtful description of ways to successfully integrate learner feedback into the assessment process.

You can upload PowerPoint or pdf files and add your audio and/or webcam visuals. Might be useful to advanced students in creating presentations.

if the expectation is that MOOC participants will remix and repurpose information they find through their MOOC connections or on the Web, plagiarism and scholarly integrity may become a concern. Plagiarism was not an issue in FSLT12, but has been noted in some xMOOCs (Daniel, 2012).

Dr. Nellie Deutsch in conversation with Gina Bianchini in WizIQ

The paper concludes that while there are some preliminary positives about online PLC's, educators' thinking about online PLC's has not moved beyond the scope of traditional PLC's. In other words, more time will be required to truly evaluate their impact, but in the meantime, blended traditional and online PLC's seem to offer the most promise.

Read a summary of the report or the full report at:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=368 This link is not working as I post this, so I need to check back later

Audrey Watters writes an interesting article here ranging from apocalypse to rapture to singularity and taking in MOOCs in the process and distilling all that to just ten universities, which is what Sebastian Thrun there will be 50 years from now.

very good website with definitions!

This article goes a long way to debunk the myths perpetrated by Gardner and the brain-based learning movement. Once again, Schools of Education have fallen for the mythical. "So let's reiterate: A "learning style" curriculum won't affect the way you learn. You don't only use half of your brain, so being taught to your "left-brain" or "right-brain" won't help you, either. Fiddling with an iPhone app? Unlikely. "What might affect how you learn? The types of things you've learned before. "It's not so much based upon how the brain is structured," Alferink says, "it's based upon our experiences." So if you're not a very strong reader, for example, you probably won't learn very well by reading. "Our experiences do affect brain development," he says. "The wiring of the brain depends upon the experiences we have." "And as for the validity of "brain-based" education techniques - that term should really apply to all teaching. After all, Alferink says, "all education is brain-based. It is impossible to learn without a brain.""

"Discover, purchase, and share educational apps, books, and videos easily with Google Play for Education - a new online destination just for schools." Browse content by grade, subject, or standard; purchase with school PO (no credit card required); distribute apps via cloud. This page also shows how to set up tables to allow use of content and to find approved apps.

R. Byrne: "Wikispaces recently added a Quizlet widget to the library of widgets that you can embed into your Wikispaces pages. Quizlet is a free flashcard service that anyone can use to create and share flashcards. Quizlet offers a massive library of flashcard sets created and shared by other users of the service. And now you can search for Quizlet flashcards, embed them into your wiki, and use four different study modes while those cards are embedded into your wiki. The screenshots below provide directions for adding Quizlet to your Wikispaces wiki." Quizlet can handle various types of media, so it makes for interesting flashcards. This step-by-step visual explanation makes the embedding task easy; creating the flashcards at Quizlet takes some work and thought.

This is a great creative app for iPhone or Android to create up 1-hr-long videos for YouTube. Your students can make shorter videos on their mobiles, then upload and splice them together.

This is BBC's short science videos page. You can find all kinds of topics on physicas, the brain, biology, genetics, etc. Very helpful stuff for use in classes or flipped classrooms. Thanks to R.Byrne's blog.

One teacher explains how to teach thinking skills. A nice build up, e.g., from concepts to topic sentences, observation to finding patterns and drawing conclusions. Starts with magazine advertising as a short path to larger works. Points to intersection with Common Core targets.

Kids may be inspired to learn more -- reading, writing, planning, creativity -- when inspired by lessons in how to make games. The site has a weekly "feature" and lots of tutorials.