Paper Circuitry Illuminates ‘Writing as Making’ There has been a great deal of buzz lately about "making" and production-centered learning. As a professor of literature and writing, I have been enthusiastic about the role "making" might play in the classroom. (Even those classrooms or courses that don't inherently seem to lend themselves to making in the most obvious sense.) But the truth is, this new found enthusiasm is sometimes an uphill march. On July 9, the National Writing Project and the Educator Innovator network helped launch "Hack Your Notebook Day," which featured a special writing-engineering-art "make" challenge. Could this artful hands-on approach to writing serve pedagogic goals in any significant way? What was intriguing during the "Hack Your Notebook Day" was the transformative power of this work. What a revelation to consider the palpable frustration we experienced when we couldn't make the circuits work (and the feeling of rising failure that might overcome us if we couldn't make it work). #1. #2. #3. #4. #5.
Escape Google With These 12 Search Engine Alternatives - SEW As concerns over the de facto monopoly status of Google continue to grow, I'm reminded of the great philosopher Herman Cain and his infamous line "blame yourself". As long as "Google" is a generic phrase for Internet search, their dominant position is assured. That said, you can do something about it. There are plenty of Google alternatives and many of these players offer a better search experience, depending on your needs. Step 1: Bing If you're a digital marketer using advanced search operators, then use Bing for these queries. LinkFromDomain: There are any number of tools that can give you inbound link data. Feed: Finds RSS or Atom feeds pertaining to the term you specify. Contains: Returns search results that have links to the file types that you specify. Near: Useful for spotting patterns. Step 2: Blekko If you hate spam and love slashtags, then use Blekko. Step 3: Boardreader If you're looking for a simple way to search forums and boards, then Boardreader is for you. Step 4: BuzzSumo 11.
How To Help Your Students Embrace Failure through Game-based Learning How To Help Your Students Embrace Failure Through Game-Based Learning By Justin W. Marquis, Ph.D. Whether our students fear the dark, monsters, heights, some other imagined horror, or something more real such as family troubles or bullying, everyone is afraid of something. For students in our schools those fears probably include something that is an inherent part of our society and our educational system – failure. In our society the fear of failure pervades everything we do in our work, our relationships, and in education. The movement to incorporate games and game-based learning in our schools is gaining momentum, but another fear prevents educators from fully realizing the full potential of game-based learning. One way of overcoming these fears, and thus helping students to learn from their failures, is to develop an understanding for how to actually use games in the classroom, and how to take advantage of the failure process that they rely on. 1. 2. 3.
From Dickens to 9/11: Exploring Graphic Nonfiction to Support the Secondary-School Curriculum | The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults By Barbara J. Guzzetti, Professor, Arizona State University and Marcia A. Mardis, Associate Professor, Florida State University Abstract Graphic nonfiction has been under-researched for content-area instruction, yet these hybrid texts may motivate reluctant readers as they blend elements of art, journalism, and scholarship. This study aimed to determine the appeal and utility of graphic nonfiction for teaching content concepts. Introduction Recognizing the need to motivate adolescents, researchers have recommended using multiple texts for content instruction (Stahl and Shanahan 2004). In considering multiple texts for content instruction, graphic nonfiction has been underused and under-researched (Lapp et al. 2012). Yet graphic nonfiction may help to reach goals for learning in both language arts and social studies and may be the most appropriate resource for doing so. <h1>Purpose</h1> Theoretical Framework Literature Review Methods Data Collection Data Analysis Findings Cross-Text Analysis.
Crowdsourcing as a Class with Blogger The first few days of school can be a bit of a blur for students who are bombarded with syllabi and class rules. One of the ways I like to break the cycle of “sit and get” that first week of school is to use a crowdsourcing activity to put the responsibility of establishing expectations on my students. Instead of telling them what I expect, I ask them questions like: What would make this class feel like a community? My students have been in school for 10 years by the time they get to my class, so they have a pretty good idea of what makes a classroom a welcoming and safe community. The second day of school, I asked them to discuss what they thought was polite versus rude when engaging in different forms of communication. The challenge is that I don’t have enough wall space or white board to capture all of their incredible ideas. Instead of crowdsourcing on the board, which is temporary, students post their ideas directly to our class blog. Using Blogger to Crowdsource You’re all set!
How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes: Lessons in Mindfulness and Creativity from the Great Detective by Maria Popova “A man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.” “The habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts,” wrote James Webb Young in his famous 1939 5-step technique for creative problem-solving, “becomes of the highest importance in the production of ideas.” Bridging ample anecdotes from the adventures of Conan Doyle’s beloved detective with psychology studies both classic and cutting-edge, Konnikova builds a compelling case at the intersection of science and secular spiritualism, stressing the power of rigorous observation alongside a Buddhist-like, Cageian emphasis on mindfulness. The idea of mindfulness itself is by no means a new one. But mindfulness, and the related mental powers it bestows upon its master, is a skill acquired with grit and practice, rather than an in-born talent or an easy feat attained with a few half-hearted tries: The Holmes solution? Donating = Loving
Appendix B, What's an Exemplar? - CORElaborate Chris Gustafson A couple of years into work with the Common Core State Standards, there’s still confusion around the purpose of Appendix B: Text exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks. Bloggers still criticize the lack of current texts listed – what’s with all those public domain choices? Tweeters are alarmed about districts who are taking items from the examplars list, purchasing class sets, and using them as the basis of their curriculum. A lot of the controversy around Appendix B of the Common Core State Standards could have been avoided by applying some close reading strategies. The following text samples primarily serve to exemplify the level of complexity and quality that the Standards require all students in a given grade band to engage with. The words that catch my eye are “exemplify,” “suggestive,” and “guideposts.” So why do districts and schools continue to skim the first paragraph, read on down to the materials list, and copy and paste it into their book orders?
Open Access: New York Public Library Makes 20,000 Hi-Res Maps Available Online, Free to Download and Use It’s a big day for map geeks! Here’s news about a new and large treasure chest of map content that is also free to download (hi-res) and use. Enjoy! From the NYPL: The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division is very proud to announce the release of more than 20,000 cartographic works as high resolution downloads. Some of What You’ll Find 1,100 maps of the Mid-Atlantic United States and cities from the 16th to 19th centuries, mostly drawn from the Lawrence H. How to Access the Maps Learn More About Map Warper Here and Here The full blog post has more about some of the projects that digitized these as well as this disclaimer about there use: The maps may be subject to rights of privacy, rights of publicity and other restrictions. Kudos to Matt Knutzen for his intro blog post as well as the two other informative posts (linked above) about Map Warper.
How 21st Century Learning Fits Into The Common Core At a time when many teachers and parents (and students!) can feel overwhelmed by the seeming overabundance of standardized tests and educational standards more generally, it falls to the teacher to help the students and parents understand how all of this fits into the larger picture of what students will need to know and be able to do to be successful in the future. This means helping them understand how educational standards fit into 21st century learning, a concept that to many seems contradictory. The handy infographic below takes a look at how the common core standards can be pathways to success in the 21st century (though obviously they are not the only path, just a part of it). The left side of the poster with the blue background explores six 21st century skills that teachers are helping students develop through their teaching with the standards. 21st Century Skills Taught via CCSS The CCSS teach students to be: Must-Have 21st Century College and Career Skills
Puzzling “How many hours a day do you write?” is one of the most frequent questions I encounter when I speak at schools. That’s a tricky one to answer when you write nonfiction. The truth is, because research is such a major part of the process of creating nonfiction, nonfiction authors may go weeks or months without writing, and yet we’re working all the time. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of emptying and solving our family’s wooden tray puzzles. In my teen years, I returned to puzzling, but this time they were the 500-piece cardboard variety. Many years later, after I became an author, I realized I could not have found a better way to prepare my mind for a life of research and writing. But the picture—that’s the one difference between puzzling and authoring. I’m in the puzzling phase of a project right now. How many hours a day do I write?
How a Shoe Can Teach Responsibility How a Shoe Can Teach Responsibility By Marjan Glavac closeAuthor: Marjan Glavac Name: Marjan GlavacSite: Marjan is currently a gr.6 home room teacher at Wilfrid Jury Public School in London, Ontario, Canada where he resides with his wife and two children. thebusyeducator.com A number of years ago a first year teacher asked me for some help. He told me that his students took all his pencils. They took all his glue bottles. And his class set of scissors. He was angry, frustrated and hurt. “These students have no sense of responsibility,” he told me. I agreed with him. I told him they needed to be taught how to be responsible. “And how do I do that?” “Ask for a shoe,” I said. “How does a shoe teach students responsibility?” I told him in my first year of teaching, I heard a presentation by Barbara Coloroso. She gave an example of asking for a shoe when a student borrowed something. I adapted her idea to teach students about financial responsibility. “Exactly”. Try it.
The Nonfiction Detectives: Determining Nonfiction Writing Styles Today I had the pleasure of co-moderating a School Library Journal webcast with my friend, Amy Koester from The Show Me Librarian blog. The webcast focused on using nonfiction series in schools and public libraries, and we heard about new books from Scholastic, Gale, and Reference Point Press. Visit The Show Me Librarian Blog for programming ideas related to the titles mentioned in the webcast. If you missed today's webcast, you may view the archive on the SLJ site. While Amy and I were sharing our ideas about recent trends in nonfiction series, I mentioned different nonfiction writing styles. Expository The information is presented in a straight-forward manner. Narrative The information is presented as a story. Descriptive The author describes the topic in great detail using rich language so that readers may picture it in their minds. Persuasive The author presents the information in a manner that will sway readers to think a certain way about a topic. Poetic
10 Timely Tips for the First Days of School 10 Timely Tips for the First Days of School By Harry K. & Rosemary Wong closeAuthor: Harry K. & Rosemary Wong Name: Harry K. & Rosemary WongSite: About: See Authors Posts (7) From the archives… Extracted from the original article. How well you begin school with an organized, consistent, and well managed classroom will determine your success and your students’ success for the rest of the school year. BEGINNING NEEDS OF STUDENTS. Comment on this article... This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2014 and is filed under *ISSUES, August 2014, Harry Wong, Newsdesk.