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Showing posts from August, 2012

3 Ways to Give Yourself a Lift

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My husband says teachers are paratroopers, we're sent in and are surrounded. It is so true. Photo credit: BigStock At 6pm I was completely and utterly oblivious to the world. Asleep. I woke up this morning at 4:30 am still tired. Yesterday I was trying to explain the difference between the business world and teaching to a friend and the best way I can explain it is this. Teaching is like living at a conference. You're on the trade show talking to people every day for at least 5 hours - as well as teaching classes about how to do things. But imagine this, during your lunch, the conventioneers often liked to hit, tease, and poke each other, so you have to eat quickly in a place where you can see them. Then, when you do get time to yourself, it is in an office where people come in and out borrowing tape, scissors, and asking questions. Finally, when the convention is over, two or three hours later, you will be alone only to have a random person come in and want to talk for...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/31/2012

Shmoop Essay Lab: Start Here Shmoop has a free Essay lab to help students write. They do have a college essay "tweaker" to help you with that s well. I'm not sure how that works, but certainly for kids who struggle, it might be a good option. tags: education engchat news literature_teacher ICT-in-Education Online Community • View topic - UNESCO Policy Guidelines on Mobile Learning UNESCO is in the process of developing a set of policy guidelines for mobile learning aimed at high-level policy makers. To create guidelines that are practical, informative and balanced, they are seeking input from the public. Please consider reviewing and providing input on the guidelines. http://ict.unescobkk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=57603 Public comment will close on 2 Septemb...

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 08/30/2012

The Teacher’s Survival Kit for Lesson Planning! Tips & 1000s of Free Lesson Plans : Teacher Reboot Camp Excellent post from Shelly Terrell about lesson planning and where to find free lesson plans. She's a fantastic sharer and collaborator online. tags: education teaching lessonplans QFI / WeVideo Behind the Scenes - YouTube Looking at Wevideo, a tool that I'm going to be testing with students that allows students to edit video together. This is great. tags: education video teaching news flatclass Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here .

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 08/29/2012

PodOmatic | Best Free Podcasts Podomatic has a new free fast tool called "minicast" where you create a slideshow with photos and videos.  tags: education audio teaching edapp eduapp Welcome to Fotobabble - Talking Photos Create talking photos and slideshows. tags: education teaching edapp Online Audio Editor - Aviary.com's Myna Aviary has so many great tools including Myna, a collaborative audio editor. tags: education audio teaching flatclass edu_newapp ...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/29/2012

WeVideo - Collaborative Online Video Editor in the Cloud A fascinating way that allows you to shoot and upload video that is integrated with Google drive. While there is a free version, there are also paid versions for higher capacity requirements. This allows online video editing and easy sharing with social media. This may be the resource we've been looking for collaborative video editing. Eager to try. tags: education news teaching video edu_newapp edapp Publicity Germany - Flat Classroom Conference Information on the Flat Classroom conference in Germany December 6-8, 2012. We have incredible speakers in this Flattened environment where students and educators learn about and envision the future of education on a level PBL-bas...

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 08/28/2012

Three Collaborative Google Earth Projects » Random Connections I love these simple (although older) projects that you can use to integrate Google Earth into your classrooms. Most of them involve presentations, but I love what they are doing. tags: education teaching Publicity Germany - Flat Classroom Conference Information on the Flat Classroom conference in Germany December 6-8, 2012. We have incredible speakers in this Flattened environment where students and educators learn about and envision the future of education on a level PBL-based conferencing style. (We talk about this in Chapter 11 of our book Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds.) You leave transformed with friendships and ready to flatten your classroom. Once you go flat you never go back! tags: educat...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/28/2012

7 lessons educators can learn from the Urban Outfitters PR disaster | 21st Century Collaborative An excellent story about how Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach's daughter, Amber, became part of a viral story. This is an excellent example of how social media influence can allow students to become activists. tags: education news socialmedia Mapping Media to the Curriculum » What do you want to CREATE today? Wes Fryer has created an excellent resource mapping media to the curriculum that starts off with what you want to create today. This is a fantastic resource to share. tags: education news teaching evernote #tlchat live & get ready for more Café « NeverEnd...

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 08/27/2012

Teachers Make a Difference | Teach.com A new website about teaching and how to become a teacher. tags: education teaching Mapping Media to the Curriculum » What do you want to CREATE today? Wes Fryer has created an excellent resource mapping media to the curriculum that starts off with what you want to create today. This is a fantastic resource to share. tags: education news teaching evernote Crowdsourcing Fifty (or so) ways to leave your paper: « NeverEndingSearch Excellent post on 50 ways to leave paper in the classroom from Joyce Valenza. tags: education teaching ...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/26/2012

Teacher Drew O'Conner wins an iPad for sharing and aligning 30 lessons This set of lessons includes some very popular lessons using fairy tales. All of them are aligned with the Common Core and you can download and share them. The Share My lesson site is giving away a free ipad to the "best sharer" each week. This is a great thing to do as we share with others and help with common core alignment, so join in. tags: education news commoncore ccchat Education vs experience | Opinion | .net magazine This type of article is continuing to proliferate as people question a textbook non-reality based degree happening in many universities. One of the things that made Georgia Tech unique when I was there was how many real-world experiences and projects students were required to do - o...

Laugh and learn

"Mrs. Vicki, stay at the front of the class, I love to watch you laugh." The others chimed in, "Yes, we love it when you laugh." We had a few minutes at the end of class the other day and my students wanted to see a funny video I often quote ("need more cowbell" SNL skit with Will Ferrell.) They begged and because they'd had such a good week, I said ok. (When we have a problem we can't figure out, I'll say -- 'I got a fever, and the only cure is more cowbell.' We then laugh, and move on to figure it out. I know it is strange, but I call it my 'culture lessons' so they can communicate w/ me.) Then, as I started it and began to move to the back of the class, that was when they begged me to stay at the front. I did. It struck me that I do laugh - quite a bit - but that my students "love it" when I laugh. They love it when they laugh. Your students love it when you laugh. Laughter and learning are good friends. While usu...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/24/2012

Middle School (Grades 6-8) Activities, Lesson Plans, Educational Worksheets & Handouts - Share My Lesson Over 54,000 Common Core aligned middle school lesson plans shared for free over at share my lesson. Whether you use Common core or not, you might want to head over and share (or find) lessons for that emergency or when you want new ideas. tags: education news commoncore Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Paperless as Possible: 3 trees in a year I am still using Dropbox and love it as part of my "paperless as possible" classroom. tags: education dropbox news Holt Think: Ed, Creativity, Tech, Administration With graphics like this, social media has...

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/22/2012

for the love of learning: Limits of Time on Task Joe Bower reposts an Alfie Kohn post about the time on task and whether it really means kids are learning. Great read. "Let’s look at the research a little more closely. The amount of time a student spends on a task “is not so consistently related to achievement as it may seem,” one scholar concluded from her review of several studies on the subject. “Time is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for learning. Learning takes time, but providing time does not in itself ensure that learning will take place. More time may result in more learning – if [lack of] adequate time was the major cause of the problem in the first place. If other factors were the real cause, then providing more time will not be an effective strategy.”[2]" tags: education news research tumblr ...

Innovative Teachers-Share Your Genius by Eric Williams, Superintendent

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This guest post was written by Eric Williams, Superintendent of the York County School Division in Virginia. Eric tweets as @ewilliams65 and blogs at http://promotingstudentengagement.blogspot.com/ . (Note from Vicki: My dear friend Angela Maiers came running over to me at Microsoft's Partners in Learning teacher forum and said, 'You've got to meet Eric, he's something special. I agree.) The world needs your unique talents and insights for engaging students in work that matters. Understanding and acting on this truth, as championed by Angela Maiers , can change the world. You are a teacher who understands the importance of giving students opportunities to make a difference locally, nationally, or globally. The teachers at Microsoft’s recent Partners in Learning Forum in the United States (#PILUS) understand too. ( See a list of all winners .) I had the pleasure of judging at this event. Here are two examples of #PILUS teachers and the projects they pr...

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 08/21/2012

Free Virtual Classroom Premium Membership for Academicians on WizIQ "All teachers working at educational institutions (K-12, College or University) are eligible for our free membership. You'll get features equivalent to our Solo Pro Premium account, completely free!" If you want an online classroom, you can get one now from WIZiq for free. (Full disclosure, they do advertise on my blog.) tags: education news teaching iPad Competition Winner - Resources - Share My Lesson If you share the most quality lessons on the Share my lesson website, you can win an ipad. tags: education teaching sharemylesson tumblr Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here...

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 08/20/2012

History What was it like for children to live in the Second World War - Resources - Share My Lesson This is a set of 12 lessons about what it was like for children to live in the second world war. I love this set of lessons because it builds empathy and helps teach the story of world war 2 from a child's perspective. tags: history history_teacher ww2 sschat teaching 9/11 Handouts - Resources - Share My Lesson The first handout on this page is a good overview of the timeline of 9/11. tags: history history_teacher sept11 teaching education Writing Film Review - World Trade Centre - Resources - Share My Lesson ...

54 Teaching and Lesson Plan Ideas for History Teachers #sschat

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World War I Medallion (Photo credit: elycefeliz ) Since I've recently given a set of my curated plans for math teachers, English teachers and general common core standards (see end of this post), I thought I'd share some lessons for history teachers. If you're a history teacher and not following #sschat on Twitter, you should. History What was it like for children to live in the Second World War - Resources - Share My Lesson This is a set of 12 lessons about what it was like for children to live in the second world war. I love this set of lessons because it builds empathy and helps teach the story of world war 2 from a child's perspective. tags: history history_teacher ww2 sschat teaching Writing Film Review - World Trade Centre - Resources - Share My Lesson September 11 is coming up. While it is still very hard for many of us to even talk about this day, we have a who...