This video was created by Tom Woodward of Henrico County schools in Virginia. Tom used the work of Karl Fisch from Colorado who created a PPT using various quotes and statistics from "flat world" thinking. Used with permission
The Canadian pop prince has teamed up with Pencils of Promise to launch Schools 4 All, a project to provide an education to some 75 million children across the world who don’t have access to it.
We seem to be setting ourselves up for disaster education. Efforts are underway not only to adopt value-added models to rate the effectiveness of individual teachers, but to use these models to identify those at the very bottom who might later lose their positions and those at the very top who might then be eligible for merit pay. Yet in all the policy discussions and public commentary, there's been little focus on learners and on how, precisely, we define the qualities of a good teacher.
The movement to revise methods for teacher evaluation to include such models came about in an effort to undermine current evaluation systems that tend to rate most teachers as satisfactory (Hull, 2011). => http://bit.ly/ka9Fzo
America’s most popular teacher doesn’t work at Harvard University or a fancy prep school. In fact, he doesn’t work in a school at all, but his lessons have been viewed more than 56 million times. Salman Khan, a former hedge fund manager, is the founder of Khan Academy, a free online learning platform with a library of more than 2,300 videos covering everything from basic algebra and differential equations to the Vietnam War. -> http://bit.ly/keWFgT
Tell Your Neighbors About Patch Walk into the third grade classroom at Westmark School and you’ll see every student sliding their little fingers across an iPad, Apple’s popular tablet computer. They learn fractions through brightly colored, jungle themed pie charts. They study the periodic table of elements in an interactive, visually rich interface. They ask their iPads how to spell and define words. They practice cursive writing through a tracing app and follow along in their Mr. Popper’s Penguins books as their iPads read the text aloud. It’s all part of Westmark’s iPad pilot program. The private 3rd- through 12th-grade school in Encino, which serves students with “learning differences” such as dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and comprehension difficulties, is using the new technology to cater to students’ educational needs.
http://bit.ly/iFtNE9
Reluctant Disciplinarian: Advice on Classroom Management From a Softy who Became (Eventually) a Successful Teacher
by Gary Rubinstein
As Rubinstein details his transformation from incompetent to successful teacher, he shows what works and what doesn't work when managing a classroom.
... the increasing importance of informal learning, and the challenge it poses to traditional learning
The powerpoint slides are here => http://bit.ly/lIMYSe
The presentation is here => http://bit.ly/kjmF4h
‘Physically active learning’ improves test scores, sharpens concentration
Advocates point to a growing body of research linking physical activity to cognitive ability
Some experts believe that physical learning could pay serious dividends in the classroom.
Tabatha Gayle crab-walked across the classroom last week, racing two other students to a pile of papers listing different diseases, set in the middle of the floor in Ms. Forcucci’s health class.
While her teammates cheered, Tabatha picked up a piece of paper and scuttled it over to the whiteboard, dropping it into one of five pathogen categories lined up there. Then she ran back to the team, laughing.
Amanda Forcucci’s class at Hamden High School in Hamden, Conn., is doing something called “physically active learning” in the classroom. The idea is to get kids up and moving around during regular academic classes to improve their ability to concentrate.
“It’s fun, and moving around actually will help me remember the types of pathogens,” said Tabatha, 15. “Plus it helped me to get out of a bad mood.”
http://bit.ly/lbgQvL
Rewrite, add, delete, repeat. This is the cycle of school policies on technology. Or at least it should be. Policies need to adapt to the changing times. For School administrators and technology directors/CIO’s adapting to changing times is an important component to a strong leadership for educational technology use (Nets-A) It is the time of year when many schools are updating policies for the upcoming school year. Technology Polices are particularly susceptible to change. Quite simply, new technology forces us to re-imagine classroom environment with the innovations added in.
http://bit.ly/metcvF
Study Blue is a very handy study tool for high-school and college students that works the way they do. Students can use it to store notes and create flashcards. Study materials are then accessible anywhere that students have an internet connection and even from their phone. Best of all, it is free to sign up and get started! Study Blue helps students study more efficiently by keeping track of what students have already mastered, and what they still need work on. => http://bit.ly/jHdDvT
