MSM 300:  Firefox says, “Hello!” to a Teacher’s Day.

Jokes You Can Use:

A man got hit in the head with a can of Coke, but he was alright because it was a soft drink.

 

A man gets pulled over by the police for speeding. The cop walks up to the car and says to the driver, “Sir, did you know that you were going 60 miles an hour?” The driver says, “Officer, there is no way I could have been going 60 miles an hour!” The cop says, “Really! Why is that? The driver replies,” I could not have been going 60 miles an hour because I’ve only been out driving for 25 minutes.”

 

Q: What do you call a line of rabbits walking backwards?

A: A receding hairline!

 

Officer to driver going the wrong way up a one way street. “And where do you think you are going?”

Driver: – “I’m not sure, but I must be late as everyone else is coming back.”

 

Did you hear about the red ship and the blue ship that collided?

The survivors were marooned.

A fellow was telling his buddies that in the evenings, he goes out and drinks and carries on with women, but always goes back home by 8:00 O’clock.

He describes it as “sin till 8 ting”

 

Eileen Award:

  • Twitter: Keith O’Neil, Rob Actis

 

Advisory:

Dan Pink Videos

A variety of videos.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLivjPDlt6ApSiVoVJVXswIQYCfEj-UEDR

 

Diets Around the World

15 people and the food they eat for a day.

http://twentytwowords.com/diets-from-around-the-world/

 

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

Deforestation

 

I was recently reading the January, 2015 issue of “Science Scope,” a magazine written for middle school science teachers, published by the National Science Teachers Association.

 

In this issue, I read an article written by Robert Liftig, Adjunct Professor, Department of Ethics, Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut.  He shares his thoughts on deforestation and how we can instill in our students a sense of collective responsibility to work toward conservation, restoration, and preservation of species, habitats, and resources.

http://k12science.net/Podcast/Podcast/Entries/2015/2/13_Middle_School_Science_Minute-Deforestation.html

 

From the Twitterverse:

Melinda D. Anderson ‏@mdawriter

Debunked: Those delicious-looking photos of school lunches from around the world are totally fake http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/02/school-lunch-around-the-world-photos …

WeAreTeachers ‏@WeAreTeachers

Test prep tips for vocabulary plus flash-card templates! http://ow.ly/Jrv6h  #30daysvocab #edchat

Scorebusters ‏@Scorebusters

David Knuffke: How Do Other Nations, States Evaluate Their Teachers? http://dianeravitch.net/2015/02/25/david-knuffke-how-do-other-nations-states-evaluate-their-teachers/ … @DianeRavitch
https://medium.com/@davidknuffke/who-rates-teachers-this-way-e1758db02655

Yong Zhao ‏@YongZhaoUO

New Research Shows That Teaching Preschoolers More and More, at Ever-Younger Ages, May Backfire http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top … via @slate

MiddleWeb ‏@middleweb

MWSmartBrief: Curr Dev in CC states; 58 Reasons for teachers to write; making personal connections w/Ss. http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/gyxCCdwpfbCNpbxeCidWgdCicNhDVG?format=standard … @amle @naesp

Secondary Principals ‏@massp

Can students opt-out of standardized testing? @LuskAlbertson | Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals http://mymassp.com/content/opting_out_standardized_testing …

#mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.  And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!”

 

Strategies:

9 Guaranteed Ways To Become A Public Speaking Master

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/9-guaranteed-ways-become-public-speaking-master.html

http://www.friedtechnology.com/2014/12/updated-student-choice-continuum.html

Movie Trailer Listening Lessons

I think movie trailers are an amazingly powerful media for use in the classroom. They are dramatic, motivating and short enough for intensive practice and assuring that students don’t get bored/lost.

Here’s one really easy and standard way to use movie trailers in your classroom.  Took me all of 10 minutes to put this lesson together – honestly!”

http://ddeubel.edublogs.org/2015/02/19/movie-trailer-listening-lessons/

 

Resources:

FireFox “Hello”

As easy as saying hello

Meet Firefox Hello, the easiest way to connect for free over video with anyone, anywhere.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/hello/

 

WeVideo

“WeVideo is the leading online video creation platform for video editing, collaboration, and sharing across any device.”

Use WeVideo on all devices – mobile, tablets, laptops, Chromebooks & desktop computers. Students can create from computers both at school and at home … as well as on their smartphone from anywhere.

https://www.wevideo.com/

A Teacher’s Day

A teachers day is like no others. Having worked in the business world prior to going into teaching I understand this but doubt few who have never taught can imagine just how different a teachers day is to that in any other industry.

http://sweattoinspire.com/2015/02/23/a-teachers-day/

Google Science Fair

Due: May 19.

https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/

https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/how-to-enter?id=insert_how-to-enter_1

 

Web Spotlight:

Google Docs Update

Better Headers/Footers. Better page numbering.

https://plus.google.com/+GoogleDocs/posts/TovBH2EPCpL

 

Why would students feel valued at school?

Without having seen the exact survey questions, here are some quick reactions Dr. McLeod has to these data…

  • Why on earth would students say they feel valued at school? In most schools, students are told what to do nearly every minute of every school day, are generally treated as passive recipients of whatever adults foist on them, have their thoughts and opinions routinely and blatantly ignored or dismissed when it comes to day-to-day operations, and are punished whenever they deviate from organizational compliance structures. The number of schools in which students have significant input into things that actually matter is miniscule. But, hey, it’s all about the kids and we care.
  • Kids are bored. Gallup boredom data reinforce the Quaglia boredom data, as do the tidal waves of anecdotes from anyone you want to ask about their school experience. But we don’t seem to care enough to do anything about it.
  • Everyone’s a learner, everyone’s a teacher. Online we exist within interconnected, interdependent webs of learning and teaching. But not in school.

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2015/02/why-would-students-feel-valued-at-school.html

 

Random Thoughts . . .

Personal Web Site

 

MSM 299: Silly Pie Charts, Bein’ a Rube-ric, and Advisory, Advisory, Advisory!!

Jokes You Can Use:

The teacher said; “Take a pencil and paper, and write an essay with the title ‘If I Were a Millionaire.’” Everyone but Joe, who leaned back with arms folded, began to write feverishly.

“What’s the matter,” the teacher asked. “Why don’t you begin?”

“I’m waiting for my secretary,” Joe replied.

What's Wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong with this picture?

Toilet Sign

Well, this narrows it down!

 

After a hard day of drilling, the drill sergeant let the troops go. “All right, you idiots, report to the mess hall.” Everybody walked away, sweating and their heads down, thankful for the end of the hard day. Only one private remained. He looked at the officer and sincerely said, “Boy, there sure were a lot of them, huh, serge.”

 

There once was a dog named Tax. I opened the door and income Tax.

 

 

Eileen Award:

  • Twitter: Luke Iorio
  • Google+:  Jennifer Lipson
  • Email:  Sierra Bishop

 

Advisory:

3D Drawing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pabS7JpDPo

 

10 Famous Failures Who Turned Out OK

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-famous-failures-that-will-inspire-you-success.html

 

Neuroplasticity

Watch video. Have students reflect on how they have changed a habit. Have each student develop a list of habits that they would like change/develop. Then have them pick one habit to actually change and develop a plan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpfYCZa87g

 

Stacked Ball Drop

Replicate in your school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UHS883_P60#t=22

 

The 60 Silliest Pie Charts

http://twentytwowords.com/ultimate-list-of-funny-pie-charts/

 

Kids try breakfast from around the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGjeaHe7GkY#t=13

 

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

HAND AND POWER TOOL SAFETY

 

I was recently reading the December, 2014 issue of “Science Scope,” a magazine written for middle school science teachers, published by the National Science Teachers Association.

 

In this issue, I read an article entitled “Scope on Safety” which includes the Science Safety Question of the Month.  The article is written by Ken Roy, Director of Environmental Science for the Glastonbury, Connecticut Public Schools.  This month’s question is:

“I have little experience in working with hand and power tools but have been assigned a STEM class that requires their use.  Is there a resource available to help me review hand- and power-tool safety?”

 

http://k12science.net/Podcast/Podcast/Entries/2015/1/23_Middle_School_Science_Minute-Hand_and_Power_Tool_Safety.html

 

From the Twitterverse:

John Spencer ‏@edrethink

Q2: What are things that teachers can do to get through the February slump? #randomedchat (btw you can’t answer “drink whiskey”)

Jennie Magiera ‏@MsMagiera

YouTube to launch kid-friendly Android app on Feb. 23 http://mashable.com/2015/02/20/youtube-kids-android/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfN3B2eWNydWQyaTZ4ZjVmZyJ9 … via @mashable

Diane Ravitch ‏@DianeRavitch

Indiana Superintendent to Parents: Home-School Your Children During Testing Week http://wp.me/p2odLa-9FU

Education Nation ‏@educationnation

Cabin Fever? Activities to Keep Kids Busy While Stuck Indoors via @TODAYshow & the Parent Toolkit

WBEZeducation ‏@WBEZeducation

PARCC arrives at the South Side school we’re visiting today. Principal: I wonder if that means we’re taking it.

PARCC Testing

Terie Engelbrecht ‏@mrsebiology

How I Learned Differentiation http://j.mp/1AffTpq  Nice thoughts on what true differentiation is. #edchat

#mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.  And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!”

 

Strategies:

Sabermetrics of Effort

The fundamental premise of Moneyball is that the labor market of sports is inefficient, and that many teams systematically undervalue particular athletic skills that help them win. While these skills are often subtle – and the players that possess them tend to toil in obscurity – they can be identified using sophisticated statistical techniques, aka sabermetrics. Home runs are fun. On-base percentage is crucial.

Old-fashioned effort just might be the next on-base percentage.

The wisdom of the moneyball strategy is no longer controversial. It’s why the A’s almost always outperform their payroll,

However, the triumph of moneyball creates a paradox, since its success depends on the very market inefficiencies it exposes. The end result is a relentless search for new undervalued skills, those hidden talents that nobody else seems to appreciate. At least not yet.

One study found that baseball players significantly improved their performance in the final year of their contracts, just before entering free-agency. (Another study found a similar trend among NBA players.) What explained this improvement? Effort. Hustle. Blood, sweat and tears. The players wanted a big contract, so they worked harder.

…despite the obvious impact of effort, it’s surprisingly hard to isolate as a variable of athletic performance. Weimer and Wicker set out to fix this oversight. Using data gathered from three seasons and 1514 games of the Bundesliga – the premier soccer league in Germany – the economists attempted to measure individual effort as a variable of player performance,

If a player runs too little during a game, it’s not because his body gives out – it’s because his head doesn’t want to.

So did these differences in levels of effort matter? The answer is an emphatic yes: teams with players that run longer distances are more likely to win the game,

As the economists note, “teams where some players run a lot while others are relatively lazy have a higher winning probability.”

There is a larger lesson here, which is that our obsession with measuring talent has led us to neglect the measurement of effort. This is a blind spot that extends far beyond the realm of professional sports.

Maximum tests are high-stakes assessments that try to measure a person’s peak level of performance. Think here of the SAT, or the NFL Combine, or all those standardized tests we give to our kids. Because these tests are relatively short, we assume people are motivated enough to put in the effort while they’re being measured. As a result, maximum tests are good at quantifying individual talent, whether it’s scholastic aptitude or speed in the 40-yard dash.

Unfortunately, the brevity of maximum tests means they are not very good at predicting future levels of effort. Sackett has demonstrated this by comparing the results from maximum tests to field studies of typical performance, which is a measure of how people perform when they are not being tested.

As Sackett came to discover, the correlation between these two assessments is often surprisingly low: the same people identified as the best by a maximum test often unperformed according to the measure of typical performance, and vice versa.

What accounts for the mismatch between maximum tests and typical performance? One explanation is that, while maximum tests are good at measuring talent, typical performance is about talent plus effort.

In the real world, you can’t assume people are always motivated to try their hardest. You can’t assume they are always striving to do their best. Clocking someone in a sprint won’t tell you if he or she has the nerve to run a marathon, or even 12 kilometers in a soccer match.

With any luck, these sabermetric innovations will trickle down to education, which is still mired in maximum high-stakes tests that fail to directly measure or improve the levels of effort put forth by students.

After all, those teams with the hardest workers (and not just the most talented ones) significantly increase their odds of winning.

http://www.jonahlehrer.com/blog/2015/2/13/the-sabermetrics-of-effort

 

Resources:

New Paired Reading

http://www.readworks.org/rw/new-paired-texts-question-sets

 

If You Teach At-Risk Kids, You Need This Book (Hint: It’s not Ruby Payne)

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain is not just a “bag of tricks” teachers can pull from to make their at-risk students do better. It is a thoughtful, holistic, brain-based approach to teaching the whole child.”

http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/closing-achievement-gap-hammond/

 

 

Rubrics

  • Holistic Rubrics
  • Analytic Rubrics
  • Single-Point Rubrics

http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/

 

Quizzity

http://david-peter.de/quizzity/

 

Web Spotlight:

Is Your First Grader College Ready?

Matriculation is years away for the Class of 2030, but the first graders in Kelli Rigo’s class at Johnsonville Elementary School in rural Harnett County, N.C., already have campuses picked out. Three have chosen West Point and one Harvard. In a writing assignment, the children will share their choice and what career they would pursue afterward. The future Harvard applicant wants to be a doctor. She can’t wait to get to Cambridge because “my mom never lets me go anywhere.” The mock applications they’ve filled out are stapled to the bulletin board.

“It’s sort of like, if you want your kids to be in the Olympics or to have the chance to be in the Olympics,” said Wendy Segal, a tutor and college planner in Westchester County, N.Y., “you don’t wait until your kid is 17 and say, ‘My kid really loves ice skating.’ You start when they are 5 or 6.”

What do sixth graders do on a tour?

If there’s one thing about college that children struggle to grasp, it’s sleeping at school — with strangers.

Young children simply cannot understand what college is, according to Marcy Guddemi, executive director of the Gesell Institute of Child Development. “You may as well be talking about Mars. It’s totally meaningless.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/education/edlife/is-your-first-grader-college-ready.html

 

Success in the New Economy

Citrus College supported the production of “Success in the New Economy” to help a broader audience begin to understand preparation today for tomorrow’s labor market realities. The end result is a compelling case for students to explore career choices early, make informed decisions when declaring their college education goal, and to consider technical skill acquisition, real-world application and academics (career technical programs) in tandem with a classic education. This balanced approach to life and learning results in a well-educated and employed workforce.

Leveraging his expertise in higher education and Career & Technical Education, Kevin Fleming adapted conference presentations and research to create this data-driven explanation. And award winning film creator and producer Brian Y. Marsh brought the data to life through animation.

The complete transcription of the video with data references is available here: http://www.citruscollege.edu/academics/cte/Documents/Success-in-the-New-Economy.pdf

Success in the New Economy from Brian Y. Marsh on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/67277269

 

Random Thoughts . . .

Personal Web Site

MSM 298:  “Is this mic on?  Are we recording this?”  Student recordings as assessment.

microphone-radio-sound

 

 

 

 

 

Jokes You Can Use:

What’s Brown And Sticky? …..a stick

What did one eye say to the other eye?…..don’t look now, but something between us smells.

What do you find in an empty nose?…fingerprints

Why won’t the elephant use the computer?….He’s afraid of the mouse!

What do you call a sleeping cow?… a bulldozer!

What did the square say to the old circle?… Been around long?

 

 

Eileen Award:

  • Twitter: Rosemarie Patterson, Kevin Cullen, Steve Fulton
  • Google+:Leanna Acker

 

Advisory:

What The World Eats

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/media/richmedia/0/226/project/index.html?ar_a=1

 

 

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

 

Engineered Wood

I was recently reading the December, 2014 issue of “Science Scope,” a magazine written for middle school science teachers, published by the National Science Teachers Association.

In this issue, I read an article entitled “If It’s Engineered, Is It Wood?”  The article was written by Richard H. Moyer and Susan A. Everett.  It the article, they look at the difference between “real wood” and “engineered wood.”  They provide a 5E learning cycle lesson where students explore one aspect of manufactured wood.

http://k12science.net/Podcast/Podcast/Entries/2015/1/15_Middle_School_Science_Minute-Engineered_Wood.html

 

 

From the Twitterverse:

BCBSM ‏@BCBSM5 ways to boost your metabolism: http://ahmi.co/1DvbOMG
Maria Popova ‏@brainpickerDickens, born on this day in 1812, on grief and how to heal a mourning heart – beautiful letter to his sister http://buff.ly/1Imdm2n
Daisy Dyer Duerr ‏@DaisyDyerDuerr5 Practices for Tomorrow Every Teacher Should Adopt Today http://zite.to/1zFvKMu
MiddleWeb ‏@middleweb Feb 5Falling in love with teaching again. No one talks about loving what we do better than @CindiRigsbee . @EdWeekTeacher http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2015/02/03/fall-back-in-love-with-teaching.html?cmp=soc-edit-tw-tm …
Christine Quong ‏@c_quong Feb 2How to #Green Screen on the iPad using DoInk Greenscreen #mlearning #iosedapp
Jasper Fox Sr. ‏@jasperfoxsrA5: A great example of admin who has Tchrs lead PD is @ugafrank check out his blog: http://drewfrank.edublogs.org/  #satchat
Monte Tatom @drmmtatom  ·  How Students Can Access Thousands of Free Media Files: The Public Domain Project #fhuedu320 #tn_teta #edwebchat http://ln.is/fractuslearning.com/yKn0i …
#mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.  And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!”

 

Strategies:

Students recording.

 

Clyp.it

Record and share audio, simply.

Introducing the easiest way to share audio. Record or upload your favorite sounds and we give you a short link to share with your friends.

https://clyp.it/

 

Vocaroo

http://vocaroo.com/

 

Audacity

Installable, FREE, cross platform.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

 

Garageband

Mac only.

 

WavTap

Globally capture whatever your mac is playing—as simply as a screenshot

https://github.com/pje/wavtap

 

Voki

http://www.voki.com/

 

AudioPal

  1. CREATE YOUR AUDIO MESSAGE
  2. PREVIEW YOUR AUDIOPAL MESSAGE
  3. ENTER YOUR EMAIL AND GET YOUR AUDIOPAL

Once you click Get It! we will send you a link to your audio player. From there, you can embed your free audio player anywhere online and your message will appear online instantly. Remember, there is no account to create (read our Privacy Policy).

http://www.audiopal.com/

 

AudioBoom

Used to be AudioBoo.

http://audioboom.com/

 

Moodle

Plug-in: Assignment types: Online Audio Recording

Finally putting an end to the need for a streaming server (or a Java applet) to allow students to record audio clips for Moodle assignments, the Online Audio Recording assignment uses Flash (10.1+) to record audio from a microphone, convert it to MP3 format and upload it to Moodle via HTTP POST.

Installation note: since this is an assignment type (not a standalone plugin),it needs to be placed in /mod/assignment/type/ – not straight in the /mod/ directory.

https://moodle.org/plugins/view/assignment_onlineaudio

 

 

Repositories: Record Audio

Usable anywhere that you can choose files from a repository, the Record Audio repository uses the same interface as the Online Audio assignment type (and 2.3 assignment submission plugin) to allow you to record audio in MP3 format and upload (or embed) it.

https://moodle.org/plugins/view/repository_recordaudio

 

Assignment submissions : Online audio recording

https://moodle.org/plugins/view/assignsubmission_onlineaudio

 

Poodll

While it is designed for language learning courses, it is being used in countless imaginative ways in universities, schools and organisations all over the world. PoodLL is free and open source. – See more at: http://poodll.com/#sthash.VbK8fc1U.dpuf

http://poodll.com/

 

 

Activities: BigBlueButtonBN

BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system for distance education.  The goal of the project is to enable universities, colleges, and K12 to delivery a high-quality learning experience to remote students.

BigBlueButton supports real-time sharing of slides (including whiteboard), audio, video, chat, and desktops.  It also record lectures for later playback, specifically the slides + audio + chat (see release notes).

 

 

Random Thoughts . . .

Personal Web Site