MSM 163 We’ll start at 1:38:26.98765432221 pm. Maybe. (And finish after cursing out Skype).

/ , , , , , /

Jokes You Can Use:
One reason the Military Services have trouble operating jointly is that they don’t speak the same language. For example, if you told Navy personnel to “secure a building,” they would turn off the lights and lock the doors. The Army would occupy the building so no one could enter. Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat. The Air Force, on the other hand, would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy. 

Why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Because if they flew over the bay, they’d be baygulls (bagels, get it?).

At a Catholic school, there was a “meet the teacher” open house for the 2nd graders. After the meeting, a Nun announced that there would be a small reception afterwards in the cafeteria. All the children and parents filed in, and saw on a table a plate of apples, a plate of cookies, and some water bottles and juice. As the children went through the line, one boy saw that there was a sign on the plate of apples that said, “Take only one. God is watching.” So, the boy took an apple and moved on to the cookies. He helped himself, and then took a small piece of paper, and wrote: “Take all you want”. God is watching the apples.”

Q: What did the green grape say to the purple grape?
A: “BREATHE YOU IDIOT, BREATHE!”

On Our Mind:

What do you mean by learning?
http://weblogg-ed.com/2011/and-what-do-you-mean-by-learning/

Eileen Award

Erin. Thanks for the link.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/a-better-way-to-teach-math/

Advisory:

Taxes:
Where do taxes go?
http://datavizchallenge.org/viz/56

Middle School Science Minute

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

Foresenics: CSI for Middle School students. forensics.rice.edu

From the Twitterverse:

*shannonmmiller Thanks for sharing RT @gwynethjones: Design QR Code Social Mini Cards| With Colours! ventipix.com/vpx_qrcode_mst… #vanmeterbpchs LOVE this
*drmmtatom Learnable – Teach or Take a Course Online #ccstech http://tinyurl.com/69s8gcr 

Show Me – Create & Share Lessons on an #iPad #ccstech http://tinyurl.com/3jka9kp

Free Documentary TV – Find & Watch Free Documentaries #fhuedu508 http://tinyurl.com/3op2ghj

iPad apps to improve your executive functioning skills #ccstech #fhucid http://tinyurl.com/43jkq3v
*Inspire_Us You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. -John Wooden
*DianeRavitch Indiana passes sweeping voucher bill, ending 160 years of public-funded public education: http://tinyurl.com/3ozf8mg
*missnoor28 13 Websites That Converts Photo Into a Cartoon Character #edtech #edchat #esl #efl
*mthman A new #midleved poll is out! http://j.mp/gGYuc5 #elemchat #cpchat #ntchat #gtchat #mathchat #scichat #sschat #engchat #edchat #edreform
*francesblo Tonight’s chat archive #midleved at
Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

A Trial Run for School Standards That Encourage Deeper Thought

In three years, instruction in most of the country could look a lot like what is going on at Hillcrest, one of 100 schools in New York City experimenting with new curriculum standards known as the common core.
At a training session last month, teams representing several schools in the pilot were asked to list lessons they had learned. Teachers from the Forward School of Creative Writing, a middle school in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx, wrote on a piece of cardboard: “Visuals help students make meaning” and “Many students are reading far below grade level.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/nyregion/100-new-york-schools-try-common-core-approach.html?_r=1
The Common Core Standards:  http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

Can a 9-Hour School Day Prevent Students from Dropping Out?

That means that every student stays an extra three hours per day, four days a week, working on everything from language arts and math to art and P.E. in project-based groups. (Fridays are used for staff development.)
Students spend time in enrichment programs, in P.E. classes, social studies, science and other areas.  And through the apprenticeship programs, they learn about careers in science, business, journalism, even photography and art.
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/04/can-a-9-hour-school-day-prevent-students-from-dropping-out/

Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet—It’s Higher Education

Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
But Thiel’s issues with education run even deeper. He thinks it’s fundamentally wrong for a society to pin people’s best hope for a better life on something that is by definition exclusionary. “If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates?” he says. “It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.”
http://www.21stcenturyfluency.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=1860

IPS is meeting the challenge of teaching kids who don’t speak English

Within five to seven years, they become “academically literate” — not just able to get by linguistically but also able to navigate the language in more complicated school subjects.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20110417/NEWS1003/104170395/IPS-meeting-challenge-teaching-kids-who-don-t-speak-English?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com

Pay Teachers for Performance?

By Bill Schechter
President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are also parents who naturally want the best for their kids. Obama enrolled his two children at Sidwell Friends, a private Quaker school in Washington, D.C., and Duncan enrolled his two children in the Arlington, Va., public schools, respectively.
Do these excellent schools evaluate or pay teachers on the basis of student standardized test scores?
The answers recently arrived in two emails:
• Arlington school district teacher, March 31, 2011::
“We do not tie teacher evaluations to scores in the Arlington public school system.”
• Sidwell Friends faculty member, April 1, 2011:
“We don’t tie teacher pay to test scores because we don’t believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/performance-pay-at-schools-obama-duncan-picked-for-their-children/2011/04/12/AFNBuPTD_blog.html

Resources:

Free Documentaries Site.

Please preview first. You might be best using this for find videos and downloading rather than watching “live”. Many of the videos are hosted through YouTube. However, this can help with discovery.
http://www.freedocumentary.tv/

CinchCast

Cinch is a free and easy way to create and share audio, text and photo updates using your phone or computer. Cinch enables you to capture and report on your experiences in a way that simple text just can’t do. Using a simple interface, you can make and broadcast your content creations through Facebook, Twitter, CinchCast.com and more.
Getting started is easy.
Step 1: Login to Cinch

  • Register for a Cinch account, or just login using your current Facebook or Twitter account, to begin creating content.

Step 2: Record and share

  • Create and share audio, text and photo updates all in one place using CinchCast.com, the Cinch iPhone App or by calling 1-646-200-0000.

Step 3: Organize and save

  • Organize and save all your favorite cinches in albums that people can easily follow.

Step 4: Search, find and connect

  • Find and follow your family, friends and colleagues, and albums on specific topics interest on CinchCast.com.

Step 5: Invite your friends to join

  • Can’t find all the people you want to hear from? Invite them to join the conversation here.

http://www.cinchcast.com/

Online Physics Simulations

Click on the “Play the sims…” button. There are lots of simulations, including:

  • Balancing Chemical Equations
  • Membrane Channels
  • Molecules and Light
  • Gravity and Orbits
  • Buoyancy
  • Acid-based Solutions
  • Density
  • Nuclear Fission
  • and much more

http://phet.colorado.edu/

Comic Book Maker

http://www.digmo.co.uk/apps/teaching-with-comic-life-2-free-ebook/

Convofy

The Private Social Network for your Company
Enabling conversations at your workplace. Convofy connects your team like no app has ever done. It connects people to people, people to content, and people to discussions.

http://convofy.com/

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

      • Other News:
  • ISTE Eduverse Talks are the recorded sessions held on ISTE Island every week. Join ISTE in their Second Life conference location for their weekly talks on education.
    • The ISTE Special Interest Group:  Virtual Environments is holding meetings on Mondays from 4:00 – 6:00 pm (SLT) on ISTE Island.

Ohio Middle Level Association:

Michigan Association of Middle School Educators

  • Second Life:
    • Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled. See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.  Check frequently this week as the ISTE Annual Convention is this week.
    • Video: Educational Uses of Second Life