Author: Troy Patterson

advisory, Lesson Plan, MSM, News, Podcast, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 176 Video, iPads (11:00 not 11:05)

On Our Mind:

iPads in Education

 

Advisory:

Quotations on Character

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
http://josephsoninstitute.org/quotes/

Middle School Science Minute

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

This is the second in the three part series on the common core ELA and their relationship to science.  Like the first in the series, it focuses on Text Types and Purposes, but this time focuses in on writing informative and explanatory texts.

From the Twitterverse:

*
web20classroom Steven W. Anderson
A Great Livebinder All About Infographics: bit.ly/rqaWj4
*
bhsprincipal Patrick Larkin
Where Did Standardized Testing Come From Anyway? zite.to/qR6X5w via @zite #Edchat #cpchat #bhschat
*
joeymcgirr Joey McGirr
Looking for something fun to do? Ask a friends who knows NOTHING about the LOTR to read this page to you out loud. bit.ly/o6sjtl #Fun
*
AngelaMaiers Angela Maiers
Twenty Tidbits for New Teachers soc.li/CXxeq6U http://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-new-teachers-lisa-dabbs
*
elemenous Lucy Gray
In Honor of Teachers: nyti.ms/qbK8w9
*
Larryferlazzo Larry Ferlazzo
RT @plugusin: Just finished a new post: Teaching Innovation w/the Curiosity Box – bit.ly/mRp3U1
*
kristirulz Kristi k
Looking to change homework policy. Any ideas for consequences w not finishing homework? Thanks #5thchat #4thchat #elemchat
*
kevcreutz Kevin Creutz
What did new teacher experience 100 years ago?? 3 examples from teachers written in 1936. bit.ly/oNSyX3
*
2learn2 Steve
The average adult falls asleep seven minutes after turning the light off. #stevec
*
willrich45 Will Richardson
Reading “In Honor of Teachers” nyti.ms/ngE8kw
*
HeidiHayesJacob HEIDI HAYES JACOBS
West Virginia learns Finland’s ‘most honorable profession’: Teacher #cnn cnn.com/2011/US/08/29/…
*
tremellino LEO Blog
Test your English Vocabulary with thatquiz: thatquiz.org/tq-D-z0/vocabu…
*
Ruth_A_Buzzi Ruth Buzzi
If Justin Beiber was my kid, and he wrecked his Ferrari, I’d take away his keys for a month and make him drive a Kia. That’d show him.
*
msstewart Meredith Stewart
Doesn’t get much better than William Fitzsimmons for lesson planning tny.gs/rr3YnR
*
DianeRavitch Diane Ravitch
Just discovered this rant about why high teacher turnover is bad: tinyurl.com/3kaehe
*
mrsebiology Terie Engelbrecht
Differentiated Assessment: bit.ly/jpWAM7 Nice step-by-step #edchat #lrnchat #midleved #elemchat

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

A Teacher Finds Good in Testing

By Ama Nyamekye
In college, I pumped my fist at a rally against standardized testing. I’d never seen the exam I was protesting, but stood in solidarity with educators and labor organizers who felt the testing movement was an attack on teachers, particularly those working in poor public schools.
In a routine evaluation, my principal praised my organization, management, and facilitation, but posed the following question: “How do you know the kids are really getting it?”
In my third year of teaching, I put myself to the test. To formally link my instruction to quantifiable student outcomes, I decided my sophomores would take the state Comprehensive English Regents Examination a year early. As I deconstructed the test—which was a blend of reading-based questions and essays—I appreciated its ability to efficiently achieve what I could not.
I discovered holes in my curriculum. I once dismissed standardized testing for its narrow focus on a discrete set of skills, but I learned that my self-made assignments were more problematic. It turned out they were skewed in my favor.
The test provided me with fresh perspectives on my work. I was not allowed to assess my students’ writing. Colleagues from my English department used detailed rubrics to grade each essay. These peers had emotional distance from the work and could scrutinize essays for evidence of achievement.
When I “depoliticized” the test, I found a useful and flawed ally. The exam excelled where I struggled, offering comprehensive and standards-based assessments. I thrived where the test fell short, designing creative, performance-based projects.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/31/02nyamekye_ep.h31.html?tkn=XTCFBe283Qrdff9t68CNVw5QPQU12ZEh0gb2&cmp=clp-sb-cec

Resources:

Video Time Machine

$1.99 App for iPhone/iPad

VIDEO CONTENT TOTALS:
2000’s = 1,521 videos
1990’s = 1,607 videos
1980’s = 1,874 videos
1970’s = 1,565 videos
1960’s = 1,848 videos
1950’s = 589 videos
1940’s = 256 videos
1930’s = 227 videos
1920’s = 196 videos
1910’s = 150 videos
1900’s = 140 videos
1860-1899 = 60 videos
http://itunes.apple.com/app/video-time-machine/id438078438?ign-mpt=uo%3D5

iPad Hub

The DS-IP-49-SYNC acts as a fully powered USB hub for 49 devices. Using a Mac, it can sync with iTunes or other software capable of addressing USB devices. (It can work with Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems, although there may be some software limitations with a non-Mac host.)
http://www.macnews.com/2011/08/31/new-usb-hub-provides-large-scale-syncing-ipads-other-devices

Movie Mount

iPad Video Production
With the Movie Mount, you get 10 new features for your iPad (beware that the additional equipment is not incuded):

  1. Attached a tripod for stable shots, pan & tilt camera movements. Standard screwfitting.
  2. Use 37 mm conversion lenses, such as wide angle and zoom*. Such as: US / EU
  3. Slide on-the-fly between the built-in lens and the conversion lens.
  4. Use shotgun microphones for better sound (requires splitter cable). Such as: US / EU
  5. Use an optical viewfinder to shoot in bright sunlight. Such as: US / EU
  6. Use a video light for better performance in low light. Such as: US / EU
  7. Easier iMovie editing, with a 9 degrees working angle.
  8. The mount allows your iPad to stand upright and be used as monitor.
  9. The free Movie Mount iPad app allows you to manually control video recording
  10. Fully compatible with Smart Cover.

http://www.makayama.com/moviemount.html

Web Spotlight:

Learn more about Geocaching

Geocaching is a fun, educational, technology-infused activity that I have tried a couple of times. But I am by no means an expert (totally newbie would be the description) on the topic. Therefore, I asked Jen Deyenberg if she would write a guest post about geocaching. Jen has done extensive work developing geocaching activities with students and has a ton of knowledge to share. After reading this post I hope you will visit her blog to learn more about geocaching.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/09/learn-more-about-geocaching-great.html

Two Nice Guides to Web 2.0 at School and Work

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/09/two-nice-guides-to-web-20-at-school-and.html

Constitution Resources

Federal legislation requires schools in the United States to offer lessons related to the U.S. Constitution on U.S. Constitution Day — September 17th of each year.
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2010/08/10/the-best-sites-for-learning-about-the-constitution-of-the-united-states/
www.teachinghistory.org

Jokes You Can Use:

Recently the President of the United States received a call from a Yooper (someone from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).  The Yooper told the President he and several of his friends had declared war on the United States.  The President replied, “You know I have a million men in my army, are you sure you want to declare war?”  The Yooper replied, “Let me check, I’ll call you tomorrow.”  Sure enough, the President gets a call.  The Yooper says, “Mr. President, the war is still on.  We picked up some trucks and the guys down at the watering hole have joined up, so we’ve expanded our army too.”  “Well,” says the President, “since I talked to you yesterday, I’ve added another half-million men to my army.  Are you sure you still want this war?”  The Yooper thought for a second, “Let me call you back tomorrow.”  Sure enough, about the same time the next day the President gets a call.  “Mr. President, we added the ultra-light group from the airport and we can now bomb you from above.  The war is still on.”  The President replied, “You do know I have an Air Force too of modern jets and since I talked to you yesterday, I’ve added another half million to the army for a total of 2 million men.  Are you sure you still want this war?”  “Let me call you tomorrow,” says the Yooper.  The next day the President gets a phone call.  “Mr. President, the war is off.  We talked it over and we decided we don’t have any way of feeding 2 million prisoners.”

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
advisory, MSM, Strategy, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 175 Out of the frying pan and into the bathwater . . .

On Our Mind:

Starting of the school year.
Education and Election Reform

Eileen Award:

Ellizabeth S – iTunes comment
(I bet Principal Beth ROCKS!!!)

Advisory:

The Mindset List

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/

Middle School Science Minute

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

This middle school science minute is about the ELA common core standards in Writing and their relationship to science.  The four areas of writing include: text types and purposes; production and distribution of writing; research to build and present knowledge; and range of writing.  In this podcast, we look at the five reading standards that relate to science in grades 6 – 8 in the area of text types and purposes, with a special focus on writing arguments focused on science content.

From the Twitterverse:

*Ruth_A_Buzzi Political correctness has now gone too far. Sea World just renamed an exhibit, “Shamu the Alleged Killer Whale.”
*tmoreira Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed. – George Burns #quote
*Frankwspencer Why I Hate Teach for America — Feministe bit.ly/oTYgIT via @addthis
*AngelaMaiers 5 WAYS TO TWEET LIKE A CHAMPION angelamaiers.com/2011/08/5-ways…
*markbarnes19 What if educators just said “No” to the test? awe.sm/5RzUW #resultsonly
*ShellTerrell Bring Your Old PC To Life With Ubuntu–Free PDF Guide bit.ly/qgUKf0 ~ @jdthomas7 #edtech
*rkiker RT @AllisonBurley: Great first day of school activities to help students, teachers get to know each other bit.ly/qHRABm #palisd
*mcleod Proposed education reforms must address students’ day-to-day classroom work bit.ly/pSHdwX #iaedfuture #iaedsummit
*jksuter @doctorjeff We have to ensure testing serves education not education serving testing. Good stuff, thanks!
*pammoran inventing the future in 1939 … from the Smithsonian minivids bit.ly/rjOBZS
*stardiverr Maybe it’s because it doesn’t work to say, “Turn in your learning.” I think there’s a message in there somewhere.
*julielindsay Julie Lindsay  ADE Spreading the word that ALL Flat Classroom, Digiteen and A Week in the Life project forms are open again! Join us now! ning.it/o4NGqa
*fabclassroom Rite Aid Deals Week of 8/28 – 9/3 twrt.me/uft679 via @FrugalNavyWife
*apuustin 5 Reasons Why Our Students Are Writing Blogs and Creating ePortfolios zite.to/qe0Mt3 via @zite #finnedchat #education #mlearning
*tmoreira Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed. – George Burns #quote
*KTVee Krissy Venosdale  Did ur students come running into OpenHouse shouting “Ooooh, ooooh, when are we taking our first standardized test?” #noway #edchat

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.  

News:

Chiquita Sweepstakes.

Starting August 15th, Chiquita, in partnership with Rio the movie, will celebrate back to school and healthy eating by giving away up to $5,000 in prizes!
The interactive site will give you and your students the tools to learn about healthy nutrition with FUN and original lesson plans, games, worksheets and more. The sweepstakes is open to all teachers from accredited schools in the U.S. Simply register your class at Chiquita.com/BananaBrain

http://www.chiquita.com/bananabrain/

Resources:

Monte Selby Free Song of the Week

Check out the Monte Selby web site. This week is a free song about Matter.
http://monteselby.com/Matter.mp3

Web Spotlight:

Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive

by Richard Byrne

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/08/understanding-911-television-news.html

Which Rules Are Worth Circumventing?

By Tina Barseghian
Rules are important in any civilized society. Without them, chaos would ensue. But some rules are worth questioning, especially when the consequences negate their very purpose.
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/08/what-rules-are-worth-circumventing/

“What Would You Attempt to Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?”

http://lifehacker.com/5827067/what-would-you-attempt-to-do-if-you-knew-you-could-not-fail

Ten things every new teacher should know

By Meris Stansbury, Associate Editor

1. Focus on the positives, not the negatives.
2. Be clear in your student expectations.
3. Have a backup plan.
4. Students are not your BFFs.
5. Many times, you’ll find yourself alone.
6. Lashing out will get you nowhere.
7. Learn to put your foot down.
8. Teaching is often political.
9. Make friends with custodians and secretaries
10. Make sure your professors have experience with current instructional practices.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/08/19/10-things-to-know-before-teaching/

ISTE 2011:  What are we doing for our leaders?

PDF:  http://mrmcgirr.com/page20/downloads/files/ISTE%20IT%20Leadership.pdf
syteshirt: Very cool iPad integrated shirt. Scott McLeod leading the discussion.
Uninformed technology purchasing. TPAC session: having discussions with principals to accurately implement tech. We have a lot of technology instruction that we’re pulling in principals into teacher instruction and we actually need tech instruction for just the principals.
Answer:

1. Empower a select group of teachers to implement the tech.

2. Create a rich, deep technology vision at principal/supt. level.

3. Principals get a “principal” version of the technology instruction.

4. District level evaluation of the technology after purchase.

5. 3-5 year plans lead to rigid thinking.

6. Can the average administrator understand what they’re seeing when they are looking at tech being used in the classroom? (one hand of 50)

So . . . what do you do about that?

1. Training them on the walkthroughs to ask more reflective questions on

their walkthroughs. Standardized questions. Teacher presentation vs. Student usage.

2. Need to hire principals that understand all curr. subjs.

3. Need a principal level conversation on tech usage in building and district.

4. “Focus Walk” teachers and principals fill out the check sheet and answer

whether the students/teacher are using/consuming technology. i.e. What is engagement?

5. Interesting point: really have to go to the students’ homes and also see what they are doing there, because the engagement goes on beyond four walls.

6. Hit administrators in a key specific way

7. Provide specific support in forms and rubric to assist but allow flexibility to allow the admin. the opportunity to expound.

8. Create ownership as instructional leaders.

9. Provide them contrasting examples.

10. Give them time with peers.

11. Make the administrators play with the tools.

Why aren’t we doing this already for our “leaders”? Now?

1. Embarrassed if it doesn’t come up to expectations.

2. Administrators run PD and so they can’t participate in it themselves.

3. There isn’t research yet to support the purchase. Yet.  Innovation precedes Research.

4. Leaders control all the power by controlling resources.  If you don’t feed their technology needs, they won’t spend the $$ on it.

5. You have to understand what their incentives are. They also want to

survive a disaster for example.

6. Superintendents don’t want to be seen as unknowing in front of their teachers. They get bribed to go to ISDs to learn.

7. Find out where the administrators and then take them from there. Require them to use the tech first, then the teachers. (i.e. Google Docs/ Moodle)

Do School Boards have a role in this?

The critical people are school boards, superintendents, and people with money in the district. Superintendent took pictures of what was going on in the district and then created a VoiceThread and commented on the pictures as a way for feedback and evaluation.

CASTLE model Increase discomfort level with status quo in order to make change. Replace it with a different kind of vision. Come in the back end with support and resources and vision.
Where is the student voice in this? (Peggy Sheehey)

Summary: By and large these are good people who want to good by the kids. loi87We have to educate up as well as down. We need to resource the principals when they do go to do a change. Instead of coming to admin. with “we need this to be better” come to them with “here’s the problem here’s how we make us and you better.”

Jokes You Can Use:

I recently visited a Mental Asylum & I asked the director, “How can you know when a person needs to be institutionalized?” He said, “Well, we fill a bathtub with water & we offer them a Teaspoon,a Teacup and a Bucket & ask them to empty the tub.” I said, “I see…A normal person would choose the bucket because it is bigger.” He responded, “No. A normal person would pull the plug…would you like a bed by the window?

Ruth_A_Buzzi Ruth Buzzi
I knew the Washington Monument would develop a crack problem in that neighborhood.

The U S Mail is considering dropping back to just 4 days a week next year. The other three days, mail will be carried by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Have a heart, Col. Qadhafi, before you leave town; please send all that old clothing back to the estate of Ethel Merman.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

advisory, MSM, News, Podcast, Strategy, Teaching Tip, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 174 Beyond Seat Time & Jeff for the Win!

Middle School Science Minute

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

It runs a little longer (2 minutes–but hey, I took off my watch and found I had all the time in the world).  It is about the announcement of the new Science Framework that was released last week.  From the framework will come the new science standards (late 2012).  This will probably become the common core for science, just like ELA and Math–thus the National Curriculum in Science.  So, it is a good heads up for people.  If you want to mention it in the show notes, the audience can download the full 320 page report for free at:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165

News:

Beyond Seat Time: Advancing Proficiency-Based Learning

Can we do without the traditional school year? Is it feasible to shift to a system of student advancement based solely on proficiency? iNacol’s Susan Patrick shares her vision of what such a system would look like and what it will take to get there. (Hint: It’s already underway in some states.)
http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/08/10/beyond-seat-time-advancing-proficiency-based-learning.aspx

NMSA becomes AMLE:  Watch for the change during the months of August and September.

Jeff LaRoux wins NMSA/AMLE election!

Congrats!

Resources:

U.S. Debt clock

http://usdebtclock.org/

Ten ideas for interactive teaching

By Jenna Zwang, Assistant Editor

  1. Follow the Leader:
  2. Total Physical Response (TPR):
  3. One Word
  4. Opposite Arguments
  5. Historically Correct
  6. Test Tournament
  7. YouTube Video Quizzes
  8. Electronic Role Playing
  9. Puzzle Pieces
  10. Pop Culture Statistics

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/06/06/ten-ideas-for-interactive-teaching/?ast=42&astc=3032
http://www.fctl.ucf.edu/TeachingAndLearningResources/CourseDesign/Assessment/content/101_Tips.pdf

Web Spotlight:

Teenage Girls And Social Media: Tips For Parents From A Best-Selling Author

Nearly 10 years ago, author Rachel Simmons wrote a best-selling book called Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. Now she has updated her book to include the role of social media and technology.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2011/08/09/139176817/teenage-girls-and-social-media-tips-for-parents-from-a-best-selling-author?ft=1&f=1019

ISTE 2011:  Professional Development led by Liz Davis

In a non-review year, she meets with teachers to help them prepare for their review year. Teacher had kids make stuff:

Kids prepared Choctaws (?) and rotated every 20 minutes.

Kids develop a wiki on the subject. Teachers meet with their TEAM leader to pull together stuff for their bi-annual review.

“Tech Tuesdays” Techies getting time to work with teachers. Tech coaches/IT departments justify their jobs by the level of tech integration. They survey the staff and then evaluate to see how far they’ve moved the staff from where they were to where they are at the end of the year. Tech department evaluations based on level of tech integration/use. Tech department schedules time with the teachers to help them with their job reviews and in doing so, helps them prove their value to the district.

Lots of teachers forget they use the tech and the IT people help them remember the projects to include in their portfolios. Teachers started meeting outside of school time to teach each other once they learned a new tech skill.

(The Geek Mustangs) Side note: lots of aluminum cases for iPads. IT organizes their PD for staff very similarly to what we do here at EduBloggerCon. Some put it in a survey monkey thing and have them pick their sessions there.

Use a food/menu metaphor: Appetizer, Main Course, Dessert Appetizer: Something I want to dip my toe it, something I want to find
out about, but not explore. Main Course: Something I want to learn in depth Dessert: Something fun at the end to wrap it up and I can use in my
classroom. Make an annual report at the end of the year and compliment teachers on their tech integration. Make a celebration at the end of the year out of it. (Culminating experience) Organize the kids to do tech PD for other students.

Students did a screen cast for each of the Google products. Checkout Flipboard for the iPad.

On Our Mind:

Starting of the school year.

Eileen Award:

  • Linda Chapman Broderic
  • Dave T.
  • Debbie T.

Advisory:

From the Twitterverse:

*web20classroom Integrating Technology Into The Common Core-based Curriculum: bit.ly/pejYGM
*russeltarr Voicethread Examples in Education: tinyurl.com/3uoda3q
*middleweb Latest MiddleWeb news: more tips for newbies, graphic novel debate, wonderful sci images & hashtag PD secrets. bit.ly/phyKvJ #ntchat
*johntspencer Schools need to be a little more like CSI and a little less like Jeopardy.  #tvandteaching
*karlyb Picked up a lot of great education apps for free this weekend from this list: digital-storytime.com/sale.php #edapp
*AncientProverbs Giving your son a skill is better than giving him one thousand pieces of gold. -Chinese Proverb
*twibbon It’s International Left Handers day today! Celebrate with other lefties like @oprah and @justinbieber – bit.ly/axHpPV
*Ron_Peck Calling all Social Studies Teachers! If you want great collaboration and resources, join the SSChat Ning. sschat.ning.com #sschat #elemchat
*AngelaMaiers NEVER Open With This One… http://twrt.me/5fvwe via @westfallonline
*TopPublicSchool @Dianeravitch Atlanta Public Schools will leave corrupt principals in positions of authority using the evaluation to retaliate & silence.
*Harvard Mini-lectures from Harvard faculty are available for download on Harvard’s iTunes U channel http://hvrd.me/ik8Ex3

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

Jokes You Can Use:

Anytime you see a young man open a car door for his girlfriend, either the car is new or the girlfriend is.

Little Johnny comes downstairs crying. His mother asked, “What’s the matter now?”
“Dad was hanging pictures, and just hit his thumb with hammer,” said little Johnny through his tears. “That’s not so serious,” soothed his mother. “I know you are upset, but a big boy like you shouldn’t cry at something like that. Why didn’t you just laugh?
“I did!” sobbed Johnny.

Morty was in his usual place in the morning sitting at the table, reading the paper after breakfast. He came across an article about a beautiful actress that was about to marry a football player who was known primarily for his lack of IQ and common knowledge. He turned to his wife with a look of question on his face. “I’ll never understand why the biggest jerks get the most attractive wives.”
His wife replied, “Why thank you, dear!”

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
advisory, Lesson Plan, Podcast, Strategy, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 173 BYOD to solve the debt- picture that!

Jokes You Can Use:

Trees are pretty smart… but they can be stumped.

Two men were walking through the woods and came upon a big black, deep hole. One man picked up a rock and tossed it into the hole and stood listening for the rock to hit bottom. There was no sound.
He turned to the other guy and said “that must be a deep hole…let’s throw a bigger rock in there and listen for it to hit bottom.” The men found a bigger rock and both picked it up and lugged it to the hole and dropped it in.
They listened for some time and never heard a sound. Again, they agreed that this must be one deep hole and maybe they should throw something even bigger into it.
One man spotted a rail-road tie nearby. They picked up the tie, grunting and groaning, and lugged it to the hole. They tossed it in. No sound. All of a sudden, a goat came flying out of the woods, running like the wind, and flew past the men and jumped straight into the hole. The men were amazed.
About that time, an old hayseed farmer came out of the woods and asked the men if they had seen a goat. One man told the farmer of the incredible incident they had just witnessed…they had just seen this goat fly out of the woods and run and leap into the big hole. The man asked the farmer if this could have been his goat.
The old farmer said “naw, that can’t be my goat…he was chained to a railroad tie.”

A man was pulled over for speeding down the highway; the officer came to the driver’s window and said, “Sir, may I see your driver’s license and registration?” The man said, “Well officer I don’t have a license, it was taken away for a DUI.” The officer, in surprise, said,” What, do you have a registration for the vehicle?” So the man replied, “No sir, the car is not mine I stole it, but I am pretty sure I say a registration card in the glove box when I put the gun in it.” The officer stepped back, “There is a gun in the glove box?!?” The man sighed and said, “Yes sir, I used to kill the woman who owns the car before I stuffed her in the trunk.” The officer steps toward the back of the car and says,” Sir do not move, I am calling for backup.” The officer calls for backup and about ten minutes another highway patrolman arrives. He walks up to the window slowly and asks the man for his driver’s license and registration. The man said,” Yes officer here it right here.” It all checked out so the officer said,” Is there a gun in the glove box sir?” The man laughs and says,” No officer why would there be a gun in the glove box.” He opened the glove box and showed him that there was no gun. The second officer asked him to open the trunk because he had reason to believe that there was a body in it. The man agrees and opens the trunk, no dead body. The second officer says, “Sir I do not understand, the officer that pulled you over said that you did not have a license, the car was stolen, there was a gun in the glove box, and a dead body in the trunk.” The man looks the officer in the eyes and says, “Yeah and I’ll bet he said I was speeding too.”

On Our Mind:

RIM buys JayCut for the PlayBook.

Eileen Award:

BuzzGarwood (twitter)

Advisory:

Visualization of the United States National Debt.

From the Twitterverse:

*Funderstanding Eric Cohen Media Strategy: Getting the Free Press to Teach Civics
*mental_floss Mental Floss From last night: 15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent (We need a word for ‘grief bacon’) — bit.ly/nz6OKB
*tomshepp tomshepp Announcement on JayCut site: http://ow.ly/1uTMML about RIM buying them. #edtech #webapp
*kevcreutz Kevin Creutz WOW!!! A visualization of United States debt bit.ly/nR0EkJ” via @Nunavut_Tweeter @intrepidteacher #fb
*FlyontheCWall On the ClassroomWall luv! RT @punkmaki: More evidence at #mnli2 : When you give teachers time to collaborate, you give teachers time to innovate.
*mikeklonsky Mike Klonsky State Supt. Bennett: Indiana must have the “courage” to hand public schools over private companies.
*JusticeinBah Maria RT @MathEvolve Using iPads in Education:Resources for teachers using iPads in the classroom #ipaded #mlearning #edchat #ipad
* onlinecourse Distance Education Why Flunking Out of College Might Be a Good Thing – http://dedu.org/9WqUtE
*ShellTerrell Shelly S Terrell If schools embraced social media then we could help students learn about digital footprints & help support positive footprints #Edchat
*drmmtatom Monte Tatom Creating a Personal Success Plan – A Sensible Alternative to Standardized Tests by Lisa Nielsen #fhuedu610 http://tinyurl.com/3rk62ey

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

Atlanta Cheating

There had long been suspicions that cheating on state tests was widespread in the Atlanta public schools, but the superintendent, Beverly L. Hall, was feared by teachers and principals, and few dared speak out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/education/18oneducation.html?pagewanted=1&src=recg

Resources:

Bill McBride

Click on Pages & Files. Lots of resources: including:

  • Graphic Novels in the Classroom
  • Debate Resources
  • Gender Differences
  • Student Engagement
  • Teaching with Technology
  • Vocabulary Resources

http://billmcbride.pbworks.com/w/page/14094960/Welcome-to-my-Wiki

Timer Tab

Online Timer, Alarm & Stopwatch. Keeps time on a tab in your browser.
http://www.timer-tab.com/

Pic4Learning

Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers. Unlike many Internet sites, permission has been granted for teachers and students to use all of the images donated to the Pics4Learning collection.
http://pics4learning.com/

Web Spotlight:

Lino

Online stickies.
http://en.linoit.com/

ISTE 2011:  BYOD Bring Your Own Device

Led by Scott Meech
References:
https://profiles.google.com/smeech.net/posts
http://www.linkedin.com/in/smeech
http://globaleducation.ning.com/profile/ScottMeech

Kenilworth School District has been piloting it with 8th graders.
No spike in behavior issues, let the kids bring ’em in as an expansion of current policy.
As they refreshed the teacher devices, they moved those into use for student use.
They put all the stuff in the cloud  and got rid of individual student folders on the drive.
Kerns High School did a tech initiative:  What devices?
Kenilworth SD used them mostly with executive functioning.
Use for RTI:  Pushing notifications to the kids who need the executive functions piece.
Jim Gates:  Statewide video conference on BYOD (PA)
Even though allowed to bring devices in, students didn’t want to.
Heavy
Fear of being stolen
When allowed, it changed the dynamic, expectations changed lesson design and desire to bring it to class.
How did you get past the IT wanting control?
We don’t control other things (paper, magazines, etc.) why control this?
How would you start?
Approach:  How do we want the kids to use this?
3-5 years out we will probably be talking about how in the world were we worried about this stuff?
Return on Investment:  Are we at the tipping point where it is more expensive to manage it rather than allow it  and educate on how to use it?
School didn’t get rid of all technology that they had, they are using the BYOD for executive functions (time management, calendars, etc.)
What about renting/subsidizing devices?
The opening of iOS will open the use of these in education.
The kids will get around a filtering system.  It comes down to learning respect for the system and responsible use.
How Paul R. Woods got it in his district:
Install wireless first.
Students can bring in their own machines, but they must allow the school to put their proxies on their machines.
If kids try to get around it, the network locks their screen and they have to see the building tech person to get it unlocked again.
How did you get teachers on board?
First year:  bring your device in and allow our techs to look at it.
Following years:  pick an electronic textbook.
The school bought the licensing for all the books on all the devices.
The best way to get teachers involved is to let the kids use it and then let them ask the teachers that don’t use it if they can use it in their classroom.
BYOD is a better way to sustain a 1 to 1 program.  District provided computers are an unsustainable way to provide tech.
Find schools that are doing this successfully and then go to the IT department.
Get administrators on your side before going to IT department.
There is some risk going forward:
3-2-1 Rule:  Save in 3 different spots.
Create a safe place to fail in to create buy-in with your staff/admin/tech.
www.schoolweblockers.com:  Cloud storage for $1.00 per year.
@paulrwood on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/#!/paulrwood
Website:
http://whatisyouritvision.blogspot.com/
Related:
Scott McLeod (http://bigthink.com/blogs/dangerously-irrelevant)
UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)

ISTE 2011:  Professional Development led by Liz Davis

In a non-review year, she meets with teachers to help them prepare for their review year. Teacher had kids make stuff:

Kids prepared Choctaws (?) and rotated every 20 minutes.

Kids develop a wiki on the subject. Teachers meet with their TEAM leader to pull together stuff for their bi-annual review.

“Tech Tuesdays” Techies getting time to work with teachers. Tech coaches/IT departments justify their jobs by the level of tech integration. They survey the staff and then evaluate to see how far they’ve moved the staff from where they were to where they are at the end of the year. Tech department evaluations based on level of tech integration/use. Tech department schedules time with the teachers to help them with their job reviews and in doing so, helps them prove their value to the district.

Lots of teachers forget they use the tech and the IT people help them remember the projects to include in their portfolios. Teachers started meeting outside of school time to teach each other once they learned a new tech skill.

(The Geek Mustangs) Side note: lots of aluminum cases for iPads. IT organizes their PD for staff very similarly to what we do here at EduBloggerCon. Some put it in a survey monkey thing and have them pick their sessions there.

Use a food/menu metaphor: Appetizer, Main Course, Dessert Appetizer: Something I want to dip my toe it, something I want to find
out about, but not explore. Main Course: Something I want to learn in depth Dessert: Something fun at the end to wrap it up and I can use in my
classroom. Make an annual report at the end of the year and compliment teachers on their tech integration. Make a celebration at the end of the year out of it. (Culminating experience) Organize the kids to do tech PD for other students.

Students did a screen cast for each of the Google products. Checkout Flipboard for the iPad.

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
MSM, Podcast, Teaching Tip, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 172 Confused, Sounds of Silence, Next Week we’re talking about ISTE! Really, we promise. Maybe.

Jokes You Can Use:

While walking to the ninth hole, one psychiatrist said to his colleague, would you believe that yesterday I had a patient who claimed he heard music every time he put on his hat?”
“Really? What did you do?”
The psychiatrist answered, “I took it away and removed the band.”

A man was on a beach when he discovered an old lamp in the sand. He rubbed it and a genie popped out. The genie said “I will grant you three wishes. The only condition is that you cannot wish for more wishes.” “Alright,” said the man, “I wish for more genies.”

A tribal farmer watching a Tarzan movie rushed out of the hall the moment a tiger appeared on screen, advancing menacingly towards the audience.
The gatekeeper trying to stop him argued that it’s only a movie, to which the tribal replied: “I know it’s a movie, you also know it is, but does the tiger know”?

Q: How do Eskimos have babies?
A: They keep on rubbing their noses together until the little boogers come out.

On Our Mind:

 mthman Ron King Hey @MSMatters…do you remember the #NMSA session about HOTS question stems on colored paper in the teacher’s line of sight? #midleved

Eileen Award:

Liz N. and Tim H. Thanks for the kind words.

Middle School Science Minute

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

Part 3: This middle school science minute is about the ELA common core standards in Reading and their relationship to science.  The four areas of reading include: key ideas and details; craft and structure; integration of knowledge and ideas; and range of reading and level of text complexity.  In this podcast, we look at the three reading standards that relate to science in grades 6 – 8 in the area of integration of knowledge and ideas, along with the range of reading and level of text complexity.

From the Twittervse:

*stardiverr L. Lee Why test scores are not a measure of all students’ learning.  http://tinyurl.com/3ggk9op
*willrich45 Will Richardson Btw, I’ve got 8 Google+ invites if anyone wants one…
*middleweb John Norton RT @MSPortal2: Blended Learning Helps Us Mind the Gaps | Powerful Learning Practice plpnetwork.com/2011/07/13/ble… #vflr @snbeach @rhawk
*shannonmmiller Shannon Miller Love that Steve put this together 🙂 RT @kylepace: LiveBinder of resources on Google+ from @web20classroom:

Add and Share Content With The @Edmodo Bookmarklet http://ow.ly/5G28p
*ckeech Cynthia Keech great idea!RT“@ransomtech:  Idea:  Share one a day w students. “eEtiquette – 101 Guidelines for the Digital World” eetiquette.com” #edchat
*lisibo lisibo Comic Life app for iPad is half price this weekend – £2.49.
*annemareemoore annemareemoore Another great scoop.it @townesy77 iPods and Education on @scoopit bit.ly/poTuti
*RickWormeli Rick Wormeli In classrooms we negotiate for what level of hypocrisy we should tolerate this day. Some days we’re more tolerant than we should be.
*fisher1000 Michael Fisher LiveBinders Update!! Curate your own shelf of others’ binders! #cmi2011 Read about it here: livebinders.wordpress.com (Thanks Barbara & Tina!)
*BethStill Beth Still Ten Sure Ways to Help You Destroy Your Twitter Cred: Are you guilty of any of these?

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

http://www.minddump.org/you-have-the-same-hours-per-day-as-helen-kell

https://www.sifteo.com/product  Coming this summer.

Show & Tell

These results suggest children are extremely sensitive to the subtleties of a teaching scenario, Schulz says: What matters is not if children are shown a function, but how they are shown that function. If they believe that an informed teacher has taught them everything, they will be less motivated to explore.

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/06/30/if-students-believe-that-a-teacher-has-taught-them-everything-they-will-be-less-motivated-to-explore/
The original post:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-06/miot-dsd063011.php

What should students be able to do with technology in grade school?

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/elementary-technology-skills-mary-beth-hertz

Resources:

Fur.ly

Multiple URL’s into one window. Adds a bar on the top of the window where people can click through the URL’s. I had trouble getting the Capta to work. You can track how many people have viewed the site.
http://fur.ly/

Brain Rules

Book for sale – I haven’t read it. Does point out 12 Brain Rules.

Brightstorm

Thousands of FREE video resources for Math & Science. One neat thing is that you can search by textbook. There is also Test Prep materials. Includes transcripts for the videos.
http://brightstorm.com/

National Archives Document of the Day

A different historical document every day. Includes support links. Also a mobile app is available.
http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/

Knovio:

Knovio™ is a free tool for turning PowerPoint slides into rich video presentations right from your web browser. No fancy hardware or video software needed – just a webcam and microphone. Currently in private Beta. Will have a free component. Go sign up if interested.
http://www.knovio.com/

Animaps

Create and view beautifully informative animated maps, for free!
http://www.animaps.com/#!home

Kodu

Kodu is a visual programming language made especially for creating games. Kodu’s language is entirely icon-based, fairly easy to learn, and aimed at kids 9 to 17. It works on PCs and on the Xbox.
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/07/students-create-games-that-focus-on-global-issues/

Show Me
iPad app.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/showme-interactive-whiteboard/id445066279?mt=8

Web Spotlight:

Snag Films: Red, White & Blue
Voting. 35 minutes.
http://learning.snagfilms.com/film/journeys-through-the-red-white-and-blue

ISTE 2011

Led by Scott Meech
References:
https://profiles.google.com/smeech.net/posts
http://www.linkedin.com/in/smeech
http://globaleducation.ning.com/profile/ScottMeech

Kenilworth School District has been piloting it with 8th graders.
No spike in behavior issues, let the kids bring ’em in as an expansion of current policy.
As they refreshed the teacher devices, they moved those into use for student use.
They put all the stuff in the cloud  and got rid of individual student folders on the drive.
Kerns High School did a tech initiative:  What devices?
Kenilworth SD used them mostly with executive functioning.
Use for RTI:  Pushing notifications to the kids who need the executive functions piece.
Jim Gates:  Statewide video conference on BYOD (PA)
Even through allowed to bring devices in, students didn’t want to.
Heavy
Fear of being stolen
When allowed, it changed the dynamic, expectations changed lesson design and desire to bring it to class.
How did you get past the IT wanting control?
We don’t control other things (paper, magazines, etc.) why control this?
How would you start?
Approach:  How do we want the kids to use this?
3-5 years out we will probably be talking about how in the world were we worried about this stuff?
Return on Investment:  Are we at the tipping point where it is more expensive to manage it rather than allow it  and educate on how to use it?
School didn’t get rid of all technology that they had, they are using the BYOD for executive functions (time management, calendars, etc.)
What about renting/subsidizing devices?
The opening of iOS will open the use of these in education.
The kids will get around a filtering system.  It comes down to learning respect for the system and responsible use.
How Paul R. Woods got it in his district:
Install wireless first.
Students can bring in their own machines, but they must allow the school to put their proxies on their machines.
If kids try to get around it, the network locks their screen and they have to see the building tech person to get it unlocked again.
How did you get teachers on board?
First year:  bring your device in and allow our techs to look at it.
Following years:  pick an electronic textbook.
The school bought the licensing for all the books on all the devices.
The best way to get teachers involved is to let the kids use it and then let them ask the teachers that don’t use it if they can use it in their classroom.
BYOD is a better way to sustain a 1 to 1 program.  District provided computers are an unsustainable way to provide tech.
Find schools that are doing this successfully and then going to the IT department.
Get administrators on your side before going to IT department.
There is some risk going forward:
3-2-1 Rule:  Save in 3 different spots.
Create a safe place to fail in to create buy-in with your staff/admin/tech.
www.schoolweblockers.com:  Cloud storage for $1.00 per year.
@paulrwood on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/#!/paulrwood
Website:
http://whatisyouritvision.blogspot.com/
Related:
Scott McLeod (http://bigthink.com/blogs/dangerously-irrelevant)
UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)

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
MSM, News, Podcast, Strategy, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 171 TwittervISTE #ISTE11

Jokes You Can Use:

How does a guitar player make a million dollars?
He starts out with eight million.

My brother told me I needed to study more on my gardening.
I had a rock garden this year, and one of the rocks died!

Read this from Readers Digest a long time ago: One day a Cowpoke riding the plains, came upon a warrior with his head down on the ground with his ear on a wagon track, the warrior looked up at the cowpoke and said” Wagon with two horses, one black, one white, man with beard drive, smoke pipe, women ride, wear blue dress with bonnet” the cowpoke looks at the warrior and said” you mean you can tell me all that just by listening to a wagon track? The warrior looked up and replied, “No! Run over me half hour ago…

A frog came into a bank to obtain a loan. He spoke to the loan officer Mr. Paddywack. When Mr. Paddywack asked the frog what he had for loan collateral, the frog held out his hand. “What’s that?” asked Mr. Paddywack, but the frog could not talk. So, Mr. Paddywack took the frog in to see the manager and explained the situation. The manager then asked the frog what collateral he had for the loan and the frog held out his hand. “Oh,” said the manager, “that’s a knickknack Paddywack, give the frog a loan.”

The manager of a large office asked a new employee to come into his office. “What is your name?,” was the first thing the manager asked. “John,” the new guy replied. The manager scowled. “Look, I don’t know what kind of a namby-pamby place you worked at before, but I don’t call anyone by their first name! It breeds familiarity and that leads to a breakdown in authority,” he said. “I refer to my employees by their last name only – Smith, Jones, Baker – that’s all. Now that we got that straight, what is your last name?” The new guy sighed and said, “Darling. My name is John Darling.” The manager said, “Okay, John, the next thing I want to tell you…”

Eileen Award:

Allen D. for the web site recommendation.

Middle School Science Minute

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

Part 2 on the relationship between the core standards for ELA and literacy in Science. I look at the three reading standards that relate to science in grades 6 – 8 in the area of craft and structure.

From the TwittervISTE:

* dakinane dakinane  RT @gwoitas: Trends and tools in the classroom from #iste11.What is a flipped classroom? lots of cool tools! bit.ly/jAjEwq #elearning
* surreylearn surreylearn “@stevehargadon: #isteunplugged session recordings all posted! #iste11 bit.ly/mL7okU” #sd36learn
* dwarlick David Warlick How I took notes at #ISTE11 – http://ow.ly/5vrdo
* tcbird1 Tammy Audaer Bird Awesome! RT @mrsebiology Before, During, & After Reading Strategies: #edchat #engchat #midleved #elemchat
* dmcordell dmcordell I’m still trying to process it all! Your presentation was very effective. RT @cathyjo My #ISTE11 Faves http://owl.li/1dzixK
* gret Greta Sandler Webcasts and Keynotes from #ISTE11 by @rmbyrne #edchat
*gcouros gcourosRT @jaymej: @WestEnglish ISTE 2011 Closing Keynote: Chris Lehmann (full) #ISTE11
* lingsc scling The Nerdy Teacher: 10 Things I Hate About You (#ISTE11) thenerdyteacher.com/2011/06/10-thi…
* edmodo Edmodo Recovered from #ISTE11? EdmodoCon2011 – Call for presentations opens tomorrow! August 10th, Global virtual conference –details to come.
* KellyGToGo Kelly Gallagher Harry Potter and the Hatred of Teachers: esquire.com/features/thous…

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

The 7 Golden Rules of Using Technology in Schools

July 6, 2011 | 3:43 PM | By Tina Barseghian
Sometimes teachers and administrators need a kick in the pants to see what they perceive as problems re-framed in a different way.
1) DON’T TRAP TECHNOLOGY IN A ROOM.
2) TECHNOLOGY IS WORTHLESS WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
3) MOBILE TECHNOLOGY STRETCHES A LONG WAY.
4) THE NEW ‘F WORD’ IS FEAR.
5) TECH TOOLS ARE NOT JUST A PASSING FAD.
6) MONEY IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
7) INVITE EVERY STAKEHOLDER TO THE CONVERSATION.
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/07/the-seven-golden-rules-of-using-technology-in-schools/

Resources:

Be a Great Learner: Take Notes
by Jeff Cobb
Establishing a consistent habit of writing things down can be very powerful.  A significant body of research supports the idea that simply writing something down contributes greatly to the process of moving it into long-term memory.
http://www.missiontolearn.com/2011/06/note-taking/

Leveling the Playing Field: How to Make Standardized Test Preparation Accessible to All Students

By Andrea Alexander
Strategy 1: Encourage Predictive Reading Habits
Strategy 2: Build Good Vocabularies
Strategy 3: Take Advantage of All the Resources Offered by the Internet
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-to-make-standardized-test-prep-available-to-all-students

Desmos

Desmos is a place where anyone can create and share rich, interactive content that works across platforms – from computers, to interactive touchscreens in classrooms, and even to many tablet devices and smartphones. We believe that educational content should be easy to build, easy to access, and easy to share, and should never be restricted to one device. Desmos is in private beta, but taking requests to join.
Desmos, at its core, means connection (in English, the study of ligaments is known as Desmology). We build software that allows people to create content and collaborate online.
http://desmos.com/calculator/
http://desmos.com/

One Teacher’s Three-Tiered Intervention Strategy

Jean Laurance and Michael Laurance

I had no sooner returned from Rick Wormeli’s seminar on differentiated assessment and grading than my administrator walked into my office. Her face showed apprehension and a bit of weariness.
My class sizes would be pushed to a staggering 37 students!  “We don’t have enough students to run separate classes, so they will be mixed, but about 10 percent are repeating the class.”
Having the tools required for differentiated instruction is one thing, but here I was faced with the task of truly implementing it. More than that, I would need to adjust differentiation to my teaching style, a diverse group of students, and a bulging class size. I quickly realized that manageability would be just as important as the instruction itself.
http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol6/620-laurance.aspx

Web Spotlight:

What Does Successful Project Based Learning Looks Like?
by Bob Lenz
Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching approach, a mindset, and a framework for teaching skills and content. (Both our working definition and criteria are derived from our own work, as well as the work of, Adria Steinberg’s 6 A’s of PBL, The Buck Institute for Education, and Expeditionary Learning.)
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/project-based-learning-definition-bob-lenz

Troy has a new project . . . . Just Arrived!

Stencil:  http://stencil.sourceforge.net/
Make games.  No need to understand programming.  Can make iPhone Apps from this program.  Allegedly Angry Birds was made using this program.

Summer Reading List:

Troy:

  • The Watchman’s Rattle ( just finished) by Rebecca D. Costa
  • What the Dog Saw by Malcom Gladwell

Shawn:

  • Toys to Tools,
  • Safe Practice for Life Online &
  • Web 2.0 How to for teachers
  • The Devil Dogs of Belleau Wood  ✔

Our Listeners:

@mthman:  The Classroom of Choice, First Days of School (4th Ed), Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites, & Great Ways to Diff Math Instr (I & II), Leading & Managing a Diff Class, Learning to Love Math, PBL Starter Kit (via Buck Institute), UbD Guide 2 HQ Units

#midleved:

@Waukeestudent:  I plan on reading @johntspencer ‘s new book and maybe his two older books two.

Bonus:

http://www.missiontolearn.com/2011/06/recommended-reading/

ISTE 2011

Led by Scott Meech
References:
https://profiles.google.com/smeech.net/posts
http://www.linkedin.com/in/smeech
http://globaleducation.ning.com/profile/ScottMeech

Kenilworth School District has been piloting it with 8th graders.
No spike in behavior issues, let the kids bring ’em in as an expansion of current policy.
As they refreshed the teacher devices, they moved those into use for student use.
They put all the stuff in the cloud  and got rid of individual student folders on the drive.
Kerns High School did a tech initiative:  What devices?
Kenilworth SD used them mostly with executive functioning.
Use for RTI:  Pushing notifications to the kids who need the executive functions piece.
Jim Gates:  Statewide video conference on BYOD (PA)
Even through allowed to bring devices in, students didn’t want to.
Heavy
Fear of being stolen
When allowed, it changed the dynamic, expectations changed lesson design and desire to bring it to class.
How did you get past the IT wanting control?
We don’t control other things (paper, magazines, etc.) why control this?
How would you start?
Approach:  How do we want the kids to use this?
3-5 years out we will probably be talking about how in the world were we worried about this stuff?
Return on Investment:  Are we at the tipping point where it is more expensive to manage it rather than allow it  and educate on how to use it?
School didn’t get rid of all technology that they had, they are using the BYOD for executive functions (time management, calendars, etc.)
What about renting/subsidizing devices?
The opening of iOS will open the use of these in education.
The kids will get around a filtering system.  It comes down to learning respect for the system and responsible use.
How Paul R. Woods got it in his district:
Install wireless first.
Students can bring in their own machines, but they must allow the school to put their proxies on their machines.
If kids try to get around it, the network locks their screen and they have to see the building tech person to get it unlocked again.
How did you get teachers on board?
First year:  bring your device in and allow our techs to look at it.
Following years:  pick an electronic textbook.
The school bought the licensing for all the books on all the devices.
The best way to get teachers involved is to let the kids use it and then let them ask the teachers that don’t use it if they can use it in their classroom.
BYOD is a better way to sustain a 1 to 1 program.  District provided computers are an unsustainable way to provide tech.
Find schools that are doing this successfully and then going to the IT department.
Get administrators on your side before going to IT department.
There is some risk going forward:
3-2-1 Rule:  Save in 3 different spots.
Create a safe place to fail in to create buy-in with your staff/admin/tech.
www.schoolweblockers.com:  Cloud storage for $1.00 per year.
@paulrwood on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/#!/paulrwood
Website:
http://whatisyouritvision.blogspot.com/
Related:
Scott McLeod (http://bigthink.com/blogs/dangerously-irrelevant)
UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)

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
advisory, Conferences, MSM, News, Podcast, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 170 Football Fields, ISTE, Tweet Me.

Jokes You Can Use:

What goes up and never comes down?
Your age

1 egg takes 5 minutes to boil. How long do 10 eggs take to boil?
The same 5 minutes.

How many times does a tailor have to cut 100 yards of cloth to get 100 equal pieces?
99 times. You don’t cut the last piece, it is already there

What side of the teacup is the handle on?
I really don’t know the answer

Which is heavier? 1 pound of hay or 1pound of metal.
They both weigh a pound

Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers, Peter piper picked. If Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peckers, how many pickels did Peter piper picked? How many Ps are there in THAT?
None…T..H…A…T…..there are NO P’s in the word THAT

What has 100 eyes and cannot see?
A potato

Two Indians standing on a bridge. One is the father of the other ones son. What is the relation between the two Indians?
Mother and Father

What has NO legs and CAN run?
Water

On Our Mind:

ISTE 2011 (#iste11)
The problems with skipping a show

Eileen Award

Gabe Walker & Michael Cohen

Advisory:

BBC – Witness

Witness – history as told by the people who were there. Five days a week we will be talking to people who lived through moments of history to bring you a personal perspective on world events.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/witness

Middle School Science Minute

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

In this podcast, I look at the ELA Reading Common core for grades 6-8 and see how they apply to science.  This is the first in a three part series.  It focuses in on Key Ideas and Details.

From the Twitterverse:

*MSMatters Shawn & Troy “Treating students as only test scores is the worst form of identity theft.” -Dr. Stephen Covey at #iste11
*deangroom DeanGroom If ya cant build a community, build a creepy treehouse and pretend its a community. After all, its all about you anyway.
*pernilleripp Pernille Ripp Did you know Banana Republic offers a 15% discount for teachers? I didn’t http://ow.ly/5tKLw
*chubbuch Chris Hubbuch Attended a powerful session yesterday on improving our presentations. Reminds me of this ow.ly/5tKuR via @geraldaungst #edchat
*carolynstarkey Carolyn Starkey Updated LiveBinder: School Librarians and the Common Core State Standards: Resources tinyurl.com/3pdrejs #aslachat
*kbkonnected Karen Bolotin 45 recorded sessions from #ISTE – via @dsmacdonald I’m listening to @dmantz @livebinders right now. Awesome…http://tumblr.com/xtl38xls1q
*scottmerrick Scott Merrick #iste11 – @scottmerrick ustream.tv/channel/iste-s… for ustream archive of our fine 1st annual SIGVE Machinima Festival. New faces there! Thx, KC!
*web20classroom Steven W. Anderson RT @dataliberation: We’re happy to announce The Data Liberation Front’s revolutionary new product, Google Takeout:dataliberation.blogspot.com/2011/06/data-l…
*sccsdtechjodee Jo Dee Weltz Adam Bellow: ironic we get our “PD” from Twitter and YouTube, yet we block it in our schools #ISTE11
*cyberteacher Stephanie Madlinger RT @adambellow All new FREE eduTecher apps available now for iPhone, iPad & Android! Check out & enjoy! #education #iste11 #edtech #edchat
*elemenous Lucy Gray Mobile Learning Finds (Apple iOS) (weekly): – Hipstamatic Combination Chart Chart… http://goo.gl/fb/T8Hmg
*kjarrett Kevin Jarrett RT @isteconnects: New Post: Web 2.0 Tools Smackdown: Ideas and Resources from EduBloggerCon 2011 bit.ly/lqWbPD #ebc11 #iste11
*courosa Alec Couros “9 Presentation Apps for the iPad” http://rww.to/jKbxby
*gret Greta Sandler Webcasts and Keynotes from #ISTE11 by @rmbyrne #edchat
*edmodo Edmodo Recovered from #ISTE11? EdmodoCon2011 – Call for presentations opens tomorrow! August 10th, Global virtual conference –details to come.

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

University of the People

University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s first tuition-free online university
dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education.
The University embraces the worldwide presence of the Internet and dropping technology costs to bring tuition-free academic programs within reach to millions of people around the world.
With the support of academic leadership from top universities and a student body comprised of students from over 115 countries, UoPeople has become a tuition-free higher education global leader.
Currently, University of the People offers the following four undergraduate degrees: Associate (A.S.-B.A.) and Bachelor (B.S.-B.A.) degrees in Business Administration and Associate (A.S.-C.S.) and Bachelor (B.S.-C.S.) degrees in Computer Science.
It should be noted that unless and until University of the People receives state licensing, it will be unable to grant degrees to graduating students.
http://www.uopeople.org/

What’s the Best Way to Grade Teachers?

By Kristina Rizga| Wed Jun. 29, 2011 11:35 AM PDT

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, because we do know that while poverty accounts for much of students’ achievement gap, within a school, teachers make a bigger difference than any other variable.
Elden’s suggests that education reformers spend more time talking with teachers to avoid unintended consequences like firing teachers who want to work with the most challenging students. Hire teachers from diverse backgrounds and varying viewpoints to develop these systems, not just policy wonks or teacher union reps, she says. “Realize that schools are deeply collaborative communities and setting up competition will not always be the best thing for the kids.”
http://motherjones.com/contributor/2011/06/grading-teachers-evaluations

First Digital Only Textbook:

CINCH, is a cloud-based curriculum for K-12 math and 7-12 science. It makes all course materials, which include ebooks, presentations, assessments and animation clips, available from any device with a browser. Students in a class can also participate in Facebook-like conversations that stay with the text. “We’re trying to meet students and teachers where they’re at digitally,” Stansell says.
http://mashable.com/2011/06/27/iste-textbooks-k-12/

The many health perks of good handwriting

Not only does it help the brain develop, it can also improve grades and confidence
Emerging research shows that handwriting increases brain activity, hones fine motor skills, and can predict a child’s academic success in ways that keyboarding can’t.
Handwriting can change how children learn and their brains develop. IU researchers used neuroimaging scans to measure brain activation in preliterate preschool children who were shown letters. One group of children then practiced printing letters; the other children practiced seeing and saying the letters. After four weeks of training, the kids who practiced writing showed brain activation similar to an adult’s, said James, the study’s lead researcher. The printing practice also improved letter recognition, which is the No. 1 predictor of reading ability at age 5.
http://www.healthkey.com/sc-health-0615-child-health-handwriti20110615,0,5764943.story

Resources:

ISTE Online:

Free PD for you.  What happens at ISTE . . . goes social:
http://tumblr.com/xtl38xls1q http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/07/webcasts-and-keynotes-from-iste-2011.html

Socrative:

Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational games and exercises via smartphones and tablets. Our apps are super simple and take seconds to load and run. Teachers control the questions and games on their laptop, while students respond and interact through their smartphones/laptops. Run it as an app or on any web browser.
Currently free. No mention of what prices will be once it is out of beta.
http://www.socrative.com/

Weaving History

Create ‘factlets’ — places, people, events — and string them together into ‘threads’ at the click of a button.Automatically visualize the results temporally and spatially, search by any attribute, automatically import Wikipedia articles and much more …
Very bare bones currently. It’s reliance on Wikipedia could cause some problems for schools (but maybe not).
Potential to be exciting and useful for students and teachers.
http://www.weavinghistory.org/

Web Spotlight:

Ujam

You sing the lyrics, it figures out the tune.  Even if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, sing into the mic and it comes up with the music to go along with it.  Anybody can become a musician with this app.  Think of it as your answer to the kid who says, “You can’t make a song out of that!”  Now you can.  http://www.ujam.com/

ISTE 2011

Led by Scott Meech
References:
https://profiles.google.com/smeech.net/posts
http://www.linkedin.com/in/smeech
http://globaleducation.ning.com/profile/ScottMeech

Kenilworth School District has been piloting it with 8th graders.
No spike in behavior issues, let the kids bring ’em in as an expansion of current policy.
As they refreshed the teacher devices, they moved those into use for student use.
They put all the stuff in the cloud  and got rid of individual student folders on the drive.
Kerns High School did a tech initiative:  What devices?
Kenilworth SD used them mostly with executive functioning.
Use for RTI:  Pushing notifications to the kids who need the executive functions piece.
Jim Gates:  Statewide video conference on BYOD (PA)
Even through allowed to bring devices in, students didn’t want to.
Heavy
Fear of being stolen
When allowed, it changed the dynamic, expectations changed lesson design and desire to bring it to class.
How did you get past the IT wanting control?
We don’t control other things (paper, magazines, etc.) why control this?
How would you start?
Approach:  How do we want the kids to use this?
3-5 years out we will probably be talking about how in the world were we worried about this stuff?
Return on Investment:  Are we at the tipping point where it is more expensive to manage it rather than allow it  and educate on how to use it?
School didn’t get rid of all technology that they had, they are using the BYOD for executive functions (time management, calendars, etc.)
What about renting/subsidizing devices?
The opening of iOS will open the use of these in education.
The kids will get around a filtering system.  It comes down to learning respect for the system and responsible use.
How Paul R. Woods got it in his district:
Install wireless first.
Students can bring in their own machines, but they must allow the school to put their proxies on their machines.
If kids try to get around it, the network locks their screen and they have to see the building tech person to get it unlocked again.
How did you get teachers on board?
First year:  bring your device in and allow our techs to look at it.
Following years:  pick an electronic textbook.
The school bought the licensing for all the books on all the devices.
The best way to get teachers involved is to let the kids use it and then let them ask the teachers that don’t use it if they can use it in their classroom.
BYOD is a better way to sustain a 1 to 1 program.  District provided computers are an unsustainable way to provide tech.
Find schools that are doing this successfully and then going to the IT department.
Get administrators on your side before going to IT department.
There is some risk going forward:
3-2-1 Rule:  Save in 3 different spots.
Create a safe place to fail in to create buy-in with your staff/admin/tech.
www.schoolweblockers.com:  Cloud storage for $1.00 per year.
@paulrwood on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/#!/paulrwood
Website:
http://whatisyouritvision.blogspot.com/
Related:
Scott McLeod (http://bigthink.com/blogs/dangerously-irrelevant)
UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)

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

 

advisory, Podcast, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 169 “I got you a cookie!” Resources Bonanza!

Jokes You Can Use:

The prison officer tells the warden, “Sir, I have to report that ten prisoners have broken out.”
The alarmed warden says, “Blow the whistles, sound the alarms, alert the police.
With a surprised look the officer says, “Shouldn’t we call the doctor first – it looks as if it might be measles.

Did you hear about the skunk that went to church?
“He had his own pew.”

A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog.
The children fell to discussing the dog’s duties.
“They use him to keep crowds back,” said one youngster.
“No,” said another, “he’s just for good luck.”
A third child brought the argument to a close. “They use the dogs,” she said firmly, “to find the fire hydrant.”

It was an elegant dinner party and the hostess had left nothing to chance, except that a little water had splashed on the marble floor. And when the waiter came into the dining room carrying the beautiful roast suckling pig, he slipped and fell flat, sending the roast flying. “Don’t worry, Tomas,” said the hostess calmly. “Just take the roast back to the kitchen and bring out the other one.”

On Our Mind:

Job changes.

Week “off”.

Eileen Award

Monte Tatom


Advisory:

Belongings

By SAM DOLNICK
There are three million immigrants in New York City. When they left home, knowing it could be forever, they packed what they could not bear to leave behind: necessities, luxuries, memories. Here is a look at what some of them brought.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/nyregion/27belongings.html

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)
GIS (Geographic Information Systems) with middle school students. (We attach the device to an area they can’t reach, that way if they wander off the floor we can find them!  Oh, wait, that’s the mental ward . . .)

From the Twitterverse:

*Larryferlazzo Updates to “The Best Resources For Helping Teens Learn About The Importance Of Sleep”
*DanielPink Take 2 minutes and tell Congress not to cut arts education . . .
*pammoran inspiring post by MissShuganah about one of those 1 in a million teachers who changes lives http://is.gd/bw6GB7
*DanielBeylerian Top 46 #Free #Mac Downloads –
Top 100 #Free #iPhone Apps – Top 100 #Free #Android Apps –
*willrich45 If Lassie could Tweet:
*MSPortal2 Learning From Mom Boosts Low-Income Kids’ School Readiness http://1.usa.gov/iiA1tB
*russeltarr The seven secrets behind great teaching: http://tinyurl.com/3wmr4dp
*brasst iLearn – iPod touch and iPad Apps gameslab.radford.edu/iLearn/apps.ht… Created by students, for students
*Larryferlazzo RT @shermandorn: “Give me the money or I shoot my foot!” and other political theories of education reform
*drmmtatom QR Codes – What are they & how can I use them in my classroom? | The Spectronics Blog http://zite.to/m528ca via @Ziteapp #fhuedu642

ASCD Inservice: Seven Ways to Go from On-Task to Engaged #fhuedu610 http://tinyurl.com/3vfgyhr
*pearson Pearson eText for iPad youtube.com/watch?v=6eIBta…
*theresawhite “@NAESP: Study Links Job Stress In Teachers To Student Achievement http://j.mp/mDKQ8o”
*Ruth_A_Buzzi Easy Reader; Thunderbraille; Deaf Man’s Chest; The Bridge on the River Quiet; The Best Ears of our Lives #silentmovies

Ruth_A_Buzzi #funeralhomeslogans When taxes are the only remaining inevitable.

Ruth_A_Buzzi #funeralhomeslogans Option 13, take him back home minus the snoring.

Ruth_A_Buzzi #funeralhomeslogans At least Navy Seals aren’t dropping you in the water.

Ruth_A_Buzzi #funeralhomeslogans Formaldehyde or napalm, the kids decide.

Ruth_A_Buzzi #funeralhomeslogans Where the Bloods hang with the Crypts.

#myworstinvestment How to Read Braille, the video series.
*HappyTeacherLA @toughLoveforx @DianeRavitch waiting 4 edreformers 2 pass laws 2 jail prnts 4 not reading the prescribed minutes 2 their children at home.
*DianeRavitch RT: No high performing nation in world evaluates teacher quality by student test scores. None. tinyurl.com/44jegl8

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

Resources:

Multi-media in Education Report

http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/multimediareport-2011/digitaledition-multimediareport2011.html?r=1130997812

77 Web Resouces to Explore this summer

The school year is either over or almost over for the majority of readers of Free Technology for Teachers. The summer is a good time to explore and experiment with new things that you might use in the fall. In the PDF below I’ve compiled 77 resources that you might want try out over the next couple of months. Even if there’s nothing new to you in it, please consider passing it along to a colleague that could discover a few new things from it.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/06/77-web-resources-for-teacher-to-explore.html

Stick Pick

A Corona teacher has developed a handheld-computer application to call on students randomly and ask them questions that are easy or hard enough for their current learning level.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_wapp17.409d429.html
or
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stick-pick/id436682059?mt=8

Succeeding with Science

http://www.succeedingwithscience.com/

OKAPI

Reading level and CBA (Curriculum Based Assessment) probes.
http://www.lefthandlogic.com/htmdocs/tools/okapi/okapi.php

Web Spotlight:

Summer Reading List for new teachers:

http://www.edutopia.org/groups/new-teacher-connections/52655

MichiganScience

By connecting to the new MichiganScience Facebook page you’ll have quicker access to science news from Michigan and across the country. Plus, there are the fun features, guest columnists (like Chuck Gaidica and PaleoJoe), book reviews and dazzling graphics you’ve come to expect. All you have to do is visit our MichiganScience fan page and click “like.” When we reach 1,200 fans, we’ll award one lucky fan with a new iPad 2.
http://www.facebook.com/MichiganScience

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

 

advisory, Lesson Plan, MSM, News, Podcast, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 168 Fight, Fight, Who’s on Twitter and who is right?

Jokes You Can Use:

A wife went to the police station with her next-door neighbor to report that her husband was missing. The policeman asked for a description. She said, “He’s 35 years old, 6 foot 4, has dark eyes, dark wavy hair, an athletic build, weighs 185 pounds, is soft-spoken, and is good to the children.” The next-door neighbor protested, “Your husband is 5 foot 4, chubby, bald, has a big mouth, and is mean to your children.” The wife replied, “Yes, but who wants HIM back?”

A husband was having great difficulty getting along with his wife – nothing but arguing and friction – so he decided to consult a marriage counselor. After they had talked for a while, the counselor said, “I suggest that you run five miles each day for a week. Then please call me back.”
A week later the counselor received a call from the husband, “Well,” asked the counselor, “how are things going with you and your wife?
“How should I know?” said the husband. “I’m thirty-five miles away.”

Lady, this vacuum cleaner will cut your work in half.
Good. I’ll take two of them.

Two ROBINS were lying on their backs, BASKING in the sun. A mama cat and her kitten were walking by. The kitten complained, ‘Mama, I’m so hungry, what can we eat?’ To which the mama cat, spying the two robins, replied,
How about some Baskin Robbins?’

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party.
As her dad donned his tuxedo she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.”
“And why not, darling?” he asked.
“You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

On Our Mind:

If you had $9,000 left in building PD, what would you choose to spend it on?

– Must be spent before the end of July.
– Must be approved by your building principal, School Improvement Committee, and perhaps Act of Congress.

Eileen Award

Janelle Rowe, newest member to the Diigo group.

Advisory:

What do you get when you combine Mythbusters, Tesla coils and Doctor Who? The answer is one charged-up performance.
ArcAttack is a performance art group that has rocked audiences with its custom-built Singing Tesla Coils since 2005. The plasma speakers produce musical tones by modulating spark output, a phenomenon that was featured in the Nicholas Cage film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame took it to another level though at this year’s Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this YouTube video, Savage awkwardly dances to the tune of Doctor Who‘s iconic theme music while in a cage. The result is a performance that electrified the crowd (pun intended).
http://mashable.com/2011/05/25/adam-savage-doctor-who-tesla-coils/

Stats of the Union

If you have an interest in American demographics and statistics, you need to check out the Stats of the Union iPad app. Statistics are only useful when you have a clear way of organizing and viewing the data. Without being able to do that, you can’t glean any useful information from the numbers. What Stats of the Union does is take a host of data from the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) report and present it on an interactive, color-coded map.
Stats of the Union allows you to visualize any number of statistics for the entire country, all the way down to the county level. There are multiple subcategories in the seven prime categories including Summary, Demographics, Births, Deaths, At-Risk Groups, Diseases, and Risk Factors. For example, with a few taps I can see that in the county where I grew up (St. Louis County), life expectancy is 77.4 years, and population is 991,830. 20 percent of those people are at risk of health issues from smoking, and 102,548 people under the age of 65 (over 10 percent of the population) lack health insurance.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/29/stats-of-the-union-brings-american-demographic-data-to-the-ipad

Middle School Science Minute

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

Middle School Science Minute – Dissections and Dissection Apps.

From the Twitterverse:

*EDPressSec Justin Hamilton

@arneduncan: @DianeRavitch in denial & insulting hardworking teachers, principals & students proving her wrong every day me.lt/760ka

Note:  Arne Duncan’s verified account doesn’t follow a single teacher.
*

DianeRavitch Diane Ravitch

Having worked in the U.S. Dept of Education, I truly don’t understand why the Dept would use its resources to attack one person. Shameful.
*FlyontheCWall Find free grants for teachers and schools by searching by grade level, subject, or deadline.
*bethstill A great opportunity today to learn about ISTE Unplugged, Edubloggercon, and Bloggers’ Cafe at #iste11. Noon EST. bit.ly/9Du1vP
*web20classroom From @justintarte-10 Reasons To Get Educators Blogging:
*coolcatteacher I’m fully convinced inigma is the best QR code app http://www.i-nigma.com/i-nigmahp.html #qrcode
*HappyTeacherLA @toughLoveforx @DianeRavitch waiting 4 edreformers 2 pass laws 2 jail prnts 4 not reading the prescribed minutes 2 their children at home.
*bhsprincipal A Professional Development Design Concept (via @jimohagan) < Thoughts on Learning Spaces for Teachers? #edchat #cpchat
*Larryferlazzo The Best Rubric Sites (And A Beginning Discussion About Their Use)
*markgammon RT @armano: (good read) What College Degrees Are Really Worth #edu
Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

E-Book prices fuel outrage — and innovation

by Narasu Rebbapragada

An e-book that costs the same as a printed book doesn’t feel right. No trees died to make it. No heavy machinery ran to print it. No planes flew to ship it. You might need to buy one of those new $139 Barnes & Noble Nooks, announced this week, to be able to read it. So why should you have to spend as much as you would for a heavy hardcover book to own it?

http://www.macworld.com/article/160120/2011/05/ebook_prices_outrage_innovation.html

Resources:

Our school recently changed our school-wide referencing tool.

We have had a school wide referencing system in place for the past 6 or 7 years, we like many other Australian schools were a “Harvard referencing” school and we used a program called citation which was loaded on all the schools computers.

We shopped around for a few online referencing tools, looking at BibMe, Noodle Tools and EasyBib. We decided on Easybib and although it is a free product we opted to pay a small fee so that we could get APA referencing as an option for our students, which is similar to our previous Harvard system.

http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/essential-tools-using-easy-bib/

Merriam-Webster Dictionary now available on iPad for free

You could argue that there’s not much need for a separate dictionary app any more. With dictionary services built into nearly every interface and Google and Wikipedia searches just a tap away, it’s not hard to find out what a word means or how it’s spelled any more. But sometimes you may just want to browse around or look a word up for yourself, and for those times, there’s the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app, which is now available on the iPad for free.

Technology Integration Matrix

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below.

http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix.php

Zondle

This is zondle, where you can play games to support your learning!

http://www.zondle.com/publicPages/welcome.aspx

Books Should Be Free

Free audio book in mp3, iPod and iTunes.

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/

Web Spotlight:

Waiting for a School Miracle

By DIANE RAVITCH

Teachers and principals have been fired and schools that were once fixtures in their community have been closed and replaced. In time, many of the new schools will close, too, unless they avoid enrolling low-performing students, like those who don’t read English or are homeless or have profound disabilities.

Teachers and principals have been fired and schools that were once fixtures in their community have been closed and replaced. In time, many of the new schools will close, too, unless they avoid enrolling low-performing students, like those who don’t read English or are homeless or have profound disabilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01ravitch.html

TEDEd Calling for Submissions: Are you ready for TED?

by ANGELA MAIERS

As a huge fan of TED, I was thrilled to see the TED organization reaching out to follow educators in search of powerful content for educators created by educators.

TEDEd is launching a global search for new best of breed educational videos. They are inviting content submissions for 10 video series in the following catagories:

1. Math in real life

2. Creativity in Action

3. Inventions That Shaped History

4. How and Why?

5. Questions no one (yet) knows the answer to

6. Mindshifting stories

7. Playing with language

8. Same – and different

9. Things they don’t teach you in school

10. The five minute aha

http://www.angelamaiers.com/2011/05/are-you-ready-for-ted-teded-calling-for-submissions.html

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

 

advisory, Lesson Plan, Strategy, Teaching Tip, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 167 Fairly Infinite

Jokes You Can Use:

Why was the cat afraid of the tree?
Because of the tree bark. 

Guy: Haven’t I seen you someplace before?
Girl: Yes, that’s why I don’t go there anymore.

An Antartian ordered a pizza and the clerk asked if he should cut it in six or twelve pieces.
The Antartian replies, “Six, please. I could never eat twelve pieces.”

Five doctors went to on a duck hunt: a GP, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a surgeon, and a pathologist. After a while a bird came winging overhead, the GP raised his shogun but didn’t shoot because he wasn’t sure if it was a duck or not. The pediatrician also raised his gun, but then he wasn’t sure if it was a male or female duck, so he didn’t shoot. The psychiatrist raised his gun and then thought, I know that’s a duck, but does the duck know it’s a duck?” The surgeon was the only one who shot. Boom!! He blew it away. Then he turned to the pathologist and said, “Go see if that was a duck.”

Q. Why was the strawberry so sad?
A. His parent’s were in a jam.

On Our Mind:

The nuttiness of the end of the year.

Eileen Award

Carol Brown. Thanks for the thoughts.

Advisory:

Turn o Phrase

You can do a three before you sign in. This would be enough to show the students how it works. They could then create their own.
http://turn-o-phrase.appspot.com/

Sixty Second Lectures

Lectures in 60 seconds. (Warning: links to YouTube for videos).
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/sixtysec_lectures_archive.html

Middle School Science Minute

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

You were both talking about measurement during the last podcast and then starting talking about units (thanks for the Bydlowski Unit).  I got to thinking about measurement in middle school science and its connection to the math curriculum.  In Michigan, we stop teaching measurement in grade 6 and it all becomes application.  I think it is a good idea for middle school teachers to check out the math curriculum on measurement so that they have a solid understanding of the knowledge that students have, coming into their classrooms.  Often, science teachers will say that their students can’t measure, but math teachers know they have been teaching a lot about measurement.

From the Twitterverse:

*missnoor28 Creating a Summer Reading Network by @edutopia #edtech #edchat 

RT @kylepace: RT @mmorley: 14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging #edtech #edchat
*rkiker http://newsmap.jp/ is like Wordle for the news – cool interactive news cloud!
*janellewilson One last time: an overview in photos of what a year in my classroom is like. animoto.com/play/0iwDUqHo3… #NASATweetup #scichat #edchat
*russeltarr Turn a work of literature into a boardgame #englishteacher: http://tinyurl.com/3p3ugjm
*jstepheng Comics in the Classroom: 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers http://zite.to/mBsN4N via @Ziteapp
*drmmtatom RT @skipz: Five Historical Map Resources thx dougpete #ccstech 

FlipSnack: Turn a PDF into an embeddable Flash Flip Book http://tinyurl.com/3jx6mqa #ccstech
*russeltarr The 500 most recent “Fakebook” creations from teachers/students: http://tinyurl.com/3nlpzxs
*coolcatteacher Tons of apps on sale for memorial day weekend. – From AppAdvice.com: Popular iOS Apps And Games On Sale For… http://tumblr.com/xxh2pupmr4 

Qr code classroom implementation guide is approaching 200 tweets glad it is helpful. #edtech
*RT @mathonthemind: The new Common Core Math Standards in the US will have a writing portion. Students must explain their work. #mathchat
*DianeRavitch Works every time: push out low-performing kids. See scores and grad rates go up. A miracle! trib.in/lPyXdg
Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

Make My School a Prison

This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!
http://bigthink.com/ideas/38573?lolamericanpriorities

Film Depicts Hardships, Dedication of the ‘American Teacher’

By Anthony Rebora on May 25, 2011 1:24 PM
Researchers, policymakers, and parents tend to agree that effective teachers are the key to high-quality schools—and, by implication, to maintaining an educated and thriving citizenry. So why are teachers in the United States so undervalued and lately even disparaged?
Narrated by Matt Damon, “American Teacher” seeks to counteract popular misconceptions about the teaching profession…
But the film’s central theme is money.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2011/05/the_struggles_of_the_american_teacher.html?cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS1

Strategy of the Week:

Put the Directions to the Side, Make the Learning Central

We’ve all heard about and experienced the Digital Natives’ ability to navigate the world of technology, and I am not going to contradict Marc Prensky’s enormously influential thesis in any way, but I do have an observation to make, as well as a suggestion (skip to the end if you just want the tip)!

1. Create a new document to be used as a template for students’ work.
2. Highlight specific points of the assignment where you feel the language load of the directions will be challenging for any/all of your students. From the Google Docs menu, select Insert>Comment.
3. Write step-by-step those areas of the assignment for which you anticipate students may need clarification (remember later the docs you have done this with, so that you can copy and paste procedures that are repeated across assignments)
4. Share the document with your students as “View Only” with the anticipation that they will need to make their own editable copy.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/05/put-directions-to-side-make-learning.html

Resources:

Flocabulary

We provide a free song from each of our titles in Vocabulary, Literature, Social Studies, Math and Science. You can find these samples by clicking on the subject heading above. We’ve produced videos for some of these songs. We’ve also created a handful of free songs and videos that don’t correspond to any particular album.
http://www.flocabulary.com/teacher_free_songs_videos.html

Tildee

Quick and easy way to create step by step directions. Allows for editing. Email address is needed to edit and create accounts. Directions can include Google Maps, Videos, and Images (and text, of course).
http://www.tildee.com/

Teach Handwriting

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/strategy/strategy057.shtml

Web Spotlight:

Computer Desktop Clutter Reveals Your Personality

Computer users with messy desktops are more likely to be liberal, educated city-dwellers who are career-minded and good at math, while those that keep their computer icons neat and tidy are more likely to be young tech-savvy suburbanites that say their personal life is more important than work. At least according to a new survey.
http://www.21stcenturyfluency.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=1931

Myth of Bell to Bell teaching

Many teachers have been told to teach from bell to bell. Unfortunately, some teachers believe this means they must stand and deliver in front of the board for 50 minutes. Big mistake! In traditional urban schools, it is hard to keep students’ attention for even 5 minutes without them taking out their phone or simply daydreaming while acting like they are paying attention.
http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/bell-to-bell-instruction-vs-golden-rule-of-15-minutes.html

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