Category: Strategy

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, 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, 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

 

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

MSM 166: Tons of Advisory ideas, Measuring and more.

Jokes You Can Use:

A man was checking into a hotel when he saw a golden retriever sitting on a rug near the hotel elevator. Talking to the man behind the desk, he asked, “Does your dog bite?” The attendant said, “No, he doesn’t.” But as the man let his hand down to pat the dog, it bit his hand and held on so tightly that the man had to throw him across the room.

Returning to the desk, the man said, “I thought you said that your dog didn’t bite.” He directed the attendant’s attention to the dog, who now had returned to the rug. The attendant simply answered, “My friend that is NOT my dog.”

TEACHER: Desmond, your composition on “My Dog” is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his?
DESMOND: No, teacher, it’s the same dog!

Q: What do you call a woman that knows where her husband is 24/7?
A: A WIDOW!!!!!

Eileen Award

Tami Readinger, Thanks for the Twitter Follow!

Advisory:

Create a Unit of Measurement:  “We recently discussed a few unusual units of measurement, including the Wheaton (500,000 Twitter followers) and the milliHelen (the quantity of beauty required to launch a single ship). On the chalkboard of made-up measurements, there’s still plenty of room. So let’s invent some new ones!
Your fake units can measure anything: height, weight, time, the amount of energy required to do something, whatever.  We’ll award a copy of Split Decision to the person who coins our favorite new unit, and we’ll have other prizes for three runners-up. We’ll also start casually using your term in conversation. This might take off.”
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/87272

Kinestic Challenge

  • You don’t have to be at a desk but you must be sitting.
  • While sitting at your desk make clockwise circles with your right foot.
  • While doing this, draw the number ” 6 ” in the air with your right hand.
  • Your foot will change direction.

Middle School Science Minute

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

NASA Explorer School Program, since Shawn was asking about it on the last show.  NASA has changed the way they do these NES Schools, so it is much easier to participate.  Check it out at:  explorerschools.nasa.gov

From the Twitterverse:

*camlecolorado “Many parents failing to supervise kids on Facebook” SF Chronicle bit.ly/lS1ri9 via @Larryferlazzo
*jsmummert History sleuths, what the heck is this?
*
Larryferlazzo Larry Ferlazzo”Artificial Grammar Reveals Inborn Language Sense, Study Shows”
*bivey MT @SOSMarch: RT@EdReformPR “I teach, therefore I’ve lost sleep worrying about other people’s kids. <Man, that’s the truth!
*LogicalChoice Individualized Technology Plan Helps Student with Autism Achieve Learning Goals freetech4teachers.com/2011/05/indivi… #autism #edchat
*OCESS Did you know @NASA is giving space shuttle tiles to U.S. schools & universities until 5/23? http://go.nasa.gov/gpkYzD #edcampplano
*ColoradoHowe Please help contribute to a GDoc on World History online video clips at Great start so far! #sschat
*tombarrett One Question Surveys – Simple Surveys Chunky Results :: 1000+ Responses Each
Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

Textbook Pilot

We are pleased to announce that Nature Publishing Group will shortly be releasing Principles of Biology, an evidence-based textbook solution for today’s biology classrooms.
Principles of Biology is a high quality reinvention of the textbook, drawing on Nature Publishing Group’s ties into science research and reflecting the values of the education community.

  • More than 200 customizable peer-reviewed mini-chapters created by dozens of scientists, instructors, and editors
  • 75+ online interactive exercises to give students a hands-on way to apply their knowledge
  • 40+ Bioskills units teaching students real scientific skills, including data analysis
  • 2000+ assessment questions
  • Synopses and links to milestone research papers from Nature and other journals
  • Accessible on laptop, smartphone, or tablet
  • Affordably priced for all students

Principles of Biology covers all of the topics taught in majors introductory biology courses including chemistry, cells, genetics, evolution, biodiversity, plant physiology, animal physiology, and ecology.
We are looking for a small number of pilot partners to help us field test this resource during the 2011 fall semester.
http://www.nature.com/nature_education/biology.html

Walden University has expanded its MobileLearn service by releasing content through Apple’s iTunes U. The university’s new iTunes U page provides students with course content, experiential videos, highlights of Walden students, and a number of other resources for enhancing the student experience. When partaking in MobileLearn-enabled courses, students can access video and audio content from the classroom through iTunes, as well as save the content for offline access. In addition, the university also offers an iOS application that provides access to online classrooms, university messages, a Walden e-mail account, and student support services.
http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/11/05/12/ledet.updates.courses.for.ipad.integration

Strategy of the Week:

Addressing Bullying

Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology.
We exist because our nation’s children spend more time with media and digital activities than they do with their families or in school, which profoundly impacts their social, emotional, and physical development . As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume.

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sample-lesson

Tips for Using Project Based Learning to Teach Math Standards

Let’s be honest. Designing PBL for Math can be a different beast. With the pressure of high-stakes testing and a packed curriculum, I often coach teachers who are nervous about giving time to a robust PBL project. In addition, because of the plethora of math standards, it can be difficult to choose the right learning target(s) for the project. Here are some tips for teachers designing individual Math PBL projects.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/project-based-learning-math-standards

Resources:

National Jukebox

The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/

Anne Frank Virtual Tour

http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/Enter-the-3D-house/#/house/21/

Good Reads Makes Good Readers

So if you are here you read blogs, but do you read books too? Do your students? Mine didn’t. Not much anyway. Then about a month ago I read a book for teachers called The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/05/goodreads-makes-great-readers.html
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1qEV4Ht-aKZuYM8NF_bSLpKfSzMD41lPaLR6rLnHRAbg

Yong Zhao Learning
Famed Educational Expositor has a website with links to videos of his presentations on various educational topics.
http://zhaolearning.com/

Web Spotlight:

Book Writing

So you want to write a book. Well, why not? So does about 80 percent of the United States population according to a survey by the Jenkins Group.

  • 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
  • 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
  • 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
  • 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
  • 57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
  • 70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
  • 70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
    (Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)
  • 53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspense, at 19 percent.
  • 55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
  • (Source: Publishers Weekly)
  • About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S.
  • (Source: www.bookwire.com)
  • A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
  • A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
  • (Source: Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org)
  • On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book’s front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
  • (Source: Para Publishing, www.parapub.com)
  • Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
  • (Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker)

http://www.fluency21.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=1898

Across More Classes, Videos Make the Grade

Film students aren’t the only ones producing videos for homework these days.
http://chronicle.com/article/Across-More-Classes-Videos/127422

20 Questions That Will Make You a Better Person

Excellent students of life take the time to answer good questions.
Sit down with a piece of paper and play twenty questions with yourself.
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2011/05/20-questions-that-will-make-you-better.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, Podcast, Strategy, Teaching Tip, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM 165 Skype is our “friend”, Peter is Math, Econ raps

Jokes You Can Use:

A married couple, both avid golfers, was discussing the future one night.
“Honey”, the wife said, “if I were to die and you were to remarry, would you two live in this house?”
“I suppose so – it’s paid for.”
“How about our car? Continued the woman. “Would the two of you keep that?
“I suppose so – it’s paid for.”
“What about my golf clubs? Would you let her use them too?
“Heck, no,” the husband blurted out. “She is left-handed.”

***************************************************************
Notice to Employees (Includes Part Time Workers)

SICKNESS
We will no longer accept your doctors’ statements as proof.
We believe if you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to work.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE FOR SURGERY
We are no longer allowing this practice. As long as you are employed here, you will need all of whatever you have and should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. Anyone having operations will be FIRED immediately.

PREGNANCY
In the event of extreme pregnancy, you will be allowed to go to the first aid room when the pains are FIVE MINUTES apart. If it is false labor, you will have to take an hour’s leave without pay.

DEATH
This will be accepted as an excuse, BUT we would like two weeks notice, as we feel it is your duty to teach someone your job prior to . . . or after death.

This new benefit program started yesterday.
The Management

***********************************************************************
A French man nearly got away with stealing a number of paintings from the Louvre.
However, after planning the robbery and getting in and out and past security, he was captured only three blocks away when his Econoline ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied, “I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.”

**********************************************************************
This guy goes up to a bar located at the top of the Empire State Building in New York. It looks like a nice place, and he takes a seat at the bar.

“This is a nice place. I’ve never been here before,” he says to the guy next to him.
“Oh, really?” the other replies. “It is a nice place. It’s also a very special bar.”
“Why is that?” the first guy asks. “Well, do you see that painting on the far wall? That’s an original Van Gogh, and this stool I’m sitting on was on the Titanic.”
“Gee, that’s amazing!” says the first guy.
“Not only that, but you see that window over there, fourth from the right? Well, the wind does strange things outside that window. If you jump out you’ll fall about 50 feet before the wind catches you and you’re pushed back up.”
“No way! That’s impossible,” the guy scoffs.
“Not at all. Take a look,” the other man replies, and with that he walks over to the window and opens it. He climbs over the sill and falls out. He drops 10… 20… 30… 40…50 feet, comes to a stop, and whoosh — he comes right back up and sails back through the window. “See? It’s fun. You should try it,” he says.
“Try it? I don’t even believe I saw it!” the first man shouts.
“It’s easy. Watch, I’ll do it again.” And with that, he falls out the window again. He drops 10… 20… 30… 40… 50 feet, comes to a stop, and whoosh — he comes right back up and sails back through the window. “Give it a try. It’s a blast,” he says.
“Well, what the heck, I’ll give it a try,” the first man says, and proceeds to fall out the window. He falls 10… 20… 30… 40… 50…60…70…80…90… 100 feet and splat — he ends up as road pizza on the sidewalk.
After watching this, the second guy casually closes the window, heads back to the bar and orders a drink. The bartender arrives with the drink and says, “You know, Superman, you’re a real jerk when you’re drunk.”

On Our Mind:

Happy Birthday to Ron King!

Eileen Award

Camilla from Australia

Peter Price the Math Guy:  http://www.classroomprofessor.com

Advisory:

How much of an eight hour day does a person work, on average, to pay for taxes?
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/27256.html

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)
NASA eClips.  You can view them at: http://nasa.gov/eclips. It is a great video resource for middle school teachers and students.

From the Twitterverse:

* shoemap at #edcampdetroit unconference. first session is mobile learning led bu @clykowski
*bhsprincipal RT @hdiblasi: How Bin Laden News Exploded on Twitter: A Visualization #edchat #bhschat Evidence of Twilliamson15’s NIHCTTAR Theory.
*mrdaj78 Goodbye, friends and family… I am heading into a grading cave for the day. I expect to come out with weary eyes, covered in red pen marks.
*JoHart Only one person has helped @suewaters with one of her interview questions here since I “helped” over 8 hrs ago!
*ckendall Apply now for a MACUL technology grant
*mthman RT @gdahlby: http://j.mp/EXki3 would be good source for teacher’s tomorrow. #edchat #midleved #elemchat
*Gizmodo This Was Osama’s Hideout gizmodo.com/#!5797548/this…
*kyteacher Two sites I will rely on tomorrow: newsmap & Newseum’s front pages. #sschat
Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

Many high school seniors may be old enough to vote, but just one-quarter of them demonstrate at least a “proficient” level of civics knowledge and skills, based on the latest results from a prominent national exam.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/04/30naep.h30.html?tkn=RMPFOV3rVoDO%2FJcoQfhRKdSuqL0NUqmg9zNN&cmp=clp-sb-ascd

District Administration

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pmg/da0511/#/0

Strategy of the Week:

Using teaching as inquiry to guide an eLearning action plan

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/04/using-teaching-as-inquiry-to-guide.html

Resources:

Wifiiti:  http://wiffiti.com/

Wiffiti publishes real time messages to screens in thousands of locations from jumbotrons to jukeboxes, bars to bowling alleys and cafes to colleges.
Use it for brainstorming
Put test questions up there for review …

Visibile Vote:  http://www.visiblevote.us

Shadow a Congressman or Senator.  Take a position on an issue or take theirs.  Connect with legislators.  Need the latest info on the legislator from your district?  VisibileVote!

Econ Stories

Hayek vs Keynes in an economic showdown.
http://econstories.tv/

Say It Visually

Check out their portfolio.
http://www.sayitvisually.com/portfolio

Web 2.0 Tools for Math Educators

http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/tools_technologies/web_2_0_tools_math_educators

Web Spotlight:

20 Technology Skills that Every Educator Should Have

By Laura Turner
Although, realistically, you would not use all of these technologies, you should be knowledgeable in what each of the following technology is and how it could be/might be used in a classroom.
http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/tools_technologies/20_technology_skills_every_educator_should_have

21 Things for Administrators.
http://www.solutionwhere.com/inghamisd/cw/showcourse.asp?1796

Have Schools Reached Their Limits?

Have we reached the limits of our traditional school system’s capacity to deal with the diversity of learners that come into our schools today?
http://weblogg-ed.com/2011/have-schools-reached-their-limits/

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, Teaching Tip, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM- 164 Michigan Reform, Cursive, and Comedians.

Jokes You Can Use:

TEACHER: What is the chemical formula for water?
SARAH: “HIJKLMNO”!
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
SARAH: Yesterday you said its H to O!

Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, “why is the bride dressed in white?” “Because white is the color of happiness,” her mother explained. “And today is the happiest day in her life.” The child thought about this for a moment. “So why is the groom wearing black?”

Confucius say: Man who want pretty nurse, must be patient.

Two guys were riding in a car, arguing about how to say the name of the city that they were in. One said “Louieville” and the other “Louiseville.” They went on arguing and arguing, until they came upon a fast-food restaurant. The one guy goes inside and says to the waitress, “Tell me the name of the place where I am right now really, really, really slowly.” The waitress goes, “Bur-ger-King.”

On Our Mind:

Gov. Snyder announces Michigan School Reform
New certification level:  Master Teacher
New certification steps:  Provisional – 5 years
Pre-Professional – 3 years
Master Teacher – National Certification or State Level Observations
“Degrees Matter”:  Anybody with a degree can teach in their area.  (Except education degrees . . .)
What does this do to “Highly Qualified”?
Seniority:  If your principal eliminates your position, the other buildings don’t have to let you bump into a position there.

Advisory:

Who Am I?
http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/resources/whoami/whoami.html

Middle School Science Minute

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

Science Scope, the National Science Teachers Association’s middle school science journal.  It comes with membership in NSTA.

From the Twitterverse:

*Frankwspencer Developing Better Teacher Evaluation Systems – High School Notes (usnews.com) usnews.com/education/blog…
*teach42 Steve Dembo Looking for some fun sites to play around with this weekend? Check out http://www.scoop.it/t/edu-2-0 Trust me, you’ll find SOMETHING new 🙂
*Larryferlazzo RT @SeanBanville: 17 lesson plans & listenings for holidays in May – Twinglish
*LS4C1 Rhee says teachers don’t put students first. Gov. Christie calls teachers fat. Soon Donald Trump will say they have weird hair
*schoolwise Education Week: How Education Reform Traps Poor Children edweek.org/ew/articles/20… via @educationweek
*QcodesR Students give QR codes mixed reviews
*drmmtatom Who Am I? A History Mystery http://tinyurl.com/3z5m3ov #fhuedu508
*JohnMikulski Blog: Teachers, advocate for yourself and your profession. #ntchat
*ktenkely “Teach your students facts and you empower them for a test. Teach them how to think, and you empower them for a lifetime. http://j.mp/htCp4z
*3woshA4MA Aysha Al Awadhi“@habhoub84: @justinbieber its my 1st time tweeting u! Plz let my students concentrate in class! Pleads of middle school teacher :D”
*CaliLewis New owners for Delicious (you might have heard of them), and some search engine help for stolen cameras! http://geekbeat.tv/175
Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

Delicious has a new owner:

Yahoo! is excited to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, Hurley and Chen have firsthand expertise enabling millions of consumers to share their experiences with the world. Delicious will become part of their new Internet company, AVOS.

To continue using Delicious, you must agree to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks to AVOS. After a transition period and after your bookmarks are transferred, you will be subject to the AVOS terms of service and privacy policy.

What Educators Can Learn From Comedians:

Talking Education: A Virtual Workshop for Innovations
By Andrew Marcinek

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/sharing-innovation-workshop-andrew-marcinek

The Case for Cursive

For centuries, cursive handwriting has been an art. To a growing number of young people, it is a mystery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28cursive.html?_r=1

Strategy of the Week:

Using ‘Answer Cards’ to Identify Struggling Students

Each student has at his desk a set of index cards. You will have distributed these at the beginning of class. Written on each card is a single response, such as A, B, C, D or YES or NO. You may want to add TRUE and FALSE or any others that you need.
http://adhdsolution.com/using-answer-cards-to-identify-struggling-students/

Resources:

OpenSource.com

We want to shine a light on the places where the open source way is multiplying ideas and effort, even beyond technology. We believe that opensource.com will be a gathering place for many of the open source stories we’d like to share–through articles, audio, web presentations, video, or open discussion.
http://opensource.com/education

BEAUTIFUL WEB-BASED TIMELINE SOFTWARE

Welcome to TikiToki, a web app that makes it dead easy to make stunning, animated timelines that work in your browser. Our basic account is completely free.
How would you like to create beautiful, interactive timelines that include videos and image galleries? Well, now you can thanks to a great new web service brought to you by ChronoFlo and Webalon.

TikiToki makes creating online timelines as easy as possible. Sign up for our free, basic account and within almost no time, you could be creating a timeline of your life, of a historical event that interests you or of the life of a great musician or artist… the possibilities are endless.

Already have loads of videos and images on Flickr, Youtube and Vimeo. You’ll be pleased to hear that we have integrated TikiToki with these popular services, making adding videos and images to your timeline a cinch.

You don’t even have to pay a penny to start creating timelines. Our basic account is completely free.

Click the ‘continue’ button below to see a demonstration of how our timeline software works. And when you are finished playing with it, sign up and start making a timeline of your own!

 

Timelines can be Flash or Javascript.

http://www.tiki-toki.com/

Web Spotlight:

 

Need Children Read “Proficiently” by Grade 3 to Be Sure to Graduate From High School? Some Possible Misinterpretations of Hernandez

by Stephen Krashen

http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=412

Much Ado About Nothing

http://weeklyreader.com/ado

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, Podcast, Strategy, TechBy Troy Patterson

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

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

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

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

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

On Our Mind:

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

Eileen Award

Erin. Thanks for the link.

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

Advisory:

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

Middle School Science Minute

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

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

From the Twitterverse:

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

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

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

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

News:

A Trial Run for School Standards That Encourage Deeper Thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pay Teachers for Performance?

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

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

Resources:

Free Documentaries Site.

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

CinchCast

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

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

Step 2: Record and share

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

Step 3: Organize and save

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

Step 4: Search, find and connect

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

Step 5: Invite your friends to join

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

http://www.cinchcast.com/

Online Physics Simulations

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

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

http://phet.colorado.edu/

Comic Book Maker

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

Convofy

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

http://convofy.com/

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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

Ohio Middle Level Association:

Michigan Association of Middle School Educators

  • Second Life:
    • Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled. See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.  Check frequently this week as the ISTE Annual Convention is this week.
    • Video: Educational Uses of Second Life
advisory, Lesson Plan, MSM, News, Podcast, Strategy, Teaching Tip, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 162-Yap away, yap away, yap away, Twitterland . . . o.O

Jokes You Can Use:
Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.
Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally.
‘What in bag?’ asked the old woman. Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, ‘It’s a bottle of sweet smelling cologne. I got it for my husband.’
The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said, ‘Good trade.’

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
That’s amore.
When an eel bites your hand and that’s not what you planned
That’s a moray.
When our habits are strange and our customs deranged
That’s our mores.
When your horse munches straw and the bales total four
That’s some more hay.
When Othello’s poor wife, she gets stabbed with a knife
That’s a Moor, eh?
When a Japanese knight used a sword in a fight
That’s Sa…mur…ai.

One day my housework-challenged husband decided to wash his sweat-shirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, “What setting do I use on the washing machine?”
“It depends,” I replied. “What does it say on your shirt?”
He yelled back, “University of Oklahoma.”

A man and his wife, now in their 60’s, were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. On their special day a good fairy came to them and said that because they had been so good that each one of them could have one wish.
The wife wished for a trip around the world with her husband. Whoosh! Immediately she had airline/cruise tickets in her hands.
The man wished for a female companion 30 years younger…
Whoosh…immediately he turned ninety!!!
Gotta love that fairy!

On Our Mind:

What have you gotten better at this year?
What do you still need to figure out or work on?
What’s keeping your kids from making big time gains (that are within our control)?
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/03/30/three-good-questions-for-teachers-to-ask-themselves-answer-them-here-if-you-feel-like-it/

Eileen Award

Yvonne. Good luck with the interviews.

Advisory:

Create Claymation Public Service Announcements (Digmo)
If at first you don’t succeed . . .

Middle School Science Minute

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

The World Traveler Dave is unavailable this week. We have hopes that he will return with his uber valuable contributions next week.

From the Twitterverse:

* shannonmmiller MapMaker Interactive – National Geographic Education http://ow.ly/4BEFX
* SuzanneWhisler RT @shannonmmiller Internet Safety Hangman….great review after internet safety lesson http://ow.ly/4BEAa (Free Tech for Teachers site)
* theresawhite RT @kylepace Apps for high school writing (PDF): #edtech #edapp
* web20classroom The Complete Educators Guide To Using Skype From @suewaters:
*DigMo Easy Claymation Animation Techniques: iStopmotion is one of the best (and easiest) animation application.. #edtech
*markbarnes19 Teachers nationwide criticized for Facebook usage http://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/535315/T… (cont) http://deck.ly/~Q2Mbs
*classblogs Twitter for #Teachers – Support Videos (via @tonnet)
*hasai 5 Failures Who Overcame the Odds digg.com/d361zob
*mguhlin Debunking 6 GoogleApps for Education Myths http://goo.gl/fb/pB4iB
*camlecolorado “@mountainteacher: The Complete Educator’s Guide to Using Skype effectively in the classroom bit.ly/ibcUTT”
*adamgolub @DianeRavitch Slogan: “You watch Channel One. We’ll clean up the scantron sheet.”
*BethRitterGuth RT @plugusin: Myths and Facts About the Impact of Technology on the Lives of American Teens. http://ow.ly/4yK41 #engchat
*lthumann Five Steps for Implementing a Successful 1:1 Environment | Edutopia diigo.com/0gmvm via @andycinek
*CarolJago Why metaphors matter http://tinyurl.com/3ppdddm by David Brooks.
*coolcatteacher MacdonaldTechForTeachers – iPad Apps for Education …cdonaldtechforteachers.wikispaces.com/iPad+Apps+for+…
11 Apr
*drmmtatom Brainstorming – Google Across the Curriculum #fhucid http://tinyurl.com/455ak6g

The Art and Science of Teaching #fhuedu610 http://tinyurl.com/3nc2en5

Some good reasons to go to school #fhuedu610 http://tinyurl.com/66kgha7
*Larryferlazzo “Microsoft Word Now Includes Squiggly Blue Line To Alert Writer When Word Is Too Advanced For Mainstream Audience” http://onion.com/h9W3eW
*bivey MT @ncarroll24 What Kids Say is the Biggest Obstacle 2 Tech @ Schl rww.to/eSeLzQ via @JenniferBarnett <They c mobile device potential.
*blairteach Nicely done. RT @SuzanneWhisler: Teaching with Technology in the Middle: Diigo for Digital Writing Reflection
#midleved Middle Level Ed Chat takes place in the Twitterverse on Fridays at 8:00 pm EST.  Please join in the conversation.

News:

Federal Budget’s Approval Sets Stage for Future Battles

By Alyson Klein
Education advocates are already bracing for protracted budget battles in the coming year, even as they sort the winners and losers in the bill approved by Congress on Thursday financing the U.S. Department of Education and the rest of the federal government through September.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/04/14/28fedbudget.html?tkn=VTVFVlNU5PF7n5xlYXH4CSTsWTmv5Wgw15mr&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1

Resources:

Memidex

Memidex is a free online dictionary and thesaurus with a simple interface, complete inflections, auto-suggest, adult-filtering, frequent updates, a browsable index, support for mobile devices, and millions of external reference links for definitions, audio, and etymology. It’s fast too. Use the Find box for exact matching or browse using the complete index.
http://www.memidex.com/

SuperMaths

A variety of math games.
http://www.supermathsworld.com/

YapTime

A simple way to connect.
Teens don’t email. Grandparents don’t text. To keep connected simply create a group, invite members, post private messages, photos, videos, files and calendars — all one safe place.

http://yaptime.com/

Web Spotlight:

NASA releases sky-mapping archive

By Alicia Chang, Associated Press

NASA has released a trove of data from its sky-mapping mission, allowing scientists and anyone with access to the Internet to peruse millions of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other hard-to-see objects.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2011-04-15-nasa-sky-mapping-spacecraft.htm

Idioms 4 You

Idioms, um, for you.
http://www.idioms4you.com/index.html

CAST

A nonprofit leader in education, CAST works to improve learning opportunities and outcomes for all individuals through Universal Design for Learning. Explore this website to find out more about our research and development, innovative learning tools, and professional services.
http://cast.org

UDL Guidelines

The goal of education in the 21st century is not simply the mastery of content knowledge or use of new technologies. It is the mastery of the learning process. Education should help turn novice learners into expert learners—individuals who want to learn, who know how to learn strategically, and who, in their own highly individual and flexible ways, are well prepared for a lifetime of learning. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) helps educators meet this goal by providing a framework for understanding how to create curricula that meets the needs of all learners from the start.
The UDL Guidelines, an articulation of the UDL framework, can assist anyone who plans lessons/units of study or develops curricula (goals, methods, materials, and assessments) to reduce barriers, as well as optimize levels of challenge and support, to meet the needs of all learners from the start. They can also help educators identify the barriers found in existing curricula. However, to fully understand these Guidelines one must first understand what UDL is.
http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines

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, Strategy, Teaching Tip, Tech, Web SpotlightBy Troy Patterson

MSM 161 Bad Jokes Abound, Update History, and Football!

Jokes You Can Use:

A teacher sees a lad entering the classroom – his hands were dirty.
She stopped him and said, “John, please wash your hands. My goodness, what would you say if I came into the room with hands like that?”
Smiling the boy replied, “I think I’d be too polite to mention it.”

Two explorers, camped in the heart of the African jungle, were discussing their expedition. “I came here,” said one, “because the urge to travel was in my blood. City life bored me, and the smell of exhaust fumes on the highways made me sick. I wanted to see the sunrise over new horizons and hear the flutter of birds that never had been seen by man. I wanted to leave my footprints on sand unmarked before I came. In short, I wanted to see nature in the raw. What about you?” “I came,” the second man replied, “because my son was taking saxophone lessons.”

So the bus driver said to the string, “Are you a string?” and the string said, “No, I’m afraid not”. (A frayed knot).

On Our Mind:

NMSA Executive Director Search
NMSA Elections:  Vote Early, Vote Often

Eileen Award

Eileen!

We heard from Eileen this week!  The free hugs are on!

Advisory:

Overcoming Challenges:

The true story of the Panyee Football Club. Video is 5 minutes and 15 seconds long- subtitles in English.
*Notes (explain football (soccer), pitch (field), boots (shoes).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU4oA3kkAWU&

Get Your Day off to a better Start

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110404151353.htm

Daily Pictures

Pictures from around the world.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/04/images-of-daily-life-around-th.html

Middle School Science Minute

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

The Middle School Chemistry Project can be found at middleschoolscience.com.  By the way, did it on the iPad again.  First time I used three tracks.  One for voice, one for guitar and one for stand up bass.  Good show this week, as always.  I enjoyed the interview with Doc Tatom.

From the Twitterverse:

**kelalford Web 2.0 Tools That Will Inspire via DEN Blog Network – Spring has Arrived!! Let’s talk about some Web 2.0 … http://tinyurl.com/3e47zkq
* bivey MT @ncarroll24 What Kids Say is the Biggest Obstacle 2 Tech @ Schl rww.to/eSeLzQ via @JenniferBarnett <They c mobile device potential.
*middleweb CoSN and NEA Foundation offering $1000 prizes for best ideas about “teaching with mobiles”. Thru 5/13.
*ckeech RT“@web20classroom: Using QR Codes In Student Projects: bit.ly/i2SbrE”@dremmy7431
*drmmtatom “First iPad Magazine For Kids” Makes Its Debut [VIDEO] http://on.mash.to/e4pt0Y #ccstech
**russeltarr Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up: http://tinyurl.com/ye3lc6h
*
DianeRavitch Diane Ravitch
Why not rate doctors by how many patients die? That way, no one would practice critical care or become cardiac surgeons. Lesson for ed eval.

How about if we close down Fire Departments if there are too many fires in their neighborhood?

I have suggested Congress should pass a law that within 12 years every city should be crime-free. Close down Police Dept if they are not.
**SpeechTechie Ending @GlogsterEDU week with Gaggle of Glog examples, ideas for SLP applications!! Glogs for PD, social, cplx categ
**MyMathCloud Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself any more. Albert Einstein
**Ron_Peck Office Templates for Teachers ~ #edtech
**jybuell The CST for 8th grade social studies appears to copied entirely from Trivial Pursuit cards. U should get pie pieces instead of a score.
**RigorRelevance RT @jimwarford: Skype launches social network for teachers worldwide http://sbne.ws/r/78hR
**hrheingold My blog/video of @angelamaiers on new media literacies now up at DMLcentral! http://goo.gl/5XVX5
**russeltarr Back to School: Top 10 iPhone Apps for Students: http://tinyurl.com/kojx2q
**DanielPink This month’s Sunday Telegraph column: Don’t incentivize teachers. Overpay them. (No, really.) telegraph.co.uk/finance/busine…
**drmmtatom RT @nancyrubin: Screencasting: A 21st Century Teaching Tool community.learningobjects.com/Users/Nancy.Ru… via @AddThis #fhucid



News:

No Dentist Left Behind

http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/no-dentist.html

Cell Phones and Privacy Risks

http://dearbornschools.org/dtube?v=949NN4oT8MmHj&Itemid=333

Resources:

Google Bloomin’

Google Tools to support the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy
http://kathyschrock.net/googleblooms/
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Anw3Hl3DL4wfdG9WR3JQZjJXNFZFcE5pLWhrZEVNU1E&hl=en&authkey=CIf9_uoC# ‘

Civil War Timeline

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/29/opinion/20101029-civil-war.html

Civil War 150 years later

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/civil-war-anniversary/index.html?SITE=AP

Rolls Off the Tongue

http://rollsoffthetongue.tumblr.com/

GeoGames

http://reachtheworld.org/geogames/index.html

Wicked Science Interactives

http://www.wicked.org.nz/r/wick_ed/interactives/science.php

Web Spotlight:

Demographic Chart Book

Provides a wide-ranging audience of persons interested in American history – including historians, other social scientists, teachers, and students – with graphics portraying the demographic history of the United States, as shown by the decennial census of population.
http://www.demographicchartbook.com/Chartbook/

Story Boarding

The more we podcast and have our students create video clips or other digital storytelling projects, the more we need to teach storyboarding as part of the process. Being able to pre-visualize how your story will unfold is becoming a vital skill to have for storytellers.
http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/04/03/storyboarding-pre-writing-activity/

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, Podcast, Strategy, Teaching Tip, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM 159 Stuff For Your Classroom!, #SKYPE FAIL!, #midleved this week on Middle School Matters!

Call Us at (262) 724-6653 (Google Voice)
Diigo Group:  http://groups.diigo.com/group/middle-school-matters

email:  middleschooleducators@gmail.com

Twitter:  @MSMatters

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Middle-School-Matters/348279537549

Jokes You Can Use:

How did the Vikings send secret messages?
By norse code!

Why were the early days of history called the dark ages?
Because there were so many knights!

Teacher: Where is your homework?
Pupil: I lost it fighting this kid who said you weren’t the best teacher in the school

When a teacher closes his eyes, why should it remind him of an empty classroom?
Because there are no pupils to see!

Teacher: How much is half of 8?
Pupil: Up and down or across?
Teacher: What do you mean?
Pupil: Well, up and down makes a 3 or across the middle leaves a 0!

Q. Your riding a horse at full speed, a giraffe is beside you, an elephant in front of you and a lion behind you! What do you do???
A. You get off of the carousel !!!

Bill and Bob, two children, were sitting outside a clinic. Bill happened to be crying very loudly.
“Why are you crying?” Bob asked.
“I came here for a blood test,” sobbed Bill.
“So? Are you afraid?”
“No. For the blood test, they cut my finger.
As Bob heard this, he immediately began crying profusely.
Astonished, Bill stopped his tears and asked Bob, “Why are you crying now?”
To which Bob replied, “I came for a urine test!”

On Our Mind:

21st Century School vs 20th Century Assessment
MAMSE 2011
#edchat, #midleved Fridays at 8:00pm.
Next week:  iPads with Dr. Monte Tatom

Eileen Award

Eric from Chicago

Advisory:

Rock Paper Scissors

On the computer. With thoughts why the computer picks…
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html?hp

Middle School Science Minute

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

I just did my first podcast, completely recorded on the iPad, using GarageBand.  It was a lot of fun.  Just attached my SnowBall mic and played a few chords on the Smart Guitar and out came the podcast.
The importance of Science…

From the Twitterverse:

*drmmtatom What’s Popular This Week on The Innovative Educator #fhuedu610 #ccstech @msmatters http://tinyurl.com/4zluxxj 

85+ Resources: Educator Guide for Integrating Social Media http://t.co/wtFP3XD via @ziteapp #ccstech @msmatters

Tips for Conducting PLN Professional Development bridgemiddle.blogspot.com/2011/03/tips-f… via @ziteapp #fhuedu610
*TeacherSabrina 5 myths about #teachers that are distracting policymakers http://ow.ly/4lRJQ YES!!! Must-read. #edreform #edchat
*NMSAnews Fundamentals for Student Success in the Middle Grades
*gardenglen Ever wonder what teaching Middle School is like? “Toro Pink” http://youtu.be/TVvEd4LV6HM #ilovemyjob
*garystager @gdahlby I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again. I can be either the dancing monkey or the crew, but not both.
*lkolb Made video calls from your smartphone…Free! http://www.tango.me/
*AncientProverbs A Jade stone is useless before it is processed; a man is good-for-nothing until he is educated. -Chinese Proverb
*cybraryman1 RT @LiteracyNetwork: Give your child a digital camera & tell them to document 1 day. …y but they are learning to tell stories #ptchat
*francesblo @mthman @MSMatters @rushtheiceberg @tdeacon Lots of interest in what’s allowed, cell phones. How about dealing with tech policies nxt week?
*ipadnewsdigest Emerging iPhone, iPad 2 App Enables Remote Surveillance: A new iPad app aims to give soldiers on the street a bi…
*hrheingold Mediactive by @dangillmor great (free!) resource on crap detection, active participation in media creation http://goo.gl/wr6kV
*cybraryman1 My How to Take Part in an Educational Chat on Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/4utvwpd #edchat
*mthman Join us! We’re talking MIDDLE SCHOOL this Friday (3/25) 8 pm EST. Topic: How can tech improve learning? #engchat #mathchat #cpchat #elemchat
*karlyb #macul11 – My blog post with list of iPhone Teacher Toolbox apps from my presentation. http://tinyurl.com/iphoneteacher
*lkolb Turn your iPhone into a high-powered scientific Microscope http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/diy-cellphone-microscope
Note:  #midleved on Twitter is happening at a new day and time!  Join #midleved on Fridays at 8:00 pm EST.  Hope to see you there! 

This week the topic centered around using Technology in the Classroom.  Several resources were mentioned including Xtranormal, Edmodo, Glogster, Notaland and cell phone use.  It was interesting to read the conversations about cell phone use.  Many students have them evidently, but families are not turning on the data plan.  Next week the conversation starts out with Acceptable Use Polices, but just like the middle schoolers we love to teach, the conversation could go anywhere

 

News:

‘Curriculum’ Definition Raises Red Flags (Crvena Zastava)

By Catherine Gewertz
Calls for shared curriculum for the common standards have triggered renewed debates about who decides what students learn, and even about varied meanings of the word “curriculum,” adding layers of complexity to the job of translating the broad learning goals into classroom teaching.
Some of the debate about common curriculum for the standards is driven, observers say, by the multiple meanings of the word “curriculum.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/23/26curriculum.h30.html?tkn=XQZF8Ew7XPeRb9TDOhxfZzkTiWf%2FZYw5ZU9f&cmp=clp-edweek

What if?

http://bigthink.com/ideas/31604

Resources:

The Noun Project

Simple Graphical Images. Could be used as story starters.
http://www.thenounproject.com/

Thought Boxes

Organize everything you do.
Thoughtboxes is a simple tool that helps to organize your thoughts so you can make things happen.
Keep track of almost anything, and share your thoughts with friends.
http://thoughtbox.es/

PuzzleMaker

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/free-puzzlemaker/?CFID=10757332&CFTOKEN=39482384

EdiStorm

Edistorm takes the metaphor of sticky notes on a boardroom wall and brings it online allowing anyone – anywhere to brainstorm with only a web browser.
Each user picks their favorite ideas and Edistorm brings the best ones forward.
http://www.edistorm.com/

Flubaroo

Flubaroo is a free tool that helps you quickly grade multiple-choice or fill-in-blank assignments. I designed it for my own classroom, and want to share it with other teachers… for free!

* Flubaroo works with Google docs. Click if you need an introduction to Google docs.

More than just a grading tool, Flubaroo also:

  • Computes average assignment score.
  • Computes average score per question, and flags low-scoring questions.
  • Shows you a grade distribution graph.
  • Gives you the option to email each student their grade, and an answer key.

Read the overview below, or jump straight to Step 5 to see what Flubaroo creates.

The instructions below walk you through creating an assignment, and grading it with Flubaroo:

http://www.flubaroo.com/

66 Ways to Use Google Forms

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzc5Y25zc201Zzc&hl=en_GB&pli=1

Toasted Cheese

Writing prompts.
http://www.toasted-cheese.com/webcal/webcal.cgi

Web Spotlight:

The Civil War:

PBS first episode available for free.
http://www.macnews.com/2011/03/23/psb-stream-civil-war-ios-devices

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.
  • The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 17 – 18, 2011 at The Easton in Columbus, OH.
  • 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