Article of the Week - Kelly Gallagher

I have never read Kelly Gallagher before, but I really like his ideas on the article of the week activity. I will certainly integrate this activity.

There is a short video about it here: http://www.stenhouse.com/html/article-of-the-week.htm

There is a list of articles he is using here: http://www.kellygallagher.org/article-of-the-week/

Here is a podcast about his grading policies. I have to read more of his stuff.

Introvert?

I have not posted in a while, but I saw this great article on educating with the introverts in mind. I see a lot of connections to the technology integration I have done in the classroom. Particularly the synchronous blogs. I am intrigued by the ideas on small groups or pairs.

See the article at How to Teach a Young Introvert

Doctopus on Google Docs

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/06/three-google-sheets-scripts-that-help.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29#.Uc95Fvk3tqU This will make life so easy.

Coding as Expression

Here is a good argument for teaching coding as a part of the English Language curriculum. Are we not attempting to teach students new ways to express themselves? Wouldn't it be great if we could teach them many of the skills they will need to be creative in the 21st century while also teaching them how to express themselves in a new way, a way that is project based and for which many of the skills are instantly recognizable as necessary to accomplish the task? I'll have to check out scratch in more detail and see if I can't figure a way to incorporate this into my multimedia research project in some way.

Documentaries

Here is a great interview about student produced documentaries. Watch the outside research conducted via skype on some of them. What an interesting idea.

See the class webpage.

A link for Skype in the Classroom.

Video Education Differences

Technology in the classroom:

An interesting video on what makes the difference between countries leading in educational testing scores and the United States. Also relevant to different ways to create video instruction.

Shelly Wright - Flipping Bloom's

Sometimes when I read something, I am just overwhelmed with the simplicity of the message. It makes me wonder how I lasted this long without ever reading anything like it before. The article from Shelly Wright was one of those moments for me.

In the article, Shelly describes how flipping Bloom's Taxonomy can make the classroom so much more project oriented and engaging for the students. Basically, she starts projects with the synthesis or creation part, and then backtracks through analysis and the other levels of Bloom's to arrive at knowledge. This makes so much sense to me.

Two things I feel deserve another moment to reflect upon are the value this style of teaching places on student's inherent abilities both to create and to reflect. If you run a class like this, you have to walk into it thinking, "Come on, you guys can do this. I know you can." Then, you also have to incorporate the act of reflecting on what the students created and on how they could improve it based upon their analysis of master texts.

This article makes so much sense to me. Thinking in this way will allow me to refine my practice in several of the units I struggled with this year.

See it at Shelly Wright's blog.

Flowing Data

I have really become fascinated with flowing data presentations, and I am wondering if anyone has incorporated this into their classrooms. I wonder if it has progressed to a point where students could easily create presentations on data sets they are interested in. Here is a talk by Hans Rosling.

Issue Online Graphic Novels

Wow, this looks super cool. I will be doing Maus with my freshmen next semester. Maybe I could work in something like this.

Graphic Novel Technique

It requires an artist, but it is a free, creative version on Comic Life.

Another Animation Technique

This is a great looking animated movie technique.

Green Screens

History 2.0 does it again with green screens.

RSA Animate Project

Like Ken Robinson? Here is a way to do it with students and white boards.

Annotating Youtube Videos

This article by History 2.0 looks like a lot of fun for creating choose your own adventure videos. This could be great for a creative writing course. He uses it in history classes.

MakeBeliefsComix

This might be pretty cool. I have not tried it yet, but I like the idea for character analysis or book reports. Only problem I noticed is that the comics are only 3 boxes long. Maybe too concise.