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I have looked through the worst hot takes, &
I have looked through the worst #DeflateGate hot takes, & DEBUNKED THEM ALL: http://t.co/G718P8lNfQ http://t.co/mQzAvNIeSN
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SCOPE’s Social Emotional Learning in Diverse High Schools Study produced a series of reports that detail effective social emotional learning practices at three socioeconomically and racially diverse small public high schools located in Boston, Brooklyn, and San Antonio.
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Mind-Set Interventions Are a Scalable Treatment for Academic Underachievement
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From Tom Vander Ark – “Small innovative schools opened in months rather than years of planning could prove to be an important K-12 innovation strategy.”
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Report: Reducing Class Sizes To 15 Could Boost School Achievement
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Google for Education: Tullahoma City Schools create digital textbooks with Google Docs
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Keeping your online presence professional is key to success – Lowell Sun Online
Keeping your online presence professional is key to success: http://t.co/OUBlxeVwhK @LowellSunNews #EdTech #edchat #DigitalLeaders
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Text Complexity? Helping Readers See The Whole Text –
From Grant Wiggins
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The Big Problem With the New SAT
Great Op-Ed from the New York Times – “While a clear improvement, the revised SAT remains problematic. It will still emphasize speed — quick recall and time management — over subject knowledge.”
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Watch Patrick Hoarty’s Vine “He scared me”
He scared me https://t.co/l4icGiEGBM
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New study on poverty “delivers the most compelling
New study on poverty “delivers the most compelling evidence yet that neighborhoods matter in a really big way.” http://t.co/5QJYJLOuae
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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing (HBO) – YouTube
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Preparing For The Digital University
A review of the history and current state of distance, blended, and online learning
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A Whitepaper on Blended Learning from The Highlander Institute
Author: Patrick Larkin
I have been in school leadership for over 25 years. I feel blessed to be an educator. I have had the good fortune of working as an English teacher, an Assistant Principal, a Principal, and an Assistant Superintendent in three districts in MA. I am also proud to be an IDEAS Instructor working with educators across the state and region who are part of schools and communities that promote anti-bias, anti-racist education.
A Great Clip For Twitter Beginners From the movie Chef
I remember seeing Jon Favreau’s new movie Chef when it first came out and thinking that this scene would be great to share with new Twitter users to explain the difference between replies and private messages (direct messages).
Check out the short clip below where Chef’s son checks out his Twitter feed the morning after setting it up and sees that his dad has picked up over 1,500 Twitter followers overnight. He asks his dad if he posted anything over the night and…well, just check out the clip.
Some Recommended Reading On Reading
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| Photo via http://res.freestockphotos.biz/ |
A group of us here in Burlington Public Schools spent a couple of days in a workshop last week that was focused on reinforcing comprehension skills. The sessions were led by Shauna Cotte from Keys To Literacy which is based in Rowley, MA.
During the second day of the session, Shauna shared some books with the group that she saw as required reading. Check out the list below and feel free to pass along any that you would add in the comment section:
The Book Whisperer – Donnalynn Miller
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (May 3, 2015)
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Turning a Children’s Rating System Into an Advocacy Army
From the New York Times – “James P. Steyer came here from San Francisco last week on a whirlwind tour to try to engage the country’s power brokers in his new crusade to put children and education at the top of the nation’s political agenda.”
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Amazon Media Room: RSS Content
From Amazon – “New features and enhancements—including tiered administration, group management, and premium customer support—make it easier for organizations to use Whispercast at-scale” h/t Audrey Watters
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This makes me nervous
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Pros & Cons of Using Blog Posts for School Announcements
A good look at the pros and cons of using a blog to communicate information to parents
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How I Use the Social Networks These Days
From Chris Brogan “I wanted to tell you that I see a lot of shifts in the whole online/social networks landscape. Some of it kind of saddens me. The rest of it points to the weakening state of effectiveness of various platforms as business tools. You can disagree. That’s fine.”
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The Internet has created a generation of great writers
From Penelope Trunk – The best writers in the history of the world are graduating from college, right now. So everyone can just shut up about how no one can write anymore.
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The Trouble With Grading Employees
Correlations with education…
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Global ‘100-year gap’ in education standards
From the BBC – When it comes to education the differences between the developed and developing worlds remain stark.
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This school in Norway abandoned teaching subjects 40 years ago – Quartz
Finland has announced that in their new national curriculum, they will emphasize phenomena-based project studies instead of traditional subjects. The Ringstabekk school—with 425 students aged 13 to 16 years just outside Norway’s capital, Oslo—has been doing this for 40 years with great success.
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HBO NOW on the App Store on iTunes
Last Chance to try #HBONOW FREE for 30 Days. Download and start streaming #GameofThrones today. https://t.co/SXEj3VJDvq
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Virtual Library (Publications Getty)
Over 250 ebooks from J. Paul Getty Museum
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Book titles with full text online | MetPublications | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
437 book titles with full text online from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Nearly 700 Art History Books to Read Online for Free
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A Handful of Tools That Help Students Analyze Their Own Writing
From Richard Byrne – Here are some more good tools that students can use to analyze their own writing.
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Great FREE program developed by Stanford Professor Jo Boaler to engage students in math.
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2014 Report Card – Digital Learning Now
Digital Learning Now rates all 50 states on their readiness for digital learning
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iPads, E-Readers, and Early Literacy: Emerging Research From AERA – Digital Education
Research on the advantages of e-reading
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A good example of a teacher using PBL in elementary school
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Escalante-Gradillas $20,000 Prize for Best in Education | The Best Schools
@patrickmlarkin Hi Patrick, have you heard about our $20K educator’s award? Winner’s school gets $10K…! See: http://t.co/37RLsnQFJ4
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Good piece on teaching skills versus teaching content from terry Heick
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50 Companies That Get Twitter – and 50 That Don’t – HBR
They have given their social media staff a clear mission and a great deal of autonomy; the account’s managers chat with customers, offer up front to solve problems, and empathize…
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Britain should be wary of borrowing education ideas from abroad
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Good post on options for teaching students remotely – I can flip the presentation using the video above. The video explains how you can use Blackboard Collaborate which is something we have in Fairfax County. But there are other alternatives as you can see below.
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Does the Common Core help boost reading comprehension?
Part 1 of 5 on Daniel Willlingham’s Book – Raising Kids Who Read
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23 Tech Tools that Help Students Follow their Pass
23 Tech Tools that Help Students Follow their Passions Like the Pros http://t.co/D44Y1ZSmHj #geniushour #20Time #passionproject
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (April 26, 2015)
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Going to the World Championship! | DevilBotz Team 2876
Check out our new post! Going to the World Championship! http://t.co/FJw4US0e8A #omgrobots
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She Skipped School And Couldn’t Pay Her Fines — So Texas Sent Her To Jail
Unbelievable! “more than 1,000 Texas teenagers who have been ordered to jail in the last three years on charges stemming from missing school”
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How to Keep Children From Drowning in the Device Deep End |
The fact is that too many children are being thrown in the digital deep end, without the skills or supervision they need to survive.
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How to Hack an HTML 5 iBooks Author Widget | iPad EdTech
How to Hack an HTML 5 iBooks Author Widget http://t.co/M05QHxOY2k
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The world’s languages, in 7 maps and charts
These seven maps and charts, visualized by The Washington Post, will help you understand how diverse other parts of the world are in terms of languages.
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Lesson Ideas for Google Art Project
Great ideas for using Google Art Project from Jen Carey
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Summer Institute in Digital Literacy | Media Education Lab
Any #FutureReady folks who want to keep the convo + work going, come to URI’s Digital Literacy Institute 7/26-31: http://t.co/4vWzni0q6O
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Winning in the Classroom with Your Personalized Learning Playbook | EdSurge Guides
Resource from Edsurge
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Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace.
Despite its obvious problems, the open-office model has continued to encroach on workers across the country.
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Educational Leadership – April 2015
In the April #ELmag: @patrickmlarkin shares how to use social media to get the word out & collect important feedback: http://t.co/aUpSb0srYx
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What Is Agile? (10 Key Principles of Agile) | All About Agile
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[Tips for EdLeaders] How to Use Facebook and Twitter to Communicate Effectively
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18 Reasons Why You Need Every Employee Using LinkedIn Every Day
This could also be a more general post about the importance of connected learning.
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If You Can’t Change Higher Ed Overnight, Change Your Classroom. Here’s How! #FuturesEd | HASTAC
From Cathy Davidson regarding learning in college classrooms, but I think the insights are worth considering at all levels
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Faculty Meetings – Learning By Doing
I have found that when you involve a group of people with the mindset of “How would I learn this best?” around a short question, they tend to come up with tremendous ideas–and again, I was not disappointed.
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A Handful of Tools That Help Students Analyze Their Own Writing
From Richard Byrne – Here are some more good tools that students can use to analyze their own writing.
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Is this a habitat in which inquiry can thrive? Questions and warning bells for the inquiry classroom
Great list of questions to ask for those looking to use more inquiry-driven learning in their classrooms
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Culturally Responsive Teaching Starts With Students
From Teach Thought – “Schools that acknowledge the diversity of their student population understand the importance of promoting cultural awareness. Teachers who are interested in fostering a cultural awareness in their classroom should actively demonstrate to their students that they genuinely care about their cultural, emotional, and intellectual needs.”
The Work To Become Future Ready Never Ends
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| Photo via bpsedtech.org |
Preparing for this morning’s Future Ready Summit In Rhode Island, I decided to take a look back at some of the posts that I wrote back during the 2010-2011 school year as we made the final plans to become a 1:1 school at Burlington High School. While I am excited by the rapidly increasing number of schools that have taken strides to ensure that their students will be “Future Ready,” I know there are a lot of school communities out there struggling to the resources they need, whether it be infrastructure or other technological resources.
For me, it still centers around the same question I asked back in March of 2011…
…What type of education do we want for our kids?
My answers are still the same as they were four years ago:
- I want my children to learn about resources that allow them to connect and collaborate with those who share their passions/interests.
- I want my children to be inquisitive and lead their own learning.
- I want my children to be responsible citizens.
While progress sometimes seems slow in a system where there is an overemphasis on designing a better test, there are reasons for optimism. We need look no further than the Future Ready Summits as a sign that our nation’s Department of Education is willing to embrace needed changes. With regional summits across the country, there are truly opportunities for all schools to get needed support in advancing the acquisition and use of digital tools.
I look forward to writing more after today’s summit. But in the meantime, I embedded a Readlist of my “Becoming a 1:1 School” blog posts below.
http://readlists.com/c31d6784/embed
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (April 19, 2015)
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Wondering is school districts should be utilizing LinkedIn More as a recruitment tool, especially given the market for finding qualified teachers in certain certification areas.
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Great short video and song from Question Copyright on attribution.
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#1 Account for #Massachusetts #teachers @patrickmlarkin! @Burlington Schools Asst. Supt. http://t.co/cCFLZ7Us0K
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Students perform better if they share an iPad with another student as opposed to having one all to themselves, according to a new study.
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RefME is a service designed to help students create bibliographies.
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From Richard Byrne – “Analyze My Writing could be a great resource for high school and college students to use in editing their works.”
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Great post on the value of reading digitally
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Good post about the quality vs. quantity debate with screen time.
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From Edutopia
BEF Grant Brings More "Stability" To Learning In Mrs. Olshaw’s Classroom
Mrs. Olshaw’s classroom at Memorial School was recently awarded a grant from the Burlington Education Foundation to purchase Stability Balls for the classroom as a replacement for traditional chairs.
The grant proposal which was created by Mrs. Olshaw and her students had the following goal:
Our goal is to supply each child in the classroom with a stability ball. The use of Stability Balls in the classroom is not a new phenomenon, they are a proven to be a successful tool for decreasing out-of-seat behavior while increasing achievement, engagement, and focus in the classroom. Stability balls also provide a health benefit as well. As posture improves from working the core muscles, calories are burned with the constant movement by the body’s natural kinesthetic energy .
The students in Mrs. Olshaw’s classroom have noticed a difference already and feel that they are more productive in their new “seats.”
Check out a few more pictures of some of the students below. For more on stability balls in the classroom, check out this link from LiveStrong.
Our Blizzard Bag Site Is Live
We are excited to have the opportunity to pilot learning projects for school day cancellations. We will be the first district in the state of Massachusetts to try this with the assigned “Blizzard Bag” work that is available on this BPS Blizzard Bag site. As with any pilot, we expect that there will be a lot of questions and that not everything will proceed exactly as planned. However, we are committed to offering multiple methods to support students so that they can complete their work successfully.
Questions will be answered live on our Blizzard Bag phone line at 1 (512) SNOWDAY (1-512-766-9329) on Tuesday, April 28 from 4-7 p.m. Voice messages and texts can also be sent to this number during the duration of the assignment and will be responded to daily. In the meantime, we have also created an e-mail address where you can send questions (blizzardbags@bpsk12.org). We will share all of the questions asked on a “Frequently Asked Questions” section that will be added on this Blizzard Bag site.
Of course, your student’s classroom teachers are also a great resource for questions and we will be adding support opportunities that are available at individual schools in the days ahead as well on the website. Teachers will be checking in with their students during the week of May 4, which is the midpoint of the projects, to make sure that students are making progress. It is our hope that at least half of the assignment will be completed at this time. If students have any questions about expectations or length of assignments, they should ask their teachers.
Our final due date for the assignments is June 1, 2015. If students complete their work prior to that date, they are welcome to turn them in early to their teachers. Since the work is meant to be substituted for two days of school, all students who do not complete the work will be marked absent for two days. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we work through this pilot. We look forward to your feedback along the way.
Please visit this site for information and details about student work that must be completed to ensure learning goals are met. Student assignments are posted by grade levels at the top of the Blizzard Bag Website. High school teachers will be giving students their assignments this week.
My Un-Learning Journey 