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Teachers in Common-Core States Have Big Say in Choosing Resources, Report Suggests – Market Brief
From EDweek’s Market Brief – Teachers of math and English/language arts in states following the common-core standards are playing a strong role in developing or selecting the classroom resources they use, a report has found.
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The Merits of Reading Real Books to Your Children –
More on the merits of real books vs. ebooks
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Schoology: The strongest LMS you’ve never seen
LMS evaluations are typically painful ordeals for not just committee members but also for the vendors. They have to provide multiple demos, have lots of and write 100+ page proposals based on extensive features Continue reading…
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Building the Next Generation of Assessments in Education –
he U.S. Department of Education (ED) released its proposed regulations on assessments under Title I of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which the President signed in December 2015, to clarify how states can utilize a number of innovative approaches to assessment, including better integration of technology.
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Armour: Calling Sweden ‘bunch of cowards’ should be last straw for Hope Solo
Yes @nrarmour tells it like it should be told . @Hopesolo shows zero class ! https://t.co/w0NMQTxiyz via @USATODAY
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Learn Your Way: CK-12 Adds Free Sims and Interactive | Getting Smart
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Brett Favre Hall of Fame Speech | 2016 Pro Football Hall of Fame | NFL – YouTube
If you missed Brett Favre’s incredible Hall of Fame speech, block out some time (no, seriously), then watch it here: https://t.co/7cAUw2vvNI
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)
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Creating a Collaborative Culture
Good to-do list for the creation of a true collaborative culture.
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The five major world religions – John Bellaimey
It’s perfectly human to grapple with questions, like ‘Where do we come from?’ and ‘How do I live a life of meaning?’ These existential questions are central to the five major world religions — and that’s not all that connects these faiths. John Bellaimey explains the intertwined histories and cultures of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
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School Website Content Updates To Squeeze Into Your Summer Schedule
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Website Accessibility: Ten Things School Districts Should Know –
Simply put, website accessibility means that “people with disabilities can access the web.” That definition comes from the Web Accessibility Initiative, a project of the international standards group called the World Wide Web Consortium.
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Educator Effectiveness Guidebook for Inclusive Practice – Educator Evaluation
Inclusion resources from the MA DESE
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From Harold Jarche – Daniel Dennett’s Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking begins by presenting a number of tested approaches to sense-making. Here are a few that I would consider practical tools for personal knowledge mastery. He starts by discussing the value of trying to make mistakes.
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The “I Love U Guys” Foundation
Critical Incident/Safety Protocols
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In Defense of Civic Engagement
Important thoughts on our role as educators to provide our students with a balanced point of view.
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New Website Offers Comprehensive List of Siri Commands
Users looking to get the most out of Siri may want to check out Hey-Siri.io
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From Larry Ferlazzo – Write The World lets teachers set-up virtual classrooms for free where they can monitor student writing progress and, if they wish, let classmates use it for a peer review process. They can be private or public groups.
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Hattie effect size list – 195 Influences Related To Achievement
John Hattie developed a way of ranking various influences in different meta-analyses related to learning and achievement according to their effect sizes. In his ground-breaking study “Visible Learning” he ranked 138 influences that are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects. Hattie found that the average effect size of all the interventions he studied was 0.40. Therefore he decided to judge the success of influences relative to this ‘hinge point’, in order to find an answer to the question “What works best in education?”
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This is astonishing. Astonishing. https://t.co/KSKbiw0v4s
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (weekly)
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How great is @MikeReiss? Terrific camp report. https://t.co/pkJ9s99o1e
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edunews: https://t.co/eqKYLGAiRQ – top stories by @patrickmlarkin
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Share this with the elementary principals
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The Basics of Open Technology | Edutopia
From Ira Socol – The promise of contemporary technology lives in what these tools can do that previous learning and educational technologies could not — they are open, connected, individualizable, and flexible. But if your school adopts these new technologies without adopting the policies and practices that take advantage of these differences, you have likely defeated your students before you’ve even begun. In the Albemarle County Public Schools, we’ve worked hard to choose the paths that allow all of our students the full benefit of their century’s tools.
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Great list of resources on #educolor movement
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New iMovie for iOS Update Makes it Easier to Start and Share Projects – Mac Rumors
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Announcing: Project RED III Results are in! |
Research from Project Red – The results provided 9 Key Implementation Factors (KIFs) that most strongly influenced the results. We further uncovered that through a full digital conversion, a large number of typical school district expenditures can be redeployed to offset the cost of implementing ubiquitous technology. Chapter 9 of the original research goes deeply into those discoveries. Also significant was the finding that the lower the student to computer ratio, the better the return on investm
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this book is probably the opposite of what my mostly white students need because it once again affirms the narrative that the media and others would like us to remember when we speak of inner city America. That this book, in its eagerness to highlight the lives of young men, may do more damage than good.
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Learn how to budget before you start college this
Learn how to budget before you start college this fall. https://t.co/plOIb2vEN7
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PD – Nipmuc Regional High School
Great working w/ everyone at today’s #MSSAAsi session. Interested in future PD? Check here: https://t.co/FoSbN7Td05 https://t.co/Q31V0oBJWO
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Via @redhdteacher: National Politics or School Politics: Answers! https://t.co/spUvucTbpO #ewopinion
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Nipmuc Regional High School – Strategies
Thanks to everyone who attended this AM’s PD session. Here is a link to the website. https://t.co/S6KNiOpZJH @JohnKClements #MSSAASI
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Social Emotional Learning and the Common Core
Slidedeck from Larry Ferlazzo’s presentation at the California Teachers Summit
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Apple Classroom: The 3 key features and 4 questions to ask right now – Daily Genius
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Thanks guys- so happy to play a small part- @patrickmlarkin got me started 6 years ago- glad 2c u spreading the word https://t.co/bCJ9ir3cvP
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Develop Stephen Curry ball quickness! – YouTube
Ball Quickness is a skill that Seperates Steph Curry. Here’s how to work on it. https://t.co/mVm26u0BnP https://t.co/kGHwqVkwXr
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New OER Survey: The disconnect between faculty caring and assigning -e-Literate
By Phil Hill – 2012 the Babson Survey Research Group (BSRG) put out a new report on usage and perceptions of open educational resources (OER) usage in higher education.
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From Race Forward – Explore workers’ stories, national data and action resources to learn how this happens and what can be done about it.
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Ready for the New School Year? Get on Top of These Four Edtech Teaching Trends | EdSurge News
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Start with a Question: The Four Elements of Paperless Learning
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Adaptive Learners, Not Adaptive Learning
Good stuff from George Siemens
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Google Apps tutorials from Richard Byrne
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Nonacademic Skills Are Key To Success. But What Should We Call Them?
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (July 24, 2016)
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Study Finds Social-Justice Courses Prompted Self-Exploration in Marginalized Students – The AtlanticFrom The Atlantic – “[These] thought-provoking conversations made them consider, or reconsider, their own perspective on what it meant to be black.”
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Data trends from Edweek.
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Important to share with parents
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Good resource from Vicki Davis and Susan Bearden
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Anyone who warns about the dangers of too much choice may be using the term in a truncated, trivial sense – rather like condemning progressive education after defining it as “letting children play all day in school.”
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This is getting creepy https://t.co/ys2QZEVNz
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Video from Teachercast on how to use the new Google SItes
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From Richard Byrne – My suggestion was to try Kaizena for adding voice comments to students documents. Kaizena can be used in your web browser or as an iPad app. Kaizena’s YouTube channel has some helpful tutorials including the three embedded in the playlist below.
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Good set of short talks from iPad Palooza June 2016
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Here are eight different yet interacting moving parts that I believe has to go into any reform aimed at creating a high-achieving school using technology to prepare children and youth to enter a career or complete college (or both).
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Thank you https://t.co/tfzxVpCAyX
#Educolor Is A Critical Resource For School Leaders
photo via Educolor.org
With all that is happening in our world, I cannot think of a more important hashtag than #educolor at this. I am concerned that the most prevalent sound bytes that we hear are ignoring the voice of people of color and leading to an imbalanced perspective. Ironically, an impromptu Twitter chat took place on the #educolor hashtag last night after a one-hour #edchat on the topic of racism in schools lacked a significant representation of educators of color.
Thankfully, Jose Vilson stepped up to the plate on the #educolor hashtag and asked the following critical questions for educators to reflect on to ensure that we are providing schools and classrooms that support our students of color:
//storify.com/patrickmlarkin3/a-pop-up-educolor-chat/embed?header=false&border=false//storify.com/patrickmlarkin3/a-pop-up-educolor-chat.js?header=false&border=false[View the story “A pop-up #Educolor Chat ” on Storify]
It is imperative that all school leaders provide opportunities for conversations surrounding questions like these. This cannot be just an hour at the beginning of the school year or a one-time position statement. There needs to be ongoing schoolwide and community-wide discourse and concrete action plans to ensure that we are not marginalizing students, parents, staff, or community members of color due to ingrained institutional traditions, rules, and/or mindsets. The one thing I am sure of is that I have a very limited set of skills and experiences in navigating this discussion and that my good intentions and genuine concern for all leaves me well short of the much higher standard that needs to be met when it comes to ensuring equity within the school district in which I work.
Fortunately, I have other educators who can enlighten and guide me beyond my shortcomings. The educators sharing personal perspectives on their experiences and work to ensure equity for students of color can be found on Twitter at #Educolor. We all need to listen, engage, and act.
Breaking From Tradition – My TEDx Talk
A few months ago I had the opportunity to give a TED Talk during a TEDx Youth Event here in Burlington. The video was up briefly and then taken down due to a minor technological glitch. The complete talk is no up and can be viewed below. It was an honor to be part of this event which featured talented educators like Kerry Gallagher, Starr Sackstein, Eric Johnson, Jeff Bradbury, and Marialice Curran. Thankfully, the adults speakers preceded the impressive talks from students. I am grateful for the work that Jenn Scheffer put in to make this event possible and the fact that she did not have me follow BHS Senior Timmy Sullivan.
I am hopeful that my talk “Breaking From Tradition” strings together a few cogent points.
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (July 17, 2016)
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Another good post on Pokemon Go – This one from Common Sense Media
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From Larry Ferlazzo
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Expand your media literacy skills by making digital media and sharing it with the community of fellow educators.
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““To the EdTech “thought leaders” who say that providing full read/write access to your email and drive is “nothing to worry about”: really?” (source) and “I hope these folks didn’t have anything of value in any of their Google accounts.” (source)”
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From Bill Fitzgerald – “The launch of Pokemon GO highlights various privacy, security, safety, and privilege concerns with how we use and access tech. While these concerns existed prior to Pokemon GO, and will continue to exist long afterwards, this provides an opportunity to highlight some concrete steps about how we can use technology more safely, and take control over data collected about us. “
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From Dr. Vera Triplett – “So, how do we deliver education both compassionately and effectively? How do we build a culture of high academic and behavioral expectations, while also taking into consideration the challenges that students bring to the table?”
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Good overview of Adobe Spark from Richard Byrne.
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From EdWeek – “Welcome to the brave new world of teacher “micro-credentialing,” an effort to make professional development more personalized, engaging, and relevant to teachers. All in all, the two Wisconsin teachers say, it’s a lot more focused and practical than the stereotypical continuing-education class.”
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Great thoughts on literacy in the age of technology.
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Thoughts from my friend Rem… https://t.co/WuoIXIK1It
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Study Supports Suspicion That Police Are More Likely to Use Force on Blacks https://t.co/lwgAxM1pvY
How Many Educators Are Really Literate?
Literacy is a broad term. The definition from Merriam-Webster defines literacy as “the ability to read and write or knowledge that relates to a specified subject.” The struggle for me comes on the topic of specified subjects. Are these static or changing? Once prioritized, where do we find the most relevant and up-to-date information? Once we find the best source of information, how long does that remain the best resource and how long is that information up-to-date?
One of the words I have heard most often at a number of educational workshops over the past year regarding complicated topics like this is the word iterative. “It is an iterative process,” they say in an effort to help those in the room process the complexity of the work ahead and also understand that this work cannot be expected to be completed overnight. However, sometimes I get the feeling that this pronouncement is taken as a signal that significant progress is not really expected. Maybe we need to explain that you can’t have an iterative process without making a first iteration? I do find it a bit ironic that the word inertia can be extracted from the word iteration.
One place where I feel this frustration is in the area of digital literacy. A couple of blog posts from Shaelynn Farnsworth and Steven Anderson following the recent ISTE Conference really got me wondering about how much has changed in regards to how we support our students in this area. We are more than eight years beyond the publication of the definition of 21st Century Literacies published by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), yet I question how many of our students are able to do the following by the time they graduate from high school:
- Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology;
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Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;
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Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;
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Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information;
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Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts;
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Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.
I don’t see anything significant happening here until we accept the words in the title of Steven’s post and ensure that all educators feel that We Are All Teachers of Literacy. This will not be as much of a shift for elementary teachers as it will be for those in middle and high schools. For those districts looking for resources to help educators get started, Shaelynn’s post provides the following:
Google Inside Search – Understand how Google Search works, explore the interactive timeline highlighting the advancement of Google Search throughout the years, and view lesson plans for educators.BrainPop – A video introduces students to search engines and how to use keywords and phrases to locate the information they want. This site also includes lesson plans which include multi-media ideas and also skills to promote with students for online research!ReadWriteThink – A great lesson plan to help students focus their internet searching. This lesson not only supports skills need in the initial search, but also reading strategies to locate and evaluate information once it is found!
As I make this statement, please be assured that I include myself in this group playing catch up in regards to how to best find quality information online. Reading beyond clickbait headlines and titles is a challenge sometimes when I do not feel like I have the time to give due diligence to the source behind that headline. But if we are committed to fulfilling our mission to develop responsible citizens, then we have to go all-in when it comes to developing responsible digital citizens.
In an area where the majority of our information is coming to us from digital media, can we really claim literacy without digital literacy?
Our Students Can’t Be "Quiet" on Social Media in School
With summer here, as well as a less hectic schedule, it is a great opportunity to catch up and revisit some of the great education-related books out there. My first read is a quick revisit of “Quiet” by Susan Cain, a must-read for any educator who has not yet had the chance to pick up this insightful look at introverts. There is so much for educators to consider regarding Cain’s work and how we create learning opportunities that really reach all learners.
A particular aspect of the book that struck me my second time through was a portion discussing the role that social media can play in giving introverts a voice in discussions. With so many schools, classrooms, and educators still dealing with discomfort at the thought of providing and encouraging students to utilize online tools to share their thoughts, I have concerns that we are missing a critical opportunity to engage some of our students in meaningful discourse and connections.
Cain says the following on this topic in the second chapter of her book:
“The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice. The same person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and then extend these relationships to the real world.”
I know many educators who can identify with this and we owe it to our students to ensure the same opportunity. This does not mean that every student needs to have online interaction for every discussion, but it does mean that we need to provide chances for every student to have experiences with online conversations at some point. Heck, by the time our students hit middle school they are most likely already engaged in some type of online social media interaction. My feeling is that we have to engage the adult learners in our schools in utilizing these resources in order to allow every student access.
As Cain states, “Social media has made new forms of leadership possible for scores of people…”
Hopefully, we can count all of the students in our schools among these scores of people!
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (July 10, 2016)
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These maps show the connections between Math/Science
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Great resource for implememting Next Generation Science Standards
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Great resources from the National Science Teachers Association
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Good thoughts from Jsaon Kottke following the passing of Elie Wiesel
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A great idea from George Couros on how ed. leaders should promote the great things happening in their schools on a daily basis.
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Each performance expectation within the standards includes three dimensions: science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts.
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As teachers, our role is to be actors, advocates, and allies—not bystanders. Although it’s true we live in an amazing country with powerful ideals—“The American Dream”—our journey, and that of our students, is far from over. Using the phrase “your kids” deflects our investment and responsibility in every student’s learning, and denies us the richness of their lives. English-learners are not going away. They are “our kids” through and through, an integral piece of “our world,” now and in the future.
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Good thoughts from David Truss on personalized learning and how we can promote more if it for our students.
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Good post by Shaelyn Farnsowrth on the importance of ensuring that our students are accessing and evaluating digital information.
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Nope. He’s coming to Boston and then Danny is trading away 3 first rounders for Cousins. Mark it down https://t.co/lsiXcNvAV1
My Un-Learning Journey 