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http://t.co/8FVZJLbWxK While the business mindset will often romanticize about “helping the world” and “pleasing consumers”, the onl…
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A Handful of Google Calendar Tutorials for Teachers
Good stuff from Richard Byrne!
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From BAM Radio – Classroom Q and A on 1:1 Computing
What Are the Real Benefits of a 1:1 Program? What Are the Biggest Challenges?
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A Handful of Helpful Google Forms Tutorials for Teachers
From Richard Byrne
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A Principal’s Reflections: A Glimpse Into What’s Possible
he following post was written by Bill Brennan and originally appeared on Peter DeWitt’s Finding Common Ground blog found at Education Week. The post was titled Schools…the New Digital Age Learning Organization?
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From Richard Byrne – Gooru is a service designed to help teachers create and share collections of educational videos, texts, and images. This week Gooru released a few new features that you could find helpful in building your collections.
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Copyright and Fair Use for Teachers
Nice short cheat sheet for teachers to review the ins and outs of Copyright and Fair Use
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Google Docs: Which Workflow Works for You?
Great stuff from Honors English Teacher Catlin Tucker
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New school tests don’t make the grade
from Al Jazeera America – Is technology-based standardized test really accomplishing what we want in regards to ed reform?
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Replacing Snow Days with E-Learning Days | Alliance For Excellent Education
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Massive Open Online Courses Offer Free Way to Explore Digital Literacies
Overview of the MOOC offered to staff from the San Diego County Office of Education
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How Does PISA Put the World at Risk (Part 1): Romanticizing Misery
Yong Zhao explains the problems with PISA
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Content Curation Through the SAMR Lens
From Susan Onevad on Getting Smart
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It Takes Bravery to Let Go of Homework
From ASCD Inservice
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College President: SAT Is Part Hoax, Part Fraud
From Time Magazine
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (March 23, 2014)
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Connected District’s Journey: Making informal learning formal – Together, Achieving Excellence
Great ideas on differentiated Professional Development from a district in Missouri.
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New learning tool from Google
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Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) | U.S. Department of Education
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Appy Hour Rewind: How Subtext Supports Common Core Standards
Subtext is a collaborative digital reader students can use to access, annotate, and engage with any kind of text. The iPad app lets teachers access, purchase, or import any text, and annotate, highlight, comment, and add instruction to texts. And best of all, it supports ELA Common Core Standards.
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (March 16, 2014)
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VocabGrabber analyzes any text you’re interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context. Just copy text from a document and paste it into the box, and then click on the “Grab Vocabulary!” button. VocabGrabber will automatically create a list of vocabulary from your text, which you can then sort, filter, and save.
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A search engine for apps
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Using Projeqt you can mix content from the web with your own content to create visual stories about your favorite things. Using Projeqt you can create a visual story by linking together images, videos, and text.
A Can’t Miss Presentation for Parents – Behind Closed Doors
From the Burlington High School Principal Sullivan’s Blog
Burlington High School is happy to announce a special presentation for parents and community members: Behind Closed Doors“Hidden in Plain Sight” Household items that transcend into every day drug use by teens.
During the Behind Closed Doors presentation, adult attendees are encouraged to explore and interact with the display designed to resemble a teenager’s bedroom. Throughout the exhibit are items that may indicate a teen is involved in some high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, underage drinking, eating disorders, sexual activity and more.
There will be a 60 minute presentation by Traci Wojciechoski of the Caron Treatment Centers reviewing the latest drug and alcohol trends with an overview of slang terms, highlighting the ‘synthetic highs’ that are readily available to youth. Participants will be enlightened, educated and possibly astonished.
Behind Closed Doors“Hidden in Plain Sight”
Household items that transcend into every day drug use by teens
At Burlington High School’s Fogelberg Auditorium April 15, 2014 6:30pm
(display open at 5:30)
During the Behind Closed Doors presentation, adult attendees are encouraged to explore and interact with the display designed to resemble a teenager’s bedroom. Throughout the exhibit are items that may indicate a teen is involved in some high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, underage drinking, eating disorders, sexual activity and more.
Tricycle Races At Francis Wyman – Which Picture Is Your Favorite?
Thanks to Francis Wyman Assistant Principal Nicole McDonald for forwarding me some of the pictures from the CARES Assembly at Francis Wyman this morning! It was great to see the staff getting in the spirit during the Tricycle Race. I can’t decide which picture I like more, the first one with FWS Secretary Julie Conley showing her “game face” or the last with Tech Integration Specialist Ben Schersten, who had to curl his long legs over the handlebars to get his tricycle moving.
In any event, it looks like a good time was had by all!
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (March 2, 2014)
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You Can Build Your Own Search Engine from Richard Byrne
There’s not much to it other than following a few steps at Google.com/cse. As you can see in the directions embedded below, you don’t need any coding skills in order to build your own search engine.
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Create Public Courses on OpenEd from Richard Byrne
As a registered OpenEd user (registration is free and takes less than thirty seconds to complete) you can create courses and playlists of videos and other materials that you find in the OpenEd directory. You can align your courses and playlists to Common Core standards. If you choose to align your course to a standard, OpenEd will suggest materials to you. OpenEd supports inclusion of assessments within your course.
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John Green is back with a new Crash Course on literature. The first installment in the new course is A Long and Difficult Journey, or The Odyssey.
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Students, say goodbye to snow days — and say hello to school at home – CNN.com
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How to Create Contact Groups to Make Sharing Google Documents Easier
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (February 23, 2014)
Image via CrunchBase
In an attempt to reflect back upon the numerous blogs and articles that I peruse online each week, I have decided to autopost the items that I bookmark on Diigo each week. Below are all of the links that I compiled last week in my Diigo account.
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The first paragraph of this story shows some of the savings that schools can see when they switch to digital textbooks
My Weekly Diigo Bookmarks (February 16, 2014)
Image via CrunchBase
In an attempt to reflect back upon the numerous blogs and articles that I peruse online each week, I have decided to autopost the items that I bookmark on Diigo each week. Below are all of the links that I compiled last week in my Diigo account, with a few of my favorites highlighted in more detail at the top.
Guest Post – Anatomy of a Snow Day (from a school administrator)
While there have been a couple of fun videos floating around recently of school administrators doing creative things to alert their school communities of school cancellations, the process of making the call is actually a bit stressful. There are not many things that rile up parents and students more than a wrong call one of these inclement weather mornings.
The message below which was sent yesterday to parents and staff by Glen Urquhart School’s Head of School Dave Provost provides a good glimpse of what many school administrators deal with in making “the call.” Thanks to Dave for allowing me to share the e-mail here!
Dear Families,
It’s a pretty glamorous life, this head of school thing. I know what
you’re thinking. Guy wakes up in the morning, puts on his silk robe and
slippers, grabs his freshly brewed double latte, pets his loyal hound, and
wanders casually to window, searching the sky for signs of snow. He sits
and reflects, quietly, on the magnitude of his realm, and contemplates
aloud: “Will I open our fine institution of learning this morning, forcing
the timid masses to keep a stiff upper lip in the interest of maintaining
academic momentum? Or, will I grant the young people a reprieve from
their toil, inviting collective glee and the opportunity to frolic while
their parents scramble amusingly to secure child care?” He sips his
latte, chuckles to himself, revels in the bliss of power, and picks up the
phone…
Yeah, not so much.
Here’s a blow by blow of how it actually works:
Tuesday morning, the chatter begins around school. “More snow coming.
Looks like it might get messy. What do you think about Thursday?” My
reply, some form of the following: “Ummm…”
Wednesday morning, the lobbying begins. The upper school head, famous for
her love of snow days, begins dropping by with weather updates. Emails
and text messages from her follow. My assistant blows into my office like
Kramer entering Jerry’s apartment, clutching a printed weather radar
photo: “Did you know we’re getting two feet of snow tonight??!!” I look
at her, my eyebrows raised slightly, amused. Students ask, casually, “do
you think we’ll have school tomorrow? I have a project due…” My reply,
a feeble smile and some form of the following: “Ummmm…”
Wednesday night, 9:00 p.m., check the weather before going home from
school. Snow beginning sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Anticipated totals between two and eighteen inches. Storm path uncertain.
Source A reports a dusting. Source B reports Armageddon. Source C is
non-committal. Drive home while receiving multiple pathetically
hyperbolic text messages from the head of upper school.
Wednesday night, 9:30 p.m., eat dinner and watch the Olympics. Wonder if
they ever have snow days in Sochi. Wonder, also, while watching pairs
figure skating, “what’s up with those costumes?”
Wednesday night, 10:20 p.m., go to bed and check forecast and school
closings on phone. Worcester schools are closed. I wonder, “What is
closer, Worcester or Sochi?” Set alarm for 5:15 a.m.
Thursday morning, 5:15 a.m., wake to alarm. Check school closings. Athol
closed. “How unfortunate,” I think, on so many levels. Amesbury closed.
Bellesini Academy closed. A few other schools with names somehow worse
than Glen Urquhart closed. “Not enough,” I think. Re-set alarm for 6:00.
Thursday morning, 6:00 a.m., wake again to alarm. Look out the window.
Nothing. Check phone for school closings. Hamilton-Wenham closed.
“Hmmmm,” I think. “What do these upper middle class yankees know that I
don’t? Have they been tipped off by the meteorological inner circle?”
Email arrives from a parent. Manchester-Essex also closed. “Conspiracy
among the strong tax base,” I think. “Not to panic. Stay calm.” Then,
the flurry: Gloucester, Ipswich, Danvers, Peabody, Boxford, Landmark,
Pingree… Expletives uttered as I reach for my home computer.
6:12 a.m., discover that home computer has been re-configured by
16-year-old and that my files, including login information for School
Messenger, are no longer available. More expletives. Voice beside me
asks, “What can I do?” I reply, “You can stop talking to me so I can
figure this out.” I think to myself, “Smooth.” I atone briefly and carry
on.
6:15 a.m., realize I need my laptop and will need to go to school in order
to cancel school. Dress and run to car. Drive to GUS at imprudent speed
while alternately breathing mindfully and inwardly, bitterly mocking the
entire mindfulness paradigm. Wonder what time it is in Sochi and what
figure skaters wear to breakfast.
6:28, log in to School Messenger and initiate process for recording
automatic call to families. Realize that the upper school building is, in
fact, an impenetrable bunker without cell reception. Grab laptop and cell
phone and walk outside the upper school building in jeans, sweatshirt,
realizing I have no poem, no amusing quip, nothing. I am dead inside.
Beaten. Winter, that ruthless marauder, has won.
6::30 a.m., cell phone rings and I am prompted by automated call system to
record the message, which I do, forlorn and shivering. I turn with my
phone and open laptop to re-enter the school, realizing I have locked
myself out. Briefly, I consider weeping. I then begin laughing
uproariously like an ultra-creepy John Malkovich. I sit down on the
sidewalk and email the faculty. Perhaps someone is coming. “It’s ok,” I
think. “If no one arrives I’ll just curl up here outside the doors and go
to sleep. They’ll find me in the morning.”
6:35 a.m., (A staff member) emerges from Braemar, chuckling. He saves me
from myself and lets me back into school. I begin looking for phone
numbers for the local TV stations. They are cruelly hidden on their
websites. Finally, I reach channel 7; I am transferred three times before
I reach the right person. Apparently, there is a room somewhere at the
station, some secret place where school closings are received and posted.
“Do you have your codes?” the person asks. I reply, “Ummmm….” The head
shaking on the other end of the phone is audible. Even the lowly intern
charged with taking cancellations sees how pathetic I am.
7:05, a.m., log on to Facebook and begin reading snarky posts from parents
regarding the snow day call. “Ahhh, the glamour of it all,” I think to
myself. I sit back in my office chair and look outside. It’s quiet, and
it has begun to snow.
My Un-Learning Journey 