Here is the weekly list of articles, blogs and web sites I saved to my Diigo account. Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday’s to all!
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25 Reading Strategies That Work In Every Content Area
Great ways to infuse reading across all disciples
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5 Gmail Tools That Will Make Your Life Easier – Edudemic
Going to Gmail does have some perks. Here are some tips on getting the most out of Gmail
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5 New Google Docs Features You Might Have Missed
Some great new features for Google users
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We can now make use of Google Docs when we want to save, access and even share larger files that don’t even have anything to do with documents, spreadsheets or presentations.
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Google has awarded us with the ability to upload more than one file at a time. It works very similarly to normal file selection. You have several options. You can hold the Ctrl button and click on the individual files you want selected. You can hold the Shift button, click the first file and then click the last file to select all files in between. Then there is the option to click and drag, drawing a box selecting all files in the pathway of your mouse.
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Now Google has rolled out the ability to share folders and collaborate on files in that folder.
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In fact, the feature gets even neater when you start sending Google Document files as email attachments and they are converted into usable offline file formats.
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Sharing files via an email attachment is as easy as right clicking on the file to be shared, hovering over the “Share” option, and clicking “Email as attachment…“
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Great ideas on planning for BYOD (or 1:1 computing).
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5 Ideas To Help You Go from Twitter Lurker to Active User – Edudemic
Twitter is a a great PD tool for busy administrators
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How To Use Project-Based Learning To Redefine Learning – Edudemic
Some examples of what PBL looks like
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The Best Free Education Web Tools Of 2013 – Edudemic
Here are some great resources for teachers for the new year.
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3 Creative Tools to Encourage Student Feedback and Improve Teaching Skills – Edudemic
We grade kids all the time. How often do you ask them to grade you?
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Feedback Forms
They can always be adapted to your own needs. You can use it if you need complex evaluation with clear, measurable results. You can request them to grade you, as a teacher or the course they just took. Ask about favorite homework, least favorite project and always make them justify their answer.
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Mind Mapping
A creative way to find out what really stuck to their memory.
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You can ask them to create a presentation with fun facts they remembered, with the most important resources they will use from your subject, fun moments, activities or any other topic.
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Polls
It can be the easiest way to draw some highlights over the course experience. Explaining something by using only one or a few word often is really relevant and can give you the general perception that your students have over the subject they just learned.
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Ten Good Apps for a Teacher’s New iPad | iPad Apps for School
Great apps for a teachers iPads
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Different examples of formative assessment | Edutopia
A link to some great formative assessment ideas
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5 Ways to Make Class Discussions More Exciting | Edutopia
Here are some ways to fully engage your students in classroom discussions
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Celebrate Success | ASCD Inservice
How do you celebrate success on a daily basis?
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my home life was filled with these rituals celebrating success, my classroom was not—at least not as full. Sure, big events like when someone met a standard or the whole class finished a project were celebrated, but it wasn’t close to being part of our daily classroom culture like it was at home. Day in and day out, students were putting tremendous effort toward concepts that were real struggles for them.
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Maybe I was hesitant to celebrate success in the classroom because I was equating it with rewards, fearing that if I did reward kids then the notion, “if you don’t reward them, they won’t do it” would hold true.
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Soon my classroom started to feel a lot more like home. First, I began honoring two students a day with a “Characteristic of Success Award” for demonstrating social and emotional skills from a targeted list introduced to students and parents at the beginning of the year.
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10 Strategies for Overcoming Creativity Block | Entrepreneur.com
Here are some suggestions to increase your creativity.
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1. Check in with your mission statement.
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When you’re clear about the why (i.e., why your customers need what you provide), then it’s easier to come up with the “what”
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2. Find inspiration from your clients.
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They each said that when they are feeling stuck or frustrated and feel that they can’t come up with a single ounce more of creativity, they call their favorite clients and spend a few minutes chatting.
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3. Read.
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read outside of my comfort zone to ignite my creative spark.
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4. Schedule a meeting with employees to bounce ideas around.
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Having regular idea-generation powwows keeps the flow of inspiration and creativity going.
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5. Take a day or even a few hours off and go somewhere that inspires you.
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Spending that time in a place that inspires or calms you is optimal for this purpose.
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7. Take a vacation. I
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7. Take a vacation
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It might not be a good time to take time away from the office, but even an overnight stay at a resort nearby could be just enough to refresh you and your creativity.
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8. Disconnect.
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one thing I’ve learned is that when I take some time to disconnect from my work, that’s when the floodgates of my creativity reopen.
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9. Solicit advice from unlikely places.
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10. Meditate, pray or exercise.
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For me, running without music—to the beat of my own breath—has a similar effect on me as my mediation practice.
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– 5 reasons cell phones benefit a 1:1 environment
This technology os here to stay we might as well utilize it
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2:1 environment, with a computer and a phone, is required.
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This is the world for which we have to prepare today’s students.
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Not only is it beneficial to support students with their success in school environments that look like real-life environments, it
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is also beneficial to schools.
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Reduce drain on bandwidth
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More resources available to al
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Transfer and apply school learning to daily life
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More time on tas
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Workaround for battery life issues
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Top 5 tips for schools using social media – Innovate My School
Some great tips on implementing and musing social media at your school.
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1. Vision
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In order to get an idea whether your use of social media has worked you will need to decide what your aims and objectives are, and assess how well these have been met later on.
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2. Administration
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It is important to be able to keep track of all of your accounts and groups.
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If you are leading the social media initiative I would advise you to be a member of all groups or follow all Twitter feeds.
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3. Training
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4. Content
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Social media can be used for extra curricular clubs, trips, marketing and communication, but it is also a powerful tool for teaching and learning.
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If you intend to share information using social media, make sure you do not abandon it.
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5. Evaluation
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Both students and teachers need to be asked in order to get an accurate and balanced perspective of how well your aims and objectives have been met.
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NAESP | National Association of Elementary School Principals
Some great ideas for administrators to get the most from using Twitter
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Managing Chats
If you’re new to Twitter, chats occur when a group of people all tweet about the same topic at a designated time using a specific tag (a hashtag).
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Tweet-chatting involves multi-tasking: following a conversation while exploring links, or even juggling parental responsibilities or cooking dinner.
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A strategy I use while tweet-chatting is that when I see a link that catches my eye, I immediately open the link in a new tab. Then, after the chat, I explore each link more fully. It is not uncommon for me to have 25-30 tabs open in my browser when the chat is over.
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7 Tools for Organzing Online Information
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Twitter Ideas to Share
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Twitter is a powerful medium for professional learning, sharing ideas among colleagues, finding solutions for problems, and networking.
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– Free Geometry Project Based Learning: Discover An Amazing Open Education Resource
PBL lessons for Geometry teachers
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Your Lesson’s First Five Minutes: Make Them Grand | Edutopia
You have to grab their attention in order to help them learn.
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1. Do Something You Love Every Day
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Find either something you love to teach or some way you love teaching it if the topic doesn’t excite you.
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2. Use Teasers
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Start with a provocative statement about the upcoming lesson. Sometimes they can be used to end the previous lesson. “Tomorrow we will learn an amazing thing that happens when you touch the belly of certain African frogs — see you tomorrow.”
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Teasers have two requirements to work effectively. First, there must be a tease that is related to the subject.
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Secondly, your teasers must deliver.
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Great questions have these things in common:
- They are related to the subject you’re teaching.
- They amplify the students’ natural sense of wonder.
- They challenge the students’ belief of the way things are.
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QR Code Classroom Implementation Guide @coolcatteacher
QR codes can be a very engaging instructional strategy. Here are some tips on getting started.
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Leveraging Pinterest for administrators | eSchool News | eSchool News
Pinterest can help you be a better administrator. Here are some boards to follow.
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School leaders can use Pinterest to help their own teachers grow and build important teaching skills, but they also can use the site to improve their own leadership and practice.
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Online & Blended Learning Resources | eSchool News | eSchool News
Resources for blended learning and online learning for teachers and admin
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Q&A: Why School Leaders Should Embrace Social Networking – Digital Education – Education Week
Interesting take on the use of technologic to improve your work
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It’s all about that natural fit and initiating sustainable change that’s going to improve school culture.
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It’s all about meeting our stakeholders where they are. Social media and other digital tools are a lot less time-consuming when you think about a 140-character tweet or putting up a post on Facebook.
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I look at that as a time-saver.
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Your school or professional brand is your work. Brands convey a message to attract consumers for their product, to build support and trust. It makes sense in a time period where the rhetoric is so negative in terms of public education, educators, and the role of schools in society that we can use digital tools and social media to tell our story and provide accurate information about what’s going on inside the walls of our schools.
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There are so many misconceptions about social media in school. Leaders will be pleasantly surprised as I debunk these misconceptions and show what we’re doing and what other school leaders are doing across the country to create a culture that’s relevant, meaningful, and applicable.
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We feel like by integrating tools such as Instagram, Pinterest, and a variety of others, we can focus on essential skill sets like collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, media literacy, technological proficiency, and entrepreneurial awareness.
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Six ed-tech tools for social studies instruction | eSchool News | eSchool News
Some great ways to utilize technology in Social Studies classes
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New app for helping students with math skills in a blended learning environment
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This Math App provides teachers and parents with a tool to help kids build an understanding of the base ten number system, knowledge of number relationships, and a deeper understanding of mathematical operation and the relations between them.
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The app is targeted for 4th – 8th graders, but is an excellent support for older students with knowledge gaps as well.
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This is an effective tool for blended math classrooms.
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Three ways social studies teachers use tech | eSchool News | eSchool News
Some great way for Social Studies teachers to integrate technology in the classroom.
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Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership
Pick out your New Years resolutions from this list
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5 Tips to Build Trust in Your Decision-Making Abilities |
Some great ideas on leadership and making decisions
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1. Don’t overestimate your decision-making abilities
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Select the tools most appropriate for the decisions you need to make.
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There is a difference between problem-solving and decision-making. Problem-solving usually deals with a more complex set of variables whereas a decision is a subset of solving a particular problem.
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2. Be clear on the decision you need to make
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3. Gather the facts
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4. Understand the impact on the stakeholders
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Does your decision promote the welfare of those involved?
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Is it in alignment with your personal values and those of the organization?
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5. Make the decision and follow through
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Santa Reveals His 5 Secrets To Effective Delegation |
Learn some great lessons from Santa
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3 Questions To Guide Your Vision | Connected Principals
Some excellent questions to ask yourself as you lead
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One of the things that I feel is important in a leadership position is that you build capacity and create an environment that eventually will not need you.
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What is the vision for the work that I am doing and how am I making that vision come true?
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How am I building capacity and connecting others in this position?
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Great leaders create other great leaders. If your role is all about creating a dependence upon yourself, then what happens after you leave?
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What will be my “fingerprint” after I leave?
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5 Ways to Make Class Discussions More Exciting | Edutopia
Ways to engage students in great discussions
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The difference between the two is obviously how interesting the topic is, but equally important is the level of student participation.
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It’s not enough for students to simply pay attention — they need to be active participants to generate one of those great discussions that end far too quickly for both the teacher and students.
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1. Lightning Rounds
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Make it even more dramatic by playing up the concept of speed, fun and excitement.
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Have your discussion questions prepared in advance so that you can ask them faster.
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3. Group Answers
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One is to form small groups of about three students. When the teacher asks a discussion question, every group has a small discussion of its own to come up with an answer.
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6 Ways to Honor the Learning Process in Your Classroom | Edutopia
Some great thoughts on increasing the meaning of learning in your classroom
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Roughly put, learning is really just a growth in awareness.
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While morsels of information — math theorems, for example — may not change, the context in which students use them do change. Which in turn changes how we consider and use that morsel.
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Even what we call facts — significant historical dates, labels for ethnic groups, causes and effects of cultural movements — all change endlessly, if not in form (how they’re discussed), then in meaning and connotation (what we think of them).
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And thus changing how students use this skill or understanding.
And thus changing how we, as teachers, “teach it.”
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This could be thought of as depth of understanding, a term that produced a depth of knowledge (DOK) framework for measuring understanding which is still used in many districts. Bloom’s Taxonomy (1) or even the TeachThought Learning Taxonomy (2) are all tools to help evaluate understanding — how well a student “gets it.”
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1. Use Learning Taxonomies
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2. Use Concept Maps
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Have students map, chart, diagram or otherwise visually represent their own learning pathways and changes in their own understanding.
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3. Use a Variety of Assessment Forms
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4. Build Metacognition into Units
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Prime the pump by assigning students quick writing prompts about their own thinking.
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6. Connect Students to Networks
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As students connect to networks, the learning process will plug them in, not just to one teacher, or 25 classmates, or eight texts, but to something much larger — and more able to interact with students organically.
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The Best Education Posts of 2013: The Edutopia Top 10 Deep Dive | Edutopia
Some of the best in 2013
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7 engaging, educational YouTube channels | eSchool News | eSchool News
Some great resources for your teachers
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7 steps to more engaging professional development | eSchool News | eSchool News | 2
Some great ways to provide quality PD for your staff
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L: Let teachers choose.
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Giving teachers the freedom to choose their professional development structure, or letting them pick from a few pre-selected topics, gives them more ownership of their professional development.
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E: Eats, energy, and environment.
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A: Allow time. “[Teachers] have to be able to plan,” Teamann said. “Our teachers felt they never had enough time to implement what was being asked of them.
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R: Reminder of the vision
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N: Never walk away without a plan.
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E: Engaged by relevancy.
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R: Rules and respect. Beginning and ending professional development session on time is often overlooked, but it is important to teachers, who often have little free time during the day and even before and after school.
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3 Top Reasons to Blog In Education | Edubabbling for the Masses
Here are some reasons to utilize blogging in your classroom
A Principal's Life 