Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/22/2011

Posted by ultralitemp3

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/19/2011

Posted by ultralitemp3

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Friday, June 17, 2011

Over to you, Pearson

Posted by ultralitemp3
Over to you, Pearson.

Www.flatclassroombook.com




Cutting up with my sister, running on no sleep.

Posted using BlogPress from Vicki's iPad

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Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/17/2011

Posted by ultralitemp3

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Time to Get Angry about Reading

Posted by ultralitemp3
One third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
Forty two percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
Eighty percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.

Jenkins group


Is education killing the future of those it is designed to inspire? Are we lighting the love for learning or dousing the flames of potential greatness?

Reading


 When will we wake up?

Reading nourishes my life, soul, and essence. When I have a problem, I find a book. I have an affection for my Kindle. I collect books signed by authors. Books improve my life in very real ways from helping me lose weight, to be a better parent, to being a better wife and teacher. 


 Brian Tracy says:

"Earl Nightingale said many years ago that one hour per day of study in your chosen field was all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do."


In the five years since I read that, I've worked to hit that mark - tucking in a quick book or blog during halftime of the basketball game or while under the hair dryer at the beauty shop. Reading is life, success, and love. Judge for yourself if it has helped me contribute to the field of educational technology and teaching.

Death by Numbers
We are just playing death by numbers here. As long as kids are bubbling in the right answers, we think we've taught them something? What if we had a society where everyone read an hour a day? What would that look like? 

If you want to see educators get all snooty, send them to a conference and make them experience death by PowerPoint. I've seen over half a room at ISTE clear out when a speaker droned on. We weren't learning and we (some quite rudely) left.

We vote with our feet. 

Students vote with their lives. 


Our students experience death by numbers. It is a common malady in most schools today. Tests are important but most of us agree that it has gone too far.


Fear Will Only Get Us So Far

Fear often incites us to improve but it is not a long term response. Yes we should be afraid of a future led by people who only have their own minds to pull from. A society that doesn't study history repeats history. Let's learn from past mistakes.


Time to Get Angry
Anger, I think is a better response. 

Like the moment I stood on that street corner my first day at Georgia Tech and the pimply, greasy haired sophomore looked down his bespeckled nose at me and said:

"Humph. You're just a little girl from a small town. You'll never make it here at Georgia Tech. You've never had an AP class and you can't make it here. You're just here to get your M-R-S degree anyway.

I think that by the end of this quarter you'll be standing on this same street corner crying with your bags packed waiting for Momma to come pick you up. You just can't cut it here in the big leagues and you're just small town girl."
I was ANGRY.


I used that as ANGER and at the end of that semester I had a 4.0 in my mailbox. At the end of my time at Georgia Tech I was first in my class. Anger (and a drive to do my best) sustained me. As I sat in the library at 2 am I pictured his face and used it to make me study another 2 hours that I needed. Whatever it took there was nothing that was going to stand in my way.

"I may not be smarter, but I can work harder." became my motto. It still is.


That is what we need now in education: ANGER.

Not irate yelling sessions at school board meetings. Anger at ourselves. Parents who complain their kids aren't reading should know that kids read if their parents read. 

Point one finger at someone else and you have four pointing back at yourself.


No, I'm talking anger at ourselves for not doing better. Anger at a system that is producing people who hate learning. Anger that we are not brave enough to tackle and do what needs to be done. The kind of anger that causes ACTION.

If we know it is wrong DO SOMETHING
Sylvia Martinez recently wrote about the AP tests that are PROVEN to be biased (against women) and that just putting a gender box at the beginning of a test biased the results as we all seek to conform to stereotypes. 

Sylvia tweeted this quote to me as we talked on Twitter:



The decision to do nothing is a decision to do something. 


No Anger, Know Shame then Know Anger
If our fear won't move us forward, maybe our anger will. Because if we don't get angry, eventually we will be motivated by our shame. And in the end, that shame might just make us angry enough to do something.

Change is hard but change is needed here and everywhere.

  • Isn't it time to get angry that almost a third  NEVER READ ANOTHER BOOK -- IN THEIR LIFE?
  • Isn't it time to get angry that  almost HALF of COLLEGE graduates NEVER READ ANOTHER BOOK -- IN THEIR LIFE!

Oh, you say, they are reading blogs, books aren't important. 

I don't care who you are, but books represent some of the highest forms of scholarly work we have and they have value in our society along with the blogs and tweets that carry us forward. They are part of being a lifelong learner. It might not be on paper but it is a book.


I'm asking you to get angry. Reading is important to every discipline, every content area. It is part of what makes us civilized.

What can you do? What can I do? I know at our school, the Kindle kids corner project has invited a love for reading. (We'll be bringing other schools in soon.)

Let's work on this problem together.

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Join us for Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Presentation (Starting soon)

Posted by ultralitemp3
I've been writing for days - maybe I've slept 10 hours since Sunday - I don't know. But I do know that global collaboration is important to education, maybe more important than ever.

If you're online in fifteen minutes we have our second class of Flat Classroom certified teachers about to present. They're in the room now and nervous - http://tinyurl.com/fcpcert11-1 is the Blackboard Collaborate Room.

We sure could use some people to observe and ask questions and you can also learn some about constructing global collaborative projects from some of the best. (I'm sure we'll learn from you.)

I don't know how much I'll talk today, I'm so very tired. Been playing old movies streaming via Netflix onto my iPad 2. I'm on Chariots of fire for the second time. Lots of races finishing today. Join us!

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Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/16/2011

Posted by ultralitemp3

  • Time to Grow | dotSUB

    Here is the time to grow Keynote that Julie and I did not so long a go. Was listening to it and I think the message is still relevant. It is about change and a willingness to grow.

    tags: education learning inspiration

  • ARiSE: HOME

    "A new way of learning
    Augmented Reality in School Environments
    - A European Research Project -

    Technological advances in the field of information and communication technologies enable innovative ways to mediate knowledge. Among them, Augmented Reality (AR) becomes increasingly a field of interest.

    Integrated in e-learning systems, AR will provide innovative ways to transfer knowledge in education. This is the purpose of the project Augmented Reality in School Environments (ARiSE). The aim is to create an innovative teaching aid, enabling teachers to develop, with a moderate effort, new teaching practices for teaching scientific and cultural content to school classes in an easy to comprehend way. "

    tags: augmentedreality education

  • Touch Press - The Waste Land

    T.S. Eliot's masterpiece is now an app. An expensive app, topping at $13.99 but it has literary experts abuzz. It includes the poem, perspectives, sychronized performances from Eliot (at two points in his life) and other readers, the original manuscripts showing the process of editing the document, and lots of resources and readings. Created by Faber digital it is part of "Faber's mission to re-imagine poetry for the digital age."

    If you teach literature or are an edtech professor, it is time to get this on your ipad and put in some serious academic reviews as to the quality of content here. Academicians now have a new place: writing reviews on the iTunes store. We may have an app-full textbook-free future.

    tags: education ipad literature literature_teacher

  • Wordle - Chapter 7 of the Upcoming Clat Classroom Book

    A wordle I made of the upcoming Flat Classroom book - chapter 7 of student choice. If you want to know when the book comes out (we'll only use your email to let you know the publish date) you can go to www.flatclassroombook.com - if you're into social media or doing book reviews, you can apply to be put on our reviewers list. (Sorry not everyone can be selected, but please apply if this fits you.)

    tags: education flatclassroom

  • TakingITGlobal - TIGed - Projects - DeforestACTION

    The DeforestAction project has sstudents create local, national and international entrepreneurial initiatives that protect and regrow endangered forests and create local projects to promote awareness and action.

    tags: education science_teacher globalcollaboration flatclassroom collaboration

  • Asia Connections - Collaboration with schools in Asia

    A ning promoting connections with schools in Asia.

    tags: education globalcollaboration flatclassroom

  • From Library To Learning Commons.Ny.Slideshare

    Lovely slideshow by Valerie Diigs on her school's transformation from library to learning commons. She's been featured in several books and in school library journal.

    I think every librarian should be familiar with the learning commons concept to see if there are elements that will work to make your environment more relevant to learners. It isn't whether you like the concept yourself - for libraries to stay funded they must stay relevant. I think learning commons is just one way to do that. Valerie knows far more than me on this topic, so look at what she's done.

    tags: library education learningcommons librarian

  • WinDirStat Portable | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB, portable and cloud drives

    Why is your hard drive full? Why does it keep filling up? I use this to help me find those pesky video files that keep FILLING UP MY HARD DRIVE.

    tags: education utility

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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