I learned something about bias. My tech director sent me a link to blog post about using wordle in the classroom. I have a bias as a science teacher and sometimes overlook the power of words. He smartly copied the whole English department and they responded. Elizabeth took the time to blog about using wordle to analyze characterization. I need to figure out as a tech director how to broaden my search for ideas. It was good to be reminded that some of the best tech training I have done is just showing off something cool and supporting teachers as they run with the tool.
Here are blogs I recommend for administrators.
Here are specific posts that will lead administrators to all sorts of new resources to expand their horizon.
Finally a list of specific posts to emphasize the importance of technology using administrators.
Any additions?
This weekend I was watching a little TV (my graduate class is done and my wife was working a night shift, so after the kids were in bed I indulged) and surfing the web. All of a sudden there was a flurry of tweets between two people I follow. They were arguing about school design. I watched in fascination as these two educators tried to push and pull at each others and tease out of each other what each stood for. One of the educators was Christian Long. He has the distinction of being the very first blogger I ever seriously followed. His posts at Think Lab about how school spaces support and encourage learning were amazing, and he linked his posts full of awesome connections. I am sure that I found half of my initial blog roll through his blog. Without ever knowing it he taught me how to be a lurking member of the edublog community. The other one was Ira Socol. He is one of the most recent members of my blog roll. I follow him because of a personal rule of blogging. If I run into anyone's posts twice in two different contexts I subscribe to their blog. I first ran into him when he blogged about a visit to HCHS. Then Will Richardson tweeted out a post of Ira's. That is when I also found out that he lives right here in Holland, Michigan. Everything was going along just fine until a tweet that read, "@ChristianLong No, what was most impressive was the vision of school which drove those design choices. http://is.gd/c0a8t" The link goes to the post about the school that I had some input in designing. I did not have a large input, but I was in several meetings. I lay absolutely no claim to any final design, but I know that the people who designed the building were influenced by articles and ideas that were formed years ago by my reading Christian Long. Ira followed up today with a great summary of the discussion. To me this demonstrates the power of blogging and twitter. I am sure that neither of these men knew that they were connected so closely. I never would have known if i had not been following them both on twitter. What an amazing connected world we live in.
For some reason we have a lot of non standards 7 segment readouts. Brad has documented them for us.
via youtube.com
Photography perspective in video form.
via scienceblogs.com
Good ideas for using photos and video for physics analysis.
Here is a quote, a big quote, from Dan Meyer reflecting on NCTM. My thoughts are at the end. Sorry if you read the earlier and thought that the observations were mine, posterous did not quite make it clear enough what was quoted.
At the EML, they decided that homework is best used for …
- … between-class work to bridge the gap between today and tomorrow.
- … structured, independent work to free up in-class time for social or extended learning. (cf. these guys.)
- … study-skill development, for learning how to learn and study math and develop a productive disposition.
Her demonstration assignments required no more paper than what they were printed on and they were further scaffolded by …
- … a student contract to the effect that this is a serious class and you will need to complete this work to be successful.
- … a teacher contract designed by the students to the effect that the teacher will bring the heat every single day. The practical result of both contracts was largely symbolic but DLB said it set a powerful tone for the course.
- … homework kits containing scissors, tape, and other necessary supplies.
- … explicitly labeled problems. Three varieties.
- Independent practice. Skill development, reinforcement, and reflection, designed to be completed without help. In fact, students were told not to get help.
- Preparation for new work. "Go as far as you can." This was work they hadn't been fully taught, designed to teach tolerance for difficult work and a productive disposition toward math. Students didn't finish the majority of these assignments.
- Work to be shared. This was to improve home/school communication, to develop a student's ability to narrate her own work. "Share what you're learning with someone in your home."
The EML (which, it must be said, hardly resembles a student's experience in a traditional classroom during a traditional school year) posted a 100% homework submission rate. I'd soften my stance toward homework even further if I could a) get someone to teach me how to create these assignments and b) get several members of my department on board to distribute that creative work.
I would love to have a conversation about this attitude towards homework at HCHS. When Dan says, "a) get someone to teach me how to create these assignments and b) get several members of my department on board to distribute that creative work." I definitely have b) in my department, and I think I have people to help me with a) in my school. Now how to make the conversation happen?
