Teacher in a Strange Land: Online Grading: Treat--or Trick?

• Teacher in a Strange Land: Online Grading: Treat--or Trick?

  A fascinating alternate take on how assessment (or the appearance of such) is the tail that waggeth the digital dog.  It also introduces the idea of  parents who "creep on their progeny".  Before you go creepin' on the ol' proj consider the following quoted from the article.

Points to consider:

• • Expecting parents to track their children's grades--and do something about low grades or missing assignments--shifts responsibility for learning and monitoring the grade to parents. And guess what? It's the student's job to do that, not Mommy's.

    • When parents are suddenly hawking their gradebooks, teachers feel compelled to put lots of numbers in the book, proving that they're organized and soldiering away, assigning lots of homework and giving lots of grades. My principal sent us a memo suggesting that we add at least one new grade per week, it being worrisome when parents see that several days have gone by with no grading.
    • Some of those grades represent formative assessment: constructive feedback to students in the process of learning to master a concept or skill. Formative assessment is supposed to be non-punitive--information that helps a student improve. If curriculum is appropriate--in the sweet spot where it challenges, but builds on prior learning--then formative assessment will show lots of room for growth. Try explaining that to one panicked parent at a time
    • Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. (Einstein said that, not me.) An online gradebook converts all assessment data to numbers. Because it's...digital. Sometimes, kids need coaching or commentary, not a comparative percentage. Sometimes, it's OK to paint a pumpkin, just to see how it turns out. You don't have to grade everything, to make it real or valuable.

Citation: 

Flanagan, N. (2009, October 31). Teacher in a Strange Land: Online Grading: Treat--or Trick? Teacher in a Strange Land. Blog, . Retrieved December 15, 2009, from http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2009/10/online-grading-treator-trick.html.

Artistic Insubordination: Ethics at Work (not Work Ethic)

• Artistic Insubordination: Ethics at Work (not Work Ethic) «

  • The mirror in a middle school girls’ restroom is rusted to the point that one can not see her reflection.  The Principal recognizes that not being able to primp properly before class is making girls tardy to class and affecting their learning.  She asks the janitorial staff to replace the mirror.  The district has a policy that mirrors are not replaced unless they are broken.  The Principal calls the district to confirm, and promptly breaks the mirror with a hammer in order to solve this problem.
  • Creative or Artistic Insubordination emerged as a concept in the 1970s, according to Eric Pitts, a graduate student in Counseling at Western Carolina University, to do the most amount of good, while minimizing the repercussions from superiors.
  • Already presented at international conferences, with a head nod from the Executive Director of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), their goal is to legitimize Artistic Insubordination as an alternative to teachers (and others) who want to “do good” rather than just “do no harm” through their work.  Kappan Journal will publish an article on their research as well
  • Many, nearly all bureaucratic structures are perceived by the citizenry as rigid, inflexible and unaccommodating.
  • it is recognized by those in public servant leadership positions as an effective means of accomplishing things quickly that would otherwise take months or years.
  • No Child Left Behind and the attitude of some state legislatures and governors has made creative insubordination a regular part of staying afloat in teaching.

My question here is this:  are there more examples of this out there and how could teachers use this to change draconian filtering policies, for example?  Just asking.  Guerilla teaching for our students?  This isn't just about sticking it to the man, it is also about rising above groupthink and 'insane' institutional imperatives.  There have to be reasoned approaches to why we do what we do in school. If they are not reasoned, then they are fair game for ridicule, for challenge, and for artistic insubordination.

Here is the article:  http://www.filesavr.com/hanneli2009insufficientquestioningphideltakappan91365-69

Citation:     Hannel, I. (2009). Insufficient Questioning. Phi Delta Kappan, 91(3), 65-69.

Wii Therapy for Special Needs Students

• Wii Therapy for Special Needs Students

  • The Wii can be used in special needs classrooms to:
    

    - help students with their hand/eye coordination
    - encourage students with physical disabilities to move, providing much-needed circulation to their limbs
    - enable students to take part in virtual sports such as baseball, bowling, volleyball, golf and tennis
    - aid students in gaining balance and coordination through virtual dance programs
    - increase/develop the ability to concentrate for a long period of time
    - motivate students to achieve goals
    - help with problem-solving, reasoning, and communication skills
    • - post by tellio

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

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) ICT policy handbook - Zunia.org

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) ICT policy handbook - Zunia.org

ICTAC MEMO iPhone Apps for Education

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23745742/ICTAC-MEMO-iPhone-Apps-for-Education

ICTAC MEMO iPhone Apps for Education

Measuring social capital: an ... - Google Books

http://books.google.com/books?id=-xeaH2Qgn7kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=social+capital&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=1&ei=1BElS7i8OYP2zQTAzvSMCw&cd=1

 

The Golden Triangle of Tech Applies to eLearning Solutions too!

The Golden Triangle of Tech Applies to eLearning Solutions too!: "The question I get the most these days is, "Brent, what's the next big thing you see out there in eLearning". The simple answer is, "not much". But that doesn't mean there isn't exciting innovation happening. The big innovation over the last year has not been a new technologie or app, but the convergence of some, or many existing technologies. Alone they are simply isolated fun little apps, but combined with several other apps or technologies they begin to take shape into the powerful life-changing tools they were meant to be. And that magic convergence has recently been given a name: The Golden Triangle.
I stumbled onto a blog post from A VC blog. The author could not remember who said it but I thought it was pretty cool too: 'The three current big megatrends in the web/tech sector are mobile, social, and real-time.' That's the golden triangle. Mobile, Social, and Real-time. Apparently, new startups that have a golden triangle are deemed highly likely to have a successful company/product to offer. Certainly there's more too it than that but I digress. How does The Golden Triangle apply to eLearning? One word - PERFECTLY!

MOBILE, the first of the 3 sides is obvious. Everything is going mobile. I love my iPhone more than any other technology I have ever owned. One thing I discovered early in my iPhone experience was apps that were MORE than just iPhone apps became the most used and applicable to my work and life flow. More than just an iPhone app means that it also has a desktop and/or cloud counterpart. Think banking. My accounts reside in the bank's servers (their cloud). I access my bank information from both my desktop AND my iPhone (and the physical location, but not that often). I can watch video, do email, text messaging, record video, take pictures, and on and on with one simple device that fits in my pocket. THAT, in my humble opinion is the coolest thing EVER!

The second side of the triangle, and only slightly less cool, is SOCIAL. Many "learning gurus" have stated that all learning is social and many others have argued against that statement. I think the biggest issue is the use of ALL. Anytime you say "all" you're sure to set off somebody, somewhere, who can come up with an exception or two. The reality is that our nature is to be social. Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, and all social networks in general, give us the ability to find other people we want/need to connect to for any number of reasons. In these spaces we build groups, or networks, of friends/followers who share their knowledge with us. Before the internet our networks were important but it was a complicated, and long process to gather and maintain a professional network. With today's web-based social networks it's almost too easy to create connections across many channels. In the long run the knowledge resides less in your own brain and more in the collective brain of the network. Let's argue that point later, but for now it certainly seems to be moving in that direction. So, SOCIAL connectivity is important to the future of our personal learning environments.

And lastly we have the REAL-TIME completing the third side of the triangle. Twitter is the best example of real time. And yes, twitter can also be considered SOCIAL, but the piece that makes twitter and micro-blogging different is that the conversations you see are the conversations happening RIGHT NOW. Conversations that happened yesterday, or even 2 hours ago or less, will run off the bottom of the interface and not be seen unless you search, or sort by hashtag. Even then, the real use and benefit is in the real-time nature of the tools. Its the idea used by many that its like jumping into and out of a giant cocktail party and actually listening to all the conversations that are going on simultaneously. While that can be overwhelming, it can also be quite exhilerating.

So, can our learning content be created for mobile devices with a social element connecting us with subject matter experts that we can access in real time?
I think so. There's also no reason why all 3 sides of the triangle can't be tracked AND measured. The current problem seems to be the legacy systems trying to make new media work with old media systems. There is also a legacy of design that the golden triangle does not yet fit into. At least it does not fit well.

I feel like many people are already learning in a personal environment that reflects the golden triangle with the existing tools. And that's what seems to be frustrating to many. There is no control of it just yet, and so many need that sense of control. It will come in time. It won't be exactly like this. But it will be close. Perhaps it will end up being a Golden Square, or hexagon. For now, I like the simplicity of the triangle and hope we can figure out how to make it happen.

America's Top College Professor - WSJ.com

• America's Top College Professor - WSJ.com

  
  

  • Like Prof. West, Prof. Burger believes that empathy is the key to good teaching.
  • Prof. Burger says that he wants "to think about what it's like to be sitting in that audience, in a sea of people, when the professor is so far away he's a dot and I'm looking at overhead transparencies. What is that experience like?"
  • Prof. Burger says that the role of a teacher is to change lives.
  • As much as he finds math fascinating, he realizes that most people will not use calculus after college. The utilitarian promise "is an empty one," he notes. "You don't need to know how to build a bridge to go over one." He says that the hardest thing professors can ask themselves is "the 10-year question." "What will my students retain from my class 10 years out?" And so his lecture is devoted to showing the audience how to "think mathematically."
  • "I don't give grades; I just report the news"
  • he is only convinced a student understands a concept when he can "explain it to an 8-year-old."

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

My Favorite Liar | Zen Moments

• My Favorite Liar | Zen Moments

  tags: no_tag

  • What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:

    “Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day.”

  • Early in the quarter, the Lie of the Day was usually obvious – immediately triggering a forest of raised hands to challenge the falsehood. Dr. K would smile, draw a line through that section of the board, and utter his trademark phrase “Very good! In fact, the opposite is true. Moving on … ”

    As the quarter progressed, the Lie of the Day became more subtle, and many ended up slipping past a majority of the students unnoticed until a particularly alert person stopped the lecture to flag the disinformation.

  • On the days when nobody caught the lie, we all sat in silence, looking at each other as Dr. K, looking quite pleased with himself, said with a sly grin: “Ah ha! Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. Discuss amongst yourselves what it might be, and I will tell you next Monday. That is all.”

  • And while my knowledge of the Economics of Capital Markets has faded in time, the lessons that stayed with me were his real legacy:

    • “Experts” can be wrong, and say things that sound right – so build a habit of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept as fact.
    • If you see something wrong, take the initiative to flag it as misinformation.
    • A sense of playfulness is the best defense against taking yourself too seriously.

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

My Favorite Liar | Zen Moments

• My Favorite Liar | Zen Moments

  • What made Dr. K memorable was a gimmick he employed that began with his introduction at the beginning of his first class:

    “Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day.”

  • Early in the quarter, the Lie of the Day was usually obvious – immediately triggering a forest of raised hands to challenge the falsehood. Dr. K would smile, draw a line through that section of the board, and utter his trademark phrase “Very good! In fact, the opposite is true. Moving on … ”

    As the quarter progressed, the Lie of the Day became more subtle, and many ended up slipping past a majority of the students unnoticed until a particularly alert person stopped the lecture to flag the disinformation.

  • On the days when nobody caught the lie, we all sat in silence, looking at each other as Dr. K, looking quite pleased with himself, said with a sly grin: “Ah ha! Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. Discuss amongst yourselves what it might be, and I will tell you next Monday. That is all.”

  • And while my knowledge of the Economics of Capital Markets has faded in time, the lessons that stayed with me were his real legacy:

    • “Experts” can be wrong, and say things that sound right – so build a habit of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept as fact.
    • If you see something wrong, take the initiative to flag it as misinformation.
    • A sense of playfulness is the best defense against taking yourself too seriously.

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

Google Friend Connect: Add social features to your site

:

via google.com

Posted via web from tellio's posterous

Image for display / worksheets: Google Apps for Eportfolios (via activehistory.co.uk / classtools.net)

Check out this website I found at classtools.net

Posted via web from tellio's posterous

Kentucky Writing Project Teacher in Censorship Struggle

Censorship, alive and well and thriving in Kentucky? Yes, and Risha Mullins, a teacher in Montgomery County, Kentucky can well attest to it. Sally Martin, Director of the Eastern Kentucky University Writing Project, has taken up her cause along with prominent writers like Laurie Halse Anderson whose work, Twisted, (along with Chris Crutcher's Deadline) have been removed from the classrooms. Read what Martin says:

Many of you know Risha Mullins, who was a 2008 participant in the Holocaust Education Network (HEN) Institute in NYC with Sondra Perl. She presented at the KWPN Fall conference describing the work she's done in her classroom this past year, using the holocaust to raise issues of social justice in her classroom to expand her students' thinking. Ironically, at the same time she is being heralded by the HEN for her work, she is having young adult literature books--initially one of the holocaust readings she used, then Chris Crutcher's Deadline, Laurie Halse Anderson's Twisted--removed from her classroom. Even though these books were there as books of choice, only, and the school's Review Committee approved them, the superintendent overruled their decision, on all but the holocaust novel, and held the books back. Additional actions by school officials have Risha very concerned for her job.

Risha sponsors an after-school bookclub that has numbered over 100 members who raise their own money to buy books and have travelled with Risha to the University of West Virginia for a workshop with Nikki Giovanni and to Washington, DC to tour the Holocaust Museum with a survivor and board members of the HEN. Just this weekend, Risha learned that she achieved National Board Certification. She has written her own young adult novel set in modern times in a holocaust context that is being read by Penguin, as well. She is an excellent and inspiring teacher.

At the ALAN breakfast this morning at NCTE, Laurie Halse Anderson recognized Risha in front of the 600 in attendance as the key example of the seriousness of censorship. Risha is recieving much support in this challenge from HEN and other parties outside of Kentucky, but I would like to have her home, KWPN, support her across the state, as well. According to Risha, a reporter from the Lexington Herald Leader has written a story on the heated conflict in Montgomery County which is going to be published very soon. If you will, please notify your TC's and request that they act on Risha's behalf. I suggest that we send letters to the paper in response to the story--when it is published--either by mail or on the website. Another approach would be simply to email Risha with your support. Risha.Mullins@montgomery.kyschools.us

Thank you,
Sally

Here is the link to the school board's page with email addresses that you can use to show support for Mullins.
Here is the link to the superintendent in question:  Daniel Freeman,  daniel.freeman@montgomery.kyschools.us
The county newspaper is the Mt. Sterling Advocate whose editor is Jamie Vinson-Sturgill,859-498-2222, news@msadvocate.com.  Here is their letter to editor submission page. 

Below you can see Mullins on the left with author Laurie Halse Anderson. Spread the word.  Use the information above and make a difference today.

Study Hacks » Blog Archive » The Steve Martin Method: A Master Comedian's Advice for Becoming Famous

Some worthy advice from comedian Steve Martin via Cal Newport at Study Hacks. 

Study Hacks » Blog Archive » The Steve Martin Method: A Master Comedian's Advice for Becoming Famous

• 
  
  The Steve Martin Method
  
  
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    “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
    
    
    
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    Forget all the frustration, the tricks, and the worry. Just focus on becoming good. Really damn good. Outstanding. Unlike anyone who has come before you.
    
    
    
    
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    Martin’s Two Pieces of Advice for Applying the Method
    
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      Martin Tip #1: Intellectualize.
      
      
      
      
    
    
  • 
    
    This restless urge to understand then innovate led him to be outstanding.
    
    
    
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    Understand what the best exemplars in your field do well. Figure out why. Then ask how you can mix, match, and reconstruct these elements into something new and even better.
    
    
    
    
  • 
    
    Martin Tip #2: Don’t wander.
    
    
    
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    staying diligent in his interest in the one field he was trying to master; being able to ignore the urge to start working on other projects at the same time.
    
    
    
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    if you don’t saturate your life in a single quest, you’ll dilute your focus to a point where becoming outstanding becomes out of reach.
    
    
    
    
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    If you’re looking to become a leader in your field, honestly evaluate your talent level. Don’t compare yourself to others who have had success. That’s a path toward frustration. Instead, ask yourself, candidly, whether you’re so good you can’t be ignored. If not, then get back to work.
    
    
    
  
  

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

A Diigo List of Online Facebook Visualization Tools

http://www.diigo.com/list/tellio/facebook_visualizations

Here is a growing list of Facebook Visualization Tools plus some others as well.