Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Understanding-Virtual-Pedagogies_CKC_ideasLAB

  Tags: pedagogy, elearning, research, professional_learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Sample PBL Cards

  These “recipe cards” for Project/Problem Based Learning are intended for teachers to use with K12 students in groups, as well as individual students.Each card creates student learning categorized as TimeTravelers, Artists & Inventors, Historian Challenges, StoryTellers, ProblemSolvers, Scientist Challenges, Career & Tech Ed.The cards are meant to help teachers integrate core content and deeply embed creativity, problem-solving, and collaborative learning in each student, with or without the use of technology tools.The core content pieces are the basic ingredients with which teachers can cook delicious content for their hungry learners.Teachers are able to customize the driving questions in each of the content areas to fit the unique needs of their learners. The cards guide teachers through the basic steps of the project, with ideas and suggestions for best practice.The tips & tricks help establish a safe and respectful learning environment every single day of the year.

  Tags: ProjectBasedLearning, project based learning, LifePractice, pbl

  • - By Ginger TPLC

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Friday Links of Note

Friday Links of Note

 

 

• Ten Things You're Not Allowed to Say at Davos - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review

  I think many of the bullet points that Haque applies to Davos are applicable to all the conferences that  educators occupy themselves with.  I especially think the one about 'insiders rarely topple the status quo' is dead on.  If you have time to go to these self-congratulatory fetes, then you are probably part of the powers that be.  I could change my mind on this.

  • Talk is cheap (and the more talk there is, the cheaper it gets). Corporations booking record profits as cities, states, and countries go broke have little (read: zero) incentive to actually do much get people, communities, and society out of this mess. The most powerful and influential folks at Davos — the titans of the global economy — probably won't do anything to heal the world, for the simple reason that because, as things stand, they "profit" most from its suffering. Want fries with that unsafe drinking water, bottom billion?
  • You can't solve a problem on the level it was created (as Einstein's reputed to have said). This great crisis is in our economy — and so it might be of our society, culture, and polity.
  • Insiders rarely topple the status quo.
  • Moral vacuums tend to empower the amoral. Self-explanatory: take a look at these accounts of bankers vigorously defending what at this point my pet hamster knows is basically indefensible. It's like a self-parody — except it's not. Economists aren't exactly renowned for having a moral compass, yet without one, it's impossible to take on the fundamentally ethical challenge of rebooting prosperity.
  • You need a whole brain to be a human. 21st century intelligence is not just analytical — it's ethical, emotional, and creative.

• Addictive UX: Why Pinterest Is So Dang Amazing | Design Shack

  Why we love Pinterest.  And I do love it.  I am looking for a spinach recipe right now from there.  I am planning on demonstrating to my students what a Google 20% project might consist of for our Intro to College Writing Class next week.  This article will be my framework for that.

  tags: Google 20% pinterest design

• Best Education Books of 2011 - The Huffington Post

  Stager is an interesting character/curmudgeon and this is a worthy short list.  No nonsense.  Real teachers and real learning.  Any one of these books could set a match to the tinder that is K-12 public and private education in this country.
  
  • Changing Lives
  • Teaching Minds
  • The Hundred Languages of Children
  • Wasting Minds                

• No More Résumés, Say Some Firms - WSJ.com

  This article does more than suggest that you have an alternative to a CV or a resume, it also suggests that you live a completely different professional life, one dominated by demonstrable 'doing'.  This means that project-based constructivist-connectivist learning will have to take the lead from K-20 and beyond. 

  tags: résumés

• Udacity - Educating the 21st Century

• With Udacity, Former Stanford Professor Goes All-In on Online Learning - Education - GOOD

  tags: online learning

  There is a different mode of learning afoot.  It is what Howard Rheingold calls peeragogy.  Combine participatory, peer-based learning with super-large online course taught by real practitioners (Udacity) and you will begin to see the glimmerings of a new type of learning that is both formal and informal.  It is a new way

• Audiobooks.com lets you fill your ears for $25 per month | VentureBeat

• A Way To Think About Online Courses (By Apple, For Example) | Easily Distracted

  Etextbooks are rising in the edu-zeitgeist.  Steve Jobs' last legacy was a desire to totally disrupt the textbook market with electronic texts.  This article looks beyond the hype of Apple's recent media blitz, but more importantly points to the possibility that etextbooks might not be recognizeable as textbooks at all.  Etextbooks might mark the end of the idea of textbooks. 

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

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• January: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

  Tags: MLK

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

ipadio: Terry's phlog - 41st phonecast

Posted via email from tellio's posterous

Newspeak Reminders from "A Word a Day"

From: Henry Willis (hmw ssdslaw.com)
Subject: Newspeak and Papier Deutsch

Before the Bush Administration gave us the phrase "enhanced interrogation" another administration used "collateral damage" to refer to the killing of civilians -- who had, by some process of word magic, lost their identity as humans to become merely "damage", like a broken window or a fallen tree. The Nazis did the same thing on a far more barbaric scale with terms such as die Endlösung, which turned mass murder into a bloodless impersonal noun.

This is not just another example of the bureaucratic degradation of language, although that is certainly part of it. As Orwell said in his great essay on politics and the English language:
"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness.... Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them."

Or if you want to go back further, then we can quote the words that Tacitus put in the mouth of the Celtic chieftain Galgacus:

"To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace."

Henry Willis, Los Angeles, California

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• The Awesome Science of Mindmapping | Visual.ly

  Tags: mindmapping

• The Power of Infographics | Visual.ly

  Tags: infographics

• Why A Teen Who Talks Back May Have A Bright Future : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

  Tags: TeenTalks, TeenDevelopment

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Lessons from a Public School Turnaround | Edutopia

  Once the eighth lowest-performing middle school in the state, Cochrane Collegiate reversed course and is swiftly raising student achievement by investing in research-based teaching strategies, enhancing teacher excellence, and fostering strong relationships. Read the article. [Interactive Video Player: Look for downloadable PDF worksheets and other resource links to appear under the player as you watch the video.]

  Tags: education, edu_trends, bestpractices, school, edutopia, Learning, risks, public school, collaboration

  • - By edutopia .org

• Carol Dweck: Brain exercise boosts motivation - SFGate

  Tags: exercise, Learning, training, Brainwork, motivation

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• British Spelling

  To accommodate differences, Vocabulary and SpellingCity had added several lists of British spelling words and their corresponding US words.

  Tags: british, spelling

  • - By Cara Whitehead

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Crossword

  Tags: crossword, spelling

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Spelling TestMe

  Never grade another spelling test again! Let SpellingCity do it for you!

  Tags: spelling, test

  • - By Cara Whitehead

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Untitled

Posted via email from tellio's posterous

Dark magic

Posted via email from tellio's posterous

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Sound Alikes

  Free, fun online practice for homophones

  Tags: homophones

  • - By Cara Whitehead

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Word Abbreviations

  Free online games and printable resources

  Tags: abb, abbreviations

  • - By Cara Whitehead

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• The Role of Mistakes in the Classroom | Edutopia

  Journalist Alina Tugend finds that mistakes in the classroom should not only be tolerated, but encouraged.

  Tags: education, learning, risks, teaching, resources, edutopia, mistakes

  • - By edutopia .org

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Textbooks Are Killing Me!

Things I Know 217 of 365: Textbooks are killing me at Autodizactic

There is a constant struggle as a student to afford school while at the same time all around him teachers and textbook publishers seem to conspire against the simple motive of saving money.  Zac Chase of Autodizactic has a nice workflow for being a frugal triumphalist in the battle against the 'man'.

 

I’ve been thinking of how we might shape a new model of for texts that might lower the materials cost of higher education and thereby make it more accessible who find it cost prohibitive. Certainly, I realize tuition far out-paces course materials as an item on students’ higher ed budgets. Still, every bit helps.

Some steps I took:

 
• I downloaded Amazon’s student app and used it in the COOP to scan course texts for their Amazon.com partners. Where the Amazon texts were less expensive, I added them to my cart. (This was the case in all but two instances.)
• When I got home, I compared the items in my Amazon cart with used versions available through amazon. Whenever possible, I chose the used version.
• I took advantage of amazon’s offer of 6 months of free Amazon Prime membership for students. This secures free 2-day shipping and other as of yet unknown “deals.” (When selecting used texts, I only purchased those qualifying for Amazon Prime.)
• When it was possible, I purchased the Kindle version of texts. I’ll be reading them on my iPad, but I’d take advantage of the new Kindle Cloud feature if I didn’t have a Kindle or iPad.
• I opted against texts that were recommended but not required (with the exception of the APA style guide).
 

As a result, my possible costs of $600 ended up at around $450. That’s a chunk of rent or more than a month’s worth of groceries.

Give it a try next semester and then lobby your friendly, neighborhood academic departments to work with students to help in every way they can. 

What's the Fuss with Google "Suggested Users"

There has been quite a bit of discussion about Google+'s "suggested users" list.  Seems to me as just another pretty much accepted way to populate an otherwise empty social network until you get the chance to fill in the blanks, but others have pointed out that many of the suggested users have empty streams.  Why suggest empty streams, Google?  Seems a bit half-assed or beta-assed if you will. Maybe somebody at Google realizes if you can't do something useful then do something that appears useful.

Audrey Watters remarks, "I’m not on it [the suggested lists], and I bet you aren’t either, particularly if you’re an educator — because, well, there aren’t any educators on the list."  But she also points out that Twitter's suggested user list has few if any educators.

She also points out that

Google’s Bradley Horowitz — de-facto spokesperson for the new list — does recognize that there isn’t an “extreme knitters” group. In a post yesterday, he says he wants to assure extreme knitters — along with everyone else who isn’t a tech or pop culture celebrity — that the fact that Google doesn’t recognize your interest group is “a bug.”

Don't get mad just make your own list.  Isn't that what the Circles are?  I have a circle for my CoopCatalyst folks.  I curate my own list of folks for #edchat and for a freshman comp class I am teaching this fall.  Do like Audrey Watters "suggests"-- curate your own circles. 

In Facebook you might be using 'Pages' (although I think that whole edifice rides on the shaky ground of having been first out of the gate).  In Twitter you can create your own lists although they haven't been all that handy for me to use regularly.  So what's the dealio about raking Google+ over the coals?  Keeps 'em honest, I guess.  

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Learning Games For Kids

  Free educational games and songs games for kids

  Tags: interactive, elementary, resources

  • - By Cara Whitehead

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.

Authentic Learning Group Diigo (weekly)

• Contractions

  Tags: vocabulary, Contractions

  • - By Cara Whitehead
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put together and an apostrophe is added to replace the omitted letters.
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put together
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put together
  • together
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put

     
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put

     
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put

     
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put

     
  • put

     
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put
  • Contractions are formed when two words are contracted or put

     
  • Contractions
  • are formed
  • Contractions

  • Word Lists

    Analogies - New!
    Capitonyms
    Compound Words - New!
    

     

    Contractions
    Dolch - Sight Words
    Geography Lists
    Homophones, Homonyms, etc.
    Literature Based Word Lists
    Math Vocabulary - Most Popular!
    Monthly Holiday Lists
    Multiple Meaning Words - New!
    Phonics & Sight Word Curriculum
    Possessive Nouns
    Sample Lists By Grade
    Science Vocabulary - New!
    Sequential Spelling Program
    Sound Alike Words
    Syllables - New!
    Word Abbreviations

    Help and Information

    FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions
    Printables
    Our Educational Awards
    Testmonials- New!
    

    when two words
  • are contracted or
  • are contracted
  • are contracted or put
  • are contracted or put
  • Contractions

     
  • Contractions
  • Contractions
  • are contracted or put

     
  • Contractions
  • Contractions

     
  • Contractions

  • Word Lists

    Analogies - New!
    Capitonyms
    Compound Words - New!
    

     

     

    Contractions
    Dolch - Sight Words
    Geography Lists
    Homophones, Homonyms, etc.
    Literature Based Word Lists
    Math Vocabulary - Most Popular!
    Monthly Holiday Lists
    Multiple Meaning Words - New!
    Phonics & Sight Word Curriculum
    Possessive Nouns
    Sample Lists By Grade
    Science Vocabulary - New!
    Sequential Spelling Program
    Sound Alike Words
    Syllables - New!
    Word Abbreviations

    Help and Information

    FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions
    Printables
    

    tractions
  • Contraction
  • Contractions
  • Contractions

     

    are
  • are contracted or put

     
  • Contractions

     

    are formed

     

    when two words are contracted or put

     

    together
  • are contracted or put

     

    together
  • are
  • are contracted or put
  • Contractions

     

    are formed

     

    when two words are contracted or put

     

    together
  • are contracted or
  • are contracted
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  • are contracted or
  • are contracted or
  • are
  • are
  • contracted or
  • are contracted or
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  • are contracted
  • are contracted or
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  • when two words are contracted or put

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Authentic Learning group favorite links are here.