Over the last several years, I’ve come to rely on the ARCS framework, created by Communities for Learning, for nearly all of my professional planning. I use it to establish a baseline assessment of the groups I work with, to determine entry points into our work together, to strategically plan, and to assess the influence [...]
Lots of kids in my world closing their Facebook accounts in recent weeks. I find this interesting, and I’ve been asking a lot of questions from different populations of former Facebook users. Their responses have been enlightening. Here is what I’ve been told……
In fact, many of them don’t love it. They just know they are [...]
Internet filtering is a reality wherever I work. I’m sure it will remain so for some time to come, and in most cases, for good reason. I’m fortunate to work in places where many of the tools that I prefer to use are open, including Google tools and YouTube and even Facebook. When things are [...]
I’m not wild about Interactive White Boards. My reasons are fairly simple– we don’t expect young people and teachers to identify their real learning and creative purposes often or early enough, and I question how IWBs facilitate this well. I feel it’s important to begin most learning there, and I have a hunch that when [...]
On Saturday, I had the privilege of watching the middle and high school interns from the WNY Young Writers’ Studio guide small groups of writers through the next phase of our collaborative digital storytelling project. The last time we met, writers finished story boarding. On Saturday, they came prepared with props and ideas and spent [...]
Over the last month, several educators (including quite a few in my own network) have launched new communities in Ning. I’m looking forward to joining the conversations that will unfold as others join and connections begin to build. Hope you will add to our learning!
Jenny Luca and Jackie Gerstein have launched Students 2.0 and are [...]
Found in my travels this week:
VocabGrabber enables users to see how words are used in context.
Confusing Words highlights the biggies that so many of us misuse.
Save the Words is kinda beautiful, although I’m struggling a bit with its utility.
IdiomSite.Com may become a quick favorite of some teachers I know…..
RhymeZone is a rhyming dictionary and thesaurus
Visuwords [...]
Jennifer started a timely conversation. I hope you’ll join in……..
Just sharing what I’ve found in my travels…..
I know that I may be a bit late to the table here, but I’m loving this tool.
Lately, I’ve been teaching with StoryCorps almost as often as I’ve been teaching with TED. So much potential for the classroom……
Been playing with Firefox add-ons—simple ways to download YouTube videos [...]
Fans of Wallwisher, Glogster, Virtual Whiteboard, and Stixy might want to take a peek at Spaaze. I’ve been playing around with it a bit this week….kinda fun, and I like the bookmarklet feature. Don’t know that it allows for collaboration though. Anyone know for certain?