I knew it wouldn’t be too long before someone got smart and created a YouTube-like site that was geared specifically to students and teachers. Anne Bubnic of CTAP emailed me to let me know about TeacherTube.com.
TeacherTube has 11 channels for teachers to upload videos about best teaching practices, student projects and tutorials. The channels include technology, professional development and subject areas. Like YouTube videos can be rated, shared or embedded on other sites. Users can also post comments. Unlike YouTube there isn’t any offensive material…And of course, TeacherTube isn’t blocked at schools. Yippee!
There are plenty of ways that teachers check for understanding. Many of the ways that we assess students involve a limited number of students. For example, “Raise your hand if…” allows for only a few students to respond.
Here are several ways to engage more of your students while simultanteously using multiple intelligences. These strategies are also helpful for ELD. Many of these methods can also be used for standardized test practice too.
Multiple choice question using total class response.
For multiple choice questions, you can get the entire class involved by asking, “Show 1 finger if the answer is A, 2 fingers if B, ….”
Check for the level of comfort with the material.
“Show me 5 fingers if you feel like you could teach another student. 1 finger if this is still really confusing.” This gives you a quick gauge of whether or not you can move ahead. It also helps to identify which students can assist others and who will need your assistance.
Teach agreement and disagreement symbols.
I teach my students “thumbs up” is a yes and shuffling their hands in front of them is a no. This allows a student to speak without other students verbally interrupting, yet encourages active engagement. If a student gives the incorrect answer, others can give feedback without disturbing the speaker or shutting him or her down by a negative verbal feedback. I’ll do intentional “misteaks” on the board, to check if students understand the concept. Students can give me a nonverbal clue that they disagree with something I said or wrote with interrupting.
Use total physical response to engage learners.
I’m a math teacher, and I’ll often ask things like, “What operation does ‘product’ mean?” Then they make an “x” with their hands to indicate that they know.
What are the skills that a student and citizen of the Information Age needs to have?
The Partnership for the 21st Century has conducted a survey to identify the key skills needed for success in the 21st Century. Every student in your school or district should be:
1. a critical thinker
2. a problem solver
3. an innovator
4. an effective collaborator
5. a self-directed learner
6. information and media literate
7. globally aware
8. civically engaged
Ken Kay, President of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, explains in his presentation at the FETC Conference about why these skills are important. This hour presentation includes 8 strategies that your school and district will want to integrate into the curriculum to best prepare your students for the quickly changing terrain, as well as why these skills are critical to our students.
I’m going to share this presentation with my colleagues. It will provide an introduction to discussing what are the skills necessary for success in the 21st Century. I would love to get a school-wide consensus about what skills our students need to have and how to best support them in acquiring these lifelong skills. If you haven’t seen Did you know?, you will want to watch this dynamic and thought-provoking presentation by Karl Fisch. It’s only about 6 minutes long. It’ll give you the inspiration and motivation to listen to the hour-long presentation, if you need a bit of a boost.
Pi Day, March 14th, is fast approaching and kids are already asking, “Do we get to eat pie?”
Pi Day, for those of you who haven’t put it on your calendars, is a celebration of the number pi, which is approximately 3.14. Hence the reason it’s celebrated on the 3rd month on the 14th day. It’s also the birthday of Albert Einstein.
One of my favorite activities is to read one of the Sir Cumference stories. My middle school students absolutely love me to read stories. I imagine even high schoolers would enjoy these books. I think having children’s books read to them brings them back to those fun years of sitting around their elementary teacher and exploring new worlds and going on adventures. Of course, 4th and 5th graders would also greatly appreciate these stories. Here are two of my favorite in the series. Click on the link below to learn more or to order. They are under $4 each!
First we’re going to enjoy a bit of pie while doing the warm-up, which involves calculating how much materials it took to make hula hoops for my Hoop Troop Dance Club. Then I am going to read Sir Cumference. After cleaning up, myself and the other math 7 teacher are combining our classes for half the period and going outside to do some Pi Day festivities. We’ve got a menu of outdoor things we’re going to do, including:
1. create a 7-circuit labyrinth in chalk
2. play some math games
3. sing Pi songs
4. do some hooping (That’s me dancing. It was originally a birthday gift for my sister and she posted it on YouTube.)
In honor of Einstein here are some activities
1. The Great Relativity Show - interesting animation, but it’s a bit slow loading
2. Einstein Explained - games, quizzes and photos about Einstein
Did you know? The rate of change on this planet is increasing at an exponential rate. The amount of information on the planet has doubled in the past few years and continues to increase at an amazing pace. We can only begin to imagine what the world will look like in 10 years. We live in exciting and wondrous times - and perhaps, it’s a bit unnerving.
Did you know? As educators, we have an important role in preparing our students for a world that is only just starting to take form. We live in the Information Age, a time of connection and expansion.
Did you know? China will soon be the largest English speaking country on the planet.
Did you know? Karl Fisch, Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, has created an amazing video presentation entitled Did You Know? It takes us on a brief journey into the future world of astounding facts that will make you think about where we need to be as educators and as a society. He has some additional presentations that you will also want to see. (Note:The music in Did You Know? is a mix of three tracks from The Last of the Mohicans.)
Did you know? Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota, has has an excellent blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. If you are interested in exploring the value and direction of education, you’ll appreciate what he has to contribute. He has also has links to Karl Fisch’s presentations.
For more information about the skills our students will need, read this post about 21st Century Skills.
Be in the know… it is the Information Age after all.
Spring break isn’t quite here yet, but you don’t need to wait to take a vacation. You can start today! Take a vacation from complaining.
When people complain, they actually enforce and unfortunately attract more negative experiences. Taking the simple action of not complaining can shift the energy in your life in dramatic and joyous ways. The Secret is to focus on the things that bring you joy.
I like to do take a vacation from complaining with my students. It can really make teaching and learning a much more pleasant experience when the room isn’t filled with tattling and whining. Of course, students are still encouraged to set healthy boundaries and have them respected, but the finger pointing can be erased with a collective intention.
On Monday, I am going to invite my students to take a vacation from complaining with me. I will have them write “day 1″ in their daily planners marking the beginning of the vacation. We will also determine how long we’re going to take a vacation from complaining. We’ll write the end date in the planner as well. Each week on our warm-ups we’ll take a couple of minutes to write a reflection on how we’re enjoying the vacation.
I usually like to set the vacations for 30 days. 40 days is also a nice amount of time for a vacation, especially if the number 40 has spiritual significance for you. Lent is a great time to give up complaining. Well, by the time this vacation is over, Spring Break will have arrived and I can go on another vacation.
Here is a fun educational video from the folks at Free Range Graphics to launch a discussion about biodiversity in your class. You may recognize the plot from the DaVinci Code. If you’d like to share the video with your class, you may want to download it since YouTube is blocked at most schools. Here are instructions on how to download educational YouTube videos.
Resources You Can Use
A book I highly recommend is Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. The story line is a bit odd, a gorilla acting as a teacher, but the content and the vision are profound.
Before reading Ishmael I was wondering, “How can we be complacent about destroying our environment? This is maddness!” I now understand how that is possible. When I read the book it was like watching a huge jigsaw puzzle being assembled, and when the picture came into view it was life transforming. The book provides a clear alternative to destroying our environment and a new, expansive vision for humanity.
NOTE: Free Range Graphics only works with socially responsible companies. They rely on people sharing the videos with others to promote important messages. Please email it to friends and colleagues who will enjoy it.
What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a website where people can create their own “lenses.” A lens is your perspective or favorite resources on a topic. For example, I created a lens on Fractions. It includes websites that have clear explanations of fractions, fun math games and practice, educational YouTube videos and books for further individual study. Squidoo lenses have great potential for teachers to aggregate helpful resources for students on a particular topic. I hope that this article inspires you to create your own and become a lensmaster.
You can build a site for free with the easy to use module-based templates. My first lens on integers took me about 3 hours to build. When I created it, I used my del.icio.us account to organize the different sites that I was interested in including. When I posted a site to my del.icio.us account, I tagged it with the lens topic. I’ve continued to add to it over the months and it’s now an excellent resource for both students and teachers. I’m delighted that it was included in the March National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) News Bulletin in the “Web Bytes” section.
There are a variety of modules that you can add to build your lens, including text/write, link list, amazon.com, poll, make a list, YouTube, Google maps and iTunes. The lens can be made more interactive by adding polls. I added a poll to my Ecological Footprint Education site about the size of people’s ecological footprint.
Most of the modules can be made more interactive with the “Plexo” feature. Plexo is a tool that allows your readers to rank or add to the data in your site. For example, on my Vedic math site readers can give feedback on which resources they found most valuable. The feedback automatically rearranges the sites from most to least popular. I’ve just started playing with Plexo modules this week. It feels like a nice way to help your readers sort through data and become an active learner. Plexo is also helpful because people can add other valuable resources to your site.
As the creator of the site, you can moderate how much interactivity you want. You can allow comments or not. You can also require that additions to your site be approved before they are published. So there is an element of quality control. As with most sites that allow rating, people must have a Squidoo account.
So what would you like to share with your students? What topic would you like to be a lensmaster on?
Del.icio.us is a website that allows you to bookmark sites. It’s called a social bookmark because, unlike bookmarks you add on your computer, you can access them from any computer. You can use social bookmarks to research information, collaborate or share sites with friends and family. The bookmarks are by default public information; however, you can change the settings so that others have no or limited access to what you mark.
Why Use Del.icio.us
Research on the Internet using social bookmarks is easy.
Bookmarked sites are accessible from any computer.
You can tag your bookmarks and organize them. You can use multiple tags for the same site. For example, I tag my Educating Millennials in the Information Age lens with millennials, information_age and squidoo.
Great sites can be shared with students or colleagues because social bookmarks are public.
You can “bundle” tags. For example, in my del.icio.us account I have a bundle called InformationAge and within it I have several related tags including wiki, blogs, squidoo and millennials.
Other people can benefit from your research. Instead of searching through an ever growing number of websites and blogs, I can search within del.icio.us and find what other people find valuable. Hence saving myself time.
You can share sites with other people using various features and tools. Del.icio.us has an easy to follow help section that explains the tools, such as networks, and includes why they are helpful.
You can also keep bookmarks private. You can still access your bookmarks from any computer, but others can have no or limited access to bookmarks.
5 Things to Know Before Using Social Bookmarks
Before you start to post things to del.icio.us, there are several things I highly recommend:
#1: Decide how you intend to use del.icio.us.
Are you intending to use social bookmarks for research or collaboration? Do you intend to share this information with others or is this for your own use?
Deciding whether you intend to have your bookmarks serve as a reference for others or mainly for personal use will impact how you structure your bookmarks.
#2: Choose your tags before you get started.
Before getting started put some thought into key tags that you would use. For me, the main things I was researching were math resources for students, Vedic math, Information Age and teaching technology.
#3:Think about some umbrella concepts that help you “bundle” your tags.
My bundles are EducationalVision, Math, InformationAge and Family. The last category being sites that members of my family created.
#4:Be mindful of the user name you choose.
When you bookmark sites and they are public, you are creating an on-line profile. You are identifying yourself with the information you mark as a favorite. Be thoughtful about the on-line profile you are creating and that this information is public. Even if you choose to use a name different from your actual name, note that the web is an amazing place and that information gets linked and connected. So be thoughtful of what you want identified with your user name, even if it isn’t your actual name.
#5: Allow for Private Savings.
Go to the “Settings” button on the top right and change to allow for private bookmarking. This will put a “do not share” button option on your page when you go to save a site.
As most students and teachers know, school servers block YouTube. Don’t despair. There is a way to bring good educational videos from YouTube into your classroom. You can download a video at home, carry it on a flash drive (or store it on a virtual disk) and then bring it to school.
Anne Bubnic, CTAP Region IV County Specialist, shared this link on how to download YouTube videos. She recommends following the directions exactly. Be sure to use the Firefox browser. One of her colleagues tried it in Safari and couldn’t get it to work. You will also need to download the VLC application for it to work.
If you haven’t heard of Metacafe, you’ll want to read this post about an alternative to YouTube. One fabulous benefit of Metacafe is it isn’t blocked at school. You may want to check if the video you are interested in is uploaded there too.
