Interesting+Articles

__**This is my treasure box of interesting things in education: **__

What kind of neat interactive and relevant assignments could we give our students using an organization which provides micro loans like KIVA?


 * Reasons to read aloud to kids, in school or at home: **
 * 1) Build a lifelong interest in reading. "Getting kids actively involved in the process of reading, and having them interact with adults, is key to a lifelong interest in reading," said BeAnn Younker, principal at Battle Ground Middle School in Indiana.
 * 2) Children whose parents read to them tend to become better readers and perform better in school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
 * 3) Reading to kids helps them with language and speech development.
 * 4) It expands kids' vocabulary and teaches children how to pronounce new words.
 * 5) Reading to toddlers prepares them for school, during which they will need to listen to what is being said to them (similar to what they do while being read to).
 * 6) Reading to older kids helps them understand grammar and correct sentence structure.
 * 7) Kids and parents can use reading time as bonding time. It's an excellent opportunity for one-on-one communication, and it gives kids the attention they crave.
 * 8) Being read to builds children's attention spans and helps them hone their listening skills.
 * 9) Curiosity, creativity and imagination are all developed while being read to.
 * 10) Being read to helps kids learn how to express themselves clearly and confidently.
 * 11) Kids learn appropriate behavior when they're read to, and are exposed to new situations, making them more prepared when they encounter these situations in real life.
 * 12) When read to, children are able to experience the rhythm and melody of language even before they can understand the spoken or printed word

Why Teachers Need Twitter: If you are not convinced yet, this article is for you!

5 Things Creative Teachers Do. Really neat ideas!

What do we truly mean when talking about student engagement? <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Social Engagement, Academic Engagement and Intellectual Engagement, which is the real one we should be striving for, and how do we accomplish that?

Seven habits of highly effective teachers who use technology:
 * 1) Always start with "why"
 * 2) Easily adapt
 * 3) Embrace change
 * 4) Share, share, share
 * 5) Think positively
 * 6) Are two steps ahead
 * 7) Always prepared

__**Google Docs**__ are a great way to share information collaboratively. Here is a short and basic tutorial for how to use it. The best thing is that it is stored in a cloud, and therefore accessible by anyone on any computer. media type="youtube" key="OBh8bMC7XEU" height="315" width="420"

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 17px;">How to always improve your teaching: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 17px;">"Never re-use old worksheets that you create, there is always a way to make them better." KE Gr. 4 Teacher

[|TEDed] ! Like TEDtalks but for educators. A place to share the best lessons from the best teachers....endless possibilities!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">Short Video on Critical Thinking: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 14px;">Proving that critical thinking is not black and white. It leads us to question assumptions and use evidence to find answers. Critical thinking is an essential life long skill that helps us to handle uncertainty while moving us away from rash decisions by providing us with intellectual independence. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">media type="youtube" key="6OLPL5p0fMg" height="315" width="420"

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Best search engine ever? I think so! It can solve high level math problems, physics problems and even do things like comparing countries! [|WolframAlpha]

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Argument for game based learning: from [|The Gamer Generation by Jennifer Wagner]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,times,'times new roman',serif; font-size: 16px;">
 * The kids who play today’s “complex” video games learn to understand and manipulate highly complicated systems. Game players get good at taking in information from many sources, pulling together data from many places into a coherent picture of the world, and making decisions quickly. Such efforts may even slow the cognitive aging process in older people. Gamers may have faster visual reaction times, enhanced visuomotor coordination, and heightened ability to visualize spatial arrangements. They may be better at rotating an object in their minds, and may distinguish more deftly between the trajectories of moving objects. Players might also have an edge when paying attention to several objects at once. Surgeons who played video games for at least three hours a week were 27% faster and made 37% fewer mistakes.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 17px;">Crazy way for elementary classroom management! [|Class Dojo] provides a way to create classroom rules, assign points and track student behaviour. Provides immediate feedback and total ownership of learning. Listen to the effects first hand from Lachlun Hull, via [|November Learning]. media type="youtube" key="Gl4Sslf4kko" height="315" width="420"

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 21px;">Mind Blown!!! <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Check out [|Khan Academy] ! <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">- Let us do away with the one-size-fits-all lecture and let students participate in self paced lectures... (allows time to look up background info, pause and replay of instruction) <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">- Student get to pick their own route through the map of maths, and work at their own pace! <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">- These questions provide as much practice as students need per topic, with no fear of failure. <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">- Each problem is broken down into exact steps. <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">- Using this technology in class would increase meaningful teacher-student interactions. <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">- Useful for Elementary to Pre-College students (mostly math and science, a few history lessons) media type="youtube" key="nTFEUsudhfs" height="315" width="560"

THIS IS A GREAT VIDEO ON MOTIVATION. HOW CAN WE USE AUTONOMY, PURPOSE AND MASTERY TO BETTER ENGAGE OUR STUDENTS? media type="youtube" key="u6XAPnuFjJc" height="315" width="560"

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Take a look at this exemplary [|class blog]. Tons of technology integration and evidence of student learning! ... All in a Grade One class!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 14px;">This video came from an [|article] about the //__Norwegian Center for ICT use in Education.__// It discusses the importance of being smart about how we incorporate ICT in schools, as well as addresses that we desperately need to properly train teachers in ICT and give them time to upkeep their own skills. media type="youtube" key="NfN5SSiRoPs" height="315" width="560"

Could filter bubbles be limiting our worldview? What about the worldview of our students? How can we prevent this? media type="youtube" key="B8ofWFx525s" height="315" width="560"
 * Eli Pariser on "Filter Bubbles"**

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">"Learning is a treasure that follows its owner everywhere." -//Chinese Proverb//

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Are your students leaving a legacy?" -//Alan November//

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 12pt;">“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist… using technologies that haven’t yet been invented… in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet." - //Richard Riley, Secretary of Education under Clinton//

Sir Ken Robinson on the Changing Educational Paradigms: media type="youtube" key="zDZFcDGpL4U" height="315" width="560"

<span style="background-color: initial; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">[|101 Websites] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">for every elementary teacher! Very valuable!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">Edmonton Journal: <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">[|Lifting student assessment out of the industrial revolution model] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">. Interesting thoughts on zeros and grading of assignments.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 16px;">Using Twitter to teach Geometry?

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 16px;">November Learning: <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 16px;">[|How Twitter Can Be A Powerful Educational Tool]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">Video from <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">[|November Learning] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">: How to prepare students for life in the 21st Century. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">Key Points: - People learn through conversation. How can we engage in communication over the internet? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">- As educators we need to shift the control over to the students. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14px;">- Need to move away from the industrial model of education and move to create a lifelong learner. - Our society is loosing critical thinking, how can we address this in our classrooms? - Practical Ideas: creating a podcast of learning highlights in a week, assigning a daily class researcher, photography fridays

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Who knew that you can create a 3D model of a library...using a video game! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">November Learning: <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">[|Zaki Tahiri]

<span style="background-color: initial; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">[|Google search terms] <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">: better searching = better information <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">[|Google file type searches] <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">: search by file (ppt, doc, PDF...)

<span style="background-color: initial; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">[|Internet country codes] <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;"> for better online searches. (Thanks to November Learning)

Is this where schools are going in the future? [|Sweden: School with no Classrooms]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Using <span style="background-color: initial; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">[|online games] <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> to increase learning and improve reading level? <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 16px;">media type="custom" key="20917116"