I found this great slide show on Crash Course for Educators which I found from one of the communities I follow on Google+. Soon I will do a post on all the amazing new teacher and technology posts you can follow as they are growing quickly. The video above is ten ways you can use YouTube to improve your classroom from ways to have stations, to flipping your class, to posting message to students and parents and more.
Monthly Most Hit Posts for World History Teachers' Blog
Thanks to all of the new visitors to the three blogs (US, world and government) as we now have a new monthly record of 65,000 page views. The most hit for the world history teachers' blog are:
AP Summer Institutes
Around the World in 80 Treasures: An End of the Year Project
Here's an idea for an end-of-the year world history project. In Virginia, we still have a couple of weeks of school although we have completed the AP tests and the end of the year state tests. The project is based on Dan Cruickshank's BBC documentary, Around the World in 80 Treasures. Students have to find 13 objects that represent the time periods of history that we have studied, the six themes of history, and the different regions. So each object must represent a time period, a theme, and a region. Here's a link to the the World 9 assignment and here's a link to the World 10 assignment. I usually show the kids one or two clips from the video to show them how the objects can tell a story. And there is also the great book, A History of the World in 100 Objects.
Tip Sheet for Google Hangouts
MacWorld Writes About Our iPad Pilot
Follow the Blogs on Google+ and Twitter
St. Paul can't write
There. I said it.
This has been irritating me for I don't even know how long. I think I had already noticed it as a teenager, but I wasn't really paying attention. But now I am an adult, and sometimes I am actually paying attention. I remember learning another language, and scanning poetry (even in English), and having to read three and four and five times and then having that "Ohhhhhh..." moment. So I dutifully read the epistle. And then I read it again. And again. Today's, for example:
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!
Those sentences are endless and totally impossible. First of all, he uses more appositives than any writer I have ever seen. I love appositives myself; dependent clauses, elaborate punctuation, periodic sentences - bring them on. But when your appositives HAVE THEIR OWN APPOSITIVES, I think you have to accept that the reader has given up. And I don't think the fact that he wrote in Latin is remotely an excuse for this sort of thing; I don't believe Paul was the only scriptural author to write in Latin. (I suspect I am about to be authoritatively corrected on this point. But I move blithely on. I read a little bit of Latin. No amount of inflection could excuse this sort of thing.)
So let's see, above, we start with...well, we start the entire passage with "Therefore." That in itself seems like a mistake, to me. Not that a sentence (or a Bible verse) can't ever start with "Therefore," just that it's an indication that the writer plans to challenge the reader right off the bat, and the writer should notice that fact and provide the reader with the tools necessary to follow an already compound point. But does he? HE DOES NOT.
He proceeds to, "since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." I'm following so far; all the bits of sentence are relevant to the things before and after. However, I'm seeing some early warning signs - there are three prepositional phrases in just those two brief clauses, and at least one of the concepts ("peace with God") is fuzzy enough that, if the text continues on like that, the reader will lose all concrete meaning and just lapse into "I'm reading God stuff." I note that I'm not saying I dispute that there could be peace with God, I just don't know what that would be. Eternal bliss in God's presence? The peace OF God "that surpasses all understanding"? COMMUNION with God through repentance of all grave sin? A good writer would end the sentence there ("...through our Lord Jesus Christ") and then circle back to clarify the "peace with God" bit. What does Saint Paul do?
Oh. He refuses to end the sentence at all. Possibly ever. Next we have: "through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand." Again, we have a LOT of prepositional phrases per capita (four in that clause alone!), which is bad not because prepositions are bad things, but because each prepositional phrase requires the brain to process the meaning of the small phrase, and then return to the big clause and integrate the meaning into the whole. When you start going insane on the prepositional phrases, the reader gets heavily bogged down. Also, it starts to give the impression that the writer has lost his train of thought and is just wandering aimlessly. And this example is a good one - so we've gained access BOTH "through Christ" AND "by faith" - apparently you need the faith to get to Christ, and then thereafter Christ to get to the grace. (And don't we also believe that faith is obtained by grace? Best not to go there.) This is starting to become woefully attenuated. Is it helping us to get to the major point of the sentence? Is there a major point of the sentence? Is the sentence about to be over?
Well, almost: "...and we boast in hope of the glory of God." In ten words, three more prepositional phrases. (You get the impression he had a bar bet with St. Barnabas or something.) Nothing wrong with this clause overall, other than the fact that (a) as usual, removal of one or more prepositional phrases would only improve the clarity and impact ("we boast of the glory of God" - much better; don't even care that it changes the meaning a bit, as it's still true in any case) and (b) it has nothing whatsoever to do with the first 90% of the sentence.
Oh, wait...unless what he meant to say was (see how reading it the sixth time could help!), "We have been justified by faith. And this has two results: first, we're able to boast about our hope to be part of the glory of God. And second, we have peace with God [whatever that means] through Christ. And there's actually a logical circle here - our justification by faith allows us to have peace through Christ, and it's through that same Christ that we receive our current grace - being part of the Christian community!" Of course, that doesn't solve all the problems, because I had to chop out a few bits that really didn't scan (the through Christ/through whom/faith/faith). And I readily grasp the inelegance of scriptural bullet points. But if you're going to try to get across this many itty-bitty permutations of concepts, the reader could use all the formatting and syntactical help available.
But the mentally exhausted reader is not finished yet. "Not only that [!], but we even boast of our afflictions" - OK, fine, but this is the first time you've mentioned afflictions. Well, all right then - "knowing that affliction produces endurance" - no debate there - "and endurance, proven character" - sure, that makes sense - "and proven character, hope" - OK, now things are starting to break down. How does proven character produce hope? Hope that we'll behave well the next time, too? That has some logical appeal, but is at odds with the Christian message (including St. Paul's), which tells us that virtue is the product not only of discipline but of grace, so we shouldn't take for granted that we've once and for all achieved virtue. Therefore, it's entirely unclear what hope could be produced in us by the fact that our character is now "proven."
OK, moving on..."and hope does not disappoint" - all right, fine, if we assume that there's a logical meaning and source for that hope, I guess that would work - "because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." WHAT??? You JUST said that the hope was PRODUCED BY this "proven character" business. And THEN you said that hope does not disappoint BECAUSE of the love of God poured out into our hearts. WHAT DO THOSE THINGS HAVE TO DO WITH ONE ANOTHER? This is where the massgoer sitting in the pew drifts into a lazy trance of "more of that God stuff." And with good reason. Yes, of course, we could fill this logical gap in with generic bits of Christian theology - such as, proven character is virtue, and virtue is a gift, and one of the fruits of virtue could be hope (I guess - I've never experienced a significant uptick in hopefulness with an increase in self-discipline, but let's assume), and the gift of virtue is prompted by God's great love, being poured into our hearts along with those virtues. Plus, the Holy Spirit is the mediator. Q.E.D.
Fine. BUT THE TEXT DOESN'T SAY THAT. It doesn't even fairly IMPLY it. And if we have to supply all our own explanations and theology, drawn from the store of millenia of theological development that was itself based on Scripture, then the Scripture passage isn't exactly elucidating God's nature and plan for us. It's more imposing on the reader to understand those things already. Which, especially given that this is an epistle, offered to an original reader(s) who had the benefit of none of our modern theology, means it's not really doing its job, now is it???
I wonder what the recipients of those Pauline epistles did with them. "All right, let's get all the chief folks together. We'll all read the letter out loud. Five times. And then we'll see whether anybody has any good ideas. And then when nobody does, we'll spend all night praying about it. And maybe drinking - God works in mysterious ways; getting more mysterious by the minute, in fact. And then at sunrise we'll put our heads together and decide what we're going to tell everyone it actually means. But we can't say 'We have salvation through faith and Christ's crucifixion and this is the source of our hope and joy' again. We said that about the last three letters. And people are starting to notice that the letters are longer than a sentence."
I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit inspired the spirit of St. Paul's letters. I just don't think the third person of the blessed Trinity can be fairly blamed for the sentence structure.
This has been irritating me for I don't even know how long. I think I had already noticed it as a teenager, but I wasn't really paying attention. But now I am an adult, and sometimes I am actually paying attention. I remember learning another language, and scanning poetry (even in English), and having to read three and four and five times and then having that "Ohhhhhh..." moment. So I dutifully read the epistle. And then I read it again. And again. Today's, for example:
Brothers and sisters:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions,
knowing that affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!
Those sentences are endless and totally impossible. First of all, he uses more appositives than any writer I have ever seen. I love appositives myself; dependent clauses, elaborate punctuation, periodic sentences - bring them on. But when your appositives HAVE THEIR OWN APPOSITIVES, I think you have to accept that the reader has given up. And I don't think the fact that he wrote in Latin is remotely an excuse for this sort of thing; I don't believe Paul was the only scriptural author to write in Latin. (I suspect I am about to be authoritatively corrected on this point. But I move blithely on. I read a little bit of Latin. No amount of inflection could excuse this sort of thing.)
So let's see, above, we start with...well, we start the entire passage with "Therefore." That in itself seems like a mistake, to me. Not that a sentence (or a Bible verse) can't ever start with "Therefore," just that it's an indication that the writer plans to challenge the reader right off the bat, and the writer should notice that fact and provide the reader with the tools necessary to follow an already compound point. But does he? HE DOES NOT.
He proceeds to, "since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." I'm following so far; all the bits of sentence are relevant to the things before and after. However, I'm seeing some early warning signs - there are three prepositional phrases in just those two brief clauses, and at least one of the concepts ("peace with God") is fuzzy enough that, if the text continues on like that, the reader will lose all concrete meaning and just lapse into "I'm reading God stuff." I note that I'm not saying I dispute that there could be peace with God, I just don't know what that would be. Eternal bliss in God's presence? The peace OF God "that surpasses all understanding"? COMMUNION with God through repentance of all grave sin? A good writer would end the sentence there ("...through our Lord Jesus Christ") and then circle back to clarify the "peace with God" bit. What does Saint Paul do?
Oh. He refuses to end the sentence at all. Possibly ever. Next we have: "through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand." Again, we have a LOT of prepositional phrases per capita (four in that clause alone!), which is bad not because prepositions are bad things, but because each prepositional phrase requires the brain to process the meaning of the small phrase, and then return to the big clause and integrate the meaning into the whole. When you start going insane on the prepositional phrases, the reader gets heavily bogged down. Also, it starts to give the impression that the writer has lost his train of thought and is just wandering aimlessly. And this example is a good one - so we've gained access BOTH "through Christ" AND "by faith" - apparently you need the faith to get to Christ, and then thereafter Christ to get to the grace. (And don't we also believe that faith is obtained by grace? Best not to go there.) This is starting to become woefully attenuated. Is it helping us to get to the major point of the sentence? Is there a major point of the sentence? Is the sentence about to be over?
Well, almost: "...and we boast in hope of the glory of God." In ten words, three more prepositional phrases. (You get the impression he had a bar bet with St. Barnabas or something.) Nothing wrong with this clause overall, other than the fact that (a) as usual, removal of one or more prepositional phrases would only improve the clarity and impact ("we boast of the glory of God" - much better; don't even care that it changes the meaning a bit, as it's still true in any case) and (b) it has nothing whatsoever to do with the first 90% of the sentence.
Oh, wait...unless what he meant to say was (see how reading it the sixth time could help!), "We have been justified by faith. And this has two results: first, we're able to boast about our hope to be part of the glory of God. And second, we have peace with God [whatever that means] through Christ. And there's actually a logical circle here - our justification by faith allows us to have peace through Christ, and it's through that same Christ that we receive our current grace - being part of the Christian community!" Of course, that doesn't solve all the problems, because I had to chop out a few bits that really didn't scan (the through Christ/through whom/faith/faith). And I readily grasp the inelegance of scriptural bullet points. But if you're going to try to get across this many itty-bitty permutations of concepts, the reader could use all the formatting and syntactical help available.
But the mentally exhausted reader is not finished yet. "Not only that [!], but we even boast of our afflictions" - OK, fine, but this is the first time you've mentioned afflictions. Well, all right then - "knowing that affliction produces endurance" - no debate there - "and endurance, proven character" - sure, that makes sense - "and proven character, hope" - OK, now things are starting to break down. How does proven character produce hope? Hope that we'll behave well the next time, too? That has some logical appeal, but is at odds with the Christian message (including St. Paul's), which tells us that virtue is the product not only of discipline but of grace, so we shouldn't take for granted that we've once and for all achieved virtue. Therefore, it's entirely unclear what hope could be produced in us by the fact that our character is now "proven."
OK, moving on..."and hope does not disappoint" - all right, fine, if we assume that there's a logical meaning and source for that hope, I guess that would work - "because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." WHAT??? You JUST said that the hope was PRODUCED BY this "proven character" business. And THEN you said that hope does not disappoint BECAUSE of the love of God poured out into our hearts. WHAT DO THOSE THINGS HAVE TO DO WITH ONE ANOTHER? This is where the massgoer sitting in the pew drifts into a lazy trance of "more of that God stuff." And with good reason. Yes, of course, we could fill this logical gap in with generic bits of Christian theology - such as, proven character is virtue, and virtue is a gift, and one of the fruits of virtue could be hope (I guess - I've never experienced a significant uptick in hopefulness with an increase in self-discipline, but let's assume), and the gift of virtue is prompted by God's great love, being poured into our hearts along with those virtues. Plus, the Holy Spirit is the mediator. Q.E.D.
Fine. BUT THE TEXT DOESN'T SAY THAT. It doesn't even fairly IMPLY it. And if we have to supply all our own explanations and theology, drawn from the store of millenia of theological development that was itself based on Scripture, then the Scripture passage isn't exactly elucidating God's nature and plan for us. It's more imposing on the reader to understand those things already. Which, especially given that this is an epistle, offered to an original reader(s) who had the benefit of none of our modern theology, means it's not really doing its job, now is it???
I wonder what the recipients of those Pauline epistles did with them. "All right, let's get all the chief folks together. We'll all read the letter out loud. Five times. And then we'll see whether anybody has any good ideas. And then when nobody does, we'll spend all night praying about it. And maybe drinking - God works in mysterious ways; getting more mysterious by the minute, in fact. And then at sunrise we'll put our heads together and decide what we're going to tell everyone it actually means. But we can't say 'We have salvation through faith and Christ's crucifixion and this is the source of our hope and joy' again. We said that about the last three letters. And people are starting to notice that the letters are longer than a sentence."
I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit inspired the spirit of St. Paul's letters. I just don't think the third person of the blessed Trinity can be fairly blamed for the sentence structure.
Tremendous Review for World History I
A few posts ago I put up a WHI-WHII video you could use for review. Well here is an even better one that is five minutes for WHI.
Polo Anyone?
About an hour away from the city you are surrounded by the most beautiful countryside in all of America and Virginia Horse and Wine Country. Yesterday, afternoon we traveled to The Plains, VA to the Great Meadow Polo Club to watch a few matches. It was so much fun and super kid friendly. We packed a picnic and spread our blanket on the grass. The kids were able to run around the fields and at half time they let all the kids go into the arena for a tug of war and foot races. It was so lovely and exciting especially watching the professionals play, including the Captain of the American Olympic team.
This Blog Continues All Summer
Virginia does two things that I'd love to see changed. 1) We have our state end of the year exams several weeks before the end of the year and 2) Our state legislature (both parties) consistently say they are for "education first," but refuse to let schools start before September because businesses want the high school kids to work after the college kids have left for school.
At any rate while schools around the US have already started closing for the summer (and while we are on it should we even be wedded to an agrian calendar?), my kids still are going to the 18th of June (and yes they are done with their AP and state exams). This is a long winded way of saying that this blog will, as always, will continue posting all June, July and August. After all I have a new crop of students to teach this summer and need to find some new things for them.
How to Use Google Hangouts
I am starting to feel as if Skyping is an old fashioned way to communicate online. If you have a Gmail address you can Hangout with up to nine others (and more are coming as Google employees can already do up to 40). At the bottom of the screen are the people not talking and the one who is will be in the main part of the page. You can also share your screen and, if you use Google Drive, show your documents and even work collaboratively with the others in your Hangout. You can also post a link to a Hangout in case you want others to watch in which case you can also have it saved to your YouTube account. Here is everything you need to know to be able to have a successful Hangout. Thanks to Matthew Faber for the heads up.
Atley's 9!
How did this happen? He is half way to being an adult! His birthday began at about 5:30AM, like Christmas or something. He wanted cheesecake for his cake/breakfast and to be able to open his presents before school.
After school and dinner we went to the mall because his birthday money was burning a hole in his pocket. After 2 hours of trying to decide he finally determined how to spend his money. We headed to TGIFriday's for dessert. He was so excited when they sang to him.
Friday was his "friend birthday party". We ate pizza at the mall and then went to the new movie EPIC. It was pretty uneventful. We only had to make one call to 911 because of a suspicious backpack and only one kid left needing stitches.
NEA Story on This Blog
The NEA just put out a piece on our blogs and will have another one later in the summer on ways to use different devices in the classroom. The picture above is from a week ago.
Pedagogy Wheel for Technology
I found this great Bloom's while from a Google+ post from Edudemic. If you click here, you can see a much bigger post. You could almost spend an entire year using the technology above.
Great WHII (Renaissance to Present)
Ethiopia's Salt Trade
Ancient Greek Vases Made by Modern Artists
The Art Institute of Chicago released a series of videos showing how artists still use ancient methods to create products. Above, modern artists show the similar methods they use to make a Greek vase. You can find more of the series on Open Culture. You'll find one on ancient glass blowing and one on ancient Greek coin production. The clip might be interesting for students when we cover Greek culture in the late fall.
Amazing Collection of Flipped Class Ideas
Learning the Hard Way
I have a child named Nash that refuses to wear underwear. That's right, he prefers going Commando, if you know what I mean. I decided to stop fighting this battle when he started coming home from school each day with his briefs in his backpack. I figured as long as he is wearing pants, no one needs to know right? Well, the other day the boys had some friends over. They were out back climbing trees. Nash's pants got snagged on a branch and well, they fell off! It looked something like this...
He was panicked. Apparently, climbing out of a tree naked is extremely frightening. I can see how the thought of a sliver in your nether regions might be alarming. He was screaming for me to help him out of the tree. I took pictures instead, to remind him why he should wear briefs!
63,000 Page Views Last Month & 4200 Posts to Search
What is a Cookie?
Developed by Lou Montulli in 1994 when he worked for Netscape, cookies help direct what we see on the Internet. Cookies are being downloaded on your laptop all the time and are collected by the web browsers you use. Essentially they are individual ID numbers that a website assigns your computer and it collects information on how you used their page. Some have even better "third party cookies" that collect information from multiple sites that you visit. Indeed apps that you might add to your webpages often collect this information which is why they can be free as they might sell your information to a group that is trying to reach people like you. For example I recently visited the Republican and Democratic Virginia party websites and within one day I started getting ads for lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Aneesh Chopra who the microdata thought I might like to select in our upcoming primary (as not surprisingly he was the tech czar for my former governor Tim Kaine and Barack Obama). The good is that you see what you want to see (ads for your needs) and the bad is that you may not go beyond your own needs (check out this post on the Filter Bubble). Of course you can go here if you want to delete all of your cookies, but that will also mean when you start to type in a webpage it will not finish out for you as it will know know that you were there before.
Our Two Month iPad e-Textbook Pilot
So what did I like? To begin with there are two different versions of the Table of Contents which you can get in landscape or portrait modes. Secondly you can scroll through entire chapters, the individual pages or using the contents go anywhere in the book you want. There also is a search box which is not present in our myhrw.com format online. You can also manipulate all of the pictures flipping them around, looking underneath for objects such as an oracle bone or Viking ship. Each section also has five multiple choice questions (not available on the myhrw.com page). There were also movable features such as putting the levels of the Caste system in order. I actually asked that they do the same for historical maps so students could drag and drop (and be rejected if they are wrong) all the maps the kids have to study. As with the online version there are also videos in each section, links, etc. I must admit as the pilot progressed I stopped using my laptop during the class and just plugged into the LCD or walked around the room with it as I was working with the kids. Finally we used the four finger method to scroll between open webpages, the ibook, Google Drive and even music which made it very easy to manipulate.
My only beef - and this is with Apple, not HMH, is that the e-book can only be accessed on the iPad it was downloaded on. So if you forget it at home, you are out of luck. I should also add that if your district, school, etc. is looking to purchase the iPad book or the online versions of any textbook, you will have to consider restructuring your purchasing plans (easier said than done with state and school board mandates now somewhat obsolete, but still very much unchanged) as the e-textbooks are constantly changed and if you want the newest and latest, you have to put that in the contract (which is probably going to increase the cost). At the same time textbook companies have to consider "Google Driving" their e-textbooks meaning as changes occur, why not just give them to the school districts. This would also mean they would not have to service multiple platforms. With changes coming so quickly today (HMH is also working with Kno for other innovations, but not the ones described in the previous paragraph) the traditional 5-6 year contracts means your e-textbook will be obsolete 3-4 years before the end of the its run in your district. Of course as is argued in The Tyranny of the Textbook, teachers hate changing textbooks and have to learn (hey isn't that what we teach students every day) to adapt to ever changing textbook formats and multiple methodologies of delivery (and yes those reading this blog, I know, agree with me - it's the ones who don't that have to be convinced!).
If you go to the iTunes store, you can get a free chapter download for the Patterns of Interaction, The Americans and United States government iPad books and check them out for yourself.
I should add that I wasn't paid a penny, nor received an iPad or e-textbook to do the pilot so these are my unvarnished thoughts. In if I had my way I'd have a laptop that has a manipulative screen and could access the iPad textbook on any device (smartphone, laptop, etc. and any system (Apple or otherwise) which means you get to decide what works best with your students. If you already have iPads, you'll certainly love the books.
Tacos in a Bowl
I am of the opinion that Ramen Noodles added to anything can only improve the flavor. I have lots of Ramen Noodle recipes but this one is my favorite. It is fast, easy and filling!
Ingredients
1/2 lb. Ground Beef
2 T. Chopped Onion
3/4 Cup Canned Diced Tomatoes Drained
2 T. Taco Seasoning
1 Cup Water
1 pkg. Ramen Noodles
Crushed Tortilla Chips
1/4 Cup Cheese
Cook beef and onion then drain grease. Stir in tomatoes, taco seasoning and water. Bring to a boil and add noodles. Cook until noodles are tender. Sprinkle with cheese and chips and anything else you would eat on a taco!
Knowmia for Video Search
D.C. Dudes
When you go to school with the children of Diplomats, when you almost run over a Secret Service Agent walking his Senator while you are riding your bike, when you go to church with Hillary Clinton's personal assistant and Mitt Romney's biggest campaign contributor and when you live 500 yards away from CIA headquarters you might be a little more aware of world events and politics than most kids. Raising a family here is a little different than the way I grew up. In some ways it is fantastic and sometimes not so much. Let me give you some examples.
Atley recently decided to make a list of what he would do if he were president of the United States.
1. Lower Taxes by $4989
2. Make more taxes go to the poor people, like my family.
3. Make my friends and family's birthdays national holidays.
4. Make the Japanese Maple the National Bush.
When I asked him how he planned on getting elected he said, "I am going to rent a plane and distribute fliers all over the country and I am going to use a really persuasive font."
While that seems harmless, the other day I walked in to an all out war going on in my kitchen.
The boys informed me they were dressed up like the allied forces and there mission was to destroy this person.
This picture was taped to the window. At first I was a little scared that they were shooting at me, what with the caption and all, but then I noticed the flag and realized that they were dethroning non-other than Kim Jung Sun, the North Korean Dictator.
How to Escape the Death Valley of Education
Here is Ken Robinson at his best, which I found on Open Culture. In this 20 minute talk, Robinson takes on the test-centric culture of American education and argues that it is destroying creativity and curiosity.
Lucid Charts for Chart Creation
A couple of months ago I wrote about a great flowchart maker called Text2MindMap. Well now you can add Lucidchart to your Google Drive account. As you can see from the video above it lets you create complex flow charts of different types.which are then added to your Google Drive account. Thanks to Ken Martin for giving me the heads up on this one.
World History Review in 12 Mintues
Great review of World History in 12 minutes. An AP World teacher made it but it's also good for world 9 and World 10. It also has some great mnemonic devices for world religions!
Flipped Learning Network Interview
WHI Outline w. Pictures
Example of Flipping Using Cave Art
Here is an example of a flipped class found on TedEd. You can use any of their videos and upload multiple choice questions, lesson plans, links, etc using their pre-made formula. But for those of you who have never done one it is a great start. I like this one as it has art from Lascaux and asks that the student know about homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Here is how you create the lesson so get flipping!
Muffins for Mom with Nash
It seems like yesterday when I went to the school with a 3 day old baby girl for Atley's Muffins for Mom Celebration. Now my baby boy is a Kindergartner and I just love him to pieces. Nash was so proud to be there with me and I was so happy to be there with him. It always makes me sad when you see the 2 or 3 little kids without their mothers. I am so grateful that I could be there for this special day and that I could be his mother, and Atley and Harley's mom too!
Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mother's I know!
Movie Map of Europe's Changes Since 1000
Thanks to my county's head of social studies, Alice Reilly, for this one. It is a map movie showing Europe and its changing country boundaries from 1000 to the present.
Individualizing Education Using Technology
There were many reasons why I had a great day yesterday when Richard Culatta, who is the Director of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, spent the day in my classroom. In between my two classes, we spent several hours sharing ideas so I will be sharing some of them in the next week. Since I am writing a book on using technology to individualize education I was very interested in his Ted Talk above. He mentions great innovations around the country such as an elementary school that has students report to different places in the school depending on how they did the day before, giving three questions at the end of the class to decide how to teach tomorrow, Arizona State U that has figured out how and when students should learn new items and what makes them hesitate to answer a question as well as new innovations the Dept of Ed is doing.
He ends his short talk with something called #PencilChat which is a way to counter anti technology people. The idea is that you need to put the word pencil in to replace every item of technology such as "Why should we give studentscomputers pencils when they can wait until they get to a job to learn how to use them" or "What should I do if a computer pencil breaks in the middle of my class, how should I be expected to work with such a disruption?" The video below is a funny collection of many of the pencil chats.
He ends his short talk with something called #PencilChat which is a way to counter anti technology people. The idea is that you need to put the word pencil in to replace every item of technology such as "Why should we give students
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