Reading for January 27, 2014: Brennan by Design

You can hear Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” blaring inside Askwith Lecture Hall even before you get to the beige double doors. It’s the third meeting of the fall semester for T-550, and inside, the room is buzzing.

via @andycinek http://ift.tt/1n93cVv

Reading for January 14, 2014 at 09:39PM: Watch Out TED Talks: Here Comes A New Generation

TED’s educational arm is launching TED-Ed Clubs, an effort to support students who research, write and present and record their own ideas in a TED talk format. “The goal is to stimulate and celebrate the best ideas of students around the world,” said TED-Ed Director Logan Smalley.
via Pocket http://ift.tt/1dMYViW

Reading for January 08, 2014 at 11:58AM: There's a Cheaper, More Effective Way to Train Teachers

We don’t know exactly how much money was spent training Will in his first year of Teach for America, but we know it was a lot.
via Pocket http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/theres-a-cheaper-more-effective-way-to-train-teachers/282778/

Reading for January 06, 2014 at 04:59PM: Making It

In January of 1903, the small Boston magazine Handicraft ran an essay by the Harvard professor Denman W. Ross, who argued that the American Arts and Crafts movement was in deep crisis.

via The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2014/01/13/140113crat_atlarge_morozov?currentPage=1

Reading for November 27, 2013 Coding the Curriculum: How High Schools Are Reprogramming Their Classes

There are no lockers in the hallways at Beaver Country Day School. Instead, backpacks and tote bags line either side of the floor while students step over them during the mid-morning rush to class. Nearly everyone is carrying a laptop.

via Mashable http://mashable.com/2013/09/22/coding-curriculum/

Reading for November 14, 2013 at 03:05PM: Subverting the System: Student and Teacher as Equals

Every day, veteran educator Scott Henstrand walks into his history classroom at the Brooklyn Collaborative Studies secondary school, jots down a few conversation-starters on the blackboard, then takes a seat amongst the 14- to 17-year-olds.
via Mineshift http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/subverting-the-system-student-and-teacher-as-equals/

Reading for November 13, 2013 at 11:26AM: Teaching In The Cloud: How Google Docs Are Revolutionizing The Classroom

Any experienced English teacher knows the drill: on the dreaded due date, students bring printed copies of their essays to class, where we collect them, take them home, jot inscrutable comments in the margins, bring them back to class, return them, and then watch students promptly toss them

via Pocket via Mike Kalin:
http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/11/12/teaching-collaborative-technology-mike-kalin#.UoNHoJjFHKc.twitter

Reading for October 20, 2013: 10 Do's (and 5 Don'ts) for a Successful One-to-One Classroom

Each morning, when Laura Rahn’s class of fourth grade students entered their classroom at Mountainview Elementary School in Loudoun County, VA, they got their laptops from the charging station, completed their daily math fluency practice, and checked EdModo for the day’s instructions.

Read the Rest: http://www.weareteachers.com/hot-topics/special-reports/10-rules-for-a-successful-one-to-one-classroom-and-5-mistakes-to-avoid

Reading for September 30, 2013 at 07:03AM: Technology and the College Generation

"School is a boring thing. E-mail is a boring thing. It goes together," said a college sophomore. As a professor who favors pop quizzes, Cedrick May is used to grimaces from students caught unprepared. via Pocket http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/fashion/technology-and-the-college-generation.html

Reading for July 09, 2013 at 05:54AM: The Challenges and Realities of Inquiry-Based Learning

Teachers in a rural southeast Michigan high school were recently discussing the odd behavior of the senior class. It seems the 12th graders were acting more civilly toward the junior class in the hallways. The prom was also quieter and more well-mannered than in previous years.
via Pocket and Mindshift Blog http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/the-challenges-and-realities-of-inquiry-based-learning/

Reading for July 09, 2013 at 05:46AM: Dogs Chasing Frisbees

That's only one of several cardinal sins of staff development. To safeguard yourself against the others, read on. Dogs chasing Frisbees." That's how a teacher I know of described professional development programs in his district.

via Pocket at Education Leadership: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/jun13/vol70/num09/Dogs-Chasing-Frisbees.aspx

Reading for July 09, 2013 at 05:06AM: Education Week

Computer Coding Lessons Expanding for K-12 Students

South Hills High School teacher Saleta Thomas bills her class as a digital game-design program for students. But once students opt to take the class, they start learning computer coding through basic programs like Alice, then move on to Flash, JavaScript, ActionScript, and other coding languages.
via Pocket  at Education Week: http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2013/06/12/03game-coding.h06.html

Reading for July 08, 2013 at 07:58AM: Education technology

IN A small school on the South Side of Chicago, 40 children between the ages of five and six sit quietly learning in a classroom. In front of each of them is a computer running software called Reading Eggs. Some are reading a short story, others building sentences with words they are learning.

via Pocket The Economist http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21580136-new-technology-poised-disrupt-americas-schools-and-then-worlds-catching-last

Reading for July 05, 2013 at 07:23AM: 7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning

Every educator wants to create an environment that will foster students’ love of learning. Because the criteria are intangible, it’s difficult to define or pinpoint exactly what they are. But one group is giving it a try. via Pocket http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/7-essential-principles-of-innovative-learning/

Reading for July 02, 2013 at 04:56PM: A Teacher's Guide to Project Based Learning

via Pocket http://www.innovationunit.org/sites/default/files/Teacher's%20Guide%20to%20Project-based%20Learning.pdf

Reading for July 02, 2013 at 04:37PM: Is K–12 blended learning disruptive? An introduction of the theory of hybrids

Disruptive innovations, in contrast, do not try to bring better products to existing customers in established markets. Instead, they offer a new definition of what’s good—typically they are simpler, more convenient, and less expensive products that appeal to new or less demanding customers. via Pocket

http://www.christenseninstitute.org/publications/hybrids/

Reading for June 28, 2013 at 11:02PM: Millennials and the Job Market

     Posted by Jeff Utecht at The Thinking Stick

There is a great article over at Mashable titled: Why Can’t Millennials Find Jobs? That as I read it I kept shaking my head and thinking about schools, education and where this is all going. What I want to do is add my own thoughts to the research the article points to. via Pocket http://www.thethinkingstick.com/millennials-and-the-job-market/

Reading for June 28, 2013 at 07:23PM: NMC Horizon Report > 2013 K-12 Education Edition : The New Media Consortium

http://www.nmc.org/publications/2013-horizon-report-k12

Cool little hack: Adding my Reading list from Pocket as a blog post

A lot of people probably already know how to do this, but I wanted to share this in case it helps anyone!

I used to have a Posterous account where I posted items that I was reading and wanted to share with my classes or teachers. On the sidebar of my blog was a little feed to the articles.  Posterous has shut down, so I now save links that I want read to Pocket. I really liked having the articles on the sidebar and I still wanted to be able to replicate something like I used to have , so here's what I did:

 First, I used IFTT. If you've never used IFTTT, it has all kinds of cool tools to help you automate things.  I used a recipe for Pocket created by arunchathamvelil. When a new item gets saved in Pocket, then create a blog post with the date and a label. I set up the title of the blog post to be the name of the article and the data. The recipe automatically creates the post and puts the caption with the URL to the article. I added a label of "reading".

I next wanted to have a gadget in my sidebar and have an RSS feed to the label Reading. On my blog, I clicked on the label reading and it pulled up the two posts I had under that label. I used an RSS gadget and I copied and pasted the URL from the label above into it. But it didn't work. It was pulling everything from my blog, like a regular RSS feed. However, I googled how to make an RSS feed from a label and voilà I got http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/labelname. So now I have a little Sidebar that has a list of my reading from Pocket!

Reading for June 28, 2013 at 05:45PM: Students First, Not Stuff

Putting technology first—simply adding a layer of expensive tools on top of the traditional curriculum—does nothing to address the new needs of modern learners. via Pocket
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar13/vol70/num06/Students-First,-Not-Stuff.aspx