Instructify

BY KEVIN HODGSON

There are plenty of resources to turn to if you want to learn how to do something with technology. But there are just not enough places to learn more about the rationale behind the use of technology for learning, and what it means to bring new media and new tools into the classroom. By delving beyond the nuts and bolts of using a tool, we teachers can really start to envision the learning and teaching possibilities in this changing technological environment. The National Writing Project has launched Digital Is, a project that showcases teacher reflections on how technology is changing teaching practice.

The Digital Is site is divided up into areas that include Art/Craft, Teach/Learn, Provocations and Community, and within each of these areas, a designated “curator” pulls together various strands of resources around a single theme. For example, the curated collection entitled “Digital Tools for Change” highlights not only curator Cliff Lee’s insights on how technology can be used for social action by students, but Lee also points us to a handful of projects that demonstrate his point. The various resources at Digital Is were developed by teachers in the National Writing Project network and the Digital Is site is funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

You can browse through the resources on the site in a variety of ways: through curated collections, through search queries, or even through tag clouds. Topics run the gamut from digital storytelling to digital portfolios to movie making in the classroom. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the National Writing Project and a contributor to the Digital Is site.)

Digital Is

National Writing Project

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This article also appears on LEARN NC.

BY KEVIN HODGSON

Imagine, if you will, that you are beside me as I peer over the shoulder of my twelve-year-old son. He’s using a web browser to search for an article on creating stop-motion movies, which is one of his hobbies. I barely have time to say, “That looks interesting,” before he has clicked on a hyperlink and is off on entirely different page. A video catches his eye and he ignores me completely as he hits the “play” button, only to discover the video is a commercial for an upcoming movie. I want to say something, but I don’t have time. The mouse works its magic, and he is off again, this time in full reverse, clicking on arrows that direct him back to the original page. I keep silent now, watching him scan the article for the headlines in bold. Then he is following yet another link to yet another page.

And so it goes.

If you are a teacher or parent who revels in the deep reading of novels or articles, with discussions and contemplations of character development and plot design, this kind of “reading” is enough to drive you to the brink of despair. In fact, the question of whether this kind of activity is even “reading” is one worth asking. We traditionally think of reading in terms of sounding out words, understanding the meaning of those words, and putting those words into some contextual understanding.

And yet, if you read The National Council of Teachers of English’s definition of reading, you’ll recognize some semblance of what my son was doing, even as he jumped here and there with the mouse:

Readers read for different purposes. Sometimes they read for pleasure. Sometimes they read for information. Their reason for reading impacts the way they read. They may skim or read carefully depending on why they are reading. Throughout this process, readers monitor the meaning they are constructing. When the text does not meet their purposes, they may switch to another text. Readers expect what they are reading to make sense. They use a repertoire of strategies, such as rethinking, re-reading or reading on to clarify ideas, to make sure they understand what they read in order to accomplish their purposes.¹

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BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

I have one of those humongous Oxford Unabridged Dictionaries at home, but I really couldn’t tell you where it is right now. I don’t ever open it anymore thanks to Wordnik, and my back is probably better off for it not lifting that 20-pound tome.

Wordnik gets me the information I need much faster, as well as providing an experience that a paper dictionary can’t match. When you look up a word on Wordnik, it doesn’t merely give you a definition with an audio playback. You get all the word’s possible definitions, examples of the word in publication, current usage of the word on twitter, synonyms, etymology, and even its Scrabble score. It may seem like information overload, but Wordnik puts all this data on one page so I don’t have to click far or travel to other sites to get any tangential information I might want.

One thing I feel Wordnik needs to be address is that, under the section “Elsewhere on the Web” where you can see the definitions the other sites use, Urban Dictionary is one of the links. Urban Dictionary is not appropriate for students (to say the least), and as such, Wordnik might be a good tool for a teacher to use, but probably not a good choice to give to students and let them run with it.

Wordnik

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

Everyone would agree that it’s important to learn about personal finance, yet many kids grow up without the skills to manage their money. This is probably because the topic was never put in the context of a pig riding a jet ski. Play Debt Ski with your students and they should see things more clearly.

The game dresses basic economic concepts in a cartoonish summer look. You have to steer the pig through an obstacle course, helping him grab as many coins (income) as possible. Along the way you also need to pick up necessities while avoiding too many luxuries (though they make your pig happy). At the end of the course your income and expenses are tallied, leaving you with savings or debt. You can then buy upgrades to your ski, but beware the pitfalls of credit cards! This is one of the most teachable aspects of the game, as there are credit limits, minimum payments, and interest on unpaid debt.

Pass all eight levels and you’ll get a final score based on the savings, debt, and happiness points you’ve accumulated. There’s no end to the score you can earn, which will encourage healthy competition among students. After playing Debt Ski, they can check out the game’s parent site, InDebtEd, which is designed to help college students navigate the jungle of student expenses. High school students will be there soon, so they might as well start learning personal finance now.

Debt Ski

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BY AARON FOWLES

I live and teach in Memphis, Tennessee. The western border of our city is the Mississippi River. In the part of the city where I teach, a good number of the students can’t tell you where the Mississippi River is, on a map or otherwise. They’d only have to point west.

National Geographic has launched My Wonderful World to combat students’ lack of geographic knowledge. Ever since the Ms. South Carolina debacle, the need for geography education has become extremely apparent.

My Wonderful World provides students, teachers, and parents with abundant resources from National Geographic to study the world around us. I particularly liked the Geographic Literacy quiz, whence comes the startling statistics on the header of the Kids/Teens page.

As far as games go, my heart will always be with Sheppard Software, but My Wonderful World also has some good ones. This would be a good site for students who have some down time and want to explore a bit. Once the site matures and has more content, it looks like it could be a great resource.

My Wonderful World

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

Jennifer Wagner’s Projects by Jen is a valuable resource for preschool through 6th grade teachers to engage in inquiry projects with other classrooms.  These projects are conducted through the use of high- and low-tech tools for sharing information among classrooms and teachers.

Wagner notes on her site that she has hosted about 60 different collaborative projects over the years and the topics run from counting Oreo cookies (a math project) to a community service venture. Her projects often cross over into several disciplines, but most involve sharing of data and then analysis of that data. A few years ago, my classroom was part of a greeting-card project, in which we sent out greeting cards to a handful of other classrooms and then received cards in return. We then tracked the cards we received on a classroom map.

Wagner also has a newsletter that features collaborative ideas (this costs a small fee), highlights classroom websites and teachers, and more. There is no cost for participation in Wagner’s various collaborative projects, so it provides a nice, easy way to expand learning beyond classroom walls. She also has a very neat ongoing venture called Guess the Wordle, which is a daily brain game using a word cloud and a question. Guess the Wordle is an interesting morning activity to get the day started. Some days, the answer might be a book. Other days, it might be a math problem. Or, as in the case of this one, it is the ingredients of a recipe — but for what?

Projects by Jen

Guess The Wordle

Here’s a look back at some of the best post from November 2009:

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

With this coming April marking the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, expect media outlets to feature extra coverage of this trying time in United States history. The New York Times is leading the charge with a new blog called Disunion.

The project’s premise is simple, yet brilliant. Disunion reports on the Civil War as if in real time, so the post for today would reflect the events of November 19, 1860. With a staff of writers that includes professional historians, university professors, and an ex-presidential speechwriter, the stories are top quality. Here’s a sample from one of my favorite entries:

In 1860, a cub reporter named Samuel R. Weed scored the assignment of a lifetime when his St. Louis newspaper sent him to spend Election Day with the man who might become America’s president. Surprisingly, no one else had thought of it, and Weed arrived to find a relaxed Abraham Lincoln, greeting him “as calmly and as amiably as if he had started on a picnic.”

For us teachers, one of the best things about Disunion is that it includes primary sources from the Civil War era (the post quoted above featured the article written by Samuel R. Weed). Finding good teaching documents is always a challenge, and the Disunion people do the work for us by providing them on an almost daily basis.

I’ve never been a Civil War fanatic and you certainly won’t see me out in fields reenacting battles, but I’m already hooked on Disunion. Use it to inspire your teaching or give it to your students as supplemental reading.

Disunion

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

I like to encourage writing every single day in my classroom, but sometimes, I struggle to find a good writing prompt that will engage the creative and critical thinking skills of my students. The CanTeach writing prompt website is an online list of possible writing prompts. Though they’re simple, I like that the prompts are open-ended and built around inquiry . And the simplicity of the site means that I don’t have to take time to learn how to find what I need. I can just scroll down, grab a prompt, and we’re ready to get writing. Once the writing is done, these prompts really open up the classroom for deep discussions, too.

Here are a few prompts from the site that I tucked away for a rainy day:

• If you could only take three people with you on a trip around the world, who would you take and why?
• What do you think makes a good friend?
• What four things are most important in your life?
• How would you describe your house to someone who has never visited there before?
• Who or what has had a strong influence in your life?
• What is your most indispensable possession and why?

CanTeach Writing Prompts

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BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

Google Maps Mania is a blog that highlights the different ways Google Maps and Google Earth mashups are trending, and the educational value that they have. What is a mashup you say? It’s when you take one geographical element and superimpose or put it side by side with another. For example, if you wanted to see how big the Great Wall of China would stretch if it has been started in Slovakia, there’s a map for that.

Many students’ conceptions of spatial relations when it comes to geography is sorely lacking — outside of what they know locally, it’s hard to conceptualize how big other parts of the planet are in comparison. This is where mashup maps really can open students’ eyes to the vastness of the world they live in. The comparison angle is just one way Google Maps are being used, however. Google Maps Mania is a treasure trove of different types of projects and ideas for schools to use cartography.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

I don’t fully understand it, but crossword puzzles have a seemingly magical power that compels students to complete them immediately. No pep talk necessary — as soon as the puzzle reaches their desks, pencils just start moving. There are plenty of crossword creators out there, but I’ve never found one more useful than the Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker.

This app is a star because it works smoothly and avoids the hurdles that inevitably appear in other crossword generators. This one requires no registration and places no limits on the length or amount of words. Once the words and clues are entered, it auto-sizes the crossword to fit on one page and prints right every time. It also produces a printable answer key.

I like to type my clues as a document, then paste everything with one click into the Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker. I can then go back to that document and combine words from several units into a big review puzzle at the end of the semester.

A crossword puzzle is a great way to present a vocabulary list because students must work to find the words themselves. With this app it’s also possible to have students make crosswords for their classmates to complete. But make sure they double-check spelling! One extra letter can throw off the whole puzzle.

Instant Online Crossword Puzzle Maker

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BY BILL FERRIS

This is a last-minute announcement, but it’s worth looking into. The Smithsonian is offering three free, live interactive webcasts Tuesday, November 16 as part of their “Live with the Land” educational event (see below for a schedule).

“Live with the Land” is the first installment of the Smithsonian’s yearlong “Shout” program, presented in conjunction with Microsoft Partners in Learning, TakingITGlobal, and LearningTimes.

The sessions and times are as follows:

Session 1: 1pm EST/6pm GMT, November 16, 2010 (one hour)
“Deer in the Forest: Can There Be Too Much of a Good Thing?” with Dr. Bill McShea, Wildlife Ecologist, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

Session 2: 3pm EST/8pm GMT, November 16, 2010 (one hour)
“Documenting the Reality of Our Landscapes” with Toby Jurovics, Curator of Photography, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Session 3: 9pm EST, November 16, 2010, 2am GMT, November 17, 2010 (one hour)
Smithsonian Tree Banding Project: “The World’s Students Monitor the World’s Trees” with Forest Ecologist Dr. Geoffrey “Jess” Parker, and Education Specialist Josh Falk, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

More info

Register

BY REBECCAH HAINES

Using X-Stream Science, you can integrate STEM concepts into your lessons with these short videos and lesson plans.

X-Stream Science is an educational alliance between the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation’s Flight Adventure Deck Program and WUWF Public Media. They have created eight short videos illustrating STEM concepts such as the relationship between altitude and air pressure, and aerostatics vs aerodynamics. Each video is five to seven minutes long, and comes with a lesson plan. Both the videos and the lesson plans are downloadable, or you can stream the videos online.

Obviously, these videos can be used as a quick introduction to or review of the various concepts they explain. Students almost always like watching a video, even if it is short, and these have quality information in addition to being entertaining. The “lesson plans” are really no more than video guides, primarily designed to make sure students pay attention to the videos, but they can definitely be used as discussion starters for each of the topics presented. According to the website, the videos are targeted towards middle school students, but I think teachers of upper-elementary and high school students would also find them useful for quick introductions or reviews of concepts.

As for me, I am always looking for quality videos to share with my class. I am glad to now have X-Stream Science in my video-finding arsenal.

X-Stream Science

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BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

It always surprises me when some people who rely on computers for their livelihood lack even the most rudimentary idea of how they work. For many, they don’t feel they need to know more than, “I press this magic button and up pops the Google. Other folks, however, are more curious. For them, the folks at Gizmodo have sent up a series of lessons and videos to teach the basics of what is going on inside a computer and its separate components that makes it do what it does.

Now the lessons and videos are free to access, but if you want to actually do the hands-on part and recreate what you see in the videos, you need to buy a reasonably priced Electronics kit ($40). This is a great resource for teaching circuitry or an introduction to computers for middle and high school students.

A piece of advice — Gizmodo is a large blog and there many links in which to get distracted and wander off the page, so some assisted navigation is probably wise for younger students.

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

Like a lot of beginning teachers, my first year in the classroom was stressful and exciting. Establishing daily classroom routines seemed important, but how does a newbie go about doing that? Luckily, I had Harry Wong and his classic book, The First 100 Days of School. Wong’s book became a sort of bible for me that first year. This past year, I handed it off to a friend who was beginning his first year of teaching. I miss the book but I am glad to know it is going to good use with my friend.

Now, Wong has set up a quiz for teachers at his book’s website. He poses 20 questions about classroom management and regular routines that he says will allow you to reflect on your own teaching effectiveness. A quiz for teachers? Yikes! I took it and got the following results: “You can improve! You’re just surviving, aren’t you?” I hope I am doing more than that.

Here’s what I liked about the quiz: it really forced me to reflect on what I do in the classroom, from seating arrangements to making tests for units to how to begin the day. The site analyzes the answers (against Wong’s expectations) and then offers up some advice for the “wrong” answers. Again, even if I didn’t agree with Wong, I appreciated the (canned) feedback. For example, I answered “false” for this question: “The number of questions on a test is governed by the number of objectives on the assignment.” My feeling is that I gear my teaching around objectives, but nothing is ever one-for-one. I often focus on specific things, making some areas more important than others, and my assessments reflect that. Wong disagreed with me on that one. Sorry, Harry.

Go ahead. Take the quiz. See how you do.

Harry Wong’s Teacher Effectiveness Quiz