The Cursed Pencil Sharpener

The last day of school was on Friday. It was such a whirlwind of craziness! I am extremely thankful for my job, my friends, my comrades and coworkers, my supportive boyfriend who dealt with all the fallout of my rages, my family, and most of all my students. I have learned so much from my 7 year old students, it makes me wonder if I have taught them as valuable lessons as they have taught me. Next year I will be in Grade 4. Wish me luck for the next school year!

Thank you

I’ve been concentrating on ants during my insect unit for science. My 2nd graders are absolutely thrilled! I have an ant farm in the classroom that we track and observe through the month. I have compiled some really amazing video clips and activities that help students internalize the information. I had one of my students tell me today that “ants are weird… they’re like us..”. This comment was made after talking about the social patterns and behaviors of ants. I will be posting some neat materials soon! leave a comment if you want some links!

In just one day, the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing has attracted over 100 organizations and more than 2000 individuals! If you have not signed, please go to http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/. And tell your friends, other groups, etc. Among the groups, judging from the names, are school districts, civil rights groups, parent groups, religious organizations, and of course education groups. And it has been nice to see old friends and colleagues’ names as I scroll through – along with rapidly growing numbers of folks I do not know at all!

(Source: adventuresinlearning)

amen

world-shaker:

unlearningschool:

I’m just sayin…

Instead of “Teaching” on the left chart, it should say “Ruining America.” I have no corrections for the right chart.

adventuresinlearning:

bumbleful:

adventuresinlearning:

humanscaleschools:

huffingtonpost:

Now, I know what you’re thinking: These kids won’t be paying attention to their physics teacher; with huge tablets in front of them, they’ll all be surfing pornography and Reddit.

Not so! With their EXOdesks, students can not only access books and course materials but also their virtual notebooks, with an onscreen keyboard and “digital ink” for handwritten notes. And to cut down on, uh, extracurricular activity, the teacher can view from his or her EXOdesk everything happening at students’ desks and also control what content appears before them.

That means, when the teacher says, “Class, open your books to page 131,” he or she can manually open for them all students’ books to page 131 and highlight where they should be looking — with a couple of clicks.

 ExoPC And Panama Team Up To Bring ‘Tablet Desks’ To Students

Why in god name would we continue to teach and organize our classrooms exactly the same way if we had these new fancy desks and tools. 

Classrooms of the future do not, I repeat Do not have to look like classrooms from the turn of the 20th century.

When visioning and inventing the future, start for scratch. Rethink what teaching and learning is, think about ways to make learning more active not just a fancy more expensive version of passive traditional learning.

I would much rather teach with pencil and paper and have an active, student driven learning, around problem and passion based learning. Computers can open students and learning to the world, but it not worth it, if you are just going to teach and learn the same as you do with text books and traditional learning.

When I say this this morning, instead of getting excited, I just got depressed to see more desk in a row. This is not exciting it is just boring, and really expensive.

sorry for the rant, but come on, lets be more creative then this when we are dreaming up the future.

-Human Centered schools and Adventures in Learning

I so agree with you, Adventures in Learning. I don’t see how this traditional arrangement of desks is going to help build a healthy relationship between students and teachers. In fact, it keeps them apart. Also, are children that lazy? So much so that they need the teacher to ‘flip’ the digital textbook page for them?

^^

world-shaker:

How to Use Twitter for Teaching and Learning

positivelypersistentteach:

You need to read this.

What are we doing to our kids?   We need to access skills, that’s fine.  But why aren’t our assessments authentic?

creative-education:

infoneer-pulse:

The media conglomerate Pearson today announced a partnership with Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana to provide online, self-paced courses that the company says will help Ivy Tech deal with student demand and overcrowding issues in required general education courses.

For Pearson, which already sells modules for instructor-led courses, the move represents a further step in the company’s strategy of inserting itself into virtually every area of e-learning short of full degree programs.

“We thought it was time for us to have a self-paced play that our partners could then plug into their institutions and get more students into higher education,” said Don Kilburn, the CEO of Pearson Learning Solutions.

Meanwhile, the partnership allows Ivy Tech to refer certain students to hands-off self-paced general education courses — which it does not currently offer — without building such courses itself.

» via Inside Higher Ed

‘The per-course price tag of $299 was set by Pearson “based on extensive research on per-credit costs around the nation” and a survey of students aimed at finding out “what they’d expect to pay for a self-paced three-credit course,” according to Susan Aspey, a company spokeswoman. StraighterLine, a company that offers online general education courses for credit through institutional partnerships and perhaps the nearest analog to Propero, offers courses for $99 per month, per course, plus a $39 registration fee.’
 
I just love Pearson! (sarcasm alert)
 
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/04/19/pearson-partners-ivy-tech-self-paced-online-gen-ed-courses#ixzz1sa0nS4ao Inside Higher Ed

(via creative-education-deactivated2)

infoneer-pulse:

Seventy-one percent of New Orleans’s schoolchildren attend charter schools, a legacy of Katrina. While charters’ performance as measured by student test scores both nationwide and in the city has been mixed, they undeniably increase the local appetite for trying new educational ideas. “If you’re an edtech entrepreneur who wants to pilot an idea, you have the most efficient and smartest market in the country here,” says Matt Candler, CEO of 4.0 Schools. That’s because instead of a centralized bureaucracy, there are more than 40 schools making independent decisions on both hiring and procurement. Organizations like KIPP, Teach for America, and the Gates Foundation have established beachheads, drawing top teachers and fresh blood from all over the country. These are intersecting with a nascent startup scene dubbed “Silicon Bayou” to produce a hothouse of ideas to change education: for-profit and nonprofit, from school redesigns to apps, often from younger, female entrepreneurs.

» via Fast Company

polygonal-lasso:

gritinthegap:

Are these easy days for General Ed? Like, you just get to give them tests and watch them take it? Maybe the grass is just greener on that side, but let me just say, that testing season is absolute torture for Special Ed.

Let’s take kids who can’t pay attention or focus for more than five minutes…

I was just having this conversation today with a couple of the social workers in the school. Back in the 70s when children with disabilities started being “mainstreamed” (whereas they were routinely excluded from public education beforehand), the hope seems to have been that (1) it would force schools to provide proper accommodations for them, (2) give more power to parents in participating in those decisions, and (3) help people, especially youth, understand disabled persons such that they would be more accepted by society. Which, to some extent, makes sense.

But at the same time, what we were wondering was if this you-are-just-like-everyone-else approach ignores some of the realities of these students’ conditions. We have a ton of IEP students in our school, and for a lot of them, they’re really not doing well, and they’re completely lost. It’s sad to watch. For a lot of them, I do think some sort of “self-contained” environment would be better for them. That being said, I would say the same for a lot of our non-IEP students that are struggling as well. I guess in the end, all kids could probably benefit from some regular individual attention and time when it comes to education.

And I wonder, just generally, how good or bad it is to have IEP students clearly aware of their situations. As an example, I have a step-sister who has Down Syndrome, whom I will call Anne. My dad’s girlfriend also has a son with Down Syndrome, whom I will call Brandon. Anne has been fully aware all of her life that she has DS. She references it a lot and seems often to act within the boundaries of what we all think when we imagine DS. At the same time, Brandon, while somewhat aware of this, has always gone under the assumption that he is mostly like everyone else. He has three older, relatively successful brothers, and has always been allowed to do everything they can. But now, he is at a point where he wants to drive, like all of his brothers can. Because of the DS, he can’t. And it’s hard for him to understand why he can’t. Anne will never have this problem because she knows the extent of her disability. But for all we know, there are other things she could do that she doesn’t even attempt to do in recognition of possibly false limitations.

(If anyone’s wondering, “Anne” will soon be graduating high school and is working with her family and school to find employment where she can gain work skills. “Brandon” has graduated and will be going to George Mason University. They have a program there for disabled students that his family believes will suit his needs while still giving him a college experience.)

Neither of these situations is ideal, I don’t think. But then how do we design a system of education to strike a balance between the two? I don’t really know. Another toughie for the education log. 

(via adventuresinlearning)