First let’s set the context Take a moment…. Watch Hank Green – The Myth of Greatness and John Green – Deserving If you have time read John Green: Teenager, Aged 36 to give some perspective to what you just watched. It’s a bit long, it begins as a book review but then goes back to the history of John and Hank and how they got to where they are now. It is a story of hard work, persistence, hope and…
I am an introvert and working in this world of social media, and constant connections can be difficult. It is hard to sustain a social network presence when doing so goes against your natural instinct and you need to force yourself to do so constantly. It is the way things are done today. It can be draining and exhausting and I have not been doing a good job of it lately. I am not a self-promoter and talking about my…
Teachers tend to be hoarders. We collect stuff and information that may be useful in some project or lesson in the future. My husband and I were discussing how we use to have file cabinets full of photocopies and articles torn out of Nature and Scientific American. We had boxes of cardboard rolls, tin cans and jars. I understood how to organized my paper files and physical things. There was really only paper in file cabinets, and books and videos…
There is much talk these days about abandoing traditional publishers and having teachers create their own content. There are many tools that make this possible, but just because it can be done, does not mean that it should be done. Having been a classroom teacher for almost 20 years and with increasing record keeping (data collection) I am not sure when a teacher can add this to their to do list. If a district did wish to create their own digital content…
Apple recently announced changes to a few apps and a new program that will likely play a big role in education, particularly if your institution is using iPads. iBooks was upgraded to allow the program to support epub 3, books that are rich in media and interactivity. Apple also entered into an agreement with textbook publishers to create true media rich texts. The books are currently priced at about $15 much cheaper then a paper textbook but not reusable or resalable. Apple introduced the program iBooksAuthor that allows…
I read online a great deal. I support teachers who wish to share web content in classrooms with younger children. As well as students who have visual and special needs. I frequently recommend two tools to help remove the distracting and sometime inappropriate clutter. Viewpure – allows you to view youtube videos against a white background, no ads, and no comments. Readability – I started using readability while it was still in development. It is now a commercial product with…
I have been facilitating a book talk on Web Literacy for Educators by Alan November. Our discussions have been very interesting and I think we are all getting a lot out of it as we seek to apply those skills to our classrooms and daily searching habits. One of the topics that has come up is how to teach critical reading and analysis of web pages. We want to get beyond simply evaluating web pages for reliability, credibility and relevance…