Monday, December 31, 2012

The Common Core, Fiction, and Nonfiction [Opinion]

Recently, I have seen a lot written about the Common Core State Standards in regard to the reading of fiction versus nonfiction literature, most of it critical of the Common Core's emphasis on the reading of informational, non-fiction material. 


In my opinion, much of this criticism is disproportionate, and in some cases, totally without merit.

The Common Core State Standards suggest that by grade 12, reading should be 70% nonfiction, or "informational texts." This is the culmination of a gradual progression from the 50% nonfiction reading recommended for elementary school students.

These guidelines concern some English teachers and others who feel they must replace traditionally-taught literature with technical reading. Common Core critics like to point out that suggested reading includes documents such as the Environmental Protection Agency's "Recommended Levels of Insulation." They don't mention the inclusion of such informational titles as "Google Hacks: Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching, 2nd Edition", by Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest;  Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491, by Charles Mann; or “Amusement Park Physics” Jearl Walker. Everyone would probably do well to actually look at the Common Core suggested readings.

English teachers should still teach their students literature as well as literary non‐fiction. The lead writer of the standards, David Coleman, says that principals and teachers are misreading the guidelines. The increased reading of informational texts is intended across disciplines. English teachers won't have to alter their literature lessons. These goals of the Common Core can be achieved by social studies, science, math, and teachers in other disciplines putting more focus on reading to build knowledge within their subject areas.

Marc Aronson thinks the new Common Core State Standards could be transformational to teaching and learning by supporting close, rigorous reading of informational text and encouraging students to ask for the "evidence."

Having been a teacher of mathematics, I have long seen that much of the difficulty students have in math is a direct consequence of a poor ability to read for information. They will read a word problem in the same way they read a novel. So, I for one, think the added emphasis on reading informational content is well justified in our increasingly information-based society.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Some Things I Like: The Brilliant Blog and the Stuff You Should Know Podcast

I very much enjoy following The Brilliant Blog and the Stuff You Should Know Podcast, and find them both highly informative. I'd like to suggest that you take a look at both of them during your break.




The Brilliant Blog
Writer Annie Murphy Paul delivers the latest findings on how to learn smarter.



Annie Murphy Paul is a book author, magazine journalist, consultant and speaker who helps people understand how we learn and how we can do it better. She is a contributing writer for Time magazine and also blogs about learning for several websites. She is currently working on her next book, Brilliant: The New Science of Smart, to be published in 2013.





The Stuff You Should Know Podcast
Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuckers" Bryant explore the Stuff You Should Know in this free podcast published by Discovery Communications via HowStuffWorks.com.



The podcast is released every Tuesday and Thursday, and covers  a wide variety of topics in a pop culture context. The podcast is available for free on the iTunes Store

Saturday, December 22, 2012

The Rearview Mirror 12/22/2012

For those of you who may have missed an EDge21 featured post or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.

 

 

Monday

MindTap, from Cengage Learning, is an interactive, customizable, and complete online course platform. MindTap includes everything in one cloud-based solution.

Tuesday

EssayTagger is an online tool that helps you grade essays faster by eliminating repetitive and inefficient aspects of grading papers. Speed up the grading process while still providing quality feedback to your students.

Wednesday

Vidquik is a free, simple, web communications platform that provides easy-to-use tools for video and web conferencing.

Thursday

Create and deliver beautiful presentations, easily and quickly, right in your browser with rvl.io

Friday, December 21, 2012

The 'Working Math' Activities Ebook



Working Math is a collection of 90 activities designed to help students in career and technology schools retain basic, practical, everyday math skills with activities that have been placed in a meaningful context.



Most of the activities in Working Math have been designed so that a student can complete the task quickly with minimal teacher intervention. Each activity is contained on a single page. The Working Math activities are meant to review and reinforce fundamental mathematics that the student should have learned previously.

Working Math is available as a downloadable PDF ebook. To use a Working Math activity, you can print as many copies of that page as are needed and distribute to your students.
Once the Working Math ebook has been purchased and downloaded, you are allowed make as many copies of the activities as you want for classroom use.



There is also an annotated companion to the Working Math ebook that includes solutions to all the activities as well as teaching notes.

The complete Working Math ebook is $79 USD, the annotated companion is $99 USD, or bundle them together for $149. However, you can download a free sample of ten selected Working Math activities.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Featured: 12/20/2012 rvl.io [Presentations]



Create and deliver beautiful presentations, easily and quickly, right in your browser with rvl.io.



Easy editing of your presentations is the hallmark feature of rvl.io. The editor is easy to use, applying presentation styles to the slides as you edit them, so you'll know exactly what you're getting. Presentations are HTML documents so you can always tweak the markup yourself using the HTML editor.



Make sure things appear the way you want them with a wide range of themes and transitions to pick from. By default, your presentations are private, only you can see them. You can chose to publish your work which makes it openly available.


See a video demo of rvl.io

rvl.io resentations can be viewed in any modern browser, including mobile. Touch-optimised presentations are delivered to touch devices.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

This is the last feature post of 2012. Feature posts will resume on Monday, January 7, 2013. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Featured: 12/19/2012 Vidquik [Video Conferencing]



Vidquik is a free, simple, web communications platform that provides easy-to-use tools for video and web conferencing.



Vidquik is browser-based so there are no downloads, installations, or plugins needed. You can quickly and easily connect to and communicate with students, colleagues, or anyone else who can access the Internet.



There are no costs for Vidquik's Video or Web Conferencing. Video Conferencing does not require a login for either the sender or invitee. Web Conferencing does not require a login for the invitees, but a simple login for the sender is necessary.


Watch a video: What is Vidquik?

Vidquik is currently in beta development.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Stop Winter Break Brain Freeze [K-5]



ThinkStretch Brain Freeze! packets keep your students’ brains warm throughout winter break.



Reading, math, and science exploration for winter break. Free downloadable Brain Freeze PDFs are available for Kindergarten through Grade 5.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Featured: 12/18/2012 EssayTagger [Assessment]



EssayTagger is an online tool that helps you grade essays faster by eliminating repetitive and inefficient aspects of grading papers. Speed up the grading process while still providing quality feedback to your students.



The goal of EssayTagger is to make grading more efficient by reducing the repetition and inefficiency there is when you grade, such  as writing the same comments on paper after paper.

An intuitive drag-and-drop "tagging" interface allows you to identify the essay's main elements, assess the quality, and provide targeted comments. Quickly add new comments to the list that you can reuse when you encounter the same issue in another student's paper. Soon you'll end up with a collection of comments that cover the variety of student skill levels, organized and easy to retrieve.





EssayTagger is not an auto-grader. You still do the grading yourself doing everything you normally do, only more efficiently.


Watch a video intro to EssayTagger

Teachers can create a fully-functional free trial account. There's no need to download or install anything on your computer because EssayTagger works fully within your web browser. You can use a Mac or a PC, at school or at home, grade essays from anywhere where there's an Internet connection.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Monday, December 17, 2012

Featured: 12/17/2012 MindTap [Online Course Platform]



MindTap, from Cengage Learning, is an interactive, customizable, and complete online course platform. MindTap includes everything in one cloud-based solution.



MindTap is a platform of cloud-based educational products and services that engages students through highly interactive content including assignable and gradable learning activities.
Instructors have a choice of content, adaptable learning paths, additive learning tools, and multi-platform/device support. Rich content, learning activities, and apps are effectively mixed in one cohesive context.



The interactive features of MindTap make it possible for students to:

  • Customize their experience with a library of learning apps called MindApps.
  • Tap into a library of world renowned academic content, including tremendous assets from Cengage Learning’s Gale research tools and library databases.
  • Learn anytime, anywhere through access from multiple devices, desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile phone.
  • Learn concepts through in-context activities like interactive exercises, quizzes, and homework.


MindTap allows educators to incorporate their own content into the learning. They can selectively remove or reorder content to meet the unique needs of their students. Instructors can customize their course and make real-time adjustments to content making it possible to include ‘breaking news’ in their lessons and incorporate teachable moments.


Watch a video: MindTap Demo

Cengage Learning, the parent company of MindTap, is one of the world’s leading publishers of content in the education sector.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Sandy Hook

My thoughts and sympathy are extended this morning to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, their families, and the entire Newtown, CT, community.

The Rearview Mirror 12/15/2012

For those of you who may have missed an EDge21 featured post or who didn't have the opportunity to look at some of them during this past week, here's a second chance.




Monday

YourTeacher presents thousands of online math lessons with your own personal math teacher, as well as a series of mathematics iBooks featuring a “teacher inside.”

Tuesday

PBS LearningMedia™ is a new online destination for trustworthy, classroom-ready, curriculum resources from PBS.

Wednesday

SAGrader improves student learning by providing immediate feedback on their content-area writing. SAGrader provides a powerful alternative to multiple choice assessments.

Thursday

Teaching Channelis a video showcase, where you can see hundreds of videos of inspiring and effective teaching practices.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Featured: 12/13/2012 TeachingChannel [Community]



Teaching Channel is a video showcase, where you can see hundreds of videos of inspiring and effective teaching practices.




Teaching Channel is a rapidly growing community of registered members who trade ideas and share inspiration from each other. Videos are produced through a collaborative effort between video production experts, education advisors, and classroom teachers.

The stated mission of Teaching Channel is to "revolutionize how teachers learn, connect, and inspire each other to improve the outcomes for all K-12 students across America." To this end, Teaching Channel has three goals:

• Build professional learning resources that teachers want

• Deepen and improve opportunities for teacher learning

• Elevate and celebrate teachers in our society



The Teaching Channel video library offers educators a wide range of subjects for grades K-12. The videos also include information on alignment with Common Core State Standards and supplementary materials.


Visit the Teaching Channel's YouTube channel

Launched in June 2011, Teaching Channel is a non-profit organization providing a free resource for all teachers.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Featured: 12/12/2012 SAGrader [Assessment]



SAGrader improves student learning by providing immediate feedback on their content-area writing. SAGrader provides a powerful alternative to multiple choice assessments.




SAGrader is perfect for knowledge-based courses in high school and college like biology, psychology, and history where writing is important.

You assign writing tasks to your students within SAGrader. Each student then responds and submits his or her essay online. SAGrader automatically grades the submission and gives the student instant feedback. The student can then revise and resubmit getting more feedback each time.

SAGrader encourages deeper learning and understanding through informal writing and revision guided by frequent feedback.




Easy to set up and rigorously tested to agree with human scorers, SAGrader is efficient and accurate saving time by eliminating hand grading.  

Other benefits for instructors:

  • Assure objectivity and comparability of every writing assessment.
  • Easily monitor student learning.
  • Get a window into your students' learning by comparing their revisions over time.
  • Add your own comments to student submissions.
  • Maintain complete control over final grades.


SAGrader is a fully-hosted, web-based service. No software need be installed.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Extra: Transloader [OS X/iOS]



Transloader is a handy tool that lets you download a file, a video, an image you found on the web while using your iPhone directly to your Mac.



Enter download URLs in the Transloader app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Transloader then uses your iCloud account to transfer the URLs you enter on your iOS device to your Mac for download.



The Transloader app on your Mac then will download them once you’re back on your Mac.

The Transloader process requires two apps. The iOS app is free. The OS X app is $2.99 (USD) from the Mac App Store.

Note: Transloader uses iCloud as means to transfer URLs you enter on your iOS device to your Mac so you must have an active iCloud account.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0



Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Featured: 12/11/2012 PBSLearning [Digital Resources]



PBS LearningMedia™ is a new online destination for trustworthy, classroom-ready, curriculum resources from PBS.




PBS LearningMedia's digital content is designed to help educators engage students and inspire learning. You can explore a selection of resources connected to Common Core State Standards.

PBS LearningMedia™ provides educators with the strategies, tools, and professional development resources they need to optimally take advantage of digital learning. The service can also be customized to support your local educational needs.



Watch a video introduction to PBS LearningMedia

Sign up to PBS LearningMedia for free to tag favorites, access standards-aligned digital resources, and get instant access to the best of public media: videos, interactives, audio, photos, and in-depth lesson plans.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

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