Textbooks vs. Open Source Learning

WikiBooks
Hippocampus
Connexions
Edutopia: Toss the Traditional Textbook - Revamping a Curriculum

John Brandt at Maine ASCD has two excellent posts on this theme in his Maine ASCD Weblog:

Web 2.0 and the Future of the Book

The Future of the Book - Part II

Studywiz Spark 2008 Conference at Sunday River

Registration Information

Other Summer 2008 PD Opportunities in Maine at LIM Resources Wiki (please add to the list).

Thinking Critically

"Critical thinking is not just a matter of applying the rules of logic (much less scientific method). It is a matter of thinking and feeling empathetically with others, of engaging one's imagination, of having access to a wealth of facts about the possible effects of alternative actions, of discerning patterns of meaning in experience, of looking at the world from different perspectives." ~ Warren Nord

Critical Thinking Skills
Mission: Critical
Reflective Thinking
Logical Fallacies
Propoganda & Advertising
Citizenship
Cognitive Dissonance
List of Newspeak Words
Scientific Method
Who(m) Do We Trust?

"If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be;

but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."--Lewis Carroll

Are we teaching our kids to think critically?

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Power of Words

No question about it, words carry connotations as well as literal meanings. Beyond that, they also can convey meaning based on the manner in which they are said and the way they are pieced together in sentences.


NPR: Power of Language

Words . . .

• Can be used to clarify or confuse.

• Can be used to pull us together or divide us.

Care to add to the list?

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How Groups Work

I was reflecting on the nature of groups last night and found these sites to be helpful in better understanding group dynamics.



Group Dynamics: Basic Nature of Groups
Groups That Work
A Guide to Group Work
Small Group Dynamics: Groupthink
Wikipedia: Groupthink
Team Building at LIM Resources
Process Skills at LIM Resources

What are ways of making groups work better?

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Listening, Really Listening

"To respond is positive, to react is negative."

~Zig Zigler

With all the distractions in modern life, are we able to really listen and to give the person talking to us our full attention? How important is eye contact and our undivided attention? Can we get beyond reacting from our own perspective and really put ourselves in the shoes of the other person in order to understand who they are and where they are coming from? In short, can we be comfortable enough with ourselves that we can let go and listen?

Listening Skills and Active Listening Skills at LIM Resources

"A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing about" ~ Kenneth A. Wells

"Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirit soars." Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." ~ Leo Buscaglia

"Only when the clamor of the outside world is silenced will you be able to hear the deeper vibration. Listen carefully." ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

"I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying." ~ Charles C. Finn

"The little child whispered, "God, speak to me." And a meadowlark sang. But the child did not hear. So the child yelled, "God, speak to me!" And the thunder rolled across the sky. But the child did not listen. The child looked around and said, "God let me see you." And a star shone brightly But the child did not notice. And the child shouted, "God show me a miracle!" And a life was born. But the child did not know. So the child cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are here!" Whereupon God reached down and touched the child. But the child brushed the butterfly away and walked away unknowingly. Take time to listen. Often times, the things we seek are right underneath our noses. Don't miss out on your blessing because it isn't packaged the way that you expect." ~ Anonymous

How can we be better listeners?

Island Learning

North Haven, Maine has a unique K-12 school that might be a model for schools on the mainland.




North Haven Community School

Edutopia - "Treasured Island: Giving Students Real Skills and Real Responsibilities"

Edutopia - "How To: Raise the Educational Stakes with Project Learning"

NPR - Maine School Bind Isolated Island Together

What other models of project-based learning are there in Maine?

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Effective Teams

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."

~ Goethe

Essential Question: What matters most?

How to Be an Effective Team Member
How to Build a Team
How to Build a Great Team
Team Building: Organizing a Team
The Leaders Institute: Efficient Meetings
Team Building at LIM Resources
Trust Building at LIM Resources
Active Listening at LIM Resources
Learning Styles at LIM Resources

Where to Draw the Line

Wicked Decent Learning Episode 22

School Discipline is the theme.


WDL Archives
WDL Blog

Behavior Management and Classroom Management at LIM Resources Wiki. Feel free to add your ideas, wisdom and resources to this community wiki page.

Related

A Lasting Friendship: Maine and Argentina

Forwarded by Dave Perloff

In 2001 high school students from Auburn, Maine and Avellaneda, Argentina began a correspondence and a friendship that continues today.

Spanish teacher Pam Davis and English teacher Claudia García found each other through epals.com, an online service that matches teachers and classes around the world, and with a grant from the Perloff Family Foundation, the Edward Little High School students began studying Argentine culture and exchanging emails, pictures and mementos with their pen pals in Argentina.

At the end of that first school year, the American teacher traveled to Argentina to meet her new friend and visit the Argentine students and their school. With her she took a new laptop computer, a gift from the students at Edward Little High School. The Argentine students had so many questions, both about American life and about their pen-pals back in Maine. The next September, a new group of students continued to write and share experiences, and with another grant from the Perloff Family Foundation, the Argentine teacher was able to visit Maine and teach at Edward Little High School for two weeks. Claudia was the first Argentine the students had ever met, and a very real connection to their new friends there.

Both teachers have traveled to each other's countries again since, and several of the American "alumni" of this experience have gone on to major in Spanish in college and to travel to Argentina.

This past year, with a new group of students, the correspondence has taken a new step: video tours and letters. (With two cameras supplied by the Perloff Family Foundation and lots of support from the school systems involved, the American and Argentine students can see one another's schools, hear jokes, give the latest news and finally see and hear each other as they communicate.)

Both teachers and all students involved in this correspondence would like to thank the Perloff Family Foundation and especially Dave and Sandy Perloff for their interest and their support of new ideas in public schools!

Annenberg Media: By Becky Ranks

If you have not checked out the Annenberg Media materials, I would add it to my personal professional development goals for the summer. I am including a description below found on their website:

Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers. It is part of The Annenberg Foundation and advances the Foundation’s goal of encouraging the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.
Annenberg Media’s multimedia resources help teachers increase their expertise in their fields and assist them in improving their teaching methods. Many programs are also intended for students in the classroom and viewers at home. All Annenberg Media videos exemplify excellent teaching.

As a former classroom teacher and a lover of literature, I found a video in minutes that took me right into classrooms with students and teachers interacting with literature. The video modeled best practices in using literature with young students and it was as if I were given the time to visit someone’s classroom and see these best practices in action. I had to do a quick sign up, but once I did I was given an array of choices and could do a search within the site by grade level and content area. What an amazing resource…I am not sure how I missed this one.

The trouble with kids today . . .

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners,
contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders
and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now
tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no
longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict
their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their
teachers."

     ~ Socrates, 5th Century B.C.  Google Answers



There seems to be a perpetual lament throughout history
about how the young do not measure up to their elders.

Here's the latest complaint:

The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies 
Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future?

Podcast Interview with Author, Mark Bauerlain, at Intended Consequences.

EmoryWheel.com - Are We the Dumbest Generation?

Thoughts?

Video in the Classroom, The easy way

by J Charette

Using digital video in the classroom has always been viewed as a very time consuming undertaking. The typical scenario included using expensive video cameras, microphones, downloading video typically in real-time, then editing the video, followed by exporting the video back to the camera or burning DVDs. Getting it online was a whole other issue that most teachers don’t want to tackle. It appeared daunting to say the least.

Thanks to Dave and Sandy Perloff, the idea of making videos in a classroom is no longer daunting. The equipment involved includes a Canon Powershot digital camera, a couple of SD memory cards, a card reader, iMovie (found on the MLTI laptops), and a program that converts the files to flash. All that’s needed can be had for a minimum investment, no big expenses, no fears of students breaking that expensive equipment, and most importantly no huge time requirements!

My project was a Step Up Day video. The basic idea was to take a 7th grade Language Arts class and ask them to provide information to the 5th graders who will be coming to the school next year. We brainstormed topics, formed into teams of 3, chose a topic from our class list and then began the real work of putting together a scene of approximately one minute. Each student chose a role, writer, director, or editor. The writer was responsible for taking the script through the writing process. Each student had ideas that needed to be meshed together so they develop a rough draft, conferenced with the teacher, made revisions, and put together a working script. The director was responsible for all filming, setting up shots, and coaching the “actors” which were team members, teachers, and friends. The editor was then responsible for downloading video into iMovie, working on editing, arranging effects and exporting video. Even though they chose roles it turned into a collaborative effort that required give and take to produce the final product.

Before the start of the project I laid the groundwork for the project. In class we looked at scripts, learned how to set up scenes, practice speaking to an audience, and viewed other student produced videos. In this way, I was able to generate excitement among the students about the upcoming project.

At the start of the project, I practiced the technical aspects of converting video to flash, set up the video player, and posted the video to a server. This part of the project required a little technical knowledge but with the assistance of Dave Perloff, I was able to learn the process (through e-mail conversations!) quickly and easily.

The only other piece was training the students to use the camera. This was done through an in-class “workshop” with the directors from each team. We practiced with the camera and discussed basic filming techniques. I laid out a time line from start to end of about 10 class periods from start to finish. This was shortened to eight because Step Up Day was moved forward due to a scheduling conflict. This didn’t prove to be a major problem as we had it completed on time and premiered it during the morning to the enthusiastic 5th graders! The video was posted online the same day and has been viewed many times by students, parents, and community members! The students were thrilled to say the least! Although we may not challenge Iron Man at the box office, the students have the satisfaction of creating, producing, editing, and premiering their “first” video. It used many different skill sets they had been learning about in the classroom. The final product was for someone other than the teacher which proved to be the most motivating factor.

I can’t say enough about how easy this process was. It actually was simple, effective, and fun!!! Please check out the video.

Video in the classroom doesn’t have to be daunting. It can be simple, effective, and fun. It has the advantage of being real world, as well as opening up your school, your classroom, and your own teaching. I plan on this being a yearly project, with several possibilities of expanding video use in next years Language Arts classes. I encourage others to try using video in the classroom!

Meta Cognition

Essential Question: How do I learn best?

Universal Design in Maine

Endings

It is almost time to start reflecting on the school year.

End-of-the-Year Resources




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Maine Holocaust Education Network

Ernie Easter of the New Sweden School has created the Maine Holocaust Education Network which is a network of educators and students sharing and collaborating with each other in order to understand the Holocaust and work towards preventing future holocausts, genocides, and other human rights atrocities. Join them here.

Holocaust Resources at LIM Resources Wiki

Wicked Decent Learning: "Work with Me Here"

Listen to Episode 21
WDL Blog
Cooked on Education Blog


Co-Teaching Resources at LIM Resources Wiki
Interdisciplinary Learning Resources at LIM Resources Wiki

Trust

Who(m) Do We Trust?




We live in a world that has a flood of information. How do we decide which information is true? How do we sort out what is most reliable? Let's look at some handy tools and ideas that help to make sense of it all. Click here.

Essential Question: '"How do you know information is true?"

---

Digital Video - Getting the Word Out

by Dave Perloff

Thanks for your post, and your encouragement regarding our foundation's work. We've had excellent adoption of by key Maine technology integrators, including David Grant, Laura Richter and Bob Sprankle, but it's been challenging to get the word out more generally. "Learning in Maine" is certainly one avenue for addressing that.

Jay Charette at Madawaska Middle School has been especially active in using our approach to digital video. His work was cited in the article written about Fast Track Grants in the current ACTEM news letter (p. 5, http://www.actem.org/Pages/ACTEM_Newsletter/EE_June08.pdf). Perhaps you could encourage Jay (jaychar@madawaskaschools.org) to contribute a post concerning his "Step Up Day" video project, which is now on-line at www.mediamaine.org/Madawaska/Stepupday .

Recently, I've been focusing on the use of the media player for accessing and archiving audio podcasts. Check out the following link for examples:

http://www.mediamaine.org/Podcasting/

This page provides instant access to more than 250 audio tracks. All of the .mp3 files reside on their own servers. They can be downloaded by clicking on the symbols at the right of the playlist item.

Fast Track Grants

Dave and Sandy Perloff have been giving back to Maine schools. Have an innovative or important project that you need help in implementing? Check with the Perloff Family Foundation.

The following schools and districts are now eligible to apply for grants for the 2008/2009 school year:

• Biddeford School District
• Connor Consolidated School
• Edmunds Consolidated School
• Ellsworth School Department
• Kingman Elementary
• Madawaska Elementary and MS/HS
• MSAD 27 (Fort Kent, Eagle Lake, Saint Francis, Wallagrass)
• MSAD 60 (Berwick, Lebanon, North Berwick)
• Sinclair (Therriault Elementary)

Find more information and background on the Fast Track Grants at the Maine Community Foundation.

Have a video project? Check here.