Daily Diigo Bookmarks 07/26/2011

• ‪The Lion King Full Movie‬‏ – YouTube

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks 07/12/2011

• Atmosphere: Temperature, Pressure, Ozone

  Virtual Lab to collect pressure, temperature, and ozone data through different altitudes above the Earth’s surface.

  tags: atmosphere lab

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks 04/25/2011

• The 101 Most Useful Websites on the Internet

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daily Diigo Bookmarks 04/18/2011

• Analyzing an Ecosystem

  tags: ecology

• In Search of the Ways of Knowing Trail

  Ecology based game exploring African Forest

• Ecology Games

  tags: ecology

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

True Colors

Catrina Davis

True Colors learning styles…personality assessment…like Myers Briggs, etc

Helps understand human diversity

“it is I understanding ourselves and others that we all gain dignity, pride, self-respect and esteem” Don Lowry

Translation: When you know who you are you’re more comfortable with everyone else

Character cards
Gold: structured, detailed, prepared
Orange: impulsive, spontaneous
Blue: idealistic, nurturers
Green: cerebral, process, questioners

COMPLETING AN ASSESSMENT NOW…APPARENTLY VERY GREEN…ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM…

Please Understand Me – David Kearsy

Great forming lines activity…lined up based on color score discussed how everyone has some aspects of each color…look at color spectrum, not single color…

Introversion vs Extroversion can change perception of colors

Showing Our True Colors
Peaceful Colors by Gail Shapiro
True Parenting
Follow Your True Colors to the Work You Love

Technology at your fingertips

Images of screens from iPads with apps being used discussed

WIRELESS NETWORK STRUGGLED TO SUPPORT ALL THE IPADS

Showing FUZE for meetings, classes, etc

Fun session…lots of new folks playing around with iPads…great selection of apps for folks to play with!

ECU Clinical Teacher Conference Keynote

Northeast Region Teacher of the Year: Vann Lassiter

Long list of accolades for Mr. Lassiter…

Your reach in the classroom is TBD…to be determined

What is my reach?

Trigger dreams – kids have big dreams…we sometimes think they are impossible…Encourage your students to dream and think big…sometimes dreams get deflated, take time and retrigger those dreams in your students

Believe in yourself and your students…you can achieve anything…you may be your students biggest cheerleader…Vann got to teach a new class for students who had failed NC computer test 4 times…ages 14 to 19…held fourth period after lunch…GREAT PLAN…students respond when they know you are there for them…

Demonstrate excellence – what a teacher IS, is more important than what he does…20,000+ moments to impact students throughout the day…what are you doing with those moments? The kids are watching…what are you demonstrating? People will never forget how you made them feel – Maya Angelou

Do this and your bucket will overflow!

NCMSA11 Wrap-Up

So this year at NCMSA11 I was in a completely different role from previous years.  As you may have noticed (or not) I didn’t post from a single session. That’s because I didn’t get to attend any sessions that I wasn’t presenting.  My primary role this year was to help man the “Tech Sandbox” in the Exhibit Hall.  We had a booth set up with about 20 laptops, a SMART Board, and some other equipment for conference attendees to come over and play around with.

This sandbox idea sprang out of previous year’s lack of folks bringing laptops with them.  Well, as luck would have it, this year there was a HUGE upswing in the number of folks bringing their laptops and iPads with them to the sessions.

Good News: More folks had web access and technology with them at the conference…

Bad News: Limited the role of the Tech Sandbox…

Worst News: I’m not finding a lot of information floating around out there about conference sessions…

So, we’ve kind of turned a corner in that people are expecting to have access at the conference and are showing up with the equipment to take notes and make them shareable.  The problem is, notes are still leaving with individuals and not being shared with other conference attendees.  Sure these folks will go back to their buildings and share this information there, but how about helping out those that couldn’t attend the other wonderful sessions at various time slots?  I guess that means there’s still room to push…

Suggestions for a Parent Re: Homework

Way back in March of 2009 I posted Session Notes on Homework With Rick Wormeli from the NCMSA conference.  Recently I had the following comment posted in response to my notes (emphasis mine):

Thanks for the great notes above. I’m on a school board and also the parent of 2 girls – junior and sophomore in high school. Rick Wormeli did a workshop for our local educators and our principal was raving about him so I googled his name and came up with this site. I appreciated the notes above and wish I could bring Rick back again for the high school teachers. My sophomore is very social, full of life, bucks the systems, comes to the aid of those she sees are being treated unfairly, looks at things with common sense – yes, she’s a rebel but she’s smart too and has missed some homework assignments that resulted in a zero. Ok, I can live with that. But, I’m having a little back and forth with her math teacher about homework that she did do. My daughter completed a 3 page packet but because she didn’t have it out on her desk and wasn’t “prepared” for class, the teacher gave her a zero. I pointed out to the teacher that I felt being prepared for class and having homework completed were 2 different things. But she doesn’t see it that way and maintains that she’ll continue to get zeros on completed homework unless she is in the class, sitting in her seat, homework on desk, pencil and notebook ready to take notes. I’m very frustrated. Any suggestions or constructive thoughts I can pass along to the teacher or should I just let it go??

This is definitely a tough situation as grading policies are a MAJOR struggle for many teachers. In my own classroom, classwork and homework account for a total of 15% of the student’s final grade.  The other 85% come from things which I feel are final determinations of mastery: tests, quizzes, projects, lab activities, and a notebook test.  In this respect, getting a 0 for not completing a homework assignment doesn’t have a dramatic overall effect on the final grade.  At the same time, I’m generally pretty open about a student completing the homework assignment after it is due.  The point is that they learn the material, if they are making a good faith effort to do that, then I’m fine with them continuing to work until they master the content.  Not every student makes that good faith effort however, and that’s when things become difficult.  What do you do when a student NEVER turns in a homework assignment, especially when homework is only assigned that moves the students forward in their learning.

Back to the point…

I would carefully steer the discussion with the teacher to the points of: A) what does the final grade in your class mean? and B) what is the reasoning behind your grading scale/practice?  These are tough questions, and in some instances grading scales may be mandated by a department.  Additionally, a teacher may only have the grading scale they do based on what the other teachers use, even if it is not “mandated.”  To me the grading scale plays a major part in the impact and fairness of giving a zero on an assignment.

I know there are many out there with widely varying opinions…please add your thoughts in the comments!

Plagiarism Checker Mindshift

Just had a quick discussion with a colleague today that was one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” moments.  He was discussing a recent research paper he had his students working on about the causes of the American Revolution.  He had a student turn in an essay that was pretty obviously plagiarized due to the inclusion of the word “confluence” by an 8th grader.  The Great Plagiarism Mindshift began by him explaining he used the essay in class to show how easy it was to check for plagiarism.  Very informative lesson for students, though one I’m pretty sure they’ve seen in the past.

The real Mindshift occurred when he said “So after that I just posted the link on my webpage and told them it would be there for them to use themselves next time.”

Whoa…

If a tool like The Plagiarism Checker was great for teachers before, how much better is it now?  If a student modifies something they find enough that The Plagiarism Checker can’t find where it came from, then it’s certainly not plagiarism right?  What an amazing use of a tool ordinarily available for the purpose of “busting” students.

By the way, the site he’s using is available for free, here.