Tuesday Trait: Sentence Fluency

We follow deer tracks in the mud, pretending that we too are wild beasts.

and so it begins! What happens when you prejudge a book recommendation from a colleague simply because of its name or its audience? For me, that's pretty rare, yet it happened with Guyku. Because I trust the educators of my PLN (Professional Learning Network), I changed my mind, I read Guyku. It's great, so I say, "Go with it!" With that in mind, I've decided to review this highly recommended book with a specific audience. I'm wondering if children who read Guyku will really care that the title makes it sound like it's a book for boys, yet I think most young ones will enjoy this book. I just read GUYKU, because of this trust within my Professional Learning Network. This book would be a satisfying read for boys or girls. While, the story of Haiku for guys sounded like a book that only a boy could love, I was impressed that the story would probably be well received by boys or girls. As I have written on many Tuesdays, I'm giving GUYKU the Six Traits of Writing treatment. While this book could be used to teach many traits, especially WORD CHOICE and SENTENCE FLUENCY. I selected SENTENCE FLUENCY because I think the Haiku message can be taught within the context of the fluency trait. In Guyku, each sentence is written in the poetic form of Haiku, yet the style and meter of each sentence is NOT repetitious. Quite the opposite. With sentences like

Hey, who turned off all the crickets? I'm not ready for summer to end....

and

With baseball cards and clothespins, we make our bikes sound like motorcycles....

it appears to me that this is a great opportunity to show your students how cool varying sentences in a similar (Haiku) format can be. Join me. Review this book.

Other educators who have spoken high praise for GUYKU: IMAGE: "Join the Guyku Club" by Peter H. Reynolds taken from the Guyku website.

Tuesday Trait: Ideas and Content

Tuesday's Trait: Ideas and Content highlights the story Drylongso. Drylongso BY Virginia Hamilton Illustrated by: Jerry Pinkey

Drylongso is a realistic fiction story, set in the 1970's. It is the tale of a farming family in the drought-stricken Great Plains or Midwest. The story could have happened in one of the many places with red dirt, including the Oklahoma Panhandle. The ideas and content of this picture book make is a great candidate to encourage and practice effective writing among older elementary students. The story is mature enough that it could be used as examples for middle school students. The big idea of this story is how natural forces can reinforce poverty. The poverty refers to the low economic standing of subsistence farmers, especially among African Americans in the drought stricken region. The poverty is represented by the meager types and amounts of food, lack of water, and other primary needs. Lindy's family in the story Drylongso never went hungry, but they were always on the verge of hunger. This could be a great opportunity to begin a conversation about hunger. First, define: What is hunger? This could be a lively discussion, because some may believe the tiny twinge when a meal is a few hours late describes hunger. Many of them may never know what it is like to be truly hungry and go without food for more than a day. While this could be a tricky topic, you will do well if you ask the students to share their stories in the third person. For example, you could ask, "Do you know anyone who has ever told stories of being hungry?" If they tell stories about themselves, it might be best if others don't know. That is one purpose for using the third person. They may know relatives who lived through The Great Depression of the 1930s, and they can tell their stories. Telling stories would be a great opportunity to develop related projects and tell the stories of your students' families. Students could interview friends and relatives and make a presentation. If your students don't have anyone who might have been hungry, you could use Skype or some other communication device and interview some people who lived through hunger times here in the United States of America or other countries. The secondary, yet important idea of the story is the drought itself. The drought is so pervasively discussed in the story that it really becomes one of the characters. Briefly, yet powerfully, the author discusses the drought using ideas and content that make you feel dry, dirty and tired from all the work that must take place to avoid the major problems of the drought. The description of the dust storm is very realistic. As an introduction to an important character, Nature, Virginia Hamilton does discuss the 20 year cycle of droughts in the setting. The turning point in the story is the dust storm that brings a new character, Drylongso. He arrives as an enormous dust storm spins into the story. His arrival is reminiscent of a modern day, muted Pecos Bill riding a dust devil into town. Drylongso, a boy a bit older than the family's daughter Lindy, is taken in by Lindy's family. They give him water to drink and use to clean his face, and they feed him. Drylongso tells the family how he was separated from his father during the dust storm and became lost. As the conversations continued, Drylongso revealed that he could use a dowsing rod to find water. Then he uses his dowsing rod to locate an underground spring in the dry creek bed that can be used by Lindy's family to help improve their water situation. They can water their animals and their garden, and this new water source is an inspiration for new positive feelings about their situation. Having helped the family, Drylongso says he must return to his father, and he disappears into the West. Characters: Lindy MamaLu Dad Drylongso

The Internet Grapevine is still local!

Treat your colleagues as you want to be treated. Don't share information that might let others in your local area recognize them. Gather closely for I tell you a tale of poor choices, a tale of a young teacher whose pride overcame her ethics, a sad tale that must be told. I'm the online observer, and I share her tale.

It seems to me that many who use the internet still believe that they are anonymous....that's just not true. One of the teachers in my Professional Learning Network chose to share information about a colleague that was not appropriate, yet this teacher never did understand that sharing without permission is wrong. As far as I could tell, this teacher was spreading gossip.

In the fall of 2011, my Professinal Learning Network was discussing the merits of an individual teacher's form used to help guide student/teacher learning conferences for mathematics. The teacher who shared this form is highly regarded as a technology teacher in our group, yet readily admitted that math is not their strong suit. The negativism and bias of this teacher towards a local colleague seemed shocking to me. I think it may be difficult to trust someone who takes the work of others, downloads it online, and tears the content to pieces.

The teacher in our PLN decided that a colleague's conferencing sheet was not appropriate and shared a link for this conferencing sheet. The irony is that the teacher in our PLN had no problem stealing another teacher's work and sharing this information all over the internet. What was most amazing to me was the fact that they were colleagues in the same school.

Since I didn't know at first that the teacher in our PLN didn't have permission to share the conferencing sheet, I looked over the document. Other teachers also looked it over, since we all share information with everyone in our PLN. Those of us who like mathematics and teaching mathematics found the conferencing sheet to be appropriate tool for teacher use in monitoring student progress. We learned afterwards that the teacher who shared the document with us didn't have permission to do that. I was concerned and frustrated that someone in our Professional Learning Network would do that, yet there it was.

In my experience, teachers collaborate to make a good idea better, but that was impossible because the teachers' work had been displayed online without their permission. Most of those in our PLN believed that some simple changes to the conferencing sheet could help make this a helpful tool for the student. Others thought the form was not appropriate. I thought the form was a very useful teacher tool, yet it could be easily modified for effective student use.

I was shocked that our colleague would do this to a fellow teacher, especially as the teacher didn't know it was being shared among our online group. Without getting permission from the author, it would be unethical to show a copy of it online.

I think it would be a really great idea, if we could consider that the same ethics that guide us at school also guide us, as teachers, when we collaborate or teach online. Ask for permission before sharing a colleagues OFFLINE work. If the work is online and public, you must still attribute the work to the author. This would be a great lesson for all teachers to follow, so they can feel comfortable when teaching online ethics to their students. As the saying goes,

Don't tell me you will do the right thing, show me!

A Rose By Any Other Name

a helpful friend by 46137
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

When someone wants to create a stir, make a buck, or earn a doctorate, they give the old wine a new name. Now is no different. Infographics are graphic organizers, sometimes called data visualizations, formerly referred to as charts and graphs.

There are some good examples here, but many of these are very weak in correlating data in a way that makes it more accessable.

Always be careful when you use free websites. Read the fine print of who owns your work, once you've used the web application. Unless they have changed their rules, Many Eyes (owned by IBM) owns your data visualization, so I don't use it.

No matter what, data visualization, oooooops infographics are here to stay. Using the best ones can help us understand concepts better than ever.

Amplify’d from www.makeuseof.com

10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics

Wordle

Wordle lets you create word visualisations using text you enter. There are plenty of interesting designs to choose from. Enter whole books, short passages or see what other people have used. In this example, we can see the US constitution visualised.

Gapminder

GapMinder is a free Adobe Air (cross-platform by nature) application to ensure you have current data on major world issues and can create visualisations for your purposes. Data is updated yearly and released with new versions of the application. The visuals are also quite impressive!

Inkscape

Inkscape is a free vector graphic software available for many platforms. This is the ideal free option for the creation of your overall infographic. Simple and intuitive, you should have no problems importing your visualisations and combining them with other visuals to create your masterpiece.

See more at www.makeuseof.com

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/9EMsRr

Pull Ourselves Up By Our OWN Bootstraps!

Are there American Education historians who can reach in and define the core issues that plague American Public Education?

Yes, I believe there are! 

The two historians who immediately come to mind are Carl F. Kaestle and David B. Tyack. Their historical analyses of American Schools still resonate and relate directly to our current round of teacher bashing, while we're all "Looking for Superman."


I would like to recommend that you read Opportunity to Comment: Elevate Educators to Professional Status before you read this article. I believe it will provide a clear contextual background for our current dilemma in American Public Education.

June 4th 2008 - Is There An Imposter In My Booth? by Stephen Poff
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

The era of the EXPERT, aka HERO, is over. This is a relief. There are so many of us with wide-ranging experience and education, we can't turn our future over to the "pie in the sky experts". They will only disappoint us.

The teachers in the trenches are also experts, even if they haven't done some quasi-experimental research or written books, simply because they didn't have monetary backing to do it.

Because I believe that each one of us has expertise to share, I will continue to live by my mantra of research:

• EVERY ANECDOTE IS A DATA POINT

Case in point: My belief in Diane Ravitch, as a defender of American Public Education was destroyed several years ago, yet I'm just as much to blame for letting her slide back into the "role of the great expert".

I've decided not to let that happen. I've decided to make my heroes work for their label.

• I can't believe in her expertise until I understand that she accepts her role as a power broker in convincing educators to go along with NCLB in the first place. 
• I can't believe in her expertise until I understand that she has stopped talking the blame game and begins to be more assertive with the opponents of American Public Education.

Here is a sample interview that generally characterizes Dr. Diane Ravitch's viewpoint of her role in the NCLB fiasco.





This interview is OK, yet Dr. Ravitch still doesn't seem to recognize that many in Congress and early adopters were affected by HER initial, and unexpected, support for No Child Left Behind....

In response to her statements in this interview, I've answered some of her concerns:

Yes, I've read your work over the past three years, yet I will continue to have concerns about your recommendations in the future. Mostly because of what I believe is your grave misunderstanding of the real impetus of the NCLB legislation. The entire purpose was to begin the destruction of the American Public Schools.

My core concern is about your lack of understanding of your own power....I really WANT to believe that you didn't understand how powerful you were.

At the time of the first NCLB initiatives, your support was critical because Dr. Ravitch, you are an expert in our profession, at such a level of distinction, that your suggestions carried great weight with lawmakers and educators in our country.

It was such a shock, to me, that you didn't understand the serious consequences of your actions at the time, while many of us NON experts did. It seemed so surreal to me.

The consequences of the actions of this Pandora act will continue to reverberate throughout our American Education system for decades. I just hope a vibrant, American PUBLIC Education System will survive.

n2teaching: Substitutes

letter from a student by evchu.nyc
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While I've taught more than substituted, I can tell you that substituting is the hardest type of teaching to accomplish. If you plan to truly work effectively as a substitute, here are some ideas that you might want to consider.

The teacher who works diligently to have good lesson plans, deserves a substitute that will effectively use them with the class.

If the teacher leaves good notes, the substitute should leave good notes about what happened through the day.

The substitute stands in for the teacher, and their best philosophy is to help the teacher as well as possible.

Not all substitutes or teachers are equal, so these high expectations may not be implemented by them. Those teachers who have high expectations for the substitute working in their classroom, should request and receive a substitute who agrees with their high standards.

This has always been an important topic, yet it is always helpful to discuss our beliefs about the need and use of effective substitutes.

Sunday's Simple Subject: Project Your Own IWB

Do you want an interactive whiteboard, but there is no money in the budget for this type of technology?

Well, now you can own a projector that has the capabilities to make any surface an interactive white board, all for a cost of $2,100 or less.

Epson and Boxlight are the two companies who have combined a computer projector with the interactive capabilities of the IWB technologies.

This would be an excellent value for schools that need a projector and want an interactive whiteboard.

clipped from www.eschoolnews.com Epson's new BrightLink 450Wi ultra short-throw projector eliminates the need for a separate IWB. In a move that could shake up the interactive whiteboard (IWB) market, two projector manufacturers have just released new products that can turn virtually any surface into an IWB. The development means schools no longer have to buy separate hardware to enjoy the benefits of IWBs, whose interactive surface and ability to engage students have made them quite popular in classrooms. “We would certainly consider this projector a game-changer,” said Claudine Wolas, project manager for Epson Electronics’ BrightLink 450Wi. “It’s not just the newest and latest in projectors, but in whiteboards as well.” Epson and Boxlight aren’t the first companies to come out with technology that can turn any flat surface into an IWB. But to use these other systems, schools will still need a digital projector—whereas Epson’s and Boxlight’s solutions are self-contained.

Saturday Specifics: Baby Callie, A Casualty of the Unvaccinated

This little piggy (EXPLORED) by Insight Imaging: John A Ryan Photography
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• Baby Callie, died this year, 2010, because someone who was not vaccinated gave her pertussis, also called "Whooping Cough". This disease is a scary way for a baby to die. 
• Are you vaccinated? 
• Is your family vaccinated?

If you or your family are not vaccinated, I hope you will avoid contact with others. You have the potential to be death dealers.

clipped from abcnews.go.com Baby Callie was a miracle baby to Katie and Craig VanTourhout of South Bend, Ind. After four miscarriages, Katie VanTourhout got pregnant again in 2009 and this time it was a success. It was an easy, healthy pregnancy, VanTourhout said her doctors told her. Her doctor made sure she had flu shots, she said. And then, six weeks before she was due, Callie Grace was born on Christmas Day. But when Callie was a couple weeks old, she developed a cough, so the VanTourhouts checked in with their pediatrician. Although Katie VanTourhout said doctors told them it was nothing too serious, the cough persisted, and during a return visit to the doctor, Callie stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital. Two days later, at 38 days old, Callie stopped breathing again and could not be saved.

Sharing My PLN: YouTube Tools for Schools

Three very helpful web applications are described and demonstrated here by Adam Bellows, @edutecher. Teachers could benefit by using these applications to remove distractions when using YouTube videos.

Friendly Friday! "No One Is an Island!"

While I have been using Plurk more often, I still collaborate with a group of educators and other like minded people that use Twitter. I'm not alone in the world, and neither are you. I post to Twitter and check out the stream at particular moments in time, but I don't always see my entire stream. I always wonder if I'm missing something significant.
I've found an online tool, a way to capture the essence of those I follow. I'm using paper.li. It's an online newspaper that's more than an rss feed. It has the look of a newspaper, and paper.li streams my Twitter contributions on the top fold.
Paper.li was created by Small Rivers to show how streaming data can be presented in an appealing way. At the moment their first "newspaper" style application is created from your Twitter feed, but the goal is to expand this web application for other streaming media.
If you haven't tried Paper.li, I would recommend it.

Perceptions vs Reality Can Mean Life or Death!

Researchers have discovered that there are several variables that can have a statistical effect of patient survival, yet many "...surgeons placed less importance on sex, type of anesthesia, and ASA score [level of anemia]...."
This new information could decrease the high number of deaths, up to 22%, from hip fractures and resulting surgery.
For teachers or others involved with professional development and meta-analysis types of research, this article explains, in detail, the research procedures which would be a great help for many.

clipped from www.orthosupersite.com Evidence Versus Beliefs About Predictors of Outcome by Michael Zlowodzki, MD; Paul Tornetta III, MD; George Haidukewych, MD; Beate P. Hanson, MD, MPH; Brad Petrisor, MD, MSc; Marc F. Swiontkowski, MD; Emil H. Schemitsch, MD; Peter V. Giannoudis, MD; Mohit Bhandari, MD, MSc, FRCSC Knowledge of predictors of outcome can and should influence treatment decisions and can subsequently improve outcomes Hip fractures have devastating consequences for patients and their families, including a 22% mortality rate within 1 year postoperatively3 and substantial impairment of independence and quality of life.4 Hip fractures also account for more hospital days than any other musculoskeletal injury and represent more than two-thirds of all hospital days due to fractures.5 Figure: The responses of American surgeons vs European surgeons regarding predictors of outcome after operative treatment of femoral neck fractures. greatest discrepancy between survey and current evidence related to the type of anesthesia

Drops of Old Glory

drops of old glory
Originally uploaded by Steve took it

Amazing images that are shared with us are available to all students and teachers for use, as long as we follow the Creative Commons Share-Alike non commerical copyright. That's always easy to do, since we are teachers and students.

Check The Correlates

What are Effective Schools?

Yes, if you want to improve something, you must ask the right questions. How do you ask the right questions about making a community's high school effective? Find effective schools that resemble your demographics and implement similar strategies.

One concern from some readers might be with this point: "All students must learn the advanced skills that are the key to success in college and in the 21st century workplace...." What does that mean? Is the all4ed organization saying that all students should be required to go to college?

I'm wondering.

Is this the breakpoint where we raise compulsory education to the 14th grade?

I agree with all the ideas, but I'm wondering if the ten points might be clarified in a way that encourages more reader acknowledgment and acceptance. I believe that initial acceptance or tolerance for an idea will lead readers to a continued study the ideas presented. If some readers are put off by the language describing the first point, it may be difficult to get them to proceed to the other elements.

I believe in the effective schools movement where effective communication is the primary concern, the key to success, of any education reform.

clipped from all4ed.org Regardless of their plans, all of the nation's young people need high-level knowledge and skills to achieve success in a rapidly changing world of technological advances and international competitiveness. And every American has a stake in their success, whether they have school-age children of their own or not. children of their own or not. How effective is your community's high school in educating its students? You don't have to be a school superintendent or member of Congress to help the six million students most at risk of failing to graduate from high school. Drawing from the work of leading researchers and educators from around the country, the Alliance for Excellent Education has identified ten key elements that every high school should have in place to ensure that all its students are successful. The list includes challenging classes, a safe learning environment, and skilled teachers.

Tuesday Trait: VOICE

hacia dónde? by movimente
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VOICE! Mine or yours? Immediate or Distant? Weak or Powerful? Voice is as potent as Venus when she took pity on Pygmalion. She spoke and brought his beautiful sculpture to life.

What awards such cachet to VOICE? A colleague's blog, of course. While reading Ken Allan's blog, Blogger in Middle-Earth, I found his first-class blog post One Voice? A Post for Bloggers. Teachers can be guided by his ideas and tips as they develop their lessons on Voice. I'm sharing this post for them, especially secondary teachers who may be looking for ideas for writing in the content area.

Over the years, I've written essays and guides, as well as shared professional development about the Six Traits of Writing. I've discovered that many teachers would like to know more, so I'll focus on the traits in the future. For now, I've found two posts from my blog. One is Six Traits Still Rule, while the other is It's delicious.

I hope these will encourage your thoughts on the topic. I believe you can provide expanded opportunities to help your students find, define and refine their Voice as they develop their writing.

Winsome Wednesday: Share with SynchTube

mirrors06.jpg by joshstaiger
Attribution License

What is Synchtube? A beta web application that can be used to create a synchronous, virtual group that can view and interact about the same YouTube video.

It's a way for a group of people to synchronize the way they view YouTube videos. Invite a group to watch a YouTube video at the same time. It's an opportunity to discuss, enjoy and elaborate on any video available on YouTube.

Will you try it? What do you think of SynchTube?

I think it could be used for many professional development opportunities, as well as class discussions and projects. The beta project has a bright future. Just use it.

clipped from www.synchtube.com

synchtube is the only place to watch YouTube videos with friends in real-time!

Simply paste a YouTube link and create a room. You can share this room with others, and watch videos in real-time... well enough talking, just try it already!

Simple Subject Sunday: Weed the Garden!

Colorful Garden by Hamed Saber
Attribution License

How often do you read through your archives? How do you check for broken links? Do you edit your tags? If you caught a grammatical error in a blog posting from your archives, would you fix it?

These are all pertinent questions to think about when you write a blog that you hope people will follow. Weed the Garden if you want to keep it looking good. If your links are dead, your article loses some of its meaning. I recommend checking archives, but I know that is time consuming.

Here is what I do: When I'm writing an article about a particular topic that's related to early works, I check out the links in the archived article BEFORE I include a link in the new article. This is a great way to find dead links. It's surprising how many websites change their actual names for their web pages.

Checking this links is very important for another reason. It is the way that you cite your sources, so it's critical to keep these citations current.

I wish there were some dynamic agent or web app that could check links, but I don't know of one. Do you? If so, it would be wonderful if you would share it here.

Effective Schools Correlates: A Teachers' Life for Me!

Urucum (bixa orellana) seeds by árticotropical
Attribution License

What is the core of teaching? What will make all the ideas, activities, books and lessons fall into place in the service to the education of students?

When I was a young teacher, I yearned to have THE answer. It seemed to me that there was an elusive ingredient to being a great teacher. In my mind it was like the golden ring at the merry-go-round. If I just worked, studied, and learned enough, I could grab the golden ring of education. As often happens with young people, I doubted myself. Even though I had wonderful grades, experiences and references, I was seduced into believing that there was ONE answer...a magic key to teaching.

Why did I search for the magic key? I wanted to be the best teacher in the world. I didn't want to doubt. I wanted to KNOW.

Being young, I thought there was always something else, some magic idea out there, that I didn't know, but there wasn't. Yes, there was plenty that I didn't know, but I hadn't figured out that there was no magic bullet that can replace the effective basics that help people learn well. It took some time for me to stop looking for something that I already owned. It took some time for the competitive energy of the student to be replaced by the collaborative efforts of the teacher.

When I was a new to teaching, I had already experienced the positive impression of learning that is based on the Effective Schools research model, encompassed by the SEVEN CORRELATES OF EFFECTIVENESS. I had learned them at the knee of all the effective teachers, community members and family members who taught me.

I also knew what a good teacher looked like as they worked in the classroom. Others might agree that they have had some great teachers, good teachers and not so good teachers, while some who attended the same classes might disagree with their list. What I didn't know, what I yearned to know seemed an elusive ingredient.

Over the years, as I gathered more knowledge and experience, I learned that what I really wanted was to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching. I discovered that the Effective Schools Research movement could serve as a core set of organizing principles for my educational philosophy.

What are the Seven Correlates of the Effective Schools Research Movement?

1. Instructional Leadership
2. Clearly Stated and Focused Mission
3. Safe and Positive Environment
4. High Expectations for ALL Students
5. Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress
6. Maximize Learning Opportunities
7. Positive Communication - School, Home, Community      

Are these ideas that people could define or describe? Are these ideas that you want to see in your school? In your teaching? In student's learning? Isn't this a support base for effective student learning? Isn't student learning what it's all about in our world?

Saturday Specifics: What Google Tools?

Google New Year 2010 by COG LOG LAB.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

How many Google Tools do you use? In this nicely written review, 57 useful Google Tools for education are discussed. This article could be updated. What tools would you list today?

clipped from www.collegeathome.com

57 Useful Google Tools Scholars, Students, and Hobbyists

If you’re like most people, you use Google’s products several times a day to search for information or check email. Most people don’t know, however, how many useful tools Google has to make research and time management much easier. Here are just a few of the products Google offers that may be worth trying whether you’re a scholar, student, or hobbyist.

Quantum Aspects of Game Theory

Pass The Pigs by Kaptain Kobold
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Hagen Lindstädt and Jürgen Müller, authors of Making Game Theory work for Managers, explain the ways in which Game Theory can be used to help business, as well as the ways managers may misuse the theory. This is also a good model for teachers to use when developing a plan to implement standards, teach content, affect student behavior and more.

One problem with using any model, is trying to cherry pick the "best, right" answer to a particular circumstance and not deviating from the plan, even when the scenario changes.

As the authors state so well, the best way to use Game Theory is to develop a "...range of outcomes".

As teachers get closer to the points where the various outcomes diverge, there is usually more data that can be used to revamp the model and hone in on the point of actual reality.

clipped from www.mckinseyquarterly.com Making game theory work for managers In times of uncertainty, game theory should come to the forefront as a strategic tool, for it offers perspectives on how players might act under various circumstances, as well as other kinds of valuable information for making decisions. it’s often misused to provide a single, overly precise answer to complex problems. The key is to use the discipline to develop a range of outcomes based on decisions by reasonable actors and to present the advantages and disadvantages of each option.