Saturday, August 13, 2011
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
For Some, Understanding Math May Always Be Distant Target!
Crossroads by StuffEyeSee
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
In trying to understand those who teach mathematics, valid research is available that seeks to interpret elementary school teachers' math teaching success, especially as it relates to their attitudes and capabilities. Take your pick of any of this research on Teacher's Attitudes Towards Mathematics. The idea that many of our peers have a fear of math and lack the basic understanding of what they are trying to teach should not be a surprise.
Therefore, it is easy to understand that teachers who do like and understand mathematics and its place in the school curriculum make up the minority of teachers. Most likely, there will be a gulf between their ideas about teaching math and those of the teachers who are weak in math. Those who "get it" tend to be more organized in their approach to teaching the children, while those who don't get it tend to look for a fluffy way to teach something that is NOT ephemeral. Math has organization, boundaries, rules....
In the elementary school, teachers must understand that all this logic of math is based on the Real Number System. Although it's NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, it's NOT FLUFFY either.
In mathematics, we look for ways to talk about how to solve a problem, but we also MUST support a system of understanding for students. That's where the organization comes into play. The more the teacher understands and feels comfortable with the ideas and facts of math, the easier it is for students to do the same. Then this teacher will help the students, in a concrete way, develop a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. This teacher will use any and all available data provided through testing in the class or the school to bring success in math to all students.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
A Rose By Any Other Name
a helpful friend by 46137
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
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
Saturday, October 9, 2010
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
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Tuesday Trait: WORD CHOICE
Have you ever checked your horoscope? I imagine the answer is yes. If so, you know that there are some basic algorithms used to generate your "individual" horoscope. I would suggest that they are a little more accurate than the possibility of a fortune in a fortune cookie coming true, yet it's all good fun. Well, there is a little meme generator called I Write Like that's a step up from those fun algorithms, but I wouldn't bet the farm on its accuracy. It's just for fun, and this web application has a useful educational side effect...learning about writing through famous authors.
Just by entering a sample of your writing, you can be assured that your writing will be compared, using an algorithm. The author suggests that
...[c]urrently it analyzes vocabulary (use of words), number of words, commas, and semicolons in sentences, number of sentences with quotation marks and dashes (direct speech).Your writing will be compared with a basic group of fifty authors, and you will receive a badge with ways to share your discovery with your friends and fans on your blog, Facebook, Twitter and other online networking venues.
I write like
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
I was intrigued when one of my colleagues shared this web application, so I tried it. I must say that I was unfamiliar with the author that I write like: David Foster Wallace. Once I read a sample of his book, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, I understand how his Midwestern choice of words and our shared love of irony could match the "I Write Like" word choice and voice algorithm.
Others in my Personal Learning Network discovered that they wrote like Stephen King, Vladimir Nabakov, Cory Doctorow, as well as Dan Brown.
Some tried a variety of writing samples, and their results were often different. That's where the fun comes into play. It was fun to see which author would be selected using the I Write Like algorithm, and I think your students would think it's fun also. What's even more interesting is that you might just spark a student's interest in learning about various authors.
The I Write Like meme was created by the founder of Coding Robots, Dmitry Chestnykh, who shares basic information about this meme generator, as he expands the number of authors. If you have suggestions, please send them to him at Coding Robots,
a small friendly team of software developers founded in 2002. Our mission is to bring more fun to this world by producing handsome and handy pieces of software.This meme generator is going viral, so watch for its exponential growth and development. It was released less than a week ago, and people are already interviewing the author, trying to find out the "secret" to the algorithm. Others just never heard that saying, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth!". They are complaining about such things as the few number of women authors and the variability of the algorithm. If you want to know more, read Dmitry's blog and the comments for the entire story. He would like your comments, as he is planning to add more authors and features.
I would use the I Write Like web application to teach the concepts of Word Choice and Voice using the Six Traits of Writing analytic process and famous authors.
Here are some other Tuesday Trait and Six Traits of Writing articles you may be interested in reading:
Monday, July 19, 2010
n2teaching: Substitutes
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.
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.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
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