Two Writing Teachers

"Two Writing Teachers" is a blog created by, you guessed it, two writing teachers. It's interesting to learn what not only goes on in their classrooms, but in their thought processes. Ruth Ayres and Stace Shubitz met in March 2007 while attending a conference, and they have remained in contact every day since then, despite the 800 miles between them.
One of their blog entries disccusses a mathematical rubric writing assignment. Now that is writing across the curriculum!

http://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/

Non-Routine Math Problems

This site provides non-routine math problems that have been rated by viewers. I find many appropriate for use in classrooms. As with any resource, some are better than others so it is wise to review before using in classrooms.

http://mathforum.org/pow/other.html

Career Education in the Digital Age

"I watched a student use trigonometry to graph trajectories while building a catapult that launched a ping pong ball to land in an 8-ounce cup. His teacher had told me he couldn't add two numbers together," says Connecticut's Supervisor for Technology Education, Engineering, and Agricultural Education, Gregory Kane. Find out where the vocational education departments ended up after they were pushed out of high schools and how 21st Century Skills are embedded into training.
Read the article published in Technology & Learning - October 2007

FREE Online Vocabulary Tool

Tired of practicing the old fashioned way, a fifteen year old student created Quizlet. This free, online site has several methods for studying vocabulary words: flashcards, call and response, and testing, just to name a few. The user needs to only sign up for a free account (enter email and create a user name). Then enter the vocabulary words (chances are that they are entered already).

http://quizlet.com/

Forgetful? Email junkie? This might help!

There is a service online called jott where you can call their number from anywhere and leave a message for yourself, or for a group of your friends or coworkers, and it will translate your voice message into text and email you or your group. So if you've ever found yourself needing to remember vital information, but without a pen handy, just use your trusty cell phone to send yourself an email instead! There are also some very neat options for blogging from your cell (I did this the old fashioned way by typing it in) or using your cell to Twitter. The online service is free, but phone charges will vary by your agreement.

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Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits

Remember what your mom told you? You can't believe everything you read? Wikipedia is a fine example of this. We must remember that this is a site that can be edited by anyone, so we shouldn't rely on the information to stand alone. It goes further than that now. Corporations can easily edit unfavorable articles about themselves to make them more positive. Likewise, consumers can easily edit articles to make them not so positive. The Wikiscanner has helped identify where ther entried are coming from. If an entry is coming from within the office of a corporation, then we can weigh that information carefully; if the edit is from a consumer, we can do the same. Either way, we must uyse a discriminating eye when reading ANY online information, not just that of Wikipedia.
This article, which discusses Wikipedia edits, was posted by a student in one of my online classes. It is from The New York Times. Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ref=technology

Digital Students at Analog Schools

This video was created by university students about their university experiences, but in too many of our K-12 classrooms, for a variety of reasons, the same situation exists--students are experiencing learning that is not taking advantage of all the tools they have access to outside the classrooms, and we are doing them a disservice by not teaching to their individuals needs as learners. Here's what these students had to say.

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Should schools block social networks/communication tools or utlize them?

TechnicallySpeaking@TIE: Should schools block social networks/communication tools or utlize them?

Click on the link directly above to read this TIE Tech blog.

What is your wiki wisdom?

Wiki's have grown in popularity and are being seen in increasing numbers in classrooms across the country. Wiki's are easy to use and are multi-faceted in their use in the classroom as well as throughout the education setting. According to Vicki Davis in Education Week's Digital Directions, “Wikis … allow you to get 100 percent participation.” To read more about this as well as find out where the word wiki comes from read the article below:

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2007/09/12/02wiki.h01.html