Teacher Tools 3

http://classroom.jc-schools.net/guidance/teachers.html
Parent guidance resources
http://www.rayslearning.com/comment.htm
Teacher report assistant
http://www.thinkinggear.com/tools/
ThinkingGear Tools are designed to help you create and implement instructional products and materials that can be infused into your current curriculum.
http://www.thinkport.org/default.tp
Thinkport is a resource for Maryland educators, families, and communities from Maryland Public Television and Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education
http://www.region15.org/curriculum/graphicorg.html
Region 15 graphic organizers (English and Spanish)
http://www.bcr.org/cdp/index.html
BCR’s CDP enables access to cultural, historical and scientific heritage collections of the West by building collaboration between archives, historical societies, libraries and museums. The key to its success is collaboration.
http://www.findsounds.com/
FindSounds.com, a free site where you can search the Web for sound effects and musical instrument samples. Take a look at the types of sounds you can find
http://www.chemcollective.org/
The Chemistry Collective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, and concepts tests which can be incorporated into a variety of teaching approaches as pre-labs, alternatives to textbook homework, and in-class activities for individuals or teams.
http://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/
The educator's best friend.
http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/
Welcome to a place where teachers and students can connect art and curriculum.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/
NOVA Teachers
http://member.thinkfree.com/member/goLandingPage.action
Free web-based document sharing.
http://www.nicenet.org/
Nicenet is a volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to providing free services to the Internet community. Nicenet's primary offering, the Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA) is designed to address the pedagogical needs and limited resources of teachers and their students.
http://tappedin.org/tappedin/
K-12 teachers, librarians, administrators, and professional development staff, as well as university faculty, students, and researchers gather here to learn, collaborate, share, and support one another.
http://www.intime.uni.edu/
Integrating new technologies into the methods of education.
http://www.lasw.org/
This web site represents an association of individuals and educational organizations that focus on looking at student work to strengthen connections between instruction, curriculum, and other aspects of school life to students' learning.
http://www.pbs.org/teacherline/
Professional development for PreK-12 educators. A service of PBS Teachers.
http://www.inspiration.com/community/
Find and share ideas about visual learning, Inspiration®, InspireData™ and Kidspiration®.

Teacher Tools 2

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplans.jsp
Scholastic - Teaching Resources
http://www.classroom20.com/
social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/sites/sites085.shtml
Education World
http://www.edutopia.org/
Edutopia - the George Lucas Educational Foundation
http://letterpop.com/
Newsletters, actionable presentations
http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/index.shtml
Teaching Ideas - free lesson ideas, activities and resources
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/blogboard/
Teacher Magazine blogboard
http://www.4teachers.org/
4Teachers - Teach With Technology
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/javatimer/javatimer.html
Class Timer - count down/count up
http://www.megaconverter.com/mega2/
Mega-converter
http://www.engrade.com/
Engrade is a free set of web-based tools for educators allowing them to manage their classes online while providing parents and students with 24/7 real-time online class information.
http://www.gradeconnect.com/front/
GradeConnect - An online course management system that streamlines and enhances communications between teachers, students and parents.

Maybe Arne is Right

From the June 11, 2009 The Economist print edition.

American children have it easier than most other children in the world, including the supposedly lazy Europeans. They have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more. Over 12 years, a 15-day deficit means American children lose out on 180 days of school, equivalent to an entire year.

American children also have one of the shortest school days, six-and-a-half hours, adding up to 32 hours a week. By contrast, the school week is 37 hours in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark and 60 in Sweden. On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese.

Americans also divide up their school time oddly. They cram the school day into the morning and early afternoon, and close their schools for three months in the summer. The country that tut-tuts at Europe’s mega-holidays thinks nothing of giving its children such a lazy summer. But the long summer vacation acts like a mental eraser, with the average child reportedly forgetting about a month’s-worth of instruction in many subjects and almost three times that in mathematics. American academics have even invented a term for this phenomenon, “summer learning loss”. This pedagogical understretch is exacerbating social inequalities. Poorer children frequently have no one to look after them in the long hours between the end of the school day and the end of the average working day. They are also particularly prone to learning loss. They fall behind by an average of over two months in their reading. Richer children actually improve their performance.

The understretch is also leaving American children ill-equipped to compete. They usually perform poorly in international educational tests, coming behind Asian countries that spend less on education but work their children harder. California’s state universities have to send over a third of their entering class to take remedial courses in English and maths. At least a third of successful PhD students come from abroad.

A growing number of politicians from both sides of the aisle are waking up to the problem. Barack Obama has urged school administrators to “rethink the school day”, arguing that “we can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home ploughing the land at the end of each day.” Newt Gingrich has trumpeted a documentary arguing that Chinese and Indian children are much more academic than American ones.

These politicians have no shortage of evidence that America’s poor educational performance is weakening its economy. A recent report from McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the lagging performance of the country’s school pupils, particularly its poor and minority children, has wreaked more devastation on the economy than the current recession.
Learning the lesson

A growing number of schools are already doing what Mr Obama urges, and experimenting with lengthening the school day. About 1,000 of the country’s 90,000 schools have broken the shackles of the regular school day. In particular, charter schools in the Knowledge is Power Programme (KIPP) start the school day at 7.30am and end at 5pm, hold classes on some Saturdays and teach for a couple of weeks in the summer. All in all, KIPP students get about 60% more class time than their peers and routinely score better in tests.

Still, American schoolchildren are unlikely to end up working as hard as the French, let alone the South Koreans, any time soon. There are institutional reasons for this. The federal government has only a limited influence over the school system. Powerful interest groups, most notably the teachers’ unions, but also the summer-camp industry, have a vested interest in the status quo. But reformers are also up against powerful cultural forces.

One is sentimentality; the archetypical American child is Huckleberry Finn, who had little taste for formal education. Another is complacency. American parents have led grass-root protests against attempts to extend the school year into August or July, or to increase the amount of homework their little darlings have to do. They still find it hard to believe that all those Chinese students, beavering away at their books, will steal their children’s jobs. But Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884. And brain work is going the way of manual work, to whoever will provide the best value for money. The next time Americans make a joke about the Europeans and their taste for la dolce vita, they ought to take a look a bit closer to home.

Hope for "Our Endangered Catholic Schools"

The following article was published last April and, frankly, I forgot about it. So instead of writing about it, I'll just quote the entire article from the April 21, 2009 Washington Post.

The positive findings in the Education Department's recent evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program provide more evidence that high-quality private and parochial schools can have invaluable benefits for low-income, minority students. Tragically, however, Catholic schools, long the heart and soul of urban private education, are disappearing. Last year, seven Catholic schools in Washington were converted into charters, and the Dioceses of Brooklyn and Cleveland are considering another round of school closures.

This accelerating crisis, which robs disadvantaged city students of desperately needed educational options, has such profound and negative implications that two U.S. presidents, almost two generations apart, urged intervention. One of us helped staff Richard Nixon's "panel on non-public education" in 1970; the other wrote the Bush administration's report last year. Yet schools keep closing.

If America is to preserve inner-city Catholic education, help is needed from the other side of the aisle. We hope the Obama administration will step forward.

Most urban Catholic schools were originally built to educate the children of European immigrants; today, they mostly serve poor African American and Latino students. With their long track record of successfully educating ill-served populations, these schools can play a central role in the nation's effort to expand educational opportunity and reduce the achievement gap.

But not if they disappear. Between 2000 and 2006, nearly 1,200 faith-based urban schools closed, affecting 425,000 students. Most were Catholic schools, though other faith traditions also closed many of their inner-city schools.

In these communities, good schools are scarce. Districts try, and charter schools start, but a big fraction of the successful schools in such neighborhoods are Catholic. They have intentionally kept their tuitions low to stay within reach of poor families. Their disappearance weakens American urban education and blights the prospects of many thousands of needy youngsters.

Piecemeal local solutions have fallen short. This is a national education crisis that needs a national response.

It's possible that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the gravity of this challenge. Over the past decade, their home town of Chicago led the nation in Catholic school closures -- 63. Surely they grasp the heart-rending human impact of these school closings.

Both have solid records as urban education reformers, particularly with regard to charter schools, which are built on the belief that parents need sound education options and that the common good is well served by schools run under various auspices, not just by large public-sector bureaucracies.

Urban Catholic schools, though far older than charters, are cut from the same cloth. They serve the public interest by providing a rigorous, safe education to needy students, and they are run by an organization, the Catholic Church, that through hospitals, charities, food banks and more has long made valuable contributions to the larger community. Yes, religion is woven into the fabric of these schools, but that shouldn't justify governmental indifference to their plight, especially given the paucity of other great schools in these communities.

The Obama administration could help turn this fatal tide. Stimulus funds could be used to shore up schools on the brink, provide assistance to their teachers and administrators, or expand and replicate promising local strategies. The president could support education tax credits or scholarships, which would help needy students and stabilize school enrollments. By simply underscoring his support and concern for these schools, he would indicate the bipartisan nature of this issue, thereby providing cover to others eager to act but wary of the political implications.

America can no longer be distracted by the ideological battles surrounding educational choice and competition. The issue today is simply our willingness to save vital institutions that have admirably served poor children for generations.

Republican administrations have pushed this issue as far as they were able to -- but without great success. We are audacious enough to hope that, for the sake of hundreds of thousands of at-risk children, this Democratic administration will put its shoulder to this wheel and push until there is movement.

Chester E. Finn Jr., a White House aide from 1969 to 1970 and assistant secretary of education from 1985 to 1988, is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Andy Smarick, a White House aide from 2007 to 2008 and deputy assistant secretary of education from 2008 to 2009, is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Fordham Institute.

Teacher Tech Tools 1

http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/index.html#2
Ideas to Inspire
http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/
ICT in My Classroom
http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/
Education. Technology. Productivity
http://www.edublog.jrowing.com/
Teaching Learning Technology
http://happyhippy.edublogs.org/
I Should Be Marking
http://www.billmcaninch.blogspot.com
It's Elementary My Dear Watson
http://sharegeography.co.uk/
Share Geography
http://www.digitalgeography.co.uk/
Digital Geography
http://www.2learn.ca/teachertools/Wordprocessing/wphow2.html
Word Processing Tools
http://www.grammaruntied.com/
A guide to grammar, punctuation and style
http://sqooltools.com/
eLearning
http://www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/whatworks/edpicks.jhtml
Doing What Works
http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
http://www.besthistorysites.net/
Best of History Web Sites
http://nsdl.org/
The National Science Digital Library
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/assessments/
Interactive Assessments
http://www.fsdb.k12.fl.us/rmc/tutorials/whiteboards.html
Interactive Whiteboards In the Classroom
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/index.php?method=FreeDownloads
An empowering place where teachers buy & sell original and used teaching materials and make teaching an even more rewarding experience
http://adavis.pbworks.com/Language+Arts+Examples
Blog To Learn
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/03/lp322-01.shtml
Education World--The Educator's Best Friend

Five Technology Processes

Building on Commitment

A few blogs ago I referred to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I invoke that model again. Operationally, individuals or groups do not move upward through levels before each lower level is substantially and continuously satisfied. When a lower level is not being substantially satisfied, individuals and groups will regress to efforts to regain satisfaction at the lower level. Arguably this concept applies as well to my model above, with exception. I can see where the actions required at more than one lower level might be ongoing during the same time frame without deterring progress. For example, installation of computers and word processing software would probably be necessary, to some degree, before word processing training should begin. Yet installation of computers and word processing software can readily be installed while constructivist pedagogy orientations and instruction occur. As noted in the "The Results Are In" blog below, Maslow's hierarchy can apply to education as well as to the work place. A great interpretation of his thoughts on education can be found here are are quoted in part below:

Maslow believes that the only reason that people would not move well in direction of self-actualization is because of hindrances placed in their way by society. He states that education is one of these hindrances. He recommends ways education can switch from its usual person-stunting tactics to person-growing approaches. Maslow states that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self-actualizing person of his/her own kind. Ten points that educators should address are listed:

1. We should teach people to be authentic, to be aware of their inner selves and to hear their inner-feeling voices.
2. We should teach people to transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
3. We should help people discover their vocation in life, their calling, fate or destiny. This is especially focused on finding the right career and the right mate.
4. We should teach people that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life, and if people are open to seeing the good and joyous in all kinds of situations, it makes life worth living.
5. We must accept the person as he or she is and help the person learn their inner nature. From real knowledge of aptitudes and limitations we can know what to build upon, what potentials are really there.
6. We must see that the person's basic needs are satisfied. This includes safety, belongingness, and esteem needs.
7. We should refreshen consciousness, teaching the person to appreciate beauty and the other good things in nature and in living.
8. We should teach people that controls are good, and complete abandon is bad. It takes control to improve the quality of life in all areas.
9. We should teach people to transcend the trifling problems and grapple with the serious problems in life. These include the problems of injustice, of pain, suffering, and death.
10. We must teach people to be good choosers. They must be given practice in making good choices.

Practicing What You Believe

Today I was reviewing old notes about professional development and found this that I once wrote in response to a request for PD recommendations: "The professional development focus should not be on technology, rather on pedagogical practices. Should technology be found to be complementary to or facilitating of constructivist learning, teachers will seek training and education in the use of technology." At the time I was certain that if teachers believed in the value of a student-centered approach to teaching,technology integration would naturally follow. Seemed logical, however,it was not exactly what I experienced when observing classroom teachers. Wondering if there were studies on this issue, I conducted a web search and found this: How teachers integrate technology and their beliefs about learning: is there a connection?. The final sentence in the FINDINGS section states, "Put simply, the researchers stepped into the classrooms with a constructivist lens and found there was no significant correlation between teachers' reported beliefs about instruction and their actual practice of integrating technology." The questions I am left with are: 1) technology integration aside, do teachers who profess to believe in the value of a contructivist pedagogy actually practice it? and 2) what do we do now, focus on technology integration disassociated from student-centered learning?

Just In Time Learning

About a year ago I bought a book on Adobe's Photoshop and determined to learn how to use it. It was/is touted as being the premier photo editing software; however, due to its capabilities, difficult to learn and use. Being proficient in many off-the-shelf applications, I thought I would breeze through the book, thus becoming a Photoshop expert. Wrong! Well, maybe not entirely. Working through the book, in about a month I "Photoshopped" a lot of photos, creating some really cool effects. But I really couldn't find much use for the edited photos (a few family laughs was about it) so my interest in Photoshop wained. Its been about 10 months since I've even opened the application. What I mostly need in photo editing is redeye correction and cropping. The old tried and true Microsoft PhotoDraw (yes, I still have a copy installed) or Paint.net work just fine for such basic editing. So, whatever esoteric expertness I developed with Photoshop is now mostly gone. Why? Because I didn't have a need to use it. Of course, to regain my familiarity with the software would take less time that it did to learn it initially, but practically I wasted my time during those two months a year ago.

This seems to be pretty much how it is regarding most things technological. How many of you have been required to sit through four hours of, say, MS Excel professional development? This continues to be typical of technology professional development sessions, even though experience has taught us that ten percent of those attending the sessions will remember ten percent of what was presented. That ten percent needed only to remember the ten percent they remembered. They had no immediate need for the other ninety percent of the information and the other ninety percent of the attendees had no need for one hundred percent of the information. The ten percent with the need(s) probably could have satisfied their need(s) in a timely manner with a 15 or 20-minute one-on-one training session with a knowledgeable user. I call this Just In Time Learning. Or better, Just In Time Training.

It sounds a bit like the "authentic" (realistic, project-based, problem-based, inquiry-based, etc.) learning that we are familiar with as a pedagogical tactic, with two major differences: the training occurs because an immediate need is realized and the training is conducted during a time frame when the need is prevalent--just in time. Sending an email message to tech support, asking a more knowledgeable colleague, clicking the Help menu item in most applications, conducting a Google search, or perusing an online tutorial are just a few Just In Time Training vehicles available to address an immediate technology need. My experienced guess is that when technology training occurs just in time it will more likely stick.

I am not proposing that group technology professional development be abandoned completely. Group orientations and collaboration are valuable to familiarize staff with potential software uses and to exchange technological integration into classroom instruction and curricula ideas and experiences. Group training sessions are also appropriate before and during introduction of new or major upgrades to administrative and management software.