I Want To Be Subversive

What do you want your students to be able to do, not by the end of the year, but in 2026?

I love this woman. I want to be this teacher.

Speaking of reading children's books...

History of English Language

Cool little video on where our words come from.  I'd show it in class (6th grade and up) but prob skip the slightly naughty bit (end of part 6, I believe).

 and here's the original on the Smithsonian page

Voki Bear!

  ok, so maybe I've played around with these a bit longer than I should have, but I thought it would be a fun way to get my students creative and active on their blogs. Supposedly you can use your own voice and have the avatar speak instructions or lesson clarification.

Press play, and tell me what you think of my new accent!

Voki, as in voki.com       readthewords.com

Twain's "Robot Jim"

Schooltube Math Videos

I think I did this right... we'll see if any of the students check it out:

**Next week's Math chapter**

Thank you, Schooltube!

Learning is Messy

Great blog, this guy seems like just what I want to be when I grow up. His students are skyping, blogging, publishing, etc. Watch the Digital Learning post video -- very inspiring!

Learning is Messy
 

Vegetable Music: "In the Key of Carrot" *

Our music teacher, the oboe player, showed this video which led me to watch all the other videos -- rubber glove, potato, etc...

You are amazing Linsey Pollack, and I hope I can get the big video board working Monday to show 'em your stuff!

Which in turn led to other people playing vegetables as musical instruments. And why was I surprised there is a Vegetable Orchestra?

I'm thinking this would be cool for studying sound waves, when we'd also make those cool popsicle stick & rubber band harmonicas.

*not my line. sounds like something Bugs would say...

We've Got To Be That Light

A little auto-tune Milli Vanilli weirdness, but great message.

Ken Robinson Creativity TED.com

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

I know this is a few years old, but the ideas couldn't be more timely -- love the phrase "Education takes us into this future which we cannot grasp... children entering school this year will be retiring in 20[75]"

Above and Beyond

and speaking of Math...

... I think I'll have some Pi!

"What Pi Sounds Like"

Amazing Technology

EVERY student should have one!

...or 2 or 10 or 1000 !

My Theme Song

...or Fight Song? Rallying Cry?

I know this has been around before and in many different versions, but I'm man enough  teacher enough to admit it still chokes me up, convicts* me, and INSPIRES me!  Especially since one of the jokes running around my family and friends lately (and I confess I started it) is a variation of the old "Those who can, do..." ending with "...can't teach, coach P.E.!" har, har, har...

*future post on my failure as a teacher/coach/man on only the second day of the job... :(

with no further ado, Taylor Mali:

Animated by Purpose

Came across this randomly (or was it... "inspired"???) while playing with an iPad at the Apple store.  Through my drool came this rapid animation and words such as motivation and incentive -- words I happen to be turning over repeatedly in my brain pan as I get ready to take on a 3rd grade class for the next week.  Anyway, got home, looked it up again, this time with audio, and there must be something here we can use in Education.


Now I don't know anything about this RSA group, I'll look 'em up in a minute*, but the video is well done if a bit on the fast side... I want to run it back in slow motion just to make sure I caught everything.  Coming from the business world, I've experienced the "just because you give them more money, or offer the opportunity to earn more money, doesn't mean they'll work harder/faster/better/not be rude to customers" phenomenon. It seems the people that are going to work hard and get things done, and done right, are the people that will do it that way regardless of monetary or advancement incentives.  I'm sure the same is true of students -- the ones that will work hard and complete assignments will be those students whether they get a bouncy ball or Starburst or not.

How should we inspire/encourage/motivate our students?





I do like the Free Time idea -- let them work on whatever they want, but (the manager in me can't let go) I want to see results, I want to see contribution from all team members, I want to see your product shared (taught to) the rest of the class.

* update: okay, I've found RSA.org, as in The Renaissance Society, but that wasn't it.  Here is the RSA YouTube page and the official "21st Century Enlightenment" RSA site, and here is the video/art site for Cognitive Media  ...

...and here's another video -- he starts discussing education and "kids these days" at about 5:30

Wonder Walls and Imitosis

Should be working on cover letters, but instead fighting the urge to pick up my Father's Day gift by visiting cool Education sites and stealing collecting, graciously and gratefully, ideas such as the Wonder Wall .  Also found some awesome music by Andrew Bird* here on this cool video of a teacher's empty but always busy classroom, and virtual post-it notes.

The "Wonder Wall" is similar to something I had thought of before, and it comes more from being a father than a teacher: children are capable of asking over 1 million questions in a single day! Multiply that by a room full of 2nd graders and you can see how easy it is to drown in question marks... I plan on having a wall dedicated to questions students ask, with room for the answers.  Maybe we don't get to the answer right away, I can't let them get me started on Why is the moon so bright? when the curriculum calls for 3-digit addition, but by the end of the year we should have answered them all.  I think I'll have volunteer student "experts" assigned in September so if a stegosaurus question does come up and Jimmy has read every dinosaur book in the Library he can give a mini presentation and answer the question.
Someday...


* and I thought I'd learned a new word, the video's soundtrack is titled "Imitosis" -- but can't find it in the dictionary?

"Thank you for your idea"

How to Teach Math as a Social Activity | Edutopia

from the edutopia website

Roosevelt Franklin!

hmm... need to work on the sizing issues. Sorry.

Thanks to One Album a Day for this blast from the past!

Be Less Helpful

Got in trouble last night for waking up with The Wife with a way too late in the evening "Hallelujah!" due to checking out Teacherninja's post of Dan Meyer's video on "How to Teach..." -- all evening I had been slightly nervous about starting a week-long job, but this got me all fired up!

I'm not a Math person and he lost me on the ski slopes, but I am totally into the "be less helpful" angle* and I consider my absolute number 1 priority as a teacher (and parent/coach/adult) to prepare students for what comes next for the rest of their lives: solving problems.  I don't consider not having all the correct answers penciled in on a workbook page or turning in a certain amount of homework assignments to be problems; more often than not I see students simply copying off others, filling in the answers during review, or completely tuning out the lesson and discussion until the quick 'n easy how do I jump through the next hoop solution is presented.  It looks like Dan Meyer's blog tackles similar issues, plus he and his shopping cart were on Good Morning America!

*My sons will recognize this in the form of one of my mantras: "Look it up!"

Piano Stairs and Bedazzled Battleships

These ideas cover life in general, but what an important concept for educators -- The Fun Theory promotes changing and rewarding positive behavior through this new-fangled concept called "fun" ...

I also remembered this fantastic blog that I used to read almost as a daily devotional, but somehow lost it in the shuffle (maybe 5 blogs + Facebook is too much?).  It's not only fascinating history connected to today's world/student, but it's also full of that "fun" stuff to engage and reinforce learning, such as creatively coloring battleships? I did not know about the dazzle method of camouflage, but now thanks to History is Elementary I do...