Month: March 2012
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A Heartwarming Google Search Story of Education at Its Best in Maine
Google Search Stories are some of the best examples of concise digital storytelling available. Please take two minutes and watch the latest Google Search Story published this month: “Cheryl and Morgan: Learning Independence.” This video will help you connect with many of the things which are MOST important in education and schools: Relationships between students,…
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Common Core Implementation Guidelines for Leaders: The Good & The Bad
Different organizations continue to publish guidelines for state, district, and school leaders working to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). While some of these instructional ideas are excellent and deserve widespread adoption, the high stakes testing focus of CCSS (which continues the unabated trend established with NCLB) constitutes educational malpractice and must be abandoned.…
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Engaging Students with Critical Thinking Strategies
These are my notes from a professional development workshop for school principals, “Engaging Students with Critical Thinking Strategies,” shared by Diana Jones and Cindy Koss in Deer Creek Public Schools in Oklahoma on March 28, 2012. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. This is a presentation providing an overview of chapter 1 of…
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Unwrapping Common Core State Standards and Unit Planning (Deer Creek Public Schools)
These are my notes from today’s professional development day with Deer Creek Public Schools (in Oklahoma) focused on understanding the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), learning to ‘unwrap’ the CCSS, creating a CCSS unit based on an existing ELA or math unit, and learning about resources for teachers/students to share for teaching/learning. This day was…
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WordPress Basics by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
These are my notes from our March 26, 2012, Oklahoma City WordPress User’s Group meeting. Our speaker tonight is Lisa Sabin-Wilson, author of the WordPress for Dummies books and BuddyPress For Dummies, WordPress All In One For Dummies and WordPress Web Design For Dummies. Lisa lives in Wisconsin and Skyped in to our meeting. We…
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“Mapping to the Core” LiveBook with Heidi Hayes Jacobs
(cross-posted to Oklahoma EDUshare) Heidi Hayes Jacobs is well known in the world of K-12 curriculum mapping, and she’s exploring the boundaries of “interactive textbooks” with a new project, “Mapping to the Core” LiveBook and LivePlanner. Educators involved in Common Core State Standards (CCSS) adoption and transitions may be interested in checking this out. Unfortunately…
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Expand your Constellation Knowledge with Star Walk for iPhone
This evening and tomorrow night in North America, the planets Venus and Jupiter are extremely close to the crescent moon in the early evening. I snapped this photo tonight from our front yard in Oklahoma City and shared it via Instagram to Twitter, FaceBook, and Tumblr (simultaneously) for my daily 365/366 shot of the day.…
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Open Access Crimes
Academic research should be openly accessible to all. Many commercial publishers as well as professional organizations have hijacked academic publishing for corporate and organizational gain. These practices must end. These practices constitute open access crimes. The Max Planck Society offers a helpful definition of “open access” in this context: In the scientific sphere, the term…