Summary: Presented in collaboration with the Association for Middle Level Education. Jokes You Can Use: Eileen Award: Twitter: Lee Ann Jung Advisory: Drawing out things songs that don’t make sense http://www.buzzfeed.com/nathanwpyle/nonsensical-lyrics-explained-by-gifs What Your Handwriting Says About You Have your students write about a simple topic. http://www.buzzfeed.com/celestinomark/what-your-hand-writing-says-about-you What do you need for one bedroom housing? Have your students write out how much they think that they would need to make per hour to afford one bedroom housing in your area. This is based upon a 40 hour work week and working 52 weeks a year. This can be extended by having the work out the math to include a vacation. Students could also figure out if they moved how that could impact what they need to make. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/04/22/what-youd-need-to-make-in-every-county-in-america-to-afford-a-decent-one-bedroom/ Middle School Science Minute by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com) This is the first in a four part series on neuroscience with special guest Aneesha Badrinarayan, Outreach Programs Manager with the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, in Ann Arbor, MI. You can visit the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum online at: http://www.aahom.org In this podcast, we look at the question of "What is Neuroscience?" From the Twitterverse: #mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!” Resources: What We Can Learn from Oklahoma’s Repeal of Common Core http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2014/06/06/what-we-can-learn-from-oklahomas-repeal-of-common-core/ ExamTime Introduces New Options for Tracking Your Own Study Habits ExamTime is a neat service that students can use to create flashcards, mind maps, and practice quizzes to help them study. The most significant of the new ExamTime features is the new performance tracking option. Performance tracking allows students to keep track of how they scored on practice quizzes, monitor which flashcards they know and which they need to spend more time with, and track their comprehension of nodes of their mind maps. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2014/05/examtime-introduces-new-options-for.html#.U5MXEZRdX70 Video: A New Version Of “I’m Just A Bill” That’s More Cynical & More Accurate http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2014/05/22/video-a-new-version-of-im-just-a-bill-thats-more-cynical-more-accurate/ Web Spotlight: SAMR Model Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2014/04/27/FrameworksForEducationalTechnology_SAMRAndTheEdTechQuintet_CAIS.pdf The Problem with Outcome-Oriented Evaluations “When we play poker, we control our decision-making process but not how the cards come down. If you correctly detect an opponent’s bluff, but he gets a lucky card and wins the hand anyway, you should be pleased rather than angry, because you played the hand as well as you could. The irony is that by being less focused on your results, you may achieve better ones.” Smart decisions and strong performance do not always beget good results; the more factors in-between our actions and the desired outcome, the less predictive power the outcome can give us. Better policy would focus on school and teacher inputs. For example, we should agree on a set of clear and specific best teaching practices (with the caveat that they’d have to be sufficiently flexible to allow for different teaching styles) on which to base teacher evaluations. http://34justice.com/2014/05/19/the-problem-with-outcome-oriented-evaluations/ Random Thoughts . . . eCommunity for Moodle Personal Web Site
