Summary: MSM 279: A test of random facts and Weird Al makes the show this week on Middle School Matters! Presented in collaboration with the Association for Middle Level Education. Jokes You Can Use: Test Questions: Johnny's mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child's name? There is a clerk at the butcher shop, he is five feet ten inches tall and he wears size 13 sneakers. What does he weigh? Source: http://blog.ivman.com/easy-tests/#more-7571 Random Facts An octopus has three hearts. There’s enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America in 1 foot of water. You can spell the word “upside down” upside down by using other letters of the alphabet: umop apisdn. The name Jessica was created by Shakespeare in the play Merchant of Venice. The YKK on your zipper stands for “Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikigaisha.” Every two minutes, we take more pictures than all of humanity did in the 19th century. Eileen Award: Twitter: Aaron Duff, Adnan Iftekhar, Kelly Lippard Advisory: Chat out of context https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-qpvjjNfLA#t=33 Perceptions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfZFuw7a13E Middle School Science Minute by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com) MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE MINUTE-SCIENTIFIC MODELING I was recently reading the Summer, 2014 issue of "Science Scope," a magazine written for middle school science teachers, published by the National Science Teachers Association. In this issue, I read an article entitled "Modeling What We Can't Sense - Using Evidence We Can" written by Juliana Texley. In her article she challenges the thinking that as we look at the history of science, we often imply that ideas were chronologically wrong, then less wrong, culminating with modern scientific theory. From the Twitterverse: #mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!” Resources: Why Reading Matters http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2014/07/18/nice-bbc-video-why-reading-matters/ The Seven A’s of Successful High Schools Defining what it means to have a “successful” high school is quite the challenge, with stakeholders often disagreeing on the approach to take. Following, I’ve outlined each of the seven attributes I consider essential in a successful H.S., as well as my rationale for selecting each. http://connectedprincipals.com/archives/10620 Weird Al “Tacky” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsWo8apgLys “Word Crimes” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc Leonard Cohen on Creativity, Hard Work, and Why You Should Never Quit Before You Know What It Is You’re Quitting before we quit, we have to have invested all of ourselves in order for the full picture to reveal itself and justify the quitting, which applies equally to everything from work to love http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/07/15/leonard-cohen-paul-zollo-creativity/ Summer Learning Loss So, if all the research says most of the achievement gap is due to summer learning loss, it boggles my mind even more that we are spending huge amounts of resources on countless school reform boondoggles like Race To The Top, Value Added Measurements (VAM), the “next generation” of standardized testing, etc… http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2014/07/19/is-summer-learning-the-silver-bullet-for-narrowing-the-achievement-gap/ Web Spotlight: Flowboard Presentation software that looks like a magazine layout, functions like HyperCard stacks and is more interactive than Slideshare. It’s an app and until the first 10,000 downloads it’s $9.99. https://flowboard.com/ emaze Think Prezi. With 3D effects. And a translation tool. Basic version is free, the Education version is $2.90/month. http://www.emaze.com/ Random Thoughts . . . ISTE 2014 Personal Web Site
