More great blog posts!
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I remember being handed a book of policies and procedures to cover each day for the first week of school.
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how-among-us-helps-students-master-argumentative-writing
In the popular online strategy game, students make claims, listen to counterclaims, and reach a conclusion—skills they need to write a strong argumentative essay.
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Bonding and Materials Assessment
Choose and analyze three very different materials that are being used in space or that will be. Research the application of the material and the molecular-level structure.
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Competitive Gaming: Now a Varsity Sport in Barnegat | TAPinto
BARNEGAT, NJ – There’s a new sports jersey in town as Barnegat High School becomes the first in the state to award a varsity letter for esports. A traditional playing field transforms to a virtual one as students meet their opponents for planned vid…
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The idea that people learn better when taught in a way that matches their specific “learning style” — auditory, kinesthetic, visual or some combination of the three — is widely considered a myth.
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In Denmark, Empathy Is Taught As A School Subject That Kids Must Learn From A Very Young Age
When a baby is born, their mind is a clean slate. How they are exposed to the world decides what gets written on it, which subsequently decides what type of person they will become.
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Can — and should — teachers maintain political neutrality?
Samantha Palu, a high school government teacher in South Dakota, came to school on Jan. 7, 2021, armed with a plan to talk to all of her classes about the attack on the U.S. Capitol the previous day.
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COVID-19 Long Haulers: Persistent Shortness of Breath Due to Treatable Nerve Injury
Persistent shortness of breath in COVID-19 long haulers may be due to a treatable nerve injury. This is a reminder that shortness of breath is not always pulmonary.
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africas-hit-science-show-for-kids-is-coming-to-the-u-s
Lorraine Ololia is 10. She lives in Kampala, Uganda. And she recently came up with a new career goal. A TV show about science, produced by teachers from her junior high school, has inspired her.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Three Good Resources for Teaching With Primary Sources
I’m currently developing a new version of my popular online course, Teaching History With Technology (you can see a preview last year’s course here).
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Free Technology for Teachers: Filters, Captions, and Other Zoom Features You Might Have Missed
A few weeks ago I published an article in which I mentioned that Zoom didn’t have a native transcription or captioning feature. Within minutes of hitting publish on that article, people emailed me to point out that I was wrong.
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FREE DIGITAL MATH CURRICULUM: Illustrative Math in GeoGebra – Teacher Tech
Illustrative Math is FREE Open Source CURRICULUM. This is not just some supplemental resources, but rather something you can fully adopt for your classroom. GeoGebra is also completely free. GeoGebra allows for interactive exploration of math concep…
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An upwelling of rock beneath the Atlantic may drive continents apart | Science News
An upsurge of hot rock from deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean may be driving the continents on either side apart. The Americas are moving away from Europe and Africa by a few centimeters each year, as the tectonic plates underlying those continents dr…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Magnetic Poetry With Google Jamboard and Google Classroom
Earlier this week a reader emailed me looking for an alternative to Read Write Think’s old Word Mover activity which is no longer available because of the deprecation of Flash. Word Mover was essentially an online version of the old refrigerator wor…
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Experimentaltrials and ‘what works?’ in education: The case of grammar for writing.
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Give Options – Get Results – Classroom Powerups
Over the last few weeks I have been chronicling my efforts to create a Hero’s Journey based questing path. I introduced students to the projects two weeks ago and this was the first full week students were able to work on the projects.
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Pepe the Frog, GameStop & the gamification of reality – NetFamilyNews.org
You probably heard about GameStop, the WallStreetBets subreddit, Robinhood app and what’s been called the biggest “short squeeze” in 25 years – all of which was last week boiled down to the phrase “meme stock mania.
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How a tiny spider uses silk to lift prey 50 times its own weight | Science News
A family of spiders can catch prey many times their own weight by hitching silk lines to their quarry and hoisting the meaty prize up into the air. Tangle web spiders, in the Theridiidae family, are masters of using silk to amplify muscle power.
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Is Learning “Lost” When Kids Are Out of School? – Alfie Kohn
Anguish and even anger are entirely appropriate reactions to the fact that Covid-19 infection rates are still too high in most areas to permit the safe reopening of schools.
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EdTrust and Other Groups Ask Cardona NOT to Allow Testing Waivers | Diane Ravitch’s blog
One of the first and most important decisions that Secretary-designate Miguel Cardona will make is whether to grant waivers to the states that want to suspend the annual federal testing mandated by the Every Student Succeeds Act.
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Posters and Embed Them Into Your Google Site
Canva has been my go-to tool for making posters, infographics, video covers, and social media graphics for most of the last eight years.
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What You Need to Know About Standardized Testing | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Valerie Strauss posted this article that I wrote on her Washington Post site “The Answer Sheet.” The tests now required by federal law are worthless. The results are reported too late to matter. The reports to teachers do not tell them what students…
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Disrupting Our Assumptions About Our Own Failures – Pernille Ripp
I have been thinking about how hard we can be on ourselves. The constant negative self-talk we, as educators, can quickly sink into due to the supposed reactions of children we teach. How we can spiral so easily into defeatist thinking.
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Patterns Broken: The Opportunity of the Mastery Transcript — Teachers Going Gradeless
As a teacher, I agonized over my classroom and the most effective way to reach and inspire my students to grow and learn in a system that seemed designed to stifle passion and engagement.
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Grade Less. Learn More. When Arthur and I first met, I do not believe either of us expected to meet such an impressive array of educators. The many voices from math, science, history, English, and other content areas have have inspired and influence…
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Syllabus – Gods, Monsters, and the Apocalypse 2020-2021
Principal: Mr. Mark D. Erlenwein Instructor: Mrs. Kristen Fusaro-Pizzo Course Structure: This is a COLLEGE credit-bearing course heavily based on group work and group projects. Deadlines are not negotiable.
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Book Cover Images and Copyright – The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say Shhh!
Note: I have turned off comments on this post. Please read the existing comments for advice on topic, as I think we have covered the highlights over the past three years and I am not qualified to give advice about specific questions (I am not a copy…
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Sentence Starters Can Help Propel Student Argument Writing
In my December post “How We Learned to Write Argument Online” I introduced the topic of teaching argument writing using real world issues that are impactful on our students – and shared some work my frequent collaborator Dr.
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Video games, like any other medium, can be an incredibly valuable resource for our classrooms. Unfortunately, there is not much out there that explains how to teach with video games. I often incorporate them into my teaching and wanted to make my re…
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Use Pictures in Flippity Templates
Flippity is a free service for making games, flashcards, and timelines with Google Sheets. I’ve been using and recommending it for years. In fact, my posts about using it to make board games and memory games were two of the most popular posts in all…
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In the Cloud Connect Community, discuss the latest features with Googlers and other Google Workspace admins like you. Learn tips and tricks that will make your work and life easier. Be the first to know what’s happening with Google Workspace.
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This tool does not provide legal advice. It records the information you provide it as well as your own judgment on the fairness of the use. See the tool [disclaimer] for more information. Only a court of law can definitively rule on whether a use is…
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U.S. Copyright Office 101 Independence Ave. S.E. Washington, D.C. 20559-6000 (202) 707–3000 or 1 (877) 476–0778 (toll free) Source: Butler, Rebecca P. Smart Copyright Compliance for Schools: A How-to-do-it Manual. New York, Neal-Schuman Publish…
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Edutopia – 6-ways-jam-jamboard-using-digital-whiteboard-hybrid-classroom
The popular Google app facilitates meaningful collaboration for both remote and in-class students. My excitement came not because I wanted accolades but because I had worked hard to make my hybrid class as interactive as my in-person class. This gav…
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Content Acquisition Divide – Classroom Powerups
I remember being a gamer growing up in the dawning era of the internet. Pre-internet a gamer kid like me would have to spend lods of allowance money to buy game guides to learn hints and tricks.
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Plants in Motion | The Scientist Magazine®
Meet Shoko Sakai, a scientist at Kyoto University’s Center for Ecological Research, who explains some of the remarkable reproductive adaptations of plants.
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Free Technology for Teachers: GeoQuiz – How Many Countries Can You Identify?
GeoQuiz is a new geography game website that was featured on Product Hunt a couple of days ago. GeoQuiz is a simple game that just asks you to try to name as many countries as you can in fifteen minutes. As soon as you enter a country’s name the glo…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Coverr – Free B-roll Video Clips
Coverr is a relatively new website that is offering free B-roll video clips that you can download and reuse in your own projects. Most of the videos are silent and are short clips of less than a minute. Downloading them takes just one click.
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Google’s Applied Digital Skills Curriculum can be the refreshing resource you never knew you needed. Best of all, it’s easy to use and 100% free for everyone! This post is guest written by Sue Tranchina.
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Use Jigsaw Explorer for a Virtual Escape Room Clue! | Engage Their Minds
First of all, I need to give a HUGE shoutout to Bob Flora at Jigsaw Explorer.
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Digital Breakout Tools | Engage Their Minds
“Digital Breakouts” are similar to the physical game, where students use clues to try to open locks. However, in a Digital Breakout, the students input the lock codes online, usually into a Google Form, rather than using tangible locks.
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Control Alt Achieve: Rainbow “Scratch-Off” Drawing Templates for Jamboard
When my kids were young, one of their favorite art activities was using rainbow scratch paper to create pictures or to write words. It is a fun way to be creative and is motivating to discover the colorful pattern underneath.
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Free Technology for Teachers: A Handful of Super Bowl Themed Educational Resources
The Super Bowl is happening this coming weekend. My prediction is that the Southern Affiliate of the Patriots Tampa Bay will win. And while this year’s Super Bow will be different from all previous editions, I’m guessing that my American readers hav…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Spaces – Digital Portfolios With Asynchronous Breakout Rooms
Spaces is a new digital portfolio tool that offers some unique features that teachers and students will like. Not the least of these features is a group portfolio function that is best described as providing asynchronous breakout rooms.
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Remote Assessment in PBL | Mike Kaechele
This is the fourth of a series of posts about what Project Based Learning infused with Social and Emotional Learning looks like when teaching remotely. Is it the ideal situation? Probably not, but it is the reality that many of us are dealing with.
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Go beyond February. 5 ways for becoming a culturally competent communicator | History Tech
Carter Woodson grew up in Virginia, moving to West Virginia at the age of 17 to attend high school. He worked as a coal miner while he studied part-time, eventually becoming a full-time student and graduating in 1897.
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Homeschooling? I am Not a Teacher! | SpookyMrsGreen
Are you homeschooling your children during the UK lockdown? Yes, me too. I detest it. I never wanted to be a teacher; that is why I chose to send my children to school. I remember meeting with the careers’ advisor at high school and they insisted th…
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Virtual and Socially Distant Valentine’s Day Activities – Not So Wimpy Teacher
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner? Are you ready? Whether you are teaching online or in-person, Valentine’s Day might look a little bit different this year. Many of our traditional holiday activities just aren’t possible.
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Many people spend more than three hours a day on their phone. Skip mindless social media scrolling and opt to use screen time for a quick coding lesson with Grasshopper, a phone app (also available on desktops) designed to teach users basic coding s…
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12 Ways to Stop Stress Eating | Nutrition | MyFitnessPal
Reaching for food to calm down is an all-too-common coping mechanism, whether you’re dealing with world events, a demanding job, juggling home responsibilities or other stressors.
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Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown”— the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change — as quickly, safely, and equitabl…
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Stabilization Wedges – Carbon Mitigation Initiative
To get on track to avoiding dramatic climate change, the world must avoid emitting about 200 billion tons of carbon, or eight 25 billion ton wedges, over the next 50 years.
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Calls are growing for President Biden and Miguel Cardona, the man expected to be confirmed as his education secretary, to give states permission not to give student federally mandated standardized tests this spring.
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Lizard-like tuatara’s extra set of genes may help them tolerate cold | Science News
The lizard-like tuatara already was an oddball. Its superpowers include a century-long lifespan, resistance to many diseases and a unique tolerance (for a reptile) to the cold.
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Social identities, as those pertaining to religion, may change over time as adolescents make the important transition into young adulthood.
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What’s the Science of Glass Blowing? | Wonderopolis
It’s all around you every day, but you see right through it. What are we talking about? Glass, of course! You might wake up and look out your bedroom window to check on the world around you. You probably look in a mirror to brush your hair.