More and more amazing blog posts from this past week (in case you missed some):
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Biden Chooses Ex-Obama Official for Key Position in Department of Education | Diane Ravitch’s blog
During the Obama administration, Roberto Rodriguez was the White House advisor on education. He vigorously supported the Race to the Top program, the Common Core standards, and high-stakes testing. All of these initiatives failed to improve student …
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Some Favorite Picture Books to Discuss Our Perception of Others – Pernille Ripp
I love using picture books to help my students relate to the world and grow as thinkers and humans and recognizing that our perception of others greatly influences how we treat them as is a great discussion to have repeatedly. So why not offer up a …
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The Chagos Archipelago is one of the most remote, seemingly idyllic places on Earth. Coconut-covered sandy beaches with incredible bird life rim tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from any continent.
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Researchers create an effective RNA vaccine for malaria
Malaria remains a significant problem facing Africa. Of the 409,000 worldwide malaria deaths estimated by the WHO in 2019, 94 percent of all cases occurred in Africa.
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Could VR Be the Missing Piece in Meaningful Language Instruction? | EdSurge News
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Qualcomm and VictoryXR collaborate on game-changing VR education program | Qualcomm
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blendEDTECHlearning – Minecraft
All Minecraft Sessions require participants to have a Windows 10 device, MAC, Chromebook (that supports Android apps), or iPad. Minecraft Immersion, from crafting your first blocks to multiplayer games to learning how to use across any subject or gr…
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Oculus will sell you a Quest 2 headset that doesn’t need Facebook for an extra $500 | PC Gamer
The Oculus Quest 2 is a hell of a lot of hardware for $299. In fact, we’re convinced that Facebook is making a loss on each unit sold. Even so, that pricing is one of the main reasons it’s the most popular headset on Steam and our pick as the best V…
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We’ve recently begun concurrent teaching and, as anyone who’s been doing it can tell you, it’s tough.
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Free Technology for Teachers: What is Hotlinking? – Why You Should Avoid It
This morning I had a chat with a colleague who was having a little issue with his website not displaying the images that he was inserting into blog posts. The problem was that he was trying to insert images via URL instead of uploading images to hos…
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Structure Strips: Training wheels for making claims with evidence | History Tech
Sure. There are probably some of you bike riding savants who had no need for them. You just hopped on and started riding, jumping ramps, and weaving through traffic – no problem. But most of us needed them to get started.
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Fortnite Messed Up and Failed Forward – Classroom Powerups
The most recent season of Fortnite opened with a cool cut scene introducing the new PRIMAL theme. Players were then dropped into a new map and a whole slew of new game mechanics. It’s one of the things that I am most inspired by when making class co…
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Free Technology for Teachers: 7 Interesting Features You Can Add to Google Sites
Once you’ve made the switch to the current version of Google Sites, you might want to go beyond the basics to add some interesting features to your site to make it a one-stop shop for all of your students’ and parents’ needs.
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How to Create an SEL Choice Board [+ Template and Activities]
Over the last year, teachers and staff have heroically adjusted instruction to meet the needs of at-home learners.
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Star Wars STEM Activities for May the 4th Be With You Science | Science Buddies Blog
May the 4th be with you! Tie simple science explorations in with Star Wars for Star Wars Day. Great STEM ideas for the classroom or for family science with kids at home. Connect favorite characters, epic movie scenes, Star Wars lore, and more with h…
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Free Technology for Teachers: Sherlock Bones – A Virtual Owl Pellet Dissection Activity
One of the great things about living where I do is that a walk in the woods is always just a few steps away. One of my favorite things about walking in the woods is finding all kinds of neat, natural things including dropped moose and deer antlers.
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Free Technology for Teachers: New Map-based History Lessons from DocsTeach
DocsTeach is one of my go-to resources for history teachers. I like it so much that I feature it in my Teaching History With Technology course.
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On Teaching Reading, Spelling, and Related Subjects – Alfie Kohn
Half Truths About Whole Language “Kids aren’t learning how to read these days because ivory-tower ideologues have eliminated the teaching of necessary basic skills in favor of feel-good, PC fads like Whole Language.
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Is teaching reading really a one-size-fits-all endeavor?
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There is a widespread consensus in the research community that reading instruction in English should first focus on teaching letter (grapheme) to sound (phoneme) correspondences rather than adopt meaning-based reading approaches such as whole langua…
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The Role of Stories in Beginning Reading – Language Magazine
The goal of beginning reading instruction is to help students develop a pleasure-reading habit.
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Literacy Research Association Releases Dyslexia Research Report
Dyslexia is the currently popular explanation for the fact that some children experience much more difficulty than others in becoming literate. The explanation hypothesizes a neurological difference that also confers a range of benefits and necessit…
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Peer Feedback: Making It Meaningful – Dr. Catlin Tucker
Choice is a powerful motivator. Giving students meaningful choices can help them to successfully complete tasks. So, why not use this format for peer editing? Building student agency into the peer feedback process removes barriers and encourages stu…
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Add Voice Recordings to Google Forms
Earlier this year I shared a series of videos about how to add voice comments to Google Documents, Google Slides, and Google Classroom. All of those videos featured the use of a free Chrome extension called Mote. Over the weekend Mote added support …
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What’s to be Proud of? LGBTQ Pride Month
How does one even begin to justify pride, the first of the Seven Deadly Sins? Then, to compound the challenge, how to write about LGBTQ Pride, when same-sex love and transgender self-expression are still considered “sinful” by so many around the wor…
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Choose Your Own Adventure Professional Development
Professional Development can be an adventure! Yes, you can create fun, exciting learning. In this show, learn how Laurie Guyon uses hyperdocs and a “choose your own adventure” format.
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Barriers to purchasing education technology — ICT & Computing in Education
Notwithstanding those figures, the points made below still obtain. Indeed, in a way the stats serve to highlight the fact that it takes an out-of-the ordinary set of circumstances to make people change their default behaviour.
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We’re Not Even At Equality Yet | The Jose Vilson
A jury of Derek Chauvin’s “peers” found him guilty on all counts of murder: unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
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Free Technology for Teachers: Ten Google Workspaces Features for Teachers You Might Be Overlooking
Google Workspaces (formerly known as G Suite, Google Apps, and just plain Google Drive) has a lot of great features for teachers and students. Some of them are obvious while others might be considered “hidden” features.
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SEL Leaders, not Heroes | Mike Kaechele
This past Thursday was Earth Day and I came across two inspiring stories. The first was Mari Copeny, “Little Miss Flint” and “Future President.” Mari is 13 years old, but has been an advocate for clean water in Flint, Michigan and against environmen…
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better-breakout-room-experience-students
Five strategies that help middle and high school students form a community of learners in the virtual classroom. The pandemic has completely transformed the way we teach and the way students interact.
Another EducatorAl Blog 