Here are last week’s selection of amazing blog posts:
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Making my Class Game Voluntary – Classroom Powerups
A constant struggle in creating a classroom game is the truism that a “game” is voluntary. As I design my class structures I attempt to build in an abundance of meaningful choices but on some level the students are required to “play the game”.
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Video: “Did an asteroid kill the dinosaurs?” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay I’m adding this new video from the American Museum of Natural History to The Best Sites For Learning About Dinosaurs:
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19 Myths Of Managing Difficult Students – Smart Classroom Management
There is a mountain of misinformation about how to manage difficult students. It’s on a never-ending loop.
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Climate Sense: U.S. stuck in icebox while Australia comes out of the oven | Watching Our Water Ways
Last week, I shared stories about a record heat wave that has been causing severe fires, drought and medical emergencies in Australia. This week, I was pleased to see climatologists and meteorologists in the U.S.
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Independent & Dependent Variables |
I have found my students have a great deal of difficulty with the concept of independent and dependent variables. Newer textbooks will now call these variables “manipulated and responding” but that still doesn’t seem to make it easier for students t…
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The 22nd Student Blogging Challenge Begins March 3 – Student Blogging Challenge
My name is Kathleen Morris and I’ll be guiding you through the next Student Blogging Challenge with support from challenge founder, Sue Wyatt, and the Edublogs team. The ten week challenge runs twice a year beginning in March and October. The next c…
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How to Cite Sources in Google Docs | Shake Up Learning
Did you know you can EASILY cite sources without ever leaving Google Docs? Yep! It’s so easy!
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Control Alt Achieve: The 4 C’s of Education
Our students’ future will most likely look quite different from our past. If we want them to be successful after graduation it is critical that we help them develop the skills they will need in five, ten, or fifteen years from now.
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Use Audio or Video in Your Sub Plans
The other day I saw a meme that read, “a teacher never realizes how much they do until it’s written down in sub plans.” Many of the the comments written under that meme said things like, “that’s why I go in when I’m sick” and “it takes forever to wr…
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My Favorite Low Prep Review Game – History Gal
I love review games, but I HATE spending hours to create them. Out of necessity, I came up with a couple of review games that required very little prep time on my part and would work for all of the different subjects I was teaching.
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Some of us may have been feeling safe here in the Northwest, as extraordinary cold has hit the Midwest and the eastern U.S.. Soon we will be feeling the sting of cold temperatures and even the potential for lowland snow.
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Maker Projects – Josh Stumpenhorst
Recently, I have been posting a great deal of content via my Instagram and twitter feeds around things our students have been creating in our library. Yet, as a follower on twitter pointed out to me recently, I really have not shared the how or why …
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New free resource for leading change: The Science Education Initiative Handbook
For the past few years, I have been working (with my collaborator Warren Code) on a guide to help others use a productive model we’ve used at the University of Colorado Boulder to support change – embedding educational experts within departments to …
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Petition seeks upgrades to Puget Sound sewage treatment plants | Watching Our Water Ways
An environmental group, Northwest Environmental Advocates, is calling on the Washington Department of Ecology and Gov. Jay Inslee to invoke a 1945 law in hopes of forcing cities and counties to improve their sewage-treatment plants.
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Now, growing demand for college-trained workers has brought a powerful new voice to the chorus: businesses desperate to fill increasingly complex jobs at a time of almost nonexistent unemployment.
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Facebook’s ‘Oversight Board’ & Internet safety’s next big step – NetFamilyNews.org
This could almost be a sidebar to what I wrote earlier this month about the new middle layer of user care that’s organically developing for the new conditions of today’s media environment – a layer of care that’s independent of government and corpor…
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Bob Shepherd: How Long Will the Love Affair with Standardized Testing Go On? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
As a nation, we are hypnotized by standardized tests and the scores they produce. We forget that the tests and the answers are written by human beings. The tests are not objective, except for the scoring, which is done by machine.
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Study claims @ClassDojo encourages an archaic approach to school discipline – UKEdChat
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Make Room in Your Google Docs Dashboard
One of the participants in my current Getting Going With G Suite course asked me about how to change the layout of her Google Docs dashboard. In this case we’re using dashboard to refer to what you see when you visit docs.google.com.
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Free Technology for Teachers: The Sunset for Classic Google Sites Has Been Extended to 2021!
Last year Google announced a timeline for the shutdown of the classic version of Google Sites. That announcement called for the classic version of Google Sites to come to an end at then end of this year.
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Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog
The coldest temperatures of the winter have hit the eastern U.S. and misinformation is now spreading around social and traditional media.
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Schools Matter: Spelling: Everything except what works
Everything except what works Sent to the Wash Post, Jan 29 Rebecca Denn asks “In the era of spellcheck and auto-correct, does it matter that my son can’t spell?” (Letters, January 29). First, it is not clear that her son is a bad speller.
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Warning, this is one of my longest blogs ever! Now we know a bit about what games, gamification and game-based solutions are (and are not), it’s time to start to consider some of the non-game related topics you need to understand to be good at build…
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New York Times: L.A. Teachers’ Strike Was a Setback for Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In a somewhat ambivalent article in the New York Times, Jennifer Medina and Dana Goldstein write that the L.A. teachers’ strike was a setback for charter schools. They say that in the age of Trump, charters are no longer popular with the Democratic …
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how-effective-sports-coaches-help-students-feel-understood-at-school
Of course, not all coaches are effective, and some kids will take home destructive lessons and sour memories from their sports experiences. Even worse, the intimacy of the coach-athlete relationship can morph into abuse.
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10 Perfect D&D Gifts for That Special Dungeon Master in Your Life – GeekDad
Special occasions like Valentine’s Day are the perfect opportunity to show your Dungeon Master some love. So why not pick up one of the following D&D gifts? Let’s face it, Dungeon Masters can have a pretty rough deal.
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Presidents’ Day Is Coming Up – Here Are Related Resources | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
President’s Day celebrates the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (though there is some confusion about the day itself).
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Many students and teachers come to this blog for resources related to IB Theory of Knowledge classes (you can find all my TOK resources here). What is a knowledge question? is from Theory of Knowledge Student.
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During Documentation Phase: Encourage “Capturable” Thinking | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog
There are three phases for the documentation OF/FOR/AS Learning process that Janet Hale and I advocate for in our book A Guide to Documenting Learning. This blog post explores a little the “During Documentation” phase and ways to encourage “capturab…
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During Documentation Phase: Capturing Images | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog
During the Documentation Phase, you might capture different media. Images are an easy and fast way to capture visible and sometimes “not so visible” evidence of learning. As with other media, there are a few things to consider to:
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12 Tips For Maintaining Momentum With Blogging – The Edublogger
Congratulations to all our “Get Blogging in 2019 Challenge” participants! They’ve worked hard over the last 28 days to complete the steps on our kick start calendar. This post shares 12 tips for maintaining momentum with blogging.
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Need Infographics? These are infographic posters available from designers all over the world. Infographics and posters have gone together since the beginning, and I love that I can help support these design by sharing links to their work.
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Tools Overview — Cool Infographics
The question I get asked most often is “What software do you use to design your data visualizations and infographics?” Although it’s often different for every project, here are links to some of the most popular tools used by designers all over the w…
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Join the DFW Data Visualization and Infographics Meetup Group if you’re in the Dallas/Fort Worth area! Logos are very important for a company’s image, it needs to be simple and memorable.
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Google Slides: Teach the Polyline Tool – Teacher Tech
A useful tool for younger (and older) students to know is the Polyline tool in Google Slides. This is a type of line creation where students click to create vertices to create shapes. Learning this tool allows students to identify things in a pictur…
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Google Sheets: Capitalize Text – Teacher Tech
Sometimes you need your text in capital letters (or all lowercase). If your information is in a spreadsheet you can use formulas to make your text in uppercase (or lowercase). In a spreadsheet cell type =UPPER( and click on the cell that contains te…
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Educators Share How Video Games Can Help Kids Build SEL Skills | EdSurge News
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Adding Rigor to Math by @mathdiana – Teacher Tech
Struggling with that term Rigor in your math class? Administration and other teachers will ask “where is the rigor?” Here is an answer for you: Rigor (noun): the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate. “My class’s analysis …
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The Unexamined Game Is Not Worth Playing ? (repost) | Gaming the Past
A bit over 8 years ago, November 2010, I wrote this essay on Playthepast.org. I referred to it a few times in a talk the other day, and thought I should repost it. The central premise holds up well and is still the core of my method using video game…