Financial Football

This is a really cool, free, online football game that teaches finances for high school and college students:
Financial Football

Fun in Learning

People will choose to do something more difficult if fun's involved:

Piano Stairs

Possibilities I see:

using at professional development for teachers
using it with students as a writing prompt
using the statistics presented at the end for math lesson
discussing with students cultural differences - do they think it would happen here?

Testing

In the standardized testing debate, few argue that the companies who score the tests might not be reliable.  Here's one man's description of what life was like as a test scorer:

article

Food for thought....

What Really Matters

It's not about the teacher, it's about the student.  A shift in thinking:

Video 1

Video 2

Dynamic Principal

I love seeing and hearing dynamic principals who inspire me to become a better administrator.  I came across Barute Kafale when I received a message from ASCD.  Here's his website, which includes video clips of his speeches and downloadable brochures. 

Formative Assessment

Do you hate giving zeros?  Do you think a zero is an appropriate response to a student who refused to do work?  Do you think it's right to use every grade a student produced in a grading period to produce his or her final grade?  Do you use rubrics?  Do you rely on multiple choice or essay tests?  Do you give a grade without comments or do you always comment? Do you think giving a 50 as the lowest grade rewards students for doing nothing?

My thoughts on grading practices have been influenced by the following: 

Formative Assessment Video

Working Inside the Black Box

Doug Reeves

Contests

When I taught, I always tried to be on the lookout for contests my kids could enter.  I figured it gave some authenticy to their work, especially when it corresponded to my curriculum. Here are some I've come across lately.  If you know of some that aren't posted, please share!

Arbor Day National Poster Contest - for fifth graders, comes with curriculum, cash prizes

Alliance for Young Artists and Writers - for 7-12 grade, exhibition, scholarship, and publication

Scholastic Book Club Contests - continuing contests, aimed at elementary

Essay Contest - sponsored by Penguin books, yearly contest, 11th and 12th grade students read book and write essay, scholoarship money and classroom library

Oh, The Places You'll Go! - yearly essay contest for seniors, scholarship

http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/readandplay/ - monthly contest to win book sets

National History Day - yearly contest, historical focus, secondary students, cash prizes and medals

Invention Dimension - yearly contest; invent new game, toy, or sport equipement; ages 6-19; cash, prizes and trip

Videos

You may have seen some of these videos, but I'm hoping there are new ones. I find these motivational and great resources to use with colleagues during professional development.  If you've become jaded or uninspired, check one of these out:

I teach, therefore you learn... or do you?

A vision of students today

Information R/evolution

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Did You Know 4.0

Shift Happens

Schools Kill Creativity

Careers

This site provides videos of people explaining their careers. It's all about finding your own path. Roadtrip Nation

This government site allows kids to pick what they're interested in and then see what it takes to do the job and how much they can make.  BLS Career Information

Post-secondary information.  Includes "find the perfect career" searchable information.  College Planning

Online games to play about applying for jobs and other career information.  CareerGames

Need help?

Here's a site that is dedicated to the community of English teachers helping each other:  English Companion

Are you a math teacher looking for some online games and tutorials?  Look here:  Hooda Math

Want to kick up your students' Powerpoint presentations?  Try Animoto

A cool site for collaborative storytelling: Storybird

Blogs to Read

There are several educational blogs that I've read, enjoyed, and passed on to others.

Dan Meyer is a math teacher.  He does incredible things, especially with real-world math.  He also challenges notions of traditional schooling.  I like reading his stuff, even though I didn't teach math. If you do teach math, I think you will find it a wealth of ideas.  http://blog.mrmeyer.com/

Donalyn Miller is a middle school language arts teacher.  Her ideas on teaching ELA are really good, especially when it comes to encouraging reluctant readers. http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/

Randy Rodgers is a technology specialist in my district.  He constantly posts web tools and challenges to use them. It's a really good resource for Web 2.0 technology.  http://randyrodgers.edublogs.org/

Michael Smith is a superintendent who writes about the daily trials of educators.  Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but so funny that I never miss a post. (When I began reading, I read every post back to beginning.) Plus every once in a while he throws something thought-provoking in.  http://www.principalspage.com/theblog/

Want to see how students blog?  Great source for demonstrating to teachers how students can create effective blogs. http://students2oh.org/

Will Richardson, blogging and Web 2.0 guru.  http://weblogg-ed.com/

David Warlick, another Web 2.0 guy who will challenge your thinking (in a good way).  http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Plain fun.  http://bionicteaching.com/

Who Knew Google?

Google has GoogleEarth, as I think everyone knows. But, did you know about GoogleLitTrips?  It combines Google Earth images with literature.  The one I previewed was based on Elie Wiesel's Night.  It looks like students and/or teachers can create projects and upload them.  It allows for pop-up pictures and text.  Check it out.

Another interesting Google site is Google Docs.  It allows you to upload documents and access from any computer. The cool thing is that you can share it with other people, say peers or teachers.  What a great tool to collaborate on essays or other written projects.  There wouldn't be a need to print anything! 

Teaching in the Knowledge Society

I started reading a book for my doctoral program and am very excited about it.  (Click on title to go to book ordering site.) Here's the rundown of Chapter 1:

It's basically how we are now in a knowledge-based society, and education needs to change the way we educate students. 

Some tidbits that hit home with me:

"Nations and groups that do not or cannot participate in the informational society become increasingly marginalized by it." - pg. 18

"But schools and their teachers cannot and should not stand aside from their responsibilities to promote young people's opportunities in, engagements with, and inclusion within the high-skill world of knowledge, information, communication, and innovation." - pg. 21

"Subjecting them to more of the same does not change what students are achieving at." - pg. 21

"The regulations and routines of factories, monasteries, and self-perpetuating bureaucracies provide young people with poor preparation for a highly innovative, flexible, and team-based knowledge economy where rountine is the enemy of risk." - pg. 23

"Schools that are learning organizations for everyone build capacity to develop these essentials of collective intelligence." - pg. 27

"If we are to encourage students to be risk-takers, teachers must be risk-takers, too.  Teaching is not a place for shrinking violets, for the overly sensitive, for people who are more comfortable with dependent children than they are with independent adults. It is a job for grown-ups, requiring grown-up norms of how to work together." - pg. 28

Take it for what it's worth.  I think it's stellar.

Personality Testing

For years I did a personality test with my students the first week of school.  They found is mildly amusing until I starting explaning how the types did or didn't get along.  Then they really got into it. You take an otter student and put him with a beaver teacher = disaster.  And beaver students were often frustrated by otter teachers.  Ironically, most teenagers are otters.  The words require some explanation, but at least you can count it as a vocabulary lesson!  test

For those of you interested, there is also a book aimed at young children describing the same personality types.  book