The week's best resources: 7/22 - 7/26

by Derek Spencer

Happy Friday, everyone! I wanted to share with you this list of cool resources I saw this week. Check 'em out!

1. The first chapter of a book on Formative Assessment:

The Fundamentals of Formative Assessment — via +ASCD (@ASCD)

2. A good video on scaffolding. Though the video focuses on history and not ELA, the information it presents on scaffolding is general enough to be applied to any discipline.

Nice short video on scaffolding — via @Larryferlazzo

3. A short presentation on potential applications for Chromebooks in education. There's a substantial amount of buzz surrounding Chromebooks these days, particularly because basic models are relatively inexpensive compared to iPads, other tablets, and PCs and Macs.

30 ideas for using Chromebooks in Education — via @ArielMyers1

4. An infographic on Creative Commons licenses. Useful for any teacher wondering if their use of a particular image, sound file, or bit of text is legal under copyright law. It's a good resource for students as well. The English isn't perfect, but we won't hold that against the creator.

A must-see graphic on creative commons — via @danielrolo

5. Finally, PARCC released its ELA/Literacy Performance Level Descriptors for grades 3 – 11. The Performance Level Descriptors basically explain the grading system behind PARCC examinations. They're worth a look if you're in one of the states that's joined the PARCC consortium.

PARCC Performance Level Descriptors grades 3 - 11

Have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Monday!

Derek Spencer is a Marketing Communications Associate at Prestwick House.

The Week's Best Links: May 20 - 24

by Derek Spencer

Hey there! Here's the shortlist of links we found enjoyable and useful this week. If you have any you'd like to share with your fellow teachers, let us know in the comments!

Tech:

From the Free Technology for Teachers blog, this link has a few great resources for teaching the works of Shakespeare. The TED-Ed video about Shakespearean insults is particularly amusing — and it's based on analyses of dialogues from a couple of plays, so it shows students how Shakespeare's specific words produce specific results.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/05/5-good-resources-for-teaching-learning.html#.UZ5BSZzB-So

More and more schools are adding Twitter to their teaching toolboxes. Whether you're new to Twitter or a seasoned pro, this lovely infographic might help you discover new hashtags related to education, which will then help you discover new topics, new people, and new ideas.

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2013/03/printable-list-best-education-hashtags-infographic

Leadership and Professional Development

According to this article, praising students for intrinsic qualities (such as intelligence) might actually decrease their motivation to learn and to improve.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/23/stephen-grosz-examined-life/

Summer's almost here, which means it's almost time to start planning for fall. Here's some advice on developing a plan to improve your school's climate — and making sure you accomplish your plan's goals:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/05/creating_a_plan_is_easyfollowing_through_is_hard.html

ELA in the real world:

If your students ever question the value of learning punctuation, you might want to show them this article — a Canadian company may have lost one million dollars (cue Dr. Evil pinky-to-lips gesture) thanks to ONE comma in a contract.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25comma.html

Ideas and Opinions on Education

Seth Godin is a smart guy (that’s an understatement), and he has eloquently expounded upon several subjects in various fields like marketing, web design and — here — education. The link below takes you to a page where you can download a free copy of his ebook Stop Stealing Dreams in several formats. It's a sizable ebook, so it might be good for a weekend read.

http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams