National Archives Summer Institutes for Educators

During the months of June and July, the National Archives will host free teacher summer institutes in Washington, D.C.; Austin, TX; Abilene, KS; Kansas City, MO; and Chicago, IL. Each Institute is a week long and is designed to provide access to resources for teachers of upper elementary, secondary and college levels.  Teacher participants, who will receive classroom materials and a $250 stipend, will research historical records and create classroom materials. The goal is for teachers to learn how to develop materials “that sharpen students’ skills and enthusiasm for history, government, and other humanities.” Sessions scheduled for the National Archives in D.C. and at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene will feature STEM subject areas. Graduate credit is available for a fee. Ten-member classes will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis, so if you are interested, sign up now.

The Science Of Tsunamis & Earthquakes

PBS Teachers provides lesson plans to help students better understand science related to tsunamis and earthquakes. The plans are free and include links to a wealth of resources, videos. In the tsunamis lesson, students learn about the causes of the tsunamis not only through resources but also through a wave experiment. The earthquake lesson explores the forces that create earthquakes and the effects of earthquakes on geology and people. The lessons are correlated to national standards.

Do Current Policies Hamper Personalized Learning?

Yes, according to Ian Quillen’s Education Week piece State, Local Policies Seen to Slow Personalized Learning.  The problem is how to change to more flexible policies without creating “unintended new side effects”.  Some educational leaders recommend gradual change, while others suggest total revamping of policies relating to time-seat mandates, competency/proficiency, and textbooks. In addition to the need to revise policies that don't seem to be working because of new methods of learning, policies need to be established related to mobiles devices, social networking, Digital safety, common core standards, learning alternatives, etc. With the pace of technology change, newly established policies will need to be written with a look to the future rather than the status quo. Creating such policies will be a challenge for districts and states.

Stars, Birds, Chords, Puzzles

Netted by the Webbies has announced its six favorite iPad apps, three of which may be useful in your classroom.  Star Walk ($4.99) is called “awesome” and “fantastic”—a perfect way to learning about the night sky. It is available in English, Chinese, Russian and several other languages.  Karajan®Pro-Music & Ear Trainer ($9.99) helps train ears to ”recognize intervals, chords, scales, pitch, tempo (bmp) and key signatures with detailed statistics.” Audubon Guides – A Field Guide to Birds, Mammals, Wildflowers, and Trees ($29.99) helps with identification and with keeping bird and nature lists.

National Archives & Records Video Conference Workshops for Students & Teachers

The National Archives and Records Administration offers videoconference workshops for educators and for students in Grades 5-12. Student sessions include: The Constitution and Introduction to the National Archives and Records Administration. Educator sessions are: Teaching With Documents and Introduction to the National Archives and Records Administration. To schedule conferences, you’ll need to fill out the online PDF Videoconference Request Form in order to ask for dates and times that will work for you and/or your students. Sessions usually last one hour and can be scheduled on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. EST/EDT. Student sessions can include up to 30 students and feature topics such as how to analyze copies of documents related to the Constitution and the availability of primary sources in a variety of text, audio and video formats.  Teacher workshops include the examination of various primary source materials and information on access to government resources.

Is It Good for Our Students and Us to Be “Wired”?

According to Joan O’C. Hamilton’s article, Separation Anxiety in the Stanford magazine, we might be getting “way too much of a good thing” with our access to digital technologies and digital worlds.  Is “accelerated interaction” good for us? Some say that adding the excitement of video games to education and business stimulates learning and productivity, but others fear that being constantly wired to others and digital activities may result in serious consequences. How do we keep the real and the virtual separated? How do our students distinguish between actual friends and their hundreds of online “friends”?  While multitaskers may seem to be extremely proficient, are they? Probably not, according to a National Academy of Sciences study. Instead of accomplishing more, “heavy multitaskers are actually prone to distractions and irrelevant information and perform worse on tests designed to measure their ability to focus and successfully switch among tasks.” As we attempt to do more and more faster and faster, David Levy, professor at the Information School of the University of Washington explains, “We lose the life-giving dimension of being in the moment.” What does all this mean in our classrooms? With students used to a fast-paced digital world and with mobile technologies and social networks providing learning opportunities, how do we make sure that our students have the down time they need to absorb, think about and appreciate, what they are learning?

Norway’s Innovative Creaza Education Now Available in US

Tool Factory is offering the Creaza Education software suite, which features the programs Mindomo, Cartoonist, MovieEditor, and AudioEditor. These are Web-based programs that help students create visual maps, cartoons, movies and recordings. Student work can be done at school or home and can be stored online and downloaded to a computer. All movie formats are supported therefore allowing students to use any type of camera, including their cell phone cameras, for projects.  Sample projects can be viewed on the Creaza site. Pricing for up to 500 users is $999 for elementary schools and $1499.99 for secondary schools. Custom pricing is available for smaller or larger schools.

YoungArts National Competition

Until October 14, 2011, applications may be submitted to the 2012 YoungArts National Program, which honors artistically talented high school seniors and recent graduates for their work in the visual, literary, and performing arts. The program features $500,000 in awards, all-expense paid trips to Miami for YoungArts Week Finals, Master Classes with world-renowned artists, Presidential Scholars in the Arts nominations, network contacts, and scholarship list services.

Advice for Your Students’ Parents

TECHNO(T)PARENT blog interviewed Children’s Software Press and Power to Learn author Diane Kendall about technology and parenting. As educators know, parents appreciate learning about resources that will help them with parenting, especially parenting when it comes to technologies. Kendall suggests that parents be open-minded about their children’s use of technologies, keeping their eyes, ears and minds open to technology that can help them be better parents, but also remembering to check for pros and cons. Kendall believes parents are more tech savvy than they think they are and advises that even parents who are late-adopters.

of technology can master what they need if they do so in digestible chunks. They don’t need to learn everything, according to Kendall, for they already know what’s good for their children, no matter whether it is tech-related or not. To learn of more of Kendall’s practical and creative advice for working with children, don’t forget to look at Power to Learn’s Parenting with Technology, Computers & Homework and the blog Internet Smarts.

Tech Heaven or Hell?

According to Kevin Bushweller in Education Week’s Digital Directions, the tools of technology can make teaching better or worse. It all depends upon the teacher who puts the tools to work in the classroom. As Bushweller says, “The bottom line: Technology builds on good teaching; it makes bad teaching worse.” It’s the same with student use of technology, for techno-innovations “enhance good behavior, but they amplify the nasty stuff.” Cyberbullying is a perfect example of the amplification of bad behavior. As for tech and poor teaching, envision teachers who use interactive white boards like filmstrip projectors, chalkboards, or overhead projectors; teachers who give few guidelines for student research on the Internet; and classrooms in which only the teachers get to use technology.