Skip Via's Public Library

We are all learning together. If you have a problem, your PLN (Personal Learning Network) may be able to solve it. If you are struggling for ideas, there are people to ask. The iPad and twitter make the process easier.

 

Learning has always been based on exposure to new stimuli, research and communication. Ideas are formulated through external opinion, reflection and conclusion. The availability of these components lead to increased productivity and informed decisions. The iPad and twitter make the process easier.

 

Some applications for the iPad are dedicated to productivity and have challenged existing working practice. Evernote now acts as a mobile filing cabinet, Dropbox is an always available store of resources and WordPress a site for reflection and feedback. There are many blogs referencing the use of these apps and their widespread appeal points to their effectiveness. However, on their own, they would not be as useful without the aid of twitter.

Have you ever imagined your ideal school? For me, it is one where brain research truly informs learning structures. Walking through such a school, I might find:

 

Instead of desks in neat rows and bells moving students at regimented intervals from one subject to the next, learning takes place in mixed age groups with flexibility of time and work areas suited to their activities. Peers, teachers, and student-requested real world professionals guide students in the use of technological, vocational, and professional tools – from ovens to skill saws, electron microscopes to spectrometers, and oil paints to digital design programs.

 

As its name suggests, RSS Feed Widget is a handy widget to help you embed and display your favorite RSS, just specify the URL of RSS feed, click the "Create Widget" button, it can immediately generate a short code for you, copy and paste this code to your web page or blog, it will bring your favorite real-time content to you.

Our students are reading and writing more than ever. In the 21st century, this reading and writing often takes place through the lightening fast thumbs of teens.  Although some parents and teachers complain that text messaging is ruining the language, research is showing that it is, in fact, a benefit to students phonemic awareness, spelling, and use of words (Yarmey, 2011; Plester & Wood, 2008,  Malson & Tarica, 2011; Fresco, 2005; Dunnewind, 2003; Miners, 2009; McCarroll, 2005; Elder, 2009). When we rethink and revision what is happening when our teens and tweens text, all sorts of learning possibilities emerge.  

Bill is the author of the highly acclaimed and readable book Wheat Belly, which systemically makes a strong case for the elimination of this grain from our diets. His lecture on the low-carb cruise’ focused on this aspect of his work, and focused on what I took to be three key areas:

 

Popular misconceptions can be fairly harmless, like the belief that it’s dangerous to wake a sleepwalker (in fact it can be very dangerous not to wake a sleepwalker).

 

In other cases misconceptions can be dangerous or limiting. False beliefs about how we learn can be the absolute worst, keeping people from trying to learn certain things because they’ve been told they’re not capable.

 

Here are three of these ridiculous popular beliefs about learning:

RAM-Tv and the Cheshire School Business Partnership present a video on the inportance of Protecting Your Digital Footprint. This Internet safety video informs students that what they post on-line today is forever.

Well, could he? If you trawl the net, you will find that the majority of material on language acquisition - whether of a first or a second language - is strongly Nativist and often simply takes it for granted that Chomsky and Fodor have, between them, swept away all possibility of opposition. In the English-speaking world - the French, for example, are far more skeptical - the Universal Grammar or the language module rules supreme.

 

This page is simply an attempt to redress the balance ; you will find a set of links to pages that offer alternatives to what appears to be the reigning paradigm. I add material as I find it, trying to give some indication of the arguments. Although I am neither a linguist nor a neuroscientist, I have tried to exercise some judgement over what to include, but you may find you disagree with a number of my calls. So if anyone has any comments - other than to pooh-pooh the whole idea of questioning Chomsky - I'd be glad to hear them.

The popularity of the iPad in our schools continues to grow, and with it, the proliferation of related web articles, tips, how-to’s, and so on. This week we searched out some excellent free Internet based web sites and resources dedicated to the use of the iPad in the instructional setting.

More than 7.8 million images you and your students can use in signs, projects, presentations, Web sites, worksheets, newsletters, posters and much more! As well as offering professional quality vector and raster images we also have JPG, PNG and GIF images in smaller sizes so that younger children do not need to resize them.