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05 May 09

Part of the opposition has less to do with technology and testing than it does
changing people’s opinions of what school should be.
The move to PBL doesn’t have to happen overnight, Ross notes. “We encourage
small steps, projects that take weeks, not months.” PBL newbies can join
existing projects or team up with others.

“There’s no denying the first
time around takes time,” Ross says. “We hear this again and again from
teachers.”

01 May 09

a combination English, economics, and government course at Sacramento New Technology High School, in Sacramento,
California
English-geography class
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- proper training on how to work together
- Newman and Coit start the year off by doing a number of team-building and
  icebreaking activities.
- Each student then volunteers to take on a specific leadership role, such as
  being the group scribe (who is responsible for taking notes and paperwork), the
  marshal (who keeps the team on schedule), and the liaison (who interacts with
  the teachers on the group's behalf).
- Coit and Newman also recommend setting aside class time every day for students
  to discuss what they've accomplished and what they plan to work on the next day.
- when students form new groups -- is the ideal time for team members to establish
  agreed-on group norms for decision making and communicating with one another,
  and the consequences of violating those norms, which makes it easier for both
  the students and teacher to manage the group process if it veers off track.
- Part of the collaborative process is the ability to create a cohesive product,
  one that looks like one person made it."
- encourage the other person to tell you his story

29 Apr 09

If, in addition to spending time in a classroom, students have the opportunity
to participate in a wide variety of activities, including the running of a
little city, they'll exercise their multiple intelligences on many levels,
always in a meaningful way. "It's a town, rather than a school, and a family,
rather than a classroom," says Audrey Thornton.
In her art class, Julie Oliver invites students to explore music, words, and
collaboration through the use of finger paints, Legos, and clay. At stations
labeled for different intelligences, students have many ways to learn what
Oliver wants to teach.
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- And in Rebecca Goebel's creative-movement class, she says, "we use our bodies
  to help us learn other things." Math, she adds, is a good example: A recent
  dance was counted in two sets of eight -- equivalent to 16 -- and limbs were
  used to form right angles and parallel lines. "This is just another outlet for
  those children who, if they can do it with their body, might understand it
  better," she says.
- If they don't have an opportunity to demonstrate their learning based on their
  interests and skill levels, "they're not going to run as fast as they could."

23 Apr 09

Notes from a master in the field.

13 Apr 09

12 Feb 09

In 15 seconds, his followers replied with Web links to the information he
needed. No e-mail message, phone call or Web site could have achieved the same
effect.
It’s not easy to figure out what’s going on. Most people are supportive and
happy to help you out. There is, however, such a thing as Twitter snobbery.
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- Twitter, in other words, is precisely what you want it to be. It can be a
  business tool, a teenage time-killer, a research assistant, a news source —
  whatever. There are no rules, or at least none that apply equally well to
  everyone.
- In fact, Mr. Williams said that a huge chunk of Twitter lore, etiquette and
  even terminology has sprouted up from Twitter users without any input from the
  company. For example, the people came up with the term “tweets” (what everyone
  calls the messages). The crowd began referring to fellow Twitterers by name like
  this: @pogue. Soon, that notation became a standard shorthand that the Twitter
  software now recognizes. The masses also came up with conventions like “RT,”
  meaning re-tweet — you’re passing along what someone else said on Twitter.