Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Term 1 Week 11 - e-learning & lots of readings

Upcoming Events:

14 Apr - Pink Shirt Day (bullying)


18 April - Earth day


2-8 May Global Action Week 2011: Yes She Can! Global Action Week (GAW) will take place from 2-8 May 2011, under the theme of "Women and Girls' Education". With the slogan, "It's a Right, Make it Right: Education for Girls and Women Now!" and sub-slogan "Yes She Can", the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), as main organizer, has announced that GAW 2011's main activity will revolve around "story telling", also referred to as "The Big Story". The main activity aims to link the local group and school work with the national and global events. With only 5 years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve all Education for All goals, the GCE reminds the international community once again, their task of being the 'voice for the voiceless' by increasing the frequency of their demands from governments to live up to their commitments in education. The international community is encouraged to involve policy makers and politicians to address problems that hinder girls' access to school and to provide women, regardless of age, the basic skills training needed.


For more information, download:



Professional Reading:


This week I have tried to come up with a few readings/ viewings that may interest you over the holidays. Some are to do with this week’s theme – e-learning – others are of general interest.


Articles from Educational Leadership Magazine: Teaching Screenagers (February 2011):



I have a subscription to Educational Leadership magazine so if any of the following articles sound like something you would like to read, let me know and I will make a copy for you.



  • Using Websites Wisely - Julie Coiro and Jay Fogleman - A look at instructional websites you will want to use with your students.

  • Adventures with Cell Phones - Liz Kolb - Why it's time to stop banning cell phones and start integrating them into learning.

  • What Screenagers Say About … - Pete Davidson, Alison Enzinna, Casey Gannon, Samoris Hall, Corinne Hayward, Ogechi Irondi, Ashley Magnifico, Terence Perry and Michael Virag - … multitasking, PowerPoint, the downside of technology, and more.

  • High-Tech Cruelty - Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin - What can prevent bullying inside and outside of school?

  • Let's Hear It For … - Matt Federoff, Troy Hicks, Anthony Mangiacapre, Erin Reilly, Ryan Imbriale, Eric Sheninger, Dan Meyer and Eric Langhorst - … all the devices technology leaders wish they had had when they were students.

  • A Technology Plan That Works - Amy Overbay, Melinda Mollette and Ellen S. Vasu - Technology plans must be about people, not technology.

  • Making the Most of Your Class Website - Lemoyne S. Dunn - How to extend learning with your own class website.

  • The Need for Computer Science - Jane Margolis, Joanna Goode and David Bernier - High school computer science classes can propel students into promising careers.

  • How PowerPoint Is Killing Education - Marc Isseks - Can we dodge those bullets—and use PowerPoint more effectively?

Articles from Educational Leadership Magazine: What students need to learn (March 2011):



Articles that I can copy for you if you let me know:



  • What Students Really Need to Learn - Lynne Munson - Concentrating on content is common practice in most high-achieving countries.

  • Building on the Common Core - David T. Conley - The Common Core State Standards offer an opportunity to shift away from shallow test prep to a focus on complex cognitive skills.

  • Ethics: From Thought to Action - Robert J. Sternberg - Ethical action is a 21st century skill deserving of a place in schools.

  • What At-Risk Readers Need - Richard L. Allington - We know that high-quality instruction is the key: Why aren't we opening the door?

  • Worthy Texts: Who Decides? - Barry Gilmore - Standards have a blind spot if they deemphasize students' role in choosing what they want to read.

  • Let Strategies Serve Literature - Diana Senechal - When literature is subordinated to strategies, students lose the meaning of the reading experience.

  • Making STEM Real - Gary Hoachlander and Dave Yanofsky - Promising programs break down the isolation of science and math by connecting core academics with challenging professional and technical fields.

  • In Defense of Mathematical Foundations - W. Stephen Wilson - To succeed at college-level math, facility with basic arithmetic algorithms is essential.

  • Lessons That Connect - Young Imm Kang Song - Korean youngsters combine arts education, character education, environmental education, geography, and more.

Frank Baker: Media Literacy Webinar Media Literacy: 21st Century Skills All Students Need Recorded February 9, 2011 Most of our students are media-savvy, but most are not media literate. Students today tend to believe everything they see, read, and hear, especially if it originates on a screen. Media literacy, among other things, involves using media and popular culture to engage students in critical thinking and viewing, while at the same time meeting teaching standards.


About the Presenter: Frank Baker is an education consultant who shares his expertise on media literacy with educators around the world. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Education Week. He is a contributing author to the ASCD book Curriculum 21: Essential Education for A Changing World (2010), and he served on the National Council of Teachers of English Commission on Media from 2005–08.


What the U.S. can learn from the world's most successful education reform efforts


(A report from McGraw-Hill Research Foundation.) The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation released a report comparing the Program of International Assessment (PISA) test results of 74 education systems around the world and found five things the U.S. could learn from high-performing countries. The top-scoring countries included Finland and Singapore in science, Korea and Finland in reading, and Singapore and Korea in mathematics. On average, American students placed 15th in reading, 19th in science, and 27th in mathematics. The report says the U.S. would do well to consider the following: adopting common academic standards (an effort currently underway), developing better tests for teachers to diagnose students day-to-day learning needs; and training school leaders more effectively. The top recommendation was, "Make a concerted effort to raise the status of the teaching profession." Andreas Schleicher, one of the report authors, says that top-scoring countries recruit only high-performing college graduates for teaching positions, support them with mentoring, and take steps to raise respect for the profession. "Teaching in the U.S. is unfortunately no longer a high-status occupation," Schleicher says. "Teaching education programs in the United States must become more selective and more rigorous."


How does a school system with poor performance become good? And how does one with good performance become excellent? From McKinsey and Company (USA).


Our latest education report is the follow-up to the 2007 publication "How the world's best performing school systems come out on top," in which we examined the common attributes of high-performing school systems.


We compiled what we believe is the most comprehensive analysis of global school system reform ever assembled. This report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems everywhere as well as what it really takes to achieve significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes.


In this new report, "How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better," we analyzed 20 systems from around the world, all with improving but differing levels of performance, examining how each has achieved significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes, as measured by international and national assessments. Based on more than 200 interviews with system stakeholders and analysis of some 600 interventions carried out by these systems, this report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems elsewhere as they move from poor to fair to good to great to excellent performance.


The systems we studied were Armenia, Aspire (a U.S. charter school system), Boston (Massachusetts), Chile, England, Ghana, Hong Kong, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Long Beach (California), Madhya Pradesh (India), Minas Gerais (Brazil), Ontario (Canada), Poland, Saxony (Germany), Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, and Western Cape (South Africa).


Webinar: How the world's most improved school systems keep getting better Held Monday, November 29, 2010 This webinar summarises the research which led to the report.



e-learning strategies/ tools:



  • Choose 1 out! – A new developing thinking tool. From the developer: It is an interactive PowerPoint activity similar to the famous Odd One Out, but much richer in its developing thinking potential, I believe. The idea is that the children can choose three images out of 16, so they have a choice and it is not the teacher who has chosen for three images for them! Also, before they choose their three images there are four possible pop-up questions that help them choose according to some criteria (e.g. Choose three images that make you feel safe!…) at the bottom right corner there is an ActiveX Control text box that allows the learners to write the image they think is the odd one out of the three they chose and to explain why they chose it! I believe this resource is quite useful to develop thinking in learners from any Key Stage and in any subject, but have a go yourself. You can download the Physics example I created and the template to make your own activities.

  • Digi Advisors Offer Online Snacks - Online Snacks are a new initiative designed to provide teachers with the opportunity to develop e-learning skills aligned to their teaching and learning needs. All sessions are FREE and are facilitated by Digi Advisors - Rochelle Jensen and Suzie Vesper Each online snack takes approximately 40 minutes and are run using Elluminate, Adobe Connect or Skype. Snack dates and times are negotiated on request. Some snack ideas have been formulated but these can be personalised to meet your needs. Online Snacks are designed to complement existing professional learning programmes. Read more and register here: http://digistore.wikispaces.com/Online+Snacks or contact Rocky or Suzie for more details rjensen@waikato.ac.nz suzie.vesper@core-ed.ac.nz

General Resources



  • Animals is a very handy template for creating word Sudoku activities - teacher just follows the instructions given to customise the resource for his/her own set of vocabulary. Sent by Carol Young - Facilitator in Quality Teaching

  • http://secondary.tki.org.nz/ is the new Secondary Portal containing latest news items, secondary essentials, key resources, transitions and pathways, and a media gallery of videos with a secondary focus.
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