Friday Favorites 4.27.12

Favorite Learning--Writing to Learn collaborative scoring at the high school.  It was great to hear the conversations about student writing.  The feedback collected will help us provide writing ideas specific to content areas, revise rubrics, focus on organization and concluding statements, and improve student writing.


Favorite Article--Putting Students on the Path to Learning: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction
In this article from American Educator, the authors ask whether people learn best when they have to discover or construct essential information, or when they are given full, explicit instruction.  "Our goal in this article is to put an end to this debate," say the authors.  "Decades of research clearly demonstrate that for novices (comprising virtually all students), direct, explicit instruction is more effective and efficient than partial guidance."

Favorite Resources
Bullying Infographic--scroll down below the ads to review statistics and information related to bullying.

Classroom Library Tracker--free tool to organize classroom libraries.

From Mark Brumley's Web 2.0 tools--several free options for concept mapping.
Bubbl.us has a wonderful user interface and is easy to use. This is classic concept mapping. Start with a central idea and branch off to other ideas. Connections to other thought bubbles can be easily created or deleted. For text only mindmaps, Bubble.us works great. If you need to add images or videos, check out some of the other tools below.

Mindomo.com includes many more features including a clipart library and the ability to import images from Google images or Flickr as well as video straight from YouTube. The interface looks similar to Office 2007 with a ribbon and tabs for the various tools. Exploring these tabs reveals a large number of options and formatting tools. Mindomo works well if you need more than just text bubbles and has all the power of an installed application.

Wisemapping.com offers a bare bones user interface but includes everything you need to create a mindmap. Start with a main idea and branch from there. You can add icons and adjust the shape and color of your content. Completed maps can be shared or exported as several formats including PDF.

Mindmeister.com is a nice blend of features and usability. Double click anywhere to add content. You can also include icons and images, either your own or from the clipart library. In addition, mindmaps can include notes, links and even attachments. Keep in mind the free version scrolls through ads at the upper right-hand corner and you can only create three maps.

Mind42.com is simple and gets the job done. Like many of the others, start with a main topic and quickly add new nodes. Content can be moved and regrouped by dragging and dropping. Images and links can be included as well.

Favorite Quote

"A core belief of building leaders who close the socio-economic achievement gap is that each and every student can be successful in the right learning environment." from "Getting It Done: Leading Academic Success" by Karin Chenowith and Christina Theokas, Harvard Education Press, 2011.  

Favorite News

Jr. High Knowledge Bowl Teams earn 1st and 3rd place in Knowledge Bowl. Congratulations to the students who represented our district so well and to the teachers who provided ongoing support for their success!

Favorite Shout-Out

To all of the teacher teams who have given their time and talents to provide leadership on the revision of curriculum units and to the curriculum coaches who make it all happen! We are looking forward to getting continued input and feedback to guide the work.