UDL At A Glance

I like what introduced here though I'm not sure it's anything radically new.  Perhaps some new language?

Leadership Qualities

http://www.cmoe.com/infographics/leadership_qualities.jpg

Quotable

Replacement

Mindsets

Bloom's Taxonomy and Costa's Level of Questioning

This is a great resource for bringing Bloom's Taxonomy and Costa's Level of Questioning together.

• chart

Curation

I've been trying to learn how to best archive (aka not lose the great sites I find) which will be a benefit to me and to fellow colleagues.  I'm hoping for something that allows me to both make notes on (annotations) and be able to share (with my thoughts) with peers.  Initially, Diigo seems to work as an appropriate tool though I'm hoping to learn more about it as I use it.  I like that I can highlight and markup websites and save and categorize links as I see fit.Check out these links:

• The Early Results Of An iPad Classroom Are In
• Annotated

Animal Buddy Books

Sweet collection of books created by kindergarten and grade 5/6:

• Cats
• Eagles
• Hamsters
• Dolphins
• Hyenas
• Golden Retrievers
• Sharks
• Eagles
• Cats

14 things that are obsolete in 21st century schools

I read an interesting article recently by Icelandic educator, Ingvi Hrannar.  What surprised me was the number of ideas which really surprised me which have for so long been--in my mind at least--hallmarks of schools.

1. Computer rooms: computers should be built into curriculum, not just a once a week phenomena.
2.  Isolated classrooms: the classroom should be visible from beyonds its four walls.
3. WiFi-lessness: students and teachers ought to be connected.
4. Banned cell phones & tablets: they are so much more than just single function devices.
5. Tech director with admin access: people need be working with teachers and students.
6. Non-Sharing Teachers: teachers should share ideas.
7. Schools without Facebook or Twitter
8. Unhealthy cafeteria food
9. Starting school at 8:00am for teenagers: not too sure about this one.
10. Buying poster-, website-and pamphlet design for the school
11. Traditional libraries: libraries should that just about reading books.  I once heard a librarian describe these places where students connect with ideas.  Brilliant!
12. All students get the same
13. One Pro-D workshop fits all
14. Standardized tests to measure the quality of education

http://ingvihrannar.com/14-things-that-are-obsolete-in-21st-century-schools/

Book Creator

Did some more work with a buddy class of grades 2/3 and 5/6.  Pretty impressive collaborative results.

Grade 5/6 students worked with their grade 2/3 buddies to begin the process of book creation.  While not yet eligible for numerous book prizes (e.g. Booker, Pulitzer, Newbery, etc.), time may be the only limiting factor.  Check out their work.

• Submission A
• Submission B
• Submission C

Students worked through the following self-generated checklist:

• add a picture
• how to write text
• insert a photo
• change the background colour
• change the font
• new page
• add a textual description of an image
• save an image from the internet and insert it
• switch the pages around
• place text over pictures
• make someone look like a superhero
• create a good ending
• draw an image using the pen tool
• change the font size
• draw a moustache on someone you know
• make a cartoon of yourself and add a talk bubble
• make a scary picture of yourself with photo booth
• tell a story about a unicorn and a dragon
• insert a photo of a really fat alligator
• put yourself behind bars
• place yourself standing on the moon
• create a text about a hippopotamus with a talk bubble

Book Creator

Today's buddy class was fantastic!  In addition to using a great little story building tool, the grade 5/6 students did a wonderful job teaching and guiding the kindergarten students on a pretty amazing literary journey by creating ebooks.  Previous to the buddy class, we came up with some practical and ambitious tasks we thought would be important to teach (see list) the kindergarten students.  Some of the results are below.
Class samples:

• Book 1
• Book 2
• Book 3

Check out the following resources:

• Book Creator App
• How to Create a Book with Book Creator (wikiHow)