Student Organization

We have spent a lot of time this summer getting our stuff organized... but students are gonna be students! So let's help them get organized too!!! This is a repost from the blog I follow (Free Technology for Teachers). Its really a great source of information to have linked right in your reader. The posts are short and really really really useful. So here it is............
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/08/7-organization-tools-for-students.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FreeTechnologyForTeachers+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

The beginning of the school year is when many students (and some teachers) make the resolution to improve their organization skills. The web is full for tools that can help people organize and keep track of the important things that they need to get done. Here are seven tools that might help your students in their quests to keep track of the things they need to get done this year. The first two services in the list have mobile apps that students can use too.

Soshiku is a free personal planner designed for high school and college students. Soshiku lets students organize their assignments by course, add assignments, and receive text message and or email reminders before each assignment is due. Students can add assignments to their calendars directly on the Soshiku website or via text message. Registering and getting started with Soshiku is quick and the user interface is very intuitive and easy to learn.

Remember the Milk is a free personal organization tool that works online and with mobile phones. Many high school students are carrying cell phones with them so capitalize on that and talk to parents and students about using a cell phone to get organized. Remember the Milk allows students to add assignment due dates to their to-do lists via text, email, or directly on their account homepage. A word of caution, while this services is free, students could incur a lot of charges from text and data communication on their mobile phones so be sure to discuss these options with parents before having students use the text/ data tools.

Track Class offers all of the features that we have come to expect in online student organizers. Through Track Class students can keep a schedule of courses, track assignment dates, write and save notes, and maintain a calendar of events. Inside Track Class students can also save files such as essays they've written and slideshow presentations they've created.

43 Things is an interesting way to track goals and achievements. 43 Things is not a personal organizer, it's a goal tracker. The service is simple, users enter a list of things that they want to accomplish and other users can "cheer" them on until the goal is reached.

Ta-da List is a simple to-do list creation tool built by 37 Signals. Ta-da List allows to you to create a to-do list in 30 seconds. Just sign-up and start building lists. Your lists will be hosted at a unique url assigned just to you. Direct your browser to that url to check-off items on your lists or to create a new list.

Squareleaf is a simple system for creating and managing online sticky notes. To use Squareleaf just register for an account and begin creating notes. Your notes are displayed on an online "whiteboard." On your Squareleaf whiteboard you can arrange your sticky notes in any pattern that you like. The size and color of the sticky notes can also be adjusted.

Create an eboard

I have just created an eboard for my class, using Blogger. I chose Blogger simply because I'm familiar with it.

I would appreciate feedback on whether or not a user of my board can flip back to "Rigor and Excellence." I think the board stands on its own, even though I used my Google account to create it.

For instance, I don't know if any of the rest of you can post to Johnson Board. What I do know is that, in this wide world of technology, it's best to go with the program you have the most experience with, if you want to list classwork/homework assignments online.

The name of the site is Johnson Board. It's URL is http://johnsonboard.blogspot.com/

That should be easy enough for any student to remember!

Why Didn't I Learn This In College?

We discussed several essentials from most of the 10 chapters in the book. Even that may seem overwhelming. It's important to keep this book at hand and commit to skimming through one chapter each week and trying to apply just one good idea. That's the way to ownership of the habits of mind that lead to effective teaching and learning.

Chap 1 - We want our students confident that we want to get to know them
we know our subject matter
we are well prepared p. 1
The focus should be on "leading" students rather than "managing" students p. 1
Begin With The End in Mind p. 5

Chap 2 - Teachers are responsible for the success of others from day 1 by communicating clear expectations
and procedures to create a solid foundation for success
- Try Weekly Reflections - Self assessments p. 19
- Deal with students' "unmet expectations" Do's and Don't's p. 32-34

Chap 3 - Frame the Learning - Students must know the standard, essential question, today's learning goal, how
we're going to get there, and how we'll know/measure progress today
- Framing the Learning also means getting in touch with what they already know so they link the new to
the old (raise to the surface prior learning; recall yesterday's learning) and surfacing misconceptions
and naive understandings

Chap 4 - How To Make Learning Active Pick from the Strategies List on pp. 66 & 67
Think-Pair-Share p. 98
Ticket-to-Leave p. 104

Chap 5 - We're All Reading Teachers Reading to students, pausing to let them connect, picture it,
predict what might come next. Your occasional reading is a model of how to do it. If you pause to "Think
Aloud," they hear how an expert thinks when reading text. You make what's normally "invisible," visible audible. p. 134 Other times have them share the reading load with a partner practice their own 'think alouds' ;
and at other times have them practice by themselves.
Graphic Organizers Work The Frayer Model or a Wordsplash p. 125

Chap 6 - Check 4 Understanding Try Whiteboards or Communicators p. 146
A Good Self-Assess Rubric Check out p. 157
How Is Teacher Doing With Assessments Check Your Own progress on p. 167

Chap 7 - Enduring Understandings Check pp 176 to 180
- Essential Questions Check pp 181 to 183
- Read This As I Plan Lessons Check pp 184-185 & 191-192

Chap 8 - Take The Initiative; This Is Your Job and It's Professional Hard Work p 198
- Dealing With Paper Work / use a System pp 207 to 212
- Students Can Function & Lean If You Plan for the Substitute pp. 217 & 218

Chap 9 - Organize The Learning "Three Before Me" Procedure p. 240
- Color-coded Crates p. 241
- Talking Tokens p. 256 (model this procedure for small group talk)

Chap 10 Working With Parents Make Early Positive Contact
- Focus on the learning with parents
- Encourage & Expect parent Involvement
- Differentiate for parents' styles and abilities
- Be prepared, positive, and professional

Getting Things Done

Here are the links to the items I talked about in class today:

Getting Things Done by David Allen (Audible version)
43 Folders
Evernote

Free Technology for Teachers: A Don't Miss Event for Math Teachers

Free Technology for Teachers: A Don't Miss Event for Math Teachers


I follow this blog (Free Technology for Teachers) with my reader. It has great entries with Web2.0 tools that are content related. This is a re-post of Dan Meyer's 38 weeks of Algebra but also goes into a really great blog on how Math Class needs a make-over. Just wanted to share some great links!

Embracing Algebra

A link to a Diigo Bookmark came across my Google Alert screen. I clicked on it and found this math resource from Dan Meyer. Dan apparently offers several ways to open and view the details of his algebra course. I used his pdf option and started exploring his day-to-day course beginning with the concept that algebra is a language like every other language and we probably know or recognize something about that language already.

As a Language Arts Literacy teacher, I appreciate that approach. I think it begins to demysitify math. And for those who might see algebra as a demon scourge, perhaps it begins to take the fangs out of the beast so students can embrace it.

Algebra teachers might explore this and let me know if you pick up any good ideas. your comments are welcomed.

Dan also has a disclaimer at the bottom of his site explaining his attempts at attribution.

Answering My Own Questions

So, as it turns out, being the mother of a teenager has actually benefited ME in some way.

She is starting high school this year. As we approach the beginning of her school year, I find myself asking more questions about this new experience: "What is the transition process to this new school? What kind of interaction will she have with upperclassmen? How will technology be integrated with her daily routine?" It occurred to me as I began drafting my list of questions for her teachers that now that I am a teacher, I need to be prepared to answer some of these questions for the parents of my students.

As I continue this journey as a parent of a high school freshman, I plan to use this opportunity to inform my own communication with my parents. I read with interest "What to Say on Parent/Teacher Night," which cleared up a few things for me regarding CCTS's 'Open House.' My approach to Open House will likely be a mixture of the recommendations from the article and an attempt to answer some of the questions that I have of my daughter's teachers.

Did anyone else find that article useful?

How teaching has changed

When am I EVER going to use this....

“Beats me,” I usually answer. “You can’t even tell me definitively what you’ll be doing next month; forget about four years from now. How can I definitively say when or whether you’ll use THIS? All I can say is that it is useful in certain situations (the word problems in this section are limited versions of the same problems some people face daily), useful as mathematical development for later work (which may be a prerequisite for the course or job you really wanted) or is mental development to expand your brain beyond the limited understanding and very limited world-view you currently have. I am not being critical here — you really have no experience at life. How could you possibly know the utility of everything you’re learning?”


“You have millions of possibilities ahead of you, thousands of doors along this hallway you call life. Writing ability will unlock many of them, artistic ability others, mathematical ability many more. Some may require that you speak English well — certainly, 95% of the jobs in this country do. Some will require a little of everything. Each of these doors is along a different stretch of hallway, sort of like that fractal tree over to the right. Each educational decision you make takes you down one branch or another, closing off some possibilities and making others available. To switch from one branch of the tree to another may require a little backtracking to pick up things that you could be learning now. I have no idea which doors will interest you so I have to lay a very broad groundwork and push you in directions you may not immediately see any need for. You have to trust that, over the course of many years and many students, I have a good sense of what you might need and of what you may find interesting after we’re done.”


“How do I know this? I talk to my students after they graduate. They tell me what they found useful or pointless. I get all kinds of stories about topics that we covered here that directly applied to something they were working on, stories about being the only one who really understood something the professor was trying to say. There are not many complaints that we spent too much time on a topic they never saw again.


“If there is ever a commonality in the comments of returning graduates, it’s this: ‘I never imagined that THAT would be useful. I was surprised when it showed up. So was the professor — he was grateful SOMEONE knew about it.’”

From the Math Curmudgeon

This is one of the "end of the year" activities that I did with my students.

The direction I gave them was very simple: "In complete silence, I would like you to read it to yourself and come up with real-life examples that help explaining what Bill Gates meant with his quotes." The real-life examples must be something either you or a friend, a relative had experienced.



Here are the 11 quotes:

1. Life is not fair-get used to it!
2. The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
3. You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
5. Flipping burger is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
6. If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in you own room.
8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your OWN time.
10. Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
11. Be nice to nerds, chances are you will end up working for one.

Global Writers

I'm here on break at the "Seeing the Thinking behind the Writing" workshop, and I'm encouraged to see a push to add more "eyes" to our students' writing by having them post it to various sites where fellow students can see it, as well as the teacher. My only concern about this enhanced audience is that some students, particularly ones who are struggling with the content area, might be reluctant to share their efforts with their peers. However, the opportunity to take essays to publication on the internet should appeal to many students. Anyone have any thoughts on this?