The Need for Textbooks

I was troubleshooting a computer today right next to a poster with our tornado instructions on it. As I was waiting on a reboot I started reading it and this paragraph jumped out at me.

If there is not time to move rooms, students should assume the duck and cover position under tables or desks in the room. If tables or desks are not available, students should hold textbooks over their heads.

Ahhh, now I finally understand the need for textbooks in K-12. Somehow, "duck and cover" and "hold[ing] textbooks over their heads" struck me as particularly appropriate descriptions of some of the issues facing education.

World Book's 21st Century Research Skills

I had a nice conversation today with an associate manager in the Digital Products division of World Book. They are in the process of developing research guides (one for teachers, one for students) to go along with a new website launch and wanted my thoughts on what 21st century research skills might look like.

At the end of our conversation I suggested that there were many folks in my learning network that World Book could tap for advice and asked if it would be okay if I blogged about it, so here it is. If you have thoughts you'd like to share with World Book please leave a comment below or, if that's just not enough room for your thoughts or resources you'd like to link to, here's a wiki page you're welcome to add to. If you have the time I would really encourage you to do so, as this will be yet another way to positively impact our students.

I Have Absolutely No Way to Become Better as a Teacher

Darren's got a great post where he pulls a page from Carl Glickman's Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed:


I'm basically just reposting this here so more folks read it, so please comment on Darren's post.

Poem in Your (Virtual) Pocket Day

In honor of Poem in Your Pocket Day, here's one for your virtual pocket (via a tweet from Carolyn Foote):

RPI and The Shift

Just a quick post about this story regarding Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

The practice of engineering is now a global enterprise, but engineering education in the United States is still very much a domestic product. Few U.S. engineering students spend any significant time abroad during college, even though their eventual careers may require them to collaborate with international clients or co-workers, or even to work in other countries.

Those two dissonant facts have prompted Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., to begin requiring all of its undergraduate engineering students to spend some time overseas.

"I Already Have"

Just a quick post to point out this blog post by Terry Sale:

On many Fridays, for our warm up, I give the class what I call a poetry song. Today the song was Vertical Horizon’s “Everything You Want,” which I like to use because its ambiguity usually sparks some discussion. Today the class stared at the lyrics mystified for a long time. Nothing. I finally asked, what sort of song is this – is it about politics? Relationships? Sports? A couple of brave souls ventured guesses: yes, it’s about a relationship. Maybe it’s about God. A brief discussion, then more silence. I asked, How could we figure this out? Their answer: Google. Meanwhile, I had a Macbeth assignment for them to work on, so I said, Maybe we can google this later in the class.

And then, from the back of the room came the voice of Steve saying, “I already have.”

Steve had fired up his iPhone or equivalent and searched for the song. He said he only found a couple of comments, and they just seemed to be someone’s opinion, not a definitive answer (such as, say, the band itself revealing what they really meant).

Read the rest of the post for some of Terry's thoughts on the matter. I also love the comment on the post by Steve himself:

Wow, that was quick! Strangely enough, I read that with my iPhone during the passing period (I subscribe to this blog on Google Reader).

AHS iPoem Contest

This post is primarily to help publicize this to the students at my high school, but of course anyone who reads this is welcome to run with the idea.

About a week ago I forwarded some resources that I had come across about National Poetry Month to my Language Arts teachers. One of them replied to say thanks and also mentioned that April 17th was Poem In Your Pocket Day. I jokingly emailed back that that "sounded like the iPoem™ to me". By the next day I was thinking that wasn't such a bad idea, so I pitched the idea to my Language Arts teachers who ran with it. Here are the details for AHS students (and anyone else who might be interested in the idea):

In celebration of National Poetry Month, AHS and the Muse (Arapahoe’s Literary Arts Magazine) are holding an iPoem contest. To participate you must compose an original poem and create a digital project that – at a minimum – includes audio of your poetry (it can be more extensive - see the PDF below for ideas). You will need to submit your project by 3:00 pm on Monday, April 28th. Entries will be judged by a semi-distinguished panel of AHS Language Arts teachers and the winner will receive an iPod Shuffle. For more details, see the AHS website (pdf) or your Language Arts teacher.