Bookmarked Learn with We Are Open Co-op – We Are Open Co-op by Anne Hilliger (We Are Open Co-op)

One of the bigger projects Iโ€™ve been working on during my internship at WAO was redesigning and rethinking our learnwith.wearopen.coop platform. Over the past years, We Are Open worked with a varietyโ€ฆ

The We Are Open Co-op have collected together their various resources in one place, whether it be templates, online courses or episodes of the podcast. Along with the Hyper Island Toolbox and Laura Hilliger’s Participatory Learning Materials, this collection is useful in supporting the endeavour to make change.
Bookmarked Free Resources on MUSE During COVID-19 (about.muse.jhu.edu)

In response to the challenges created by the global public health crisis of COVID-19, Project MUSE is pleased to support its participating publishers in making scholarly content temporarily available for free on our platform. With many higher education institutions moving into an exclusively online learning environment for the foreseeable future, we hope that easy access to vetted research in the humanities and social sciences, from a variety of distinguished university presses, societies, and related not-for-profit publishers, will help to support teaching, learning, and knowledge discovery for users worldwide.

In response to the current crisis, Project Muse are providing free access to a range of publishers for a limited time. A list of the books can be found here, while a list of journals can be here.

via Public Books

Liked Online resources | School Library Association of Victoria (slav.global2.vic.edu.au)

At this time there are many lists appearing that can help you find quality resources to support online learning in your school. We look for institutions that we know produce reliable and authentic information, and have collated some of them here in this post for ease of access.

Replied to How Iโ€™m Spending the Class Budget (Mrs Fintelman Teaches)

In the last few days you have probably been given a few hundred dollars for your class budget and a catalogue for some ordering. Come the Back-To-School season, a Norah Ephron film would recommend โ€ฆ

Emily, I really enjoyed this post on budgets. It really had me thinking about the story we tell though the resources that we provide. Are they open-ended? Are they ethical? Do they promote messiness and creativity? Or are they about order? Are they ethically inclined?
Liked ICEBREAKERS, via The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker (Google Docs)

โ€œIcebreaker of the Weekโ€ is a recurring feature of the newsletter The Art of Noticing. Some are icebreakers I made up or experienced or found somewhere; many are submitted by TAoN readers. After many requests, I am collecting & sharing all the icebreakers here. If you find this useful or enjoyab…

Bookmarked Starting this semesterโ€™s seminar on education and technology (Bryan Alexander)

This week my new education and technology seminar began. Itโ€™s in Georgetown Universityโ€™s Learning, Design, and Technology program, and called LDES-702: Studies in Educational Technology. I first taught it in 2019.

Here I wanted to introduce the class, starting with my plans for it, then the tentative reading and assignment schedule.

The general idea is for students to work through a different tech or tech-related practice each week. Theyโ€™ll read and engage with scholarship about the stuff, both asynchronously (online) and synchronously (in person or via video). They will also get some hands-on work with the tech, like recording audio, creating a class in an LMS, creating an information literacy guide, etc.

Bryan Alexander provides a number of resources associated with research into education and technology.
Liked Ancient Earth (dinosaurpictures.org)

This visualization is created and maintained by Ian Webster. See more of my work at ianww.com or email me at ian@dinosaurpictures.org.

Plate tectonic and paleogeographic maps by C.R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project. For more information visit: https://www.earthbyte.org/paleomap-paleoatlas-for-gplates & www.globalgeology.com.

Some elements of this visualization are not adjusted for time (eg. cloud and star positions). The coloring of the maps is based on elevation and bathymetry. The locations are accurate to ~100 km.

via Doug Belshaw
Liked Augmented Collective Intelligence by Ken BauerKen Bauer (blog.kenbauer.me)

I signed up for a course run by the one and only Howard Rheingold and am excited to start this week. I will be posting to the course site internal blogs but will share excerpts of my experience out here in the open as well.
Here is the work for the first week, the course kicks off with a video sessi…

Liked How to Make Students Care About Writing by Kristina Rizga (The Atlantic)

McKamey argues that the most important skill for a teacher is his or her ability to build trust with a student, which develops when students can sense that the educator is willing to hear their ideas, thoughts, and musings despite their challenges with grammar, low grades, or test scores in previous classes. This doesnโ€™t mean that teachers need to cushion their feedback with fake praise, but it does mean, she thinks, that schools should help teachers develop skills to recognize what all students, including those who might be considered โ€œlow achieving,โ€ do in their classroomsโ€”instead of focusing mostly on what they donโ€™t do or know.

According to Pirette McKamey too much feedback on writing is based on personality, rather than what is actually written on the page. What is important then is building trust and believing in every student. This approach reminds me of the wider strengths-based learning approach.
Bookmarked 22 PROJECTS TO CHALLENGE, INSPIRE & ENGAGE YOUR STUDENTS #AUSSIEPBL (Bianca Hewes)

These project outlines are all based on my PBL model, which is explained in my two books Are Humans Wild At Heart? and Why Do We Tell Stories? Both of these are published through Hawker Brownlow Education and are full of projects for English teachers to run with their students.

Please, please if you use these projects OR if you use my model of PBL (discover, create, share), it would mean SOOO much to me if you credited my work. Many of the Praxis projects below were co-created with my very creative colleagues James Blanch and Kate Munro. Please respect our hard work by being thoughtful in your acknowledgement of your sources.

Bianca Hewes collects together a number of her project outlines that she has created with Canva. As with Kath Murdoch’s inquiry journeys, Hewes provides some great provocations. Although some of them could easily be translated, their strength lies in thinking differently. In addition, I too like Canva and use it to create the covers for my monthly newsletter.
Liked Burberry burns luxury goods worth millions by https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews (BBC News)

“Burberry has careful processes in place to minimise the amount of excess stock we produce. On the occasions when disposal of products is necessary, we do so in a responsible manner and we continue to seek ways to reduce and revalue our waste,” a spokesperson for the company said.

via Boing Boing
Bookmarked How well do we โ€˜face up toโ€™ racism? by Anna Del Conte (Anne's Angle)

Multiculturalism is not an outcome but a process.ย ย Racism may not be deliberate BUT anti-racism is always deliberate.

Anna Del Conte provides some take-aways from a course on racism. Some of the activities included what racism is, a timeline of diversity in Australia and listening to stories. Another resource I am reminded of is Dan Haesler’s interview with Stan Grant. In part this stemmed from Grant’s speech addressing racism.
Bookmarked 21 simple design elements that will make any School Assessment Task sheet accessible by Haley Tancredi; Jill Willis; Kelli McGraw; Linda Graham (EduResearch Matters)

Access can be made easier or more difficult depending on the way the assessment task is presented; both in terms of visual presentation and in terms of the language used. The number and type of procedures required can also differentially affect studentsโ€™ successful completion of the task.

This approach to analysis helped us to produce a list of recommended design elements that will be useful to teachers as they plan and write up their assessment tasks.

Haley Tancredi, Jill Willis, Kelli McGraw and Linda Graham reflect on the assessment task sheet so common in the secondary classroom. Responding to the challenge of accessability, they collect together a number of design elements to support all students.

Visual accessibility

The layout of the task sheet helps the students access the important elements of the task

– The most important information is easy to find
– White space is used to separate sections
– Text size aids readability (11 or 12 point font with 1.5 line spacing)
– Margins are left-justified
– Visual cues direct student attention
– Information that is irrelevant to students is not included
– Procedural accessibility

Consistency and clarity of instructions

– Authentic context is relevant
– Common access barriers have been addressed in the design
– The task, objectives and criteria align
– Students are able to respond within the prescribed conditions
– Enough space and resources are provided for responses
– The assessment is scheduled to give students the best opportunity for success
– Processes for evaluating quality are clear
– Authentication strategies are included
– Student feedback on the draft task was sought
– Teacher peer feedback on draft task was sought
– Linguistic accessibility

Directions are clear

– Instructions are clear and direct
– Sentences are short and simply structured
– The language is free of bias
– Specialist language is defined using student-friendly terms
– Information is stated once only and if it needs to be referenced more than once, consistent terminology is used

Replied to Teaching Critical Thinking? These Mythbusters Activities Will Help by Bill Ferriter (The Tempered Radical)

Our goal is to help students recognize that gaps in thinking arenโ€™t something to be afraid of.ย  They are something to be openly acknowledged and then addressed through deliberate attempts to gather more information.

Bill this is fantastic idea. I like the use of a graphic organiser to scaffold the thinking. It reminds me of the Zoom In routine, where it is impossible to ‘know’ what the image is, therefore forcing student to justify their interpretations.