Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Tens of thousands of L.A. area students still need computers or Wi-Fi 6 months into pandemic

Tens of thousands of L.A. area students still need computers or Wi-Fi 6 months into pandemic

Tens of thousands of L.A. area students still need computers or Wi-Fi 6 months into pandemic



Six months after schools closed amid the coronavirus crisis and with online learning in full swing, tens of thousand of students remain without adequate digital access and school districts in Los Angeles County report they still need nearly 50,000 computers and Wi-Fi hot spots.
The numbers are a stark reminder that technology access continues to pose a significant barrier to distance learning as schools in Los Angeles County will not be allowed to fully reopen until at least November.
“I’m very concerned if there’s even a small fraction of students who aren’t accessing, especially when we’re talking about students who are already more vulnerable and disadvantaged,” said Debra Duardo, superintendent of the L.A. County Office of Education. “There is already a gap, whether you want to call it an academic gap or an opportunity gap. There is already a gap, and we don’t want that gap to get any larger.”
The Office of Education, which provides services and financial oversight for the county’s 80 school districts, released the numbers Tuesday, the same day that the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to approve $14.9 million in spending to help close the technology gap. Duardo's office had requested the funding based on a survey of needs in local school systems.
Some district officials told The Times they have not yet been able to distribute computers and hot spots to every student who needs them. Others have CONTINUE READING: Tens of thousands of L.A. area students still need computers or Wi-Fi 6 months into pandemic

Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE) Steering Committee has a new member | Cloaking Inequity

Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE) Steering Committee has a new member | Cloaking Inequity

EDUCATION DEANS FOR JUSTICE AND EQUITY (EDJE) STEERING COMMITTEE HAS A NEW MEMBER




Honored to join the Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE) Steering Committee. A nationwide alliance that aims to speak and act collectively regarding current policies, reforms, and public debates in order to advance equity and justice in education
I discussed here in an earlier post about the organization that truly believe that our deans and other academic leaders can translate their community-engaged, community-relevant work that they have undertaken as researchers and teachers into higher education leadership roles. I am seeking to do that on a daily basis in my role as dean at the University of Kentucky College of Education.
More about EDJE:
Mission Statement
Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE) is a nationwide alliance of education deans that advances equity and justice in education by speaking and acting collectively and in solidarity with communities regarding policies, reform proposals, and public debates.
Guiding Principles
  • We believe public education is a basic human right and an essential cornerstone of a democratic society.
  • We believe in the importance of taking action to resist policies and practices of discrimination and exclusion.
  • We believe in protecting and advocating for the well-being and dignity of all children, families, and communities.
  • We believe that the structures of poverty and inequality, which have a profound impact on educational attainment, must be dismantled.
  • We believe schools and colleges of education have a moral responsibility to listen to and learn from communities that have not been well-served by public education.
  • We believe that this national network of deans and other educators will influence, inform, and challenge policies, reform proposals, public debates, and social movements.
There is much work to do in higher education, and no doubt, there will be more challenges ahead, but I am convinced that we will refuse to allow adversity to stop us from pressing forward and making an unmistakable and lasting impact for students and families.
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Twitter: @ProfessorJVH
Click here for Vitae.

On Teaching: What Is Good Teaching? - The Atlantic

On Teaching: What Is Good Teaching? - The Atlantic

What Is Good Teaching?
Over the past two years, I talked with veteran educators across the country as I tried to answer this question.



Editor’s Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The “On Teaching” series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.

Renee moore still remembers the young man who changed the way she taught. It was 1999, and Moore was teaching at the nearly all-Black Broad Street High School in the rural town of Shelby in the Mississippi Delta. The 17-year-old who walked into her 10th-grade English class excelled in math but had never been taught how to write a proper sentence. He had spent nine years in separate classrooms for students with disabilities; looking back, Moore thinks he had undiagnosed dyslexia. The young man and his mother asked Moore if he could join her class for students without special needs; he was determined to earn a diploma.

Moore agreed, and in his first few weeks the student sat quietly on the far side of the room. As she spent time with him after school, she noticed that when the subject turned to sports or his family, he became animated. When she encouraged him to write about these interests, his engagement increased, and his sentences grew longer and more complex. Moore also knew that students from special education or “remedial” classrooms often internalized a damaging self-view that they somehow lacked intellectual competence. So Moore tried a new tactic: She recorded her conversations with her student, and then asked him to transcribe his own words—without worrying about grammar or punctuation. Once the student saw evidence in the transcripts for his capacity for unique ideas and analysis, his intellectual pride grew, and Moore could leverage it to teach him grammar and composition. Two years after he walked into her classroom, he moved into 11th grade, and eventually he passed the state’s exit exam and became the first of his six siblings to graduate with a high-school diploma

“This young man taught me the power of getting to know your students well enough to teach,” Moore, who has now been teaching for 30 years, told me. “We’re shuffling kids through a system designed on a factory model, and we often give up too soon, because they don’t get to ‘grade level’ by the time the system says they should. When they don’t, we say they’re not ready to learn or are hopeless. But they are just not on our schedule; it has nothing to do with their innate potential or ability.”
In the past two years, as I traversed the country to report for The Atlantic’s “On Teaching” project, nearly every veteran educator I encountered shared success stories similar to this one—and reflected on what effective teaching actually involves. American public schools are going through a consequential transformation: The majority of Baby Boomer teaching veterans—who just over 15 years ago constituted more than half of the teaching force—have retired or will retire in the next few years. “On Teaching” aimed to collect the wisdom of some of the nation’s most accomplished veterans to find out what has helped them bring out the best in their students. The 15 teachers I got to know closely—from rural Oklahoma to Mississippi, subarctic Alaska to suburban Arizona, California, Texas, Kentucky, and Michigan—told me that effective teaching depends on paying attention to students as individuals, addressing their needs with cultural sensitivity, and seeking the active support of peers. But they also told me that their capacity to teach successfully has been weakened by misguided, top-down policies, chronic funding cuts to public education, and growing structural inequities. To do their jobs fully, they said, they need basic resources—and they should be viewed as experts on CONTINUE READING: On Teaching: What Is Good Teaching? - The Atlantic

Exclusive survey: Teens dislike online learning - Axios

Exclusive survey: Teens dislike online learning - Axios

Exclusive survey: Teens dislike online learning


Most American teens think online school is worse than going in person, but less than a fifth of them think that it makes sense to be in person full-time while COVID is still circulating, according to results of a new survey shared first with Axios.
The big picture: Parents badly want their kids back in school, and students want to be there, too. But most feel it's still not safe, according to the survey, which was conducted by Common Sense Media and SurveyMonkey.
By the numbers:
  1. 59% of teens felt that online school is worse than traditional learning, with 19% describing it as "much worse."
  2. It's not just about missing their friends. Nearly half of students said they learn better in person, with just 30% citing missed social interaction as the key downside of e-learning.
  3. Students don't trust schools can be made safe. Roughly 70% of teens said they trust "only a little" or "not at all" that their school can or will take enough precautions to keep them safe during the pandemic. The distrust is even higher among Black and Hispanic teens, who also report being more concerned about getting sick from in-person schooling.
  4. Given all this, teens want to stay home. Only 19% said school should be fully in person right now, with 42% saying they would prefer fully remote learning and 37% in favor of a hybrid CONTINUE READING: Exclusive survey: Teens dislike online learning - Axios



The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19
Virtual School Dangers




There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
— George Orwell, 1984
Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day, their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way, and out of trouble.
Back then, if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school or suffering through a parent-teacher conference about your shortcomings.
Of course, that was before school shootings became a part of our national lexicon.
As a result, over the course of the past 30 years, the need to keep the schools “safe” from drugs and weapons has become a thinly disguised, profit-driven campaign to transform them into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, school resource officers, strip searches, and active shooter drills.
Suddenly, under school zero tolerance policies, students were being punished with suspension, expulsion, and even arrest for childish behavior and minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight.
Things got even worse once schools started to rely on police (school resource officers) to “deal with minor rule breaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes.”
As a result, students are being subjected to police tactics such as handcuffs, leg shackles, tasers and excessive force for “acting up,” in addition to being CONTINUE READING: The Hazards of a Police State Education During COVID-19 | Dissident Voice

AFT Poll on Reopening: Public Wants Safety First | Diane Ravitch's blog

AFT Poll on Reopening: Public Wants Safety First | Diane Ravitch's blog

AFT Poll on Reopening: Public Wants Safety First




The American Federation of Teachers released a new poll about reopening the schools during the pandemic:
New Poll Shows America’s Parents, Teachers Want ‘Safety First’ on School Reopenings
Trump and DeVos’ Ruinous Agenda Rejected, Comfort with Return to Brick-and-Mortar Schools Significantly Higher when Protections, Funding in Place
WASHINGTON—The nation’s teachers and parents are seeing through the Trump administration’s chaos and disinformation over reopening schools this fall, new polling shows. And while supermajorities of the poll’s respondents fear they or their child will be infected with the virus, they are united behind the need to secure safety measures and the resources to pay for them, so students can return to in-person learning.
Sixty-eight percent of parents—including 82 percent of Black parents—and 77 percent of teachers say protecting the health of students and staff should be the primary factor in weighing whether, how and when schools should open their doors for in-person instruction, according to the survey, conducted by Hart Research Associates.
Just 21 percent of parents and 14 percent of teachers say schools should reopen on a normal in-person basis—as demanded by President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—and significant majorities reject the administration’s plan to strip federal aid from schools that don’t comply.
With the coronavirus still spreading rapidly in large swaths of the country, majorities of both parents and teachers worry their districts will move too quickly to fully reopen, rather than too slowly.
Majorities of teachers (60 percent) and parents (54 percent) are not comfortable starting the school year in person, and concern for personal safety is the top reason they remain leery. But, crucially, when safety protections such as masks, daily deep cleaning and sanitizing, physical distancing, proper ventilation and the funding to provide them are in place, 71 percent of parents and 79 percent of teachers are comfortable returning.
Parents and teachers voice high levels of concern about the personal risks of coronavirus infection. And 1 in 3 teachers say the pandemic has made them more likely to leave teaching earlier than they planned. Most teachers say they have purchased personal protective equipment for themselves (86 percent) or their students (11 percent).
Overall, half of parents and teachers report their schools are opening with at least some in-person instruction, with 2 in 5 schools opening remotely. Parents think remote learning has had a more negative impact on their children’s social-emotional health than on their academic progress. Most parents feel an adult will need to be with their child for remote learning; 3 in 10 of them say it will be difficult to make this happen.
Hart Research conducted the comprehensive national survey on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the NAACP.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “Parents and teachers are on the same page when it comes to school reopening—and they are united in the belief that we must protect our students, educators and communities’ safety and health and reject President Trump and Betsy DeVos’ agenda to strip schools of funding if they don’t fully reopen.
“We all want to get back to in-person learning, but that should not happen until there are COVID-19 safety measures in place and the funding to pay for them. While teachers and parents have been toiling for months to try and reopen, Trump downplayed the virus. While the president never misses an opportunity to threaten schools, or to sow confusion or chaos, he and DeVos were missing in action when it came to planning and resourcing what should have been the country’s biggest priority: reopening schools for our kids. Indeed, the only guidance DeVos has issued for this year is to mandate standardized high-stakes tests. One just wonders why kids’ and teachers’ health can be dispensable, but high-stakes testing is not.”
NAACP Vice President of Civic Engagement Jamal Watkins said: “The facts: Data, analytics and example after example have proven that the school system today is still fraught with unequal funding, environmental racism and toxic stress to which students of color are exposed—and the underlying factor is structural racism. With the mismanagement of COVID-19 and the failure of both the Trump administration and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, we are deeply concerned that reopening without key guardrails and a true plan that puts students, parents, educators and staff first is a disaster that will continue to unfold.
“We stand with the AFT and will use every action and tool available to us, from serving on state and local reopening committees to filing lawsuits and other advocacy actions against unsafe and unsound plans, or the faulty implementation of plans. Nothing is off the table when it comes to the safety and health of those on the frontlines in America’s schools.”
AROS Executive Director Keron Blair said: “Parents, educators and students are united in thinking that Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos have not done enough to keep our children and communities safe as they press for the reopening of schools. We have also seen that where remote learning is being offered, adequate technology has not been provided to make access to learning equitable. The coronavirus pandemic is a health crisis. It is a racial justice crisis. And it is, for sure, a crisis and failure of leadership. The information revealed in this poll strengthens our claims and adds necessary fuel to the fights that parents and educators are leading for the safe and equitable reopening of schools.”
Sindy Benavides, CEO of LULAC, said: “Our nation’s classrooms are a microcosm of what is occurring everywhere in our country during this pandemic, and we now know that even children are not immune in close proximity among themselves or with others. The only difference is that what we, as adults, decide to do is our choice, while students are being mandated, and by extension their teachers and school staff, to re-enter spaces that at present pose a risk of exposure to the virus. Latino parents are facing disproportionate challenges, including higher numbers of COVID-19 as America’s essential workers, higher unemployment rates, and lack of access to technology. LULAC has always viewed public education as an essential component for the progress of an individual and our community. However, we cannot in good faith support sending our youngsters into possible harm’s way while some elected officials play politics with their lives.”
The online poll of 1,001 parents of public school K-12 students, including 228 Latino parents and 200 Black parents, was conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 6, 2020; the online survey of 816 public school teachers across the United States was conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, 2020.
The full poll deck is available here.
Contact:
Andrew Crook
o: 202-393-8637
c: 607-280-6603
acrook@aft.org
http://www.aft.org
AFT Poll on Reopening: Public Wants Safety First | Diane Ravitch's blog


Distance Learning Impasse Could Plunge Sacramento City Schools Further Into Fiscal Crisis, County Superintendent Says - capradio.org

Distance Learning Impasse Could Plunge Sacramento City Schools Further Into Fiscal Crisis, County Superintendent Says - capradio.org

Distance Learning Impasse Could Plunge Sacramento City Schools Further Into Fiscal Crisis, County Superintendent Says




Almost all of Sacramento County’s thirteen school districts have a distance learning plan in place during the pandemic — agreed to by both teachers and administrators — and are in solid financial shape. 
But there is one outlier: the Sacramento City Unified School District. 
That’s according to Dave Gordon, the Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools, who provides fiscal oversight and other guidance to schools from Elk Grove to Elverta. 
In a recent interview, Gordon told CapRadio that the impasse between SCUSD and its labor partner, Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), could compromise the district’s ability to comply with education laws,  and be a roadblock to  reimbursement 
In a recent letter to California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, the district expressed concern about teachers’ schedules that vary from the district, and that some are “either less than the required instructional minutes or lack the daily live instruction requirement under the law.”  
The district confirmed to CapRadio that it faces financial penalties if it does not adequately track attendance and the amount of learning — live or independent study — that takes place among its 42,000 students. 
CapRadio interviewed county Superintendent Gordon about the impact of the deadlocked negotiations over distance learning in SCUSD, and about the district’s long term fiscal viability. Below is a transcript of the interview, edited for length and clarity. 
What is your role over Sacramento school districts?
We do fiscal oversight of all of the school districts. We don't oversee their instructional practices, but if asked, we would give guidance. 
So the situation right now at Sacramento City Unified appears that the district is providing a set of directions and the teachers are providing, in some or many cases, different directions than the district. And the district really needs to function as one organization — not as a teacher-run organization and a district-run organization. So what seems to be going on now is not appropriate [and] not legal, most likely. And you can imagine the chaos that this is creating.
Can you tell me more about that? That that situation is not legal? What do you mean by that?
Well, the district is authorized to run its affairs and report to the state and account to the state CONTINUE READING: Distance Learning Impasse Could Plunge Sacramento City Schools Further Into Fiscal Crisis, County Superintendent Says - capradio.org

Teacher Tom: The Most Rigorous Curriculum

Teacher Tom: The Most Rigorous Curriculum

The Most Rigorous Curriculum


Our outdoor classroom is one big slope and within that slope there are many ups and downs, reflecting our city which is built on hills. We're forever experimenting with gravity out there, rolling and flowing things downhill or dragging and pushing things up. There are parts of the space that are so steep one needs a running start to get to the top and there is very little flat upon which to rest one's legs.


We have a pair of wagons, which are regularly used on the hills. Once, we made an airplane. 


From my photos, it's easy to see the physics and engineering learning, but those were minor aspects, side-effects, of the bigger, more important project, which was figuring out how to get along with the other people.


There are those who question the "rigor" of a play-based curriculum when, in fact, we're engaged in the most rigorous curriculum known to mankind. There is simply no greater or more important challenge than the one of balancing our own individual desires and needs with those of the other humans CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Most Rigorous Curriculum

NYC Educator: De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

NYC Educator: De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy



For weeks I've been marveling that the two grown men who ran education in the country's largest school district accepted a plan that relied on teachers who simply do not exist. If you break a class into two to five sections, who teaches the students who aren't in the building on any given day? Yet Chancellor Carranza would get up in front of news cameras and claim everyone would receive synchronous instruction each and every day. 

They explained how the fantasy worked. You and I would teach chemistry. We'd coordinate lessons and each of us would teach 12 kids a day. The other students from our classes, all 44 of them, would be with a hybrid remote teacher, who'd magically recreate our lesson online. Also, there'd be some kind of virtual something specialist who'd write and provide the lessons. The problem, obvious to everyone but de Blasio and Carranza, was that we then needed somewhere between 1.5 and 2 teachers where we used to need only one.

They put forth solutions. Everyone from Tweed with a license would teach. Supervisors would teach. They'd hire thousands of substitutes. Imagine a substitute, hired out of nowhere, with not experience. There's a long and hallowed DOE tradition that the least qualified person gets the most difficult tasks. They can't learn and you can't teach, so we put you together. It's poetry, a thing of beauty.

So who was gonna get those remote classes of 44? Of course it would be the new sub. That's one reason I argued we'd be teaching chemistry. I've got over thirty years experience and I can't teach day one of chemistry. How is a newbie we just dragged off the street gonna do it? How will that guy teach Chinese? In fact, how will a person with no experience teach anything to an obscenely huge class, on a computer, with no training whatsoever?

These were just a few of the issues with which our visionary chancellor had to contend. He was all smiles right up until recently. He had ideas. A Queens high school was told to eliminate all comp time jobs and make every supervisor teach two classes. They were grappling at straws and embracing ridiculous, unworkable solutions. And it just hung there, until days before opening, we learned they'd abandoned it on Twitter, of all places.



 Now I'm not what you'd call an organizational genius by any measure. But I  CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

Senate Republicans Once Again Refuse to Help States and Their Local School Districts | janresseger

Senate Republicans Once Again Refuse to Help States and Their Local School Districts | janresseger

Senate Republicans Once Again Refuse to Help States and Their Local School Districts


Last week, the Republican dominated U.S. Senate once again failed to pass its latest version of a second stimulus bill to help alleviate the recession that is undermining the economy, the lives of individuals, and institutions like public schools. The Republicans called their bill a skinny (minimal) bill, and everybody knew it wasn’t going to pass, but the consequences are likely to be serious.  At least, by sinking the bill, Congress did not pass the Betsy DeVos favorite, a tuition tax credit Freedom Scholarship program inserted at the last minute by Sen. Ted Cruz.
The Washington Post’Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim and Tony Romm explain last week’s Senate action: “The failed GOP bill would have authorized new money for small businesses, coronavirus testing and schools, and $300 in enhanced weekly enhanced unemployment benefits. The measure included roughly $650 billion in total spending, but it would repurpose roughly $350 billion in previously approved spending, bringing the tally of new funding to around $300 billion. The measure did not include a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks for individual Americans, even though that’s something the White House supports. It also excluded any new money for cities and states, a top Democratic priority as municipal governments face the prospect of mass layoffs because of plunging tax revenue. And it contained some conservative priorities that Democrats dismissed as unacceptable ‘poison pills’ including liability protections for businesses and a tax credit aimed at helping students attend private schools.”
There is speculation that Congress won’t be able to agree on any additional stimulus prior to the election. Under pressure from Democratic members of the House to pass something before CONTINUE READING: Senate Republicans Once Again Refuse to Help States and Their Local School Districts | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: Scrap the Big Standardized Test This Year

CURMUDGUCATION: Scrap the Big Standardized Test This Year

Scrap the Big Standardized Test This Year



When schools pushed the pandemic pause button last spring, one of the casualties was the annual ritual of taking the Big Standardized Test. There were many reasons to skip the test, but in the end, students simply weren’t in school during the usual testing time. Secretary of Education issued waivers so that states could cancel their test (which is mandated by the Every Student Succeeds Act).

But that was last year.

This year, many states are already indicating that they will seek waivers again. South Carolina and Georgia have both announced their intention to get federal permission to skip the test. The Massachusetts legislature is considering a bill that would suspend the state’s MCAS exam for four years.

Meanwhile, thedepartment of education has signaled that it is not ready to let testing go. Discussing the waivers in a virtual press conference, assistant ed secretary James Blew said “Our instinct would not be to give those waivers.”

Instinct or not, there is no good reason to go through with the Big Standardized Test in the coming school year.

First of all, there’s the cost in time and money, both of which will be in short supply in the coming year. States are anticipating a financial crunch, and schools will need every possible minute to deal CONTINUE READING: 
CURMUDGUCATION: Scrap the Big Standardized Test This Year

Teacher Tom: Clouds Must Be Free

Teacher Tom: Clouds Must Be Free

Clouds Must Be Free


I like the idea of being "free," whatever that means, and I like the idea of empowering others to be free. It is, one could say, the driving force behind both my personal and professional life. I don't know if I've ever achieved it, but I've always, to the best of my ability strived toward it. 

I will not obey is one of my mantras, commandeered from Utah Phillips and made my own. It is, at the same time, the attitude of a dictator unless I also strive to also make the possibilities embodied in that stance a reality for others. "I'll be the boss of me. You be the boss of you." It's another mantra, one I've tried to live for most of my adult life, especially when engaged with young children. To me it means that my relationships must be based upon agreement rather than command. 

Of course, that is only the tip of the freedom iceberg. Even if we can achieve perfect interpersonal freedom, and we likely cannot, there are still the worldly shackles of society, culture, environment, biology, and wealth that make our freedom incomplete. Philosophers and theologians tell us that nothing short of death, the return of consciousness back into the universe or heaven, can make us free; that bodies are our ultimate earthly prisons. Others, however, tell us that freedom is possible on this earth, but only through a constant process of escape, of letting go, of being water. Even if this freedom is only experienced in sips, they say, it is real CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Clouds Must Be Free

A VERY BUSY DAY Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

  Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007


A VERY BUSY DAY
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
The latest news and resources in education since 2007
 
 

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/09/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_12.html


Ed Tech Digest
Nine years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “” post where I share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in THE BEST ED TECH RESOURCES OF 2020 – PART ONE , as well as checking out all my edtech resources . Here are this w
This Week’s Resources To Support Teachers Coping With School Closures
Wokandapix / Pixabay I have a number of regular weekly features (see HERE IS A LIST (WITH LINKS) OF ALL MY REGULAR WEEKLY FEATURES ). This is a relatively new addition to that list. Some of these resources will be added to The Best Advice On Teaching K-12 Online (If We Have To Because Of The Coronavirus) – Please Make More Suggestions ! and the best will go to The “Best Of The Best” Resources To
New PBS NewHour Video Segment: “The hopes, fears and reality as schools open worldwide”
Mediamodifier / Pixabay I’m adding this segment from tonight’s PBS NewsHour to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL :
Four African-American Girls Were Murdered 56 Years Ago Today In The Birmingham Church Bombing – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources
Fifty-six years ago today four African-American girls were killed when their church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Learning About The Birmingham Church Bombing . I remember and say the names of Addie Mae Collins (aged 14), Cynthia Wesley (aged 14), Carole Robertson (aged 14) and Denise McNair (aged 11), who died in the bombing of Birmingham, A
Nice Graphic Illustrating Elements Of The New IB TOK Curriculum
In what I think was a bad policy move, the International Baccalaureate program went forward this year with major changes to the Theory of Knowledge curriculum instead of delaying them a year. I have no negative feelings about the new curriculum itself – I think most are good changes. In the face of a pandemic, however, I don’t think teachers like me needed the added pressure of figuring out how t
Two Options For Beginning A Week Of Distance Learning
geralt / Pixabay Here are two options (out of many!) to begin a week of distance learning. On Mondays, my talented colleague Lara Hoekstra asks students to respond in writing to a series of questions – the first couple are more reflective on the past week, while the next ones are more SEL-oriented. Here’s a downloadable example . I’m trying out something a little different – a simple Google Form
“Videos Teachers Can Learn From …”
Videos Teachers Can Learn From … is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Four educators share videos and movies that have helped them become better teachers, including “Remember The Titans” and 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007