10-29-13 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL:

Nanoogo Has Potential For Students

Nanoogo is a new sort of blogging platform that lets teachers create virtual classes and approve student work before its published. It seems relatively easy to use, though it would be nice if you could use images grabbed off the web and not just uploaded from your computer. Being free is a nice feature Here’s a short video explaining how it works: I’m adding it to The Best Sites That Students

10 by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

A Little Wisdom From My Principal About Superintendents

Ted Appel, our school’s principal, and I were discussing the role of Superintendents the other day. I thought one comment he made was particularly perceptive:

10 by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h mark as read  //  save

L.A. Deasy Drama: He’s Staying

With his five day drama “to stay or not to stay” drama rivaling former L.A. Laker star Dwight Howard’s free agency adventure this past summer, Los Angeles Superintendent Superintendent John Deasy ended up with a a ”satisfactory” performance evaluation from the Los Angeles School Board and contract extension to June, 30, 2016. Here are some articles about it worth reading: After crowd rallies in h

7 by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h 

New Article: “Developing Teacher Leadership for the Long Haul”

Developing Teacher Leadership for the Long Haul is a new article I’ve written that has been published by Education Week Teacher (separate from my weekly column there). Right now, you have to register — for free — in order to see the entire article, but I’ll post a link tomorrow that will grant registeration-free access (though, I’ve got to say, the registration process is quick and painless and I

6 by Larry Ferlazzo / 47min 

Free Monthly Email Newsletter Just Sent-Out

I’ve just sent out my latest free monthly email newsletter to two thousand subscribers. It’s easy to subscribe to it here.

5 by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

October’s “The Best…” Lists — There Are Now 1,189 Of Them

Here’s my monthly round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 1,189 of them categorized here): The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom The Best Interactives Showing How Obamacare Works The Best Resources For Learning About The Fires In Australia The Best Resources For Learning About Teens In The News The Best Resources On Malala Yousafzai The Best Re

9 by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h mark as read  //  save

The Easiest & Most Fun Tool On The Web For Creating Music Got Even Better — Again!

I’ve previously posted about Incredibox, and I continue to think it’s the easiest and most fun tool on the web for creating music. You can save your creation, give it a title, and share it. Today, they announced that they completely updated the site (again), including giving it a new url address. Of course, it continues to be on The Best Online Sites For Creating Music.

7 by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

Interesting Series Of Infographics: “The History Of Addiction”

I thought this series of four infographics on “The History Of Addiction” was interesting and potentially useful, though it really loses something when it doesn’t site its sources. I’ve embedding the first two in this post. Here are links to find the other two: History of Addiction – World War II and Beyond History of Addiction – The Zero Tolerance Era Explore more infographics like this one on th

3 by Larry Ferlazzo / 3min

Two More Excellent Halloween Resources

Just when I think my The Best Websites For Learning About Halloween list can’t get much bigger, I find more excellent resources to add to it. Here are two more: Eek! 50+ Halloween Activities, Resources & Apps is by Shelly Terrell. Halloween Infographics: Treats For Any Lesson is from The ASIDE blog.

9 by Larry Ferlazzo / 3h

  

10-28-13 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Excellent Halloween Article For IB Theory of Knowledge ClassesA Halloween scare can sharpen the brain is an excellent article on emotion for IB Theory Of Knowledge classes. It’s from The Los Angeles Times. Here’s how it begins: Halloween is the time to indulge those seemingly pathological cravings to get scared out of your

by mike simpson / 9h 

10-29-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for Memphis Apartheid Corporate Charter Schools

Today's story in the Commercial Appeal makes it clear that Shelby County Schools (SCS)  are in a big hurry to close the deal to keep large numbers of County students from going to the municipal boutique districts that sprang into existence when the threat of consolidation made it clear that they, otherwise, would have been in the same school system as all the poor black kids in Memphis.   Hang

by Jim Horn / 1min 

The Charlotte Danielson Who Is Getting Rich on the Misuse of Her Intellectual Property

Charlotte Danielson has built a fence between herself and the misuse of her teacher evaluation scholarship.   I call it scholarship rather than research because there is little hard evidence that her system works to improve teaching.  Even so, CorpEd has paid the Danielson Group millions to use her materials to create a ridiculous rubric for high stakes teacher evaluations, even as Danielson publi

by Jim Horn / 45min 

10-28-13 Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Education Funders Sponsor a Great Study of NYC Small School Reforms but Will They Read IT?The Education Funders Research Initiative’s “New York City Schools: Following the Learning Trajectories of a Cohort," by Douglas Ready, Thomas Hatch, Miya Warner, and Elizabeth Chu, is excellent. It has the scholarly integrity of the research of the Consortium on Chicago School Research o

by mike simpson / 8h 

10-29-13 @ THE CHALK FACE

@ THE CHALK FACE:

Those Were The Days (and are they B-A-A-A-CK?): A Lightning Tour of The Math Wars (sort of)

Someone commented recently that she maybe she was too young and naive at the time but she didn’t recall so much controversy resulting from the publication of the 1989 NCTM Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. What follows is in part my reply and resulting reflections. No, there wasn’t so much controversy at first. It […]

40 by Michael Paul Gold... / 1h 

Douglas County: The Cavalry is Coming!

Douglas County, Colorado is one to watch.  For too long, an aggressively unprofessional school board has been playing politics with the schools, rather than concerning themselves with serving the community’s children.  Now, an important election is coming up, and it can change the current destructive course with four board seats being contested. I had the […]

17 by Kris Nielsen / 31min

The Recovery School District Optical Illusion

The charter-promoting organization, New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) wants its charters to prosper. Its website proudly advertises a hefty $25 million grant from the Arnold Foundation– as in John Arnold, former Enron trader who made off with $3 billion while most employees lost their pensions. In order to sell the charter success image, NSNO offers the public “proof” […]

by deutsch29 / 22min 

Orwellian Obama or Russell Brand?

In late spring, I posted a video of Tupac Shakur because I was impressed with his clarity, especially against the sad state of public commentary by our elected officials concerning education. Now I ask a follow up question: Do you prefer Orwellian Obama or actor Russell Brand? Please watch and decide:

by plthomasedd / 22min 

Bullying by Numbers: Value-Added Measures

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the evaluation focus for public education has moved quickly away from students and rapidly towards teachers and schools.  The propaganda is everywhere, and too many people are convinced by the mantra, “the greatest factor of student success is the teacher in the classroom.”  I don’t know who […]

4 by Kris Nielsen / 7h 

10-28-13 @ The Chalk Face

@ THE CHALK FACE: Is This Why AFT Leadership Sold Its Members Up The Common Core River?  It’s pretty widely known by now that American Federation of Teachers (AFT) received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, leading many to question the motives of AFT leadership in their silent acquiescence to the gods of Common Core.  But apparently there may be more reasons as well. My friend an

by mike simpson / 9h 

10-29-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Which One's Lying?

John King sez reason no forums yet scheduled in NYC b/c DOE hasn't got them a venue; Suransky says not true. Who's telling the truth?— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) October 29, 2013

by reality-based edu... / 1h

Amazon Does Stack Ranking Evaluations Too

The NY Times explains why Amazon is a nasty, nasty place to work:But if Amazon aspired to reduce friction for customers, Mr. Stone suggests that it remained a high-friction place to work. He describes the in-house culture as “notoriously confrontational,” and writes that because managers in departments of 50 or more people are required to “top-grade” their subordinates along a curve (and dismiss t

by reality-based edu... / 34min 

Yonkers Daily Voice: King Forum Attendees Overwhelmingly Negative Toward King, Common Core And Testing

The LoHud article on the John King Common Core forum managed to find one guy who was pro-Common Core and put him prominently in their piece on the King Common Core meeting yesterday, both in the writing and a video accompanying the article.Of course that makes the forum look like it was more evenly distributed in terms of attendees against the Common Core and those who are for the Common Core.But

by reality-based edu... / 22min 

The UFT Evaluation Team Sends An Email To UFT Members

Dunno if you got this in your email box from Mikey Mulgrew and the "UFT Evaluation Team," but it arrived in my in-box this morning:Teachers across the city are facing significant challenges caused by the Department of Education's poor implementation of the new evaluation and development system. To resolve these problems, the UFT introduced an online inquiry form for members to inform us

by reality-based edu... / 49min 

Common Core Reform In A Nutshell

From yesterday's NYSED Commissioner King Common Core propaganda tour:Ten-year-old John Del Vecchio got a standing ovation when he took to the microphone to describe how the rapid rollout of the new tests has caused a lot of stress for students like him in Yorktown public“There is so much pressure to pass all these tests, me and my classmates stay in from recess to study,” he said. There it is - so

1 by reality-based edu... / 4h 

Andrew Cuomo Owns This Common Core Mess In NY State

Fred LeBrun knocked it out of the park with this piece from Sunday, calling Commissioner John King the least trusted man in Albany.It's a must read, so head over there if you haven't seen it.I found the parts about Cuomo most interesting.LeBrun wrote:There are signs that the governor, who has a finely tuned ear for shifts in the murmurs of the masses, is getting nervous over the growing din of neg

by reality-based edu... / 6h 

10-28-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: De Blasio Still Up BigJoe Lhota never closed the gap:Bill de Blasio is poised to win the race for mayor of New York City by a historically large margin, powered by optimism that he will bring about change and by overwhelming voter disapproval of the Republican Party. Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who is currently the public advocate, leads his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhot

by mike simpson / 9h 

10-29-13 Wait What?

Wait What?:

Superintendent Kishimoto’s “end justified the means” form of a School Redesign Analysis

In preparation for a rush vote to close Hartford’s Clark School and hand it over to Achievement First, Inc., Hartford Superintendent of Schools Christina Kishimoto has provided the Hartford Board of Education with a “School Redesign Analysis” that attempts to justify her proposal by literally selecting only those measurement criteria that will bolster her fraudulent […]The post Superintendent Kish

7 by jonpelto / 30min 

Sarah Darer Littman among renowned authors to call out Obama on failure of corporate education reform laws

Sarah Darer Littman, a fellow public education advocate, blogger and regular commentator here at Wait,What? is also an award-winning author of books for young people. Last week she and a number of other leading authors and illustrators wrote a powerful letter to President Obama about the inappropriate use of standardized testing and the failings of […]The post Sarah Darer Littman among renowned au

2 by jonpelto / 14min mark as read  //  save

Steve Perry’s “Big Lie” about Capital Prep Magnet School

Steve Perry, the Principal of Hartford’s Capital Prep Magnet School may call himself “America’s most trusted educator” and he Perry may claim that his “no-excuses” college prep program is “100% successful” in getting kids into college, but the most basic review of the data indicates that Steve Perry and Capital Preps’ numbers simply don’t add […]The post Steve Perry’s “Big Lie” about Capital Prep

8 by jonpelto / 3h 

10-28-13 Wait What?

Wait What?: Steve Perry…People get fired or worse for the illegal things you are doing…Yesterday’s Wait, What? post asked, When will Steve Perry be shown the door? The reason? Because he has been misusing public funds. Since opening his twitter account, Steve Perry has pumped out more than 30,694.  Many of those were sent out while he was supposed to be performing his job as principal of Capital P

by mike simpson / 9h