4-24-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

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

April’s Best Posts From This Blog

I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here). Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this pas

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11min hide  //  save

Eliademy Seems Like An Easy Tool For Creating Online Courses, But I Doubt Its Usefulness In K-12

There are many free tools out there that let you create online courses that students can take, and I just learned about a very easy one called Eliademy. For the life of me, though, I really can’t think of a reason a K-12 teacher would use one. With all the tools on The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress list and the ease of using class blogs, what wo

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h 

April’s Best Tweets — Part Four

Every month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in post. If you don’t use Twitter, you can

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h 

Duolingo Gets A Whole Lot Better…

I’ve been effusive in my praise for the mobile language-learning app Duolingo — my English Language Learner students love to use it both in class and outside of it. It just got a whole lot better… As TechCrunch reports: The new version features courses to learn English for Chinese and Japanese speakers….As part of this update, the service now also features English courses for Hindi speakers…While

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2min

Nice Introductory Video To Jamaican Patois

Our ninth-grade English curriculum includes a short unit on Jamaica, which includes several lessons on Bob Marley (see The Best Websites For Learning About Bob Marley). It also includes a lesson on Jamaican Patois. Here’s a short video I use to introduce learning about it:

by Larry Ferlazzo / 17min 

Ask A Question, Any Question…

My Classroom Q & A column over at Education Week Teacher continues to grow in popularity as it nears the end of its third year. I’ve already begun collecting new questions for the next school year, so feel free to contribute on — either by leaving it in the comments section or by sending it to me using this contact form. As you probably know, a wide-ranging group of educators provide guest re

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h 

“The Best Posts On Involving Fathers In Schools”

I’ve just published The Best Posts On Involving Fathers In Schools over at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School. You might find it useful….

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h hide  //  save

4-23-14 Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… | …For Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL: Another Big Surprise: Reflection Helps LearningHot on the heels of Another Shocker – NOT! Students Respond Better To Support Than Threats, yet another study has been released finding something that has been obvious to teachers for years — reflecting on a learning experience enhances it. Here’s how the Harvard Business Journ

by mike simpson / 7h 

4-24-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Race matters.

Yesterday I posted a criticism of the Supreme Courts decision in Schuette v Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. A number of readers commented or emailed me to express their disagreement with the position I took. This is a moment that I am glad to say that I stand with my union leaders – who not only opposed  the decision – but earlier filed a legal brief in defense of affirmative action in th

by Fred Klonsky / 18min 

Jose Vilson gets the Fred Klonsky treatment.

Fred, First, I’m thankful you got around to this. On Cloud 10 even. Secondly, and perhaps more jokingly, I was hoping for the Fred Klonsky treatment with the artwork and all. I’m not mad, though. Honest. Thanks again. It’s like you freaking know me. - Jose Vilson This is Not a Test

by Fred Klonsky / 2h 

4-23-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Ten minute drawing. Rauner tries to soften his image by running ads with his wife.by Fred Klonsky / 1h Justice may be blind but we can see.Since Michigan banned affirmative action in 2006, the minority population at its colleges and universities has dropped from 12 percent to 9.5 percent. The proporti

by mike simpson / 8h 

4-24-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":

The Best Posts On Involving Fathers In Schools

The topic of increasing the involvement of fathers in schools has been garnering some attention lately, and I thought I’d bring together some of the previous posts on the topic together. I was prompted to do so by today’s article in The Washington Post, Schools roll out the red carpet for dads who volunteer. Coincidentally, I believe tonight’s #PTchat on Twitter was on this same subject, and I’ll

3 by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h 

4-22-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"

Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement": inBloom Officially Folds, Blaming Everybody But Itself & Its Funders For FailureI’ve chronicled the ongoing fiasco of the Gates Foundation-founded-and-financed inBloom student data-vacuuming service called inBloom (see The Best Posts On The inBloom Data Fiasco). As usual, these guys never bothered asking parents and tea

by mike simpson / 8h 

James Baldwin, Born 90 Years Ago, Is Fading in Classrooms - NYTimes.com

James Baldwin, Born 90 Years Ago, Is Fading in Classrooms - NYTimes.com:

Celebrating James Baldwin, as Many Classrooms Ignore Him

James Baldwin, Born 90 Years Ago, Is Fading in Classrooms

Isaac Asante participates in a discussion of "Sonny's Blues" in Ms. Brantley's class.CreditJacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times

James Baldwin’s 1953 novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” about a Harlem teenager’s search for meaning, quickly became a classic, along with his searing essays about race published a decade later in the book “The Fire Next Time.” But in recent years Baldwin’s presence has diminished in many high school classrooms.

In a year that marks the 90th anniversary of his birth, educators offer different reasons for Baldwin’s faded presence there, from the concern that he is too controversial and complex to the perception that he has been eclipsed by other African-American voices. Collectively the explanations illustrate how attitudes about race have changed, along with the way the high school literary experience has evolved according to currents in the field.

“Baldwin is still there, but he’s not there in the way he was,” said Jocelyn A. Chadwick, chairwoman of the secondary level of the National Council of Teachers of English, pointing out that while in the 1960s and ’70s students would study Baldwin’s essays, short stories and novels in their entirety, today they often encounter his work only in James Baldwin, Born 90 Years Ago, Is Fading in Classrooms - NYTimes.com:

4-24-14 With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs

With A Brooklyn Accent:

Time to BREAK THE CHAINS! School Reform is Not Civil Rights

All over the country, inner city parents and teachers are being deprived of their rights to have community input into management of public schools, while their children are moved from pillar to post by school closings, and then pushed into charter schools which often impose zero tolerance discipline policies.That this is promoted as Civil Rights is a travesty. It is in fact the opposite. Here are

by Mark Naison / 3h 

4-20-14 With A Brooklyn Accent Go BATs

With A Brooklyn Accent: Game On!!! How Common Core Changed the Face of Education Activism in the USTeachers never were treated with much respect in the United States, but until recently they weren't demonized or singled out as responsible for the nation's problems and weaknesses. What has changed? That public education is now viewed as a major opportunity for profitable investment if it can be pri

by mike simpson / 8h 

4-24-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University):

CALL for Chapter Proposals: Adaptation as Investigations: Critically Rethinking Medium, Genre, and Text

Series: Youth Culture and Pedagogy in the 21st Century William Reynolds and Brad Porfilio, editors Lexington Books Proposed volume title: Adaptation as Investigations: Critically Rethinking Medium, Genre, and Text P. L. Thomas, editor [A]s we put into practice an education that critically provokes the learner’s consciousness, we are necessarily working against myths that deform us. As we confront

2 by plthomasedd / 32min 

Common Core Movement Never about Teaching and Learning, Always about Testing

As of April 24, 2014, I am tired to the core of writing about the Common Core because I know three things: I’ve said everything I need to say about Common Core: (a) Arguing about the quality of the CC standards is a distraction from the essential flaw in continuing to chase better standards and tests, (b) because accountability based on standards and tests has never and will never address directl

15 by plthomasedd / 2h 

4-23-14 the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University)

the becoming radical | A Place for a Pedagogy of Kindness (the public and scholarly writing by P. L. Thomas, Furman University): Standards May Achieve Equality, But Not EquityMichelle Morrissey makes a case for Common Core in By ‘Common,’ We Mean Equity: When the Common Core State Standards emerged, it was both a shock and a revelation — for the first time, the dominant model said that my students

by mike simpson / 9h 

4-24-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

What Test Prep Is Not

I've noticed a meme in writing promoting CCSS tests lately in which fans promote the New Improved Test's ability to dig deep into the furthest thinky places of the human brain. "It's the end of the old bubble test," these enthusiastic testinators declaim. "No more of that test prep." Here. Here. And here.And then, as sort of a rhetorical bank shot, they slip in what "test

by Peter Greene / 24min 

In Pursuit of Failure

Let's say I'm devoted to finding the Loch Ness Monster, and I am determined to find scientific proof. So I order up a host of sciency devices to search the loch, and I set out to test them. My test-- any device that finds the monster is certified accurate, and any device that does not is rejected and faulty.I will measure the device's scientific accuracy by measuring it against my pre-existing bel

by Peter Greene / 7min 

The Opposite of Grit

My sister and her family recently returned from a visit to Thomas Edison's laboratory (because when engineery types head to greater NYC, that's their idea of a cool stop), and they took many pictures. The place is amazing-- all this space cleaned and arranged and perfectly fitted out for investigating and experimenting and engineering much of the modern world.It was not, I thought, the kind of pla

by Peter Greene / 1h 

4-23-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: PARCC Discovers Unicorn Farm!Over at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, PARCC CEO Laura McGiffert Slover has breathlessly announced the discovery of a special farm where unicorns dance and sing and give rides to little winged cherubs while singing sonnets in Latin.Okay, not really, but I would have found that more credible than Slover's actual announcement, which is that PARCC herald

by mike simpson / 9h 

4-24-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Using Andrew Cuomo's Own Ad Against Him

This was a campaign ad Andrew Cuomo ran last July touting the formation of his "independent" Moreland Commission:This was Cuomo to the Crain's editorial board responding to criticism that he had "tampered" with his independent commission and might now be investigated by the US Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara: In an interview Wednesday with the Crain’s editoria

by reality-based edu... / 47min 

More Evidence Jeb Bush Will Never Be President

From Political Wire:A new Economist/YouGov poll finds just 18% of self-identified conservatives want Jeb Bush to run for president in 2016.Other findings: "26% of Republicans want Bush to run. That puts him behind Paul, at 36%, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 30%. Some 35% of Republicans do not want Bush to run."He's been out of office for years, the Times has already reported he's

by reality-based edu... / 13min 

Cuomo Blames State Senate For Not Enacting His Progressive Agenda

The reason why the State Senate is not in Democratic hands is because Andrew Cuomo helped Republicans and the Independent Democratic Caucus to keep control of it.Yesterday Cuomo responded to criticism that he is not progressive enough by blaming the State Senate for failing to enact his "progessive agenda":“I support public finance, I support the Dream Act,” he said. “The Womens’ Equalit

by reality-based edu... / 2h hide  //  save

New Anti-Cuomo Bill Sweeps Across NY State

Cash denouncing @NYGovCuomo spreading across state http://t.co/TYmN3CaHbq pic.twitter.com/3vrdW0YRqC— David Andreatta (@david_andreatta) April 23, 2014Haven't seen one of these yet, but am not surprised these bills are sweeping across the state.From both the right and the left, Cuomo has a core group of New Yorkers who want to see him GONE from office.

by reality-based edu... / 5h 

4-23-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Cuomo Seeks To Pit Unions And Working Familes Party Activists Against Each OtherBlake Zeff at Capital NY with another illuminating column - this one on how Cuomo is working to undercut a WFP challenge from the left by pitting unions and activists in the party against each other.That's why he's gotten a little friendly to the unions lately, including TWU 100 with last week's

by mike simpson / 9h