Jan 04
tengrrlEducation, My Writing
These were the most popular posts on my blog during 2011:
- 6 News Stories to Connect to Orwell’s 1984
- Text + Image = Tagxedo: The Next Generation of Word Cloud Fun
- Teaching Students About Headlines, Titles, and Subject Lines
- List of Ten: Fun with Crayons
- Poem 3: Green Eggs and Ham
- Community Building Classroom Activities: A Round-Up
- Which Books Would You Ban?
- Write a Poem a Day for National Poetry Month
- Top 10 Things to Do with a Banned Text
- What’s the Trick to Building Community in the Classroom?
I know that normally these yearly posts are a nice reminder of what’s happened during the year and easy posts for the weeks during winter break when there’s less going on in education.
This year, the list turned out to be an eye-opener for me as well. Half of the posts that had the most hits in 2011 showed up on the list in 2010. In fact, only three of the posts listed were even written in 2011 (3, 7, and 8). There is no question that Teaching Students About Headlines, Titles, and Subject Lines made the list because it was promoted by Guy Kawasaki on Google+. There are similar stories behind the other two posts from 2011. Which Books Would You Ban? got an extra push from some librarian colleagues, and Write a Poem a Day for National Poetry Month was cross-posted on several educational sites.
I guess I have a goal for 2012 now. The posts I’m putting on my blog aren’t doing enough to capture anyone’s interest. It’s nice to have posts from 2009 and 2010 that are still popular, but I’d like my current posts to have readers too. Here’s to writing some posts in 2012 that connect with more readers!
[Photo: Lolcat submitted by brad, on ICanHasCheeseburger]
Nov 28
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, Literature
Catch up on your reading with this round-up of posts from last week on teaching composition and rhetoric from Bedford Bits, on teaching English language arts at the secondary level in High School Bits, and on teaching literature and creative writing from Bedford Lit Bits.
A Few Extra Links
For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Nov 21
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, Literature, research
Catch up on your reading with this round-up of posts from last week on teaching composition and rhetoric from Bedford Bits, on teaching English language arts at the secondary level in High School Bits, and on teaching literature and creative writing from Bedford Lit Bits.
A Few Extra Links
For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Cross-posted as a Note on Bedford/St. Martin’s page on Facebook.
Nov 07
tengrrlEducation, ReadWriteThink, teacher quality assessment, evaluation, professional development
Today I’ve read two articles that make me curious about the way “teacher quality” is being defined and measured these days.
First, I read a New York Times article about a school in Tennessee where the principal is so busy with paperwork and unnecessary observations that he’s lost touch with many of the things happening in the school. The title of the article neatly summarizes their feeling for the way that Race to the Top has led to a redefinition of “teacher quality” at their school: In Tennessee, Following the Rules for Evaluations Off a Cliff.
Then, I read Six Questions for Better Professional Development on the Edutopia Deeper Learning Blog Carnival, and wondered about how different the assumptions about “teacher quality” were compared to those in the Times article. The author talks about quality teaching (and professional development) as collaborative, organic, and reflective. It involves “cultivating a healthy professional community,” and that school in Tennessee seems to be on a track where they are able to do anything BUT support professional growth and “teacher quality.”
Maybe it can be partially attributed to the language that’s used, but the Edutopia blog seems to posit “teacher quality” as something that you nurture and encourage while the the Times article seems to describe a scenario where “teacher quality” is something you have to badger people into developing or revealing.
I understand the desire and need for ways to measure “teacher quality.” I’m just not sure of the right way to go about it. How do you think “teacher quality” should be defined? I’d love to hear some real teachers talking about the issue.
Cross-posted as a
Discussion Question in the Verizon Thinkfinity 101 Community on the
Thinkfinity Community site.
Nov 06
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, Literature
Here’s the round-up of posts from last week on teaching composition and rhetoric from Bedford Bits, on teaching English language arts at the secondary level in High School Bits, and on teaching literature and creative writing from Bedford Lit Bits. I hope you find something you can use in the classroom or your research!
A Few Extra Links
For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Cross-posted as a
Note on Bedford/St. Martin’s page on Facebook.
Sep 20
tengrrlMy Writing
You may have noticed that I’ve been away for a while. There have been no @newsfromtengrrl updates since early this month, no blog posts on Bedford Bits, and none of the usual updates for ReadWriteThink or Bedford. There’s not even an inappropriate greeting card around.
So much for that streak I had going with daily posts. Being sick seems to ruin things like that, and essentially I’ve been sick since Labor Day weekend.
It turns out I had a bit of a skin infection (cellulitis), and some clogged pores in the same area turned into a mightily infected abscess. I went to the doctor’s office Thursday the 8th, when I realized it wasn’t getting better on its own (and at that point, I didn’t know what it was). The doctor sent me directly to the hospital ER. I ended up spending a week in the hospital, with surgery to drain the abscess on Saturday evening (the 10th). In the process of all the testing, they have me on medicine for my high blood pressure, and they found that I have Type 2 Diabetes.
Obviously I’m sparing you images of all that, and instead, giving you an image of the lovely flowers that ReadWriteThink sent me. There are beautiful daisies hiding away in there among the yellow lilies and other flowers.
I’m still recovering, but trying to get back on track with all the news updates and work for ReadWriteThink and Bedford Bits. I’m taking lots of meds now, and they seem to make me quite drowsy. The whole eating with diabetes thing is causing trouble as well. I hope to be back to normal soon. In the meantime, please be patient with me. Thanks everyone.
Aug 09
tengrrlclassroom activity, ReadWriteThink, social media, technology whiteboard
Interactive whiteboard redefine hands-on activity in the classroom, as students manipulate information on a giant digital display. They also bring teachers a new challenge: what activities can you use to make the most of this new technology?
Teachers on the Thinkfinity Community have been busy collecting answers. Theresa Gibbon suggests trying ReadWriteThink’s interactive Word Mover for “I Have a Dream” and Word Mover for Holes and asking students to rearrange the words on the whiteboard as a class experience. Find dozens of additional ideas on the Thinkfinity Community discussion board.
This post is the introduction from “August 10 to 16 on ReadWriteThink.” Read the rest of the post in the Thinkfinity Community site.
Jul 31
tengrrlBedford Bits, composition, Literature Bulwer-Lytton
One day, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton sat down and wrote what have become one of the most infamous opening lines of his novel Paul Clifford (1830): “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Bulwer-Lytton wrote other memorable lines. He penned “the pen is mightier than the sword” too, but chances are that if you know his name, it’s because of “It was a dark and stormy night.” Part of that sentence’s familiarity is thanks to Snoopy, who works so hard on that first sentence of his novels. If you’ve never quite understood the problem with that sentence, it’s likely that you’ve never read the full thing:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Quite the sentence, isn’t it? Since 1983, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has honored that epic sentence with a competition to write an equally spectacular sentence. This year’s winner, Sue Fondrie, teaches at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. The Guardian has more details, including the award-winning sentence which compares memories to wind turbines and sparrows and a groaner of a winner from the Fantasy category.
This post is the introduction from the Bits Flashback for July 31. Read the rest of the post on Facebook.
[Photo: Stormy night by Andrew J. Sutherland, on Flickr]
Jul 31
tengrrljournal, My Writing work, workflow, writing
If you show up somewhere with your shirt on backwards, someone usually lets you know. People realize right away that the picture is on the back, the buttons aren’t where they belong, and the shirt just isn’t right. A friend or kind-hearted passer-by whispers in your ear, or perhaps you catch a look at yourself in a mirror. You excuse yourself to the bathroom and turn things around.
If only everything worked that way. Earlier this week, I was behind on my work. For months now, I’ve been behind on my work. Every day, I do the same thing:
- Find and post articles to @newsfromtengrrl.
- Answer any pending email messages.
- Write the blog posts that are due.
- Set up outgoing social networking posts for @RWTnow and @BedfordBits.
Intersperse spot checking email, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, and you have a pretty good picture of my day.
The problem was that by the time I got through finding the articles I post to @newsfromtengrrl, I usually have to stop and go take care of family duties. When I got back to my work later in the evening, I felt anxious and stressed. The “real” work that I needed to do, the blog posts and social networking updates, only got done when I was in panic mode (and often tired). Many times, I found myself in the wee hours of morning sleepily wondering if I could just push a few things off till the next day.
One afternoon this week, I found my stress levels rising. I hadn’t finished finding posts for @newsfromtengrrl, yet I only had about 30 minutes left before I had to clean the kitchen and cook dinner. The inner dialogue started:
Why can’t I ever get enough done? The afternoon is gone, and I still haven’t gotten to the real work. Damn it. I never get to what I need to because of the stupid news posts. But I have to finish the news posts before 6:45 so that the blog post goes up by midnight.
Out of some corner of my mind, a quieter, calmer voice said, “You could change the settings for the blog post, you know. You made this problem when you decided the post needed to go up at midnight.”
It wasn’t just a lightbulb moment.
There were rainbows. And unicorns. And glitter.
For nearly a year, I have been doing my work backwards, but no one had kindly leaned over and whispered in my ear until now! So a couple of days ago, I flipped my work flow. The news articles are the last thing I look for. Writing blog posts and status updates come first. I reset the WordPress plug-in so that my blog posts go up at noon instead of midnight.
It’s made all the difference. Look, here I am actually writing a blog post and the dinner fixings aren’t even out of the refrigerator!
[Photo: IMG_6433 by abbybatchelder, on Flickr]
Jul 03
tengrrlBedford Bits, classroom activity, composition collaboration, community, google docs, microsoft word, teamwork
This week in Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim asserts, “The world is divided into two types of people: those who prefer Track Changes in Word and those who prefer to write collaboratively in Google Docs.” Kim’s explanation of the two ways of working with text sparked conversation on the TechRhet discussion list. Some spoke to Kim’s explicit question: “Which one are you?” while others extended the focus to consider different ways to write HTML texts.
Naturally, there’s no correct answer to Kim’s question, and the situation is not as binary as it is presented in his article. That ambiguous quality makes the article and its overarching question perfect for a class discussion of collaboration and teamwork. Students can share their own alignment, and then move on to talk about how Kim’s article is defining writing and collaboration. They can widen the discussion of writing and collaboration to include more tools and kinds of composing. With that groundwork in place, they can then talk about their own teamwork in class. Focus their conversation on how different kinds of collaboration suit different projects and ask them to brainstorm strategies for working together when you have different preferences.
Kim’s article is short, but it touches on how software, teamwork, and how people collaborate—all valuable topics for the classroom.
This post is the introduction from the Bits Flashback for July 3. Read the rest of the post on Facebook.
[Photo: Google Docs by BobChao, on Flickr]
Older Entries
