Just for Fun: Happy Holidays!

If you celebrate a holiday during the month of December, please enjoy it! Have some fun with one of my favorite people singing one of my favorite holiday songs! See you in 2012!

Great Collection of Educational Apps on Pinterest

Looking for a good app this holiday season? Well Dan Callahan has put together an amazing list of educational apps using Pinterest. Pinterest is a social pinboard that works very well for visual curation. His apps cover a variety of categories, and I found a few new ones on there that certainly enhanced my app collection!

The Teaching Channel

The Teaching Channel is a fabulous website for "do it yourself" professional learning. The site is cleanly designed and incredibly inviting. It features a collection of short video clips and lesson plans that teachers can use to improve their practice. Specifically, Jim Knight, renowned instructional coach, has many Talking About Teaching videos that show effective coaching sessions with teachers. Watching this content has been incredibly useful to me. Seeing the ways in which he guides discussion has led me to the following conversation: good consultants/supervisors ask good QUESTIONS instead of giving good ANSWERS. One of my favorite videos is embedded below. Enjoy.

Common Core Web and Phone App

Yes, the Common Core is coming. (If it hasn't already arrived in your school, it will very soon!) Well, now you can have the Common Core standards on your iPhone, iPad, Android device and website. Mastery Connect has recently released free apps that you can use to quickly search and reference the standards. I've embedded the app below. If you are currently exploring the Common Core, you could stick this on a teacher resource page in your district. Enjoy!

Don't Punish Everyone

Last week, I read a thoughtful post by George Couros entitled "Don't Punish Everyone." In the post, he warns educators to create policies for the majority of students, not the small minority of students who will operate outside of reasonable boundaries.

In all aspects of our lives, we create rules and regulations to "protect ourselves" from the irrational behavior of others. This applies to speed limits, competency tests, and other incredibly fun parts of life.

However, if we know that these rules and regulations only exist for a small segment of the population, do we really need them all? See the video below. What do you think?

Docs Teach: The National Archives Site for Teachers

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to visit the National Archive Museum in Washington, D.C. While there, I learned about DocsTeach. DocsTeach is the National Archive website especially designed for teachers. Obviously the site has an amazing collection of primary sources to use with students, but my favorite part was the activities. There are both pre-made activities and activities that you can customize for your students. It is a highly interactive, smart board-friendly resource!