Mar
31

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/31/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 31-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mar
30

What? Drill and Kill Software Doesn’t Work?

Filed Under (Changing Attitudes) by Kim Collazo on 30-03-2009

Okay, so I remain a bit resentful that our school has purchased and is using three, yes three, different “test-prep” software programs (one that cost in the 5 figure range! Imagine the laptops we could’ve purchased).  So it is no surprise that when I read one of the latest posts by one of my favorite bloggers, R. Richard Wojewodzki of TeachPaperless, I clapped out loud (scaring my dog, by the way!).  In his recent post entitled, “Not to ‘drill’ it into you but…” he references a post from the Generation Yes blog:

A year ago I wrote about Part 1 of a study on “educational” software – Headlines that won’t help. The preliminary results of the study found that various software test prep packages had little impact on student test scores. Now the second half of the study is out. Guess what. The software still doesn’t work.

All of these software packages promise to improve student scores in reading and math. But as endless research has proven, drilling kids for tests doesn’t result in significant test score improvement, and has negative long-term results in what students actually retain. It doesn’t matter if we drill more efficiently with expensive software. Doing things that don’t work DOESN’T WORK. How much simpler can this be? As I said last year, the headlines SHOULD read, “Bad Educational Practice Proved Ineffective, Again!”

All of the studied software test prep programs are far removed from creative software applications that allow students to use modern technology to express themselves in innovative, personal ways.

Mr. Wojewodzki goes on to state that our efforts (and funding) would be much better spent seeking out and applying web 2.0 tools that will allow our students to really gain knowledge and process skills that will benefit them in the future!  We all want to do what is best for our students.  I just happen to feel that having them actually create a bar graph of our Science data using Excel is much more productive, and will be more memorable, than forcing them to answer yet another set of multiple choice questions about a bar graph someone else constructed.  Still waiting for alternate assessments that can measure this so we can let go of our End of Grade tests!

Photo Credit: Flickr – test test test

Mar
30

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/30/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 30-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mar
29

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/29/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 29-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mar
25

Love Science

Filed Under (Science) by Kim Collazo on 25-03-2009

I love teaching science!  Have I said that before?  Perhaps that is why I feel stifled this year.  Nothing against math, and thank goodness for good math teachers, but YUCK!  Now I know there is a great deal of integration that can be done between the two, but both of my first two cores (out of three in all) are math classes.  When I taught self-contained fifth grade classes I taught all four core subjects, and if asked to rank the “main four” I would have listed them in this order from most favorite to least:

  1. SCIENCE!!!
  2. Language Arts
  3. Social Studies
  4. Math

I know that seems kinda strange since Science people tend to be math oriented as well, but I’m definitely NOT!  My love of science has led me to spend WAY too much of my own money over the years so my kids could enjoy experiencing science.  I almost never teach from the textbook, I mean, how boring is that!  Most of them are written at a college level which my students can’t read anyway!

So all of this rambling to say that I loved reading David Wetzel’s August, 2008 post which he Twittered the link to today.  It’s entitled “Science Education – 4 Ways to Improve Student Learning”.  The four improvements David elaborates on are summarized below:

  1. Let kids explore science and investigate science problems. This will avoid killing the curiosity of kids by the time they enter high school.
  2. Students need to learn that they will not always have the right answer and that there is typically more than one correct answer. This is not an esteem thing – this is real science.
  3. Students need to be challenged to use their brains and think. They need to learn to ask questions…
  4. More money needs to be spent on science education.

AMEN!!

Photo Credit: Flickr – Future Scientist

Mar
24

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/24/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 24-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mar
23

Required Reading

Filed Under (Changing Attitudes) by Kim Collazo on 23-03-2009

Thanks to the tweet link by Vicki Davis (aka Cool Cat Teacher), I was reading through the 2009 K-12 Horizon Report this evening.  Found myself nodding my head as I read their newly-unveiled “Technologies to Watch” in education.  It is such an exciting time to be an educator, and the internal rush I get as I learn of these new technologies and see the benefits of using them with my students is unlike anything I’ve experienced in my 18 years in the classroom.

I was especially excited to see that two virtual environment projects in which I’m proudly involved, thanks to my fantastic Kenan Fellow mentor, Len Annetta at NCSU, are mentioned as movers and shakers in the Horizon Report.  The HiFives Project and the newest project, GRADUATE are included in the section on “Collaborative Environments”.  How exciting!

This report should be required reading by all educators!  Think I might have to start a “top of the coffee table” list of support docs for the STELLAR Project.  What other important reading would you add?

Photo Credit: Flickr – My Coffee Table

Mar
18

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/18/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 18-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mar
16

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/16/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 16-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mar
15

Cool Sites from Today’s Surfing! 03/15/2009

Filed Under (Blogging) by Kim Collazo on 15-03-2009

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.