I couldn’t resist grabbing this screenshot of the Answers Firefox add-on defining the word “grok” in this context: beneath OED lexicographer and “Dictionary Evangelist” Erin McKean’s TED talk on 21st C. lexicography, and above Graham, who rightly asked in one of two funny comments what the hell I was trying to say in one of [...]

Pageflakes – your free student and teacher start page I am a complete idiot for not reading Will Richardson religiously. Pageflakes for students and teachers is powerful stuff. – post by cburell Weblogg-ed » Using Pageflakes as Student Portal A gem from Will Richardson on classroom use of Pageflakes. I see a migration coming. – [...]

I’m making some screencast tutorials on Screencast-o-matic.com to walk our high school students through the set-up process for their new MacBooks when our school begins it’s first year as a 1:1 Apple Laptop school (*grins*). It’s originally 800 X 600, but one cool feature of Screencast-o-matic is that it allows embed codes for smaller sizes. [...]

I just finished reading and responding to the first summer reading assignment for next fall’s AP Literature class. It was just a warm-up, asking them to read David Sedaris’ “Us and Them” from the Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim* collection of memoirs. If you haven’t read this story, I can’t recommend it highly [...]

Unknown News | Lies from the Bush-Cheney administration Partisan? Yes. But also supported by documentary evidence. Could be a resource for Animal Farm, etc. Squealer doesn’t only symbolize Stalinist distorters of the truth, after all.–Clay Political News, Blogs, Humor featuring Republicans, Democrats, Independents and More For social studies and contemporary issues teachers looking for a [...]

Sick of students embedding full-length videos on their blogs and calling that “active learning”? Scenemaker is one answer to upping the bar for “video commentaries.” Here’s an example from the middle of a YouTube clip I love about the joys of bachelorhood: And here’s another about its follies: I wonder how easy it is to [...]

I just visited “Rambling Reflections,” a classroom teacher’s blog from New Zealand, and thought it worth passing on. Why? Because it’s anything but “rambling,” from what I saw, and full of terse, reflective quotes and thoughts, and useful tools for geeky teachers like us.

An invitation to you to snoop in my new history class website’s pages laying out step-by-step instructions for how to set up and use all the tools listed above to do research. All feedback is welcome. I’m especially keen to hear if anybody can suggest improvements in the process I use to subscribe to del.icio.us [...]

EyePod (Revised)Originally uploaded by LeggNet. Real quick: for the 1001 Flat World Tales project, we had each writer record and podcast him/herself reading the first draft for an audience of one: him/herself (gender pronouns stink). Podcasting for self-criticism. I know it’s not new, but it’s so easy now. And it seemed to help the young [...]

Check out the side-bar and you’ll see a new addition (and a lot of subtractions). It’s the box of random quotes. I like it: one-liners of all sorts, usually with both good style and pregnant ideas…. …Ideas just waiting for students to browse from, select, and use for springboards into their own blog entries. At [...]