My Beauty Best Teacher

I recently got the opportunity to review both of Dr. Erica Warren's Following Directions workbooks, and I wanted to tell you what I think.

Before we begin, let me just say that Dr. Warren gave these workbooks to me for free, asking if I would review them on my blog. I am not getting any more compensation than just the workbooks themselves for writing this post, and I would never endorse any product I didn't fully believe in.

With that said, let's talk specifically about Warren's two Following Directions workbooks. The workbooks I sampled are called Following Directions (An Intermediate Workbook 1) and Following Directions: The Easy Way (A Beginner's Workbook 1).

The concept for both of the workbooks is the same: we want to condition our students to pay closer attention to directions and be able to follow directions quickly but accurately. To an extent, these workbooks somewhat reminded me of those "April Fool's Day" following-directions sheets that teachers sometimes give to play a joke on their students, like this:

This (obviously used) April Fool's Day prank was found here.

But unlike the April Fool's Day sheets like the one featured above, Warren's workbooks will not embarrass any student who do not follow the directions precisely (no one has to yell a sentence about their school pride or clap their hands twice during these workbooks! lol).

To help condition students to follow directions, Warren has created a series of worksheet pages with a grid of pictures, numbers, or letters on it. Above the grid is a set of step-by-step instructions as to what the student should do on the grid. Here is a sneak peak at the example page from her Following Directions: The Fun and Easy Way (A Beginners Workbook 1) book:





This is just a simple grid -- the grids and instructions get larger and more complex as you move through the book.

One thing I like about these books is that these grids aren't just practice on following directions. Sure, these worksheets will help students practice following written directions. But I personally think they will also help students exercise their "critical thinking skills" muscle. You see, the directions aren't always clear when you first read them. For instance, one of the directions I saw said, "I am in one of the rows above the second-to-last row." Even as an adult, I had to stop and think about what that really meant. Another line of directions said, "I am a consonant." For this, not only do students need to know the difference between a consonant and a vowel, but they also have to reason that if our answer is a consonant, our answer cannot be a vowel; therefore, we need to cross out all vowels.

As I'm writing this, I'm reminded of the logic grids my 6th grade science teacher used to give us:

This particular puzzle can be found here.

I, for one, love using logic puzzles in the classroom because I feel that most students need to practice those much-needed critical thinking skills, and these are the perfect way to do so. (By the way, Puzzle Baron has actual books you buy that contain paper copies of all of their logic grids. Find one here
.)

Anyway, I think Warren's "Following Directions" workbooks could help students in a variety of ways. There are directional words in almost every line of directions, so students could practice directions and prepositions. There are math words such as "less than," "odd," "trapezoid" with which students will become familiar. There is even some science in these sheets: "I need water to live," and "Sunlight is my food" are two examples. All in all, I think that if you want to give your students practice at following directions (and a few other things), these workbooks are a good buy.

Warren offers a free sample of a Following Directions book on her Teachers Pay Teachers page.

If you'd like to read the reviews and/or purchase one or both of these books, click the images below to be taken to their product listings on Amazon.





Even if you don't want to use these pages as actual activities in your classroom, I think they could still be useful as bellwork or "what to do when you're done" activities for those early-finishers. If nothing else, the critical thinking skills students would build from doing these pages could probably prepare students to achieve higher test scores on those state-mandated exams!

Here are ten consequences of a victory by President Barack Obama in November 2012 over Mitt Romney:

1. Obamacare will not be repealed. It is already being demonstrated to raise costs of healthcare and as its taxes and regulations sink deeper through the system, it will cause our healthcare system to increasingly be in a crisis, likely resulting in greater and greater government control to 'fix', until we have a massively inefficient and expensive and bad healthcare system.
2. The unprecedented levels of spending in Obama’s first four years will become the new floor, as America continues its experiment in reckless spending and adding up massive debt. The new normal of debt that Obama has established- $1 trillion a year of living beyond our means as a nation- will erode the value of our currency, lead to higher interest rates, lessen our national security, and eventually cause our nation to collapse. Four more years at our current levels might just about do it.
3. Job creators will face massive tax increases and more Americans will come off the tax rolls—resulting in fewer citizens with a stake in keeping taxes low and more with a stake in protecting benefits. The Bush tax cuts and other tax cuts may be allowed to expire while Obama and the Democrats who still support his failing policies will push for more taxes, fees, and fines to pay for the exploding cost of employing more and more government workers and providing ever more 'free' services and products to citizens.
4. Government dependency, already at record levels, will continue to grow. Based on the results of his first 4 years as President in which record numbers of people went on welfare, more people will go on food stamps and bridge cards and lifelong unemployment and other government programs. They will not gain job skills and any skills they have will be eroded by time, rendering them unemployable, unhappy, and dependent on elites above to provide them with what they need to live. They'll become slaves to the state, living in permanent poverty, and I don't think we can afford four more years of accepting this.
5. Four more years that we have already lost in dealing with the looming and inevitable entitlement crisis will become eight. The reforms needed for strong and healthy Social Security and Medicare programs  will need to be in place many years to avoid the collapse that is coming, and the delay of electing Obama on a myth of hope and change has already set our nation back a critical 4 years- another 4 years of Obama might change the conversation from 'implement reforms to keep these programs' to 'its a crisis and we're facing a collapse.'
6. Obama, unworried about the impact of gas and electricity prices on his reelection, will finally wage the regulatory war on fossil fuels the Left demands. As Obama stated in March, no President wanting to win re-election wants high gas prices- but a President not needing to win re-election because he is a lame duck for four years will not need to worry about high gas prices, and he is sure to wage a war to drive up the cost of gas. The cost of gasoline is a very regressive tax, which means when it goes up it hurts the poor more than the rich, and the effects of 4 more years of Obama will be a more unequal society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
7. He will unleash the Environmental Protection Agency to impose crushing new burdens on U.S. business. Already the EPA is an agency just barely under control, in every way it can waging its green communist war against freedom and liberty and property. Another 4 years of executive orders and ever expanding budgets will make this agency uncontrollable and its regulations and policies will be a corrupting influence on any potential economic growth.
8. President Obama will continue and heighten his administration’s assault on religious freedom, expanding it into other areas in his effort to wipe out the influence of Christians in our nation. Already liberals and progressives speak about removing the 'tax-exempt' status from Churches, closing down all religious schools, and increasing the wall of separation that already exists between church and state. Eventually, once organized religion- mainly Christianity, especially Catholicism-  is walled off and isolated, personalized and demonized, he can finally kill God and replace him with himself or one of his idols.
9. Another 4 more years of Obama will gut the Defense Department, with cuts so deep that America will no longer be a superpower. Already under Obama we have abandoned our long-held policy of fighting two wars; another 4 years of Obama may lead to our inability to fight one war successfully. While the military is cut, Obama as commander-in-chief focuses on making it more gay-friendly and more green, and another four more years of this may result in the US losing its ability to protect its citizens and interests around the globe.
10. Obama could have the opportunity to appoint more Supreme Court justices, and we have seen from President Obama's past two picks for the judicial branch that he does not even pretend to try to appoint moderates and independents, rather fighting hard to advance and appoint the most partisan and extreme judges in our system. If he is given another four more years by winning re-election in November, we could be looking at a majority of the court that agrees with current liberal Justices who argue that the US Constitution is inferior to the constitutions of other states and that we should use international law instead of US law when making decisions for our nation. This extreme and rogue and partisan Court of unaccountable and unelected lawyers will be a great threat to your life, liberty, and property.

You and your family and friends should be opposing President Barack Obama and working to remove him from power because of consequences above, which are all policy options that President Obama freely chooses to engage in. Most of these policies he pushed for when his party controlled all of Congress, and even today his party still controls the Senate. No one forced him to adopt the policies above, which will have the logical and reasonable consequences I detailed. Racism, partisanship, extremism, and dislike for the guy personally are not to be found in my analysis above. Rather my analysis is based on logic, history, reason, and results, from those principles we can see the consequences of President Barack Obama winning re-election in 2012, and knowing this, we should all oppose him and vote for his likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

UPDATE: Thank you for linking Right Wing News and Adrienne's Catholic Corner!

Over the last several years, I have been fighting my own brand of war against those people who are the enemies of freedom and liberty. My style of fighting is to write about freedom and liberty; to discuss and expand on the ideas found in our founding documents; and attempt to apply to modern day policies the principles of protection of life, support of liberty, and protection of property. And those who oppose me have also been fighting me.

But unlike my style of warfare, the thugs who oppose me rely on intimidation, threats, attempts to damage my property, and efforts to silence me. And I am just the sort of target that these thugs like- although elected officials and big-time bloggers are good targets too, they are able to fight back and could become martyrs to the cause, but me and those who support the elected officials and bigger bloggers and private citizens who are attacked are one removed from the dispute and smaller so make much better targets for the thugs and cowards out there who disagree with our views and policy positions.

Although there is no way to compare what I have faced to the attacks on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and others, being a secondary target does not mean that I haven't been attacked too.

In recent years, the worst attacks that I have suffered have come after I have supported and defended those who were attacked by liberal thugs. My defense of the Koch brothers from the President Barack Obama's orchestrated attacks on them caused left-wing fascists to respond by attempting to shut down my blog. The vile creeps even went so far to write a letter to the employer of one of my loyal readers- they thought they were targeting me- as they attempted to respond to differences in views by causing the loss of employment and income. They didn't like the fact that I defended private citizens from slanderous attacks by the President of our nation, and responded to it by engaging in slanderous and personal attacks on me.

Another round of attacks came on me after I defended the tea party on several blogs and forums, responding with reasoning and calls for a more adult discussion to those who called those who supported tea party views and ideas various names. Those who disagreed with my views- those on the left who call themselves progressives or liberals but in reality are simply fascists- responded by filling up the comment sections of all of my posts with their various rants and foul language, and because I didn't want my blog to be a forum for their hate I was forced to disable the comment section on my blog.

One of the most clever attacks on me came after I defended in blogs and in forums and on social media Rocky Raczkowski, who was tea-party favorite and GOP nominee in 2010 for Michigan's 9th District. Someone emailed me pretending to agree with my comments and asked questions about the advertisers on my blog, and the next day my advertisers dropped me and confiscated my money due to what they said was fraud. I'm not going to say exactly what happened (I don't want to give the thugs ammunition), but the result was a loss of income for me and the loss of a good sum of money (Google never responded to my inquiries or pleas for reconsideration).

These attacks on me are not isolated to just me. Over at Legal Insurrection, Will has a story up that rings very close to my own experiences, called Welcome to total political war:

...I’m not talking about the attempt to get advertisers to stop advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show, or Fox News, although that would be bad enough. I’m talking about the second-tier of the warfare, the attempt to intimidate those removed by one or more degrees of separation from the dispute, and to use them as tools against the target.

We have seen it a number of times in the past couple of years.

When King & Spalding agreed to represent the U.S. House of Representative after Obama changed positions and announced that the Justice Department no longer would defend DOMA in court, there were not only protests against King & Spalding, but threats to picket and protest clients of the firm who had nothing to do with the dispute. The threat that clients of the firm who were completely unconnected to the dispute would be harrasseed was enough to cause the firm to withdraw the representation.

Similarly, when the new Rhode Island Attorney General announced that he would cooperate with the federal goverment in the enforcement of federal immigration laws, protesters not only invaded the lobby of his offices, they picketed his house and confronted neighbors about the issue. Dragging his neighbors into a dispute which had nothing to do with them did not cause the RI AG to back down, although not for lack of trying.

Which brings me to the present dispute with Rush Limbaugh, and radio show host Kim Komando, who has a very well-known computer talk show. What did or does Komando have to do with the dispute? Nothing, except that one or more of the advertisers targeted by the anti-Limbaugh groups also advertises on Komando’s show. Komando received a flood of e-mails demanding that she drop the advertisers....

...What is happening goes beyond Obama’s call for people to argue with their neighbors and get in their faces. It goes far beyond Bill Clinton’s politics of personal destruction directed at accusers, and beyond name-calling by right wing pundits.

This total war, in which no one is allowed to be non-political and neighbors and clients become mere pressure points, is a dangerous development.

This is indeed total war, and that realization has only slowly dawned on me over the years that I have been writing on this blog. It is scary, but not surprising- most of humanity today lives in a state of fear and oppression from tyrants, and for most of human history humanity has lived in fear and oppression from tyrants.

It is in the worst nature of people to attempt to oppress others and use them as slaves- use their labor and intelligence and skills and drive to provide them with things they did not earn- food, clothing, shelter, medicine, drugs, influence, power, money, loans, etc. The worst nature of people is to react to arguments and reasoning with intimidation, threats, and personal attacks. And the worst nature of people is to take that which they did not earn, suppress and lessen the freedom and liberty of others, and if possible choke the very life out of those who oppose them.

It's a total war and it's getting worse as our opponents grow more bold and get closer to winning the war. I can only hope that in 2012, you and your friends and family recognize that we're at war and take the proper steps, because the last time the American people pretended that they weren't at war, we saw the error of that thinking on September 11.

UPDATE: Thank you for linking to this post Conservatives on Fire and Fuzzy Logic!

If someone has been wronged or there is some sort of problem, a personal phone call from the President of the United States can be an important piece to improved understanding of the problems and can help to get past any sort of communication issues that are out there. The office of the President is one that is filled with prestige and honor, and a phone call from him that carries the weight of that august office can go far in putting pressure on people to overcome problems or calm down inflamed emotions and right wrongs. But the President's time is valuable and important, so it understandable if his personal touch isn't applied to every situation in the form of a personal phone call and it is okay if he sometimes waits several days before talking to people who are important or who have been wronged.

The important quality for the President of the United States to have is the judgement and decision-making skills to determine who he should take the time to call and when he should decide to just sit it out and not get involved. It is important that the President have the sound judgement to focus on the important issues facing our nation and use his office and the power that goes with it to improve situations and smooth past difficult issues. It is important that the President be able to decide when to use his office to bring light to issues and focus public attention on them with a phone call.

President Barack Obama (Democrat) lacks sound judgement and proper decision making when it comes to making personal phone calls and when to make them.

On April 20, 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, resulting in a severe oil spill from the ruptured well. BP, which had employed Deepwater Horizon to drill on its Macondo Prospect, immediately began to work with the a range of U.S. federal government agencies and assets to try to reduce the flow of oil into the Gulf, figure out what happened, and try to assess blame and responsibility for the large oil spill. There were a lot of moving and complicated aspects of the US government tied up in this effort, and to coordinate them and make sure that they were used properly at some point the President of the United States should have talked with top level decision makers in BP, including its CEO Tony Hayward.

But for over two months, President Obama did not talk to the CEO of BP and did not make a personal phone call to him to discuss efforts to limit the oil spill, to figure out why the oil spill happened, or to figure out how to overcome the important issues that the spill brought up. This represented an important failure in judgement and a bad decision; a phone call between the President and the CEO of BP could have resulted in more coordination between BP and the US and more understanding of how and why the accident happened, resulting in less oil spilled, less wildlife killed, and a quicker resumption of drilling in the gulf and the lower oil prices and greater economic growth that would have resulted form this. Obama eventually did meet with the CEO, but it took him over two months to do so.

In contrast, two days after radio show host Rush Limbaugh called community activist Sandra Fluke a slut, President Obama took time out of his busy day to make a personal phone call to her to "offer his support to her, he wanted to express his disappointment that she has been the subject of inappropriate personal attacks and to thank her for exercising her rights as a citizen to speak out on an issue of public policy."

The quick personal phone call, especially in light of his two month long wait before calling the CEO of BP after the oil spill earlier, and the fact that he would use the office of the President to call a private citizen and apologize to her for the comments of a private radio host represents a failure of President Barack Obama's judgement and decision making with who receives a personal phone call from the President of the United States. His office phone, rather than being used to coordinate the assets of the United States or figure out how to avoid oil spills in the future, was used instead to make a quick phone call to a private citizen to give official support for their views and to side with her in a controversy between her and a radio host who is trying to generate ratings.

President Obama, rather than following important events around the world and with our economy, clearly is just sitting in the White House listening to talk radio and making phone calls to people mentioned on talk radio stations. The President did not call the CEO of BP earlier about the oil spill, even though he was called many names by bloggers, radio show hosts, and comedians, further demonstrating his poor judgement and poor decision making skills.

Our nation needs someone who understands how and when and why the President of the United States should call people, and these two examples clearly indicate that Barack Obama is lacking in judgement and decision making. We need to- and can- replace him in 2012 with someone with better judgement and decision-making skills, someone who understands that the CEO of BP should have been called in two days and that a private citizen who is called a name by a radio show host should not receive a phone call from the President.

One of my best teacher-friends is a secondary math teacher (and runs the Numbers Rule My World blog), and she is always looking for ways to incorporate technology into her math lessons. She tipped me off about this site that has virtual manipulatives, and I wanted to share it with you guys!

Although my friend uses this site with her secondary students, the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives has something for students PK-12!  It's so rare to find an educational resource that can cater to all ages...I guess that's part of why I think this website is so nice.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is amazing! I love that it is free and easy to use; you don't even have to register before you start using!

The homepage is relatively simple:

Notice how you can view the site in a variety of languages (at the bottom)!

But looks can be deceiving. :)


As you can see, you can access math manipulatives based on the grade of your student(s) or the target skill. Since I'm a teensy bit obsessed with organizing, I particularly love this feature.

Although the homepage isn't anything particularly mind-blowing, once you start clicking on portions of the index, you'll see that the rest of the site is!

So what kinds of things does it have to offer? Unfortunately, I'm going to have to do more telling, rather than showing, because the manipulatives are used through pop-up screens that then start using Java... I'm not even able to take a screen shot of the manipulatives in action...sorry! I've never had an issue taking a screenshot before, so I can't explain this one! Anyway, I clicked on PK-2, and I was presented with the following list of sub-topics:

• Numbers and Operations
• Algebra
• Geometry
• Measurement
• Data Analysis and Probability

And each of those sub-titles had an average of 13 manipulative options underneath it, but you should be aware that that is an average... the "data analysis and probability" sub-topic only had 3 options. Although the graphics aren't anything particularly flashy or high-tech, I feel that they definitely could be used in the classroom. I saw some time-telling activities, graphing options, pattern blocks, etc. I know that most elementary classrooms don't have a 1:1 ratio of students:computers, but you could ask a few students at a time to practice certain math skills during centers!

As for the secondary side of it, I clicked on 9-12, and I was presented with the exact same sub-topic categories as the PK-2 side, but of course, the options underneath each category were drastically different. The sub-topics in 9-12 had an average of about 18 manipulative options underneath it. I saw some great ones in this category, as well. In particular, if I were teaching secondary math (big hypothetical here, folks), I could see myself using the rational numbers triangles, the Venn diagrams, and the geoboards.

If you're a math teacher, give the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives a chance in your class and let me know how it goes!

As a conservative teacher, I plead guilty to the worst sort of offense for a public school teacher- thoughtcrimes. I am guilty of thoughtcrimes- I am a conservative teacher even though I do not push or encourage my conservative views and values in my classroom, even though I make conscious efforts to articulate all sides of every debate and situation, even though I play devil's advocate and am critical of all politicians and views at one time or another, and even though I seek primarily to inspire critical thinking.

You see, it is not my actions which threaten liberals and leftists and Democrats- it is my very existence and the fact that I do not quietly acquiescence to their thuggish attempts to convince me to think differently.

In his novel 1984, George Orwell described a thoughtcrime as an illegal type of thought. Liberals and leftists hate and fear me, because while in the classroom I may be a model teacher and may be inspiring and motivating students, in private I am the author of this blog where I state my thoughts and opinions on a range of subjects in a conservative manner, and for that they feel I must be silenced, fired, and perhaps worse.

Increasingly as our nation descends into a totalitarian fascist state, people like me are a threat to the government. Some people might be conservatives or libertarians or Republicans, but they're usually not teachers, and if they are they have been successfully revealed as thus and thus marginalized and silenced already. What really bothers the government and the fascist thugs who run it is that I'm still hidden in the system, unexposed, unsilenced and unmarginalized, and still teaching. I'm still teaching young children the skills of how to think critically. I'm still exposing students to tough questions and hard facts, and them giving them the skills to grapple with them- without telling them what to think about those facts or without answering the questions for them as a liberal leftist teacher would do. I'm still employed, even though I am a conservative and a teacher.

Some teachers inspire a few students to be conservative by accident or just absently are a conservative and a teacher- but I've thought about this beforehand and put forethought into it, showing that I have a plan to teach students how to think and to give them a wealth of information to think on, and I have done all of this knowingly and purposefully- and that's a crime worse than actually pushing my views or indoctrinating students. I'm not just a conservative and a teacher- I am A Conservative Teacher, and that's a threat to liberals and leftists and makes me guilty of thought crimes of the worst sort.

In many ways, thought crime is an even more serious offense than committing an actual crime, and that is why I have inspired such hate and attacks from my comments and blog posts, more so than others who simply are conservatives. Our outward actions and character stem from our inner world, and my inner world is conservative, and thus it does not matter to liberals and leftists what my outer world of teaching is like and how professional I am in that environment- they know and I know they know that I am a conservative teacher.

Many out there, including President Obama and the modern day Democratic Party that has been infiltrated and taken over by liberal fascists, believe that you can practice one thing all you want, but you must think and believe only what the fascist government tells you to believe. And I don't, and that is why I am a threat that they need to silence, intimidate, and threaten.

The good news is that I have for years been lying about who I am- using friends for radio interviews, having family members post my comments and blog posts from their locations, and even mixing up personal details. Since I started this blog in 2008, I've moved three times and worked in two school districts on either edge of town, gotten married, had a dozen kids, and even taken up urban farming! Because I am still unknown, I remain a threat. I'm nearing retirement age though and just need to hold on for a couple more years. And you wolves, although you may circle me, I am a friend of liberty and a patriot, and you will not terrorize me into thinking differently. Two plus two does equal four.

Elementary Students Forced to Write Advocacy Letters to Governor Criticizing Education Cuts, via Michigan Capitol Confidential:

Third through fifth graders at an elementary school in the Walled Lake Consolidated School District were assigned by at least one teacher this week to write letters to Gov. Rick Snyder saying how unhappy they were with his budget cuts, the school district confirmed Thursday.

The students were told the best letters would be forwarded to the governor. One parent said the teachers prepped the students with what the budget cuts entailed because some weren’t aware. Students also were asked to speak in front of their classmates about why they didn’t like the budget cuts.

Walled Lake parent Ernie Hughes said he didn’t think the assignment was appropriate. “Don’t bring politics into the school and use the kids as pawns,” Hughes said.

District Spokesman Judy Evola said in an e-mail it wasn’t appropriate for the elementary age students to write the letters. “The District neither supports this writing assignment or believes it was age appropriate for elementary students," she said.

This news does not shock or surprise me. In my post Liberal Teachers I wrote:

Whole generations of students are being brainwashed by this liberal thinking. And I do mean they are being brain-washed. Teachers are systematically trying to force the students in their classes to think in a certain way. They are forced to only hear one viewpoint on issues, they are forced to only provide answers that the teacher considers right, and they are forced on penalty of shame to admit to and agree to the liberal agenda. True, many students rebel against this system, usually be shutting down mentally or saying they hate school, but most students are worn down bit by bit, and eventually agree that 2+2 does equal 5, and the liberal agenda in this nation is advanced that much further.

There is considerable evidence to me that this is so- textbooks, state curriculum, lesson plans, standardized tests, student comments, and my own observations. On big issues and little issues, the liberal agenda is pushed down students minds, and the cumulative effect of decades of this is beginning to show in our current political environment.

Although Walled Lake district spokesman Judy Evola admitted that the students should not have written the letters and does not support this effort, there were no reports of any disciplinary actions taken and no reports of reviews of the teacher's past activities and projects. Although it is possible that this was the first and only time that this teacher let their liberal views show through in the class and forced innocent children to be pawns in their political games, it is more likely this teacher has systematically attempted to slant her teaching towards liberal values and beliefs and every day to make her students into progressive activists of change along the lines of Saul Alinsky (whom the NEA suggests all teachers read). She probably is like another teacher who I had the chance to substitute teach for once and used her classroom as a forum to spread her liberal values and views (see my post I Knew I Was Different From Liberal Teachers When...).

One can only hope that the district has taken the appropriate steps with this teacher and that in the future this teacher will only lean liberal and will make conscious attempts to be more moderate and will not ever use students to promote their agenda ever again. I do not expect teachers to always be 100% perfect or always be nonpartisan or apolitical- that would make education dry and dull- but there needs to be balance and students never must be made pawns of a teachers views. I'm a conservative teacher and of course my conservative beliefs show (especially after having students for a whole year)- but I play devil's advocate from both sides, come down hard on Republicans and conservatives at times, occasionally parrot out the Democrat and liberal talking points, never force my students to be part of any sort of conservative agenda, and always try my hardest to teacher critical thinking skills and have the students make their own educated and ration decisions about issues and concepts. That's all we should ask of any teacher- and we should be asking it of all the teachers in Walled Lake Consolidated School District.

Via memeorandum (and here too) I read this report from The Hill: White House to offer 10 states waivers on No Child Left Behind:

President Obama on Thursday will offer waivers to 10 states that applied for exclusion from some aspects of the No Child Left Behind Law, according to a report in The Associated Press that cited an anonymous White House official...

...The George W. Bush-era legislation requires that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014, and would penalize those schools where the children failed to reach required standards...

...There is broad support among both parties to reform the legislation, which Obama has called admirable but flawed. However, Congress has been gridlocked over how to do so since it came up for renewal in 2007....

President Obama once more done the wrong thing. As I wrote in my post Obama's Change to NCLB Policy: Violation of Nation's Principles?:

In 2001, George W. Bush proposed a major change to education law called The No Child Left Behind Act. This piece of legislation was supported with extensive bipartisan support in Congress and leading up to its implementation and passage there was extensive debate regarding this bill- people were given an opportunity to discuss it, come to grips with it, and properly weight its merits and problems.

NCLB at its heart was a deal- education would be reformed by putting in place at the federal level higher standards and the establishment of measurable educational goals, and in return Congress would dramatically increase the amount of amount of federal funding for education, increasing it from $42.2 billion in 2001 to $54.4 billion in 2007. In return for states developing assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, the federal would expand funding for reading programs and Title I programs which benefit disadvantaged children, and would considerably expand funding for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education) to support education. That was the bargain made, after considerable discussion and debate- money in exchange for accountability.

And now, with no debate and discussion, President Obama has decided without any support from either party in Congress to go ahead and change the deal, and we can only pray that he does not alter it further....

...President Obama is once again demonstrating his unfitness for office by changing the deal, and this is a bad thing- education will continue to receive funding, but now will no longer have to meet the deal that Congress put in place- rather, they will have to meet the deal that Obama puts in place, conditions that he will establish without legislative authority or approval. This sort of action should be causing libertarians and liberals and conservatives to howl, because it is a slap in the face to democracy, elected government, separation of powers, and our Constitution. His time in office can not come to an end quickly enough...

It is time that we change directions as a nation- and thankfully in one short year we can do so. The Republican Party will eventually nominate someone who isn't Obama, and this Republican will not support the 'go it alone', unconstitutional, 'slush fund' methods of Chicago-style gangster-in-chief Barack Obama. Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee have recently released two pieces of draft legislation to overhaul No Child Left Behind, with provisions in them that support state-developed accountability systems and a smaller federal footprint in education. These resolutions will be debated in our legislative branch- our law making branch of government- and funded there, and once the details have been figured out, compromises made, and hearing and testimony taken on the powers of the unintended consequences of the law, then it will become law and be executed by our President.

THAT'S HOW WE DO IT IN AMERICA- this isn't Kenya or Indonesia, where the dictator who runs our nation can just jam through his way, hopefully get Congress to approve it, and fund it all through giant slush funds that were designed to stimulate the economy or bail out failing banks back in 2009.

The ends do not justify the means in this nation- and our President is not smarter than the American public and their elected Representatives and Senators. He is not a King, ordering his advisers and czars and secretaries to implement policies and rules and waiver plans without any Congressional authority to do so simply because HE believes it to be the right policies- our President acts (especially on domestic policies) only with Congressional approval and direction. Imagine how the liberals would have howled had President Bush just decided to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan without any Congressional direction, using funds designed to pay for healthcare or education, and then laughed off any sort of oversight of his efforts. It would not be right for Bush to do that then, and it is not right for Obama to grant waivers to states for NCLB now.

Race to the Top should have been opposed, and changes to NCLB should be opposed- in America, laws must come from the legislative branch, not the White House, and President Obama's attempt to ignore the separation of powers in our nation in the hopes of jamming his views on the sovereign people of America must be opposed. Vote Republican in 2012 and throw him out of office.

UPDATE: Ace of Spades has a great post up on this subject, and says something that I have been saying to the liberals and progressives who are cheering the Presidents unilateral actions recently:

I don't even want to think like this, but if we're playing Lord of the Flies like this, I can see a Republican president waiving compliance with the National Labor Relations Board too. And the EPA. And unilaterally offering a "waiver" permitting a company to drill in ANWR.

During his State of the Union address on January 24, 2012, President Barack Obama offered up reasons why voters should give him a second term of office, arguing that

...In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs...

Many on the left (like Balloon Juice) are trotting out this statistic as evidence that President Obama's policies are successful at creating jobs and putting Americans back to work. Although the jobs are being created by businesses, and it could be argued that these jobs would have been created regardless of who was in office, liberals and Democrats and progressives argue that President Obama deserves credit for 3 million jobs created by him while he was President and that we should all vote for him again in 2012.

And to be fair, if President Obama's policies have been successful in creating millions of jobs for workers, then we should give him credit and a second term of office- President Clinton, who was a Democrat, deserved another term of office in 1996 on the strength of a booming economy. But also to be fair, if President Obama's policies have not been successful in creating millions if jobs for workers, let's hold him accountable and throw him out of office, because it is important to be fair.

So let's take a look at some numbers, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which are pretty unbiased (although I will point out that any likely bias to be introduced by this government agency would favor Obama). These numbers are generated here, and are not seasonally adjusted. All numbers are in the thousands.

For comparison, let's first look at President Bush, the Republican in office who preceded Obama. According to the BLS, when President Bush took office in January in 2001 the number of people age 16 or older employed in our nation was 136181K. Over the next year, that number dropped to 134177 (Jan 02). By January of 2007 the number climbed to 144275K. Democrats took over control of the House and Senate at this time. The number of employed though continued to climb, hitting 146867K in July of 2008. It is at this point that the 'crash' occurred, and on leaving office the number of people employed had dropped to 145362.

A couple ways to look at this data. Overall, 9181K (over 9 million) jobs were created during Bush's time as President. If you want to say that 'the first year doesn't count', then Bush created 11185K jobs. If you want to say that 'the first year doesn't count and the first year of the next guy's Presidency does'- in other words, count as 'Bush' the years from Jan 02 to Dec 10, then Bush created 2392K jobs. If you want to simply count by 'first three years', Bush created 1555K jobs.

Now let's look at President Obama. According to the BLS, when President Obama took office in January of 2009 the number of people age 16 or older employed in our nation was 140436K. Over the next year, that number dropped to 136809K (Jan 10). Buy January of 2011, the number climbed to 137599. Republicans took back control of the House at this time, although the Senate was still controlled by Democrats. The number employed continued to climb, hitting 139869 today.

A couple ways to look at this data. Overall, 567K (half a million) jobs have been lost during Obama's time as President. If you want to say that 'the first year doesn't count,' then Obama created 3060K jobs (or, 'over 3 million' as he bragged about in his speech). If you want to simply count by 'first three years', Obama lost 567K jobs.

So, let's go back to the earlier point that Obama was trying to make- that his policies helped us to recover from a recession and created 3 million jobs, and so he should be re-elected. In comparison to the Republican who was in office before him- a Republican who Democrats said was 'dumb' and who made 'lots of mistakes'- Obama fares considerably worse by any measure. In overall comparison, Bush created almost 10 million more jobs; in 'first year doesn't count', Bush created almost 8 million more jobs; and in 'first three years' comparison, Bush created almost 2 million more jobs. By any comparison, the 'bumbling idiot' who was in office prior to Obama did a considerably better job at being around when jobs were created by businesses.

The argument against why Obama should be elected to a second term is not 'things got worse under Obama', because that's going to turn out to be not true (I imagine employment will grow enough over his last year to give him a positive balance overall). The argument against why Obama should not be elected to a second term is that his policies made the road to recovery longer, tougher, and worse and that his job-killing policies, supported by a Democratic Congress, led to the loss of jobs in America versus what we could have expected from anyone else.

If the Republicans nominate a candidate comparable to Bush, whom Democrats constantly attacked as unqualified and dumb, than we can expect millions more jobs than what Obama has demonstrated that he can create; if the Republicans nominate a candidate better than Bush (someone smarter, with more business savvy, leadership skills, experience saving bankrupt enterprises, experience balancing budgets, etc) than we can hope for more jobs created than under Bush. Either way, Obama should not be re-elected.

And keep in mind I ignored for our purposes here the increase in population in our nation that has occurred (see my earlier discussion breaking down the Employment-Population Ratio, which measures number of people employed as a percentage of the population- under Bush that rate averaged around 62%, and under Obama it has hovered around 58%, even over the past 22 months of job growth that Obama is bragging about the ratio has only gone up 0.6%). Population growth should naturally lead to more jobs being created- it did under Bush, but yet it hasn't under Obama.

And also keep in mind the debt that our nation has taken on to achieve these results. Bush created 9 million jobs and added 4 trillion in debt- Obama lost 500 million jobs and added 5 trillion in debt. This means that my children and grandchildren gave up a lot of their future for nothing under Obama.

Personal insults, soaring rhetoric, and misleading claims don't stand up the force of data, information, facts, and reasoning. President Obama needs to be gone.

• Connecting Classrooms with Skype

  How this teacher uses Skype to connect her classrooms with others. I like the preplanning  - something that needs to be done to be ready for this.

  tags: education globaled flatclass

• Flat Classroom Projects: Applications Open Now

  If you want to look into a Flat Classroom project for your school, applications are open. Our goal is to be the best collaborative learning experience where students co-create and collaborate together. We have projects for all ages and we're totally teacher run (most of us are full time and do this on the side or have classrooms in the project.) Find out more or ask me questions if you need to.

  tags: education flatclass globaled

• Template projects | British Council Schools Online

  The British Council Connecting Classrooms program has free projects for global learning on their website. It also has a way to find links with schools. I like that you can download templates.

  tags: education flatclass globaled

• Projects on Skype in the classroom | Skype Education

  Here are projects from Skype in the classroom. Posted by teachers. A lot of teachers are looking for people to Skype with. There should be a better way, but kudos to Skype for doing this.

  tags: education skype flatclass globaled

• Amy's Travels Project:Connecting Children Through Global Awareness Literature | Skype Education

  Skype in the classroom has lists of projects that you can do with Skype. This is very innovative. Here is one using the Amy's Travel's multicultural children's book.

  tags: education flatclass skype

• Partnership for Global Learning Annual Conference

  This is just after ISTE. I hope that many of the ISTE people will be able to go there and vice versa.
  
  Asia Society's Partnership for Global Learning Annual Conference will take place June 29-30 at the Brooklyn Marriott in New York City.
  The two-day event connects educators, business leaders, policymakers and resource providers to share best practices, build partnerships and advance policies to ensure the next generation is ready to lead in an interconnected world.
  This year's theme is "Pathways to Global Competence" and the four conference strands are:
  Innovations in Teacher Practice
  Exploring the Global Issues of Today
  Going Global Through Technology and Media
  Assessing Global Competence Through Student Work

  tags: flatclass globaled events

• Worldwide list of reading/literacy charities 2012 | Playing by the book

  A list of reading and literacy charities worldwide for 2012. This author has spent a lot of time compiling the list and asks for your feedback. Hope you'll help. We should NEVER throw away books, there are a lot of people who need them. In fact, I tend to not want to throw them away now anyway because I'm not replacing them like I used to. It is a bit scary.

  tags: education flatclass literacy

• Neustar Launches Social Media Digital Citizenship Program for  Kentucky Schools | EON: Enhanced Online News

  A program from Neustar to Kentucky schools about Digital Citizenship. Lots of people are jumping on this "bandwagon." I think my biggest concern is that:
  #1 It needs to be "real" and not based on preachy scare-based tactics
  #2 Students should talk with those who share the program - if it is just videos and worksheets, that doesn't cut it. 
  #3 To talk about and learn social media, you should be doing it. (That is what we do on Digiteen.)
  
  a major new initiative to bring social media digital literacy education to students across the state of Kentucky through a program called “My Digital Life.” Neustar will partner with EverFi, Inc., a leading education technology company, to provide this innovative, online student experience to all Kentucky schools interested in teaching and certifying their students in digital literacy skills and responsibility. Most importantly, Neustar’s partnership is making the cutting-edge program available free of cost to the schools and state.

  tags: flatclass globaled digiteen digital citizenship

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

Via Big Government, Bill Ayers Apostle Appointed White House Education Initiative Director:

Jose Rico has been named the new director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, a key position that could help close the achievement gap between white and minority students. But if his history is any indication, his influence may do more harm than good.

Perhaps most troubling is Rico’s connection to unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and communist radical Mike Klonsky through the Chicago-based “Small Schools Workshop.” The “Small Schools Workshop” was founded by Ayers and Klonsky. According to a U.S. Department of Education biography, Rico worked for the Small Schools Workshop some 6 years... Rico’s CPSalumni.org bio... describes his time in Chicago working as a “community organizer.”

...Does it matter that an apostle of anti-American radicals like Ayers and Klonsky is now in such an influential position? Is it unfair to judge him by the company he kept for six years of his professional life? Perhaps his academic record will show a positive impact on students and could overcome any shocking associations he has?

Sadly, that’s not the case. During Rico’s tenure as principal of the Multicultural Arts High School, student performance was 584th out of 640 high schools in the state. And despite its low teacher-to-student ratio (less than 14-1) and Ayers/Klonsky-inspired “small school” philosophy, Rico’s school managed to produce a paltry 56% graduation rate. The Chicago Tribune reported the school “did not meet federal education standards.”

Why appoint someone with such a dismal track record to such an important position? Apparently Chicago connections (Rico is also a personal friend of Michele Obama) are more important that his professional performance. Being an apostle of Obama’s personal friends Ayers and Klonsky apparently doesn’t hurt, either.

Some of you may know that I have personally met Bill Ayers, and that that experience may have indirectly led to me losing my first job in education. I had a long interview with Larry Elder on this issue last year, and I've posted a briefer version of my experience on my blog (see my post My Experience Meeting Bill Ayers).

Jose Rico, as a community organizer who was immersed for many years in the filth that is Bill Ayers educational philosophy, is a poor choice to lead any sort of national initiative, but he likely shares the same educational ideology of Obama, and that is why he was picked. Bill Ayers, who founded and designed the schools that Jose Rico worked in, felt that teachers should use their classrooms to promote radical, leftist, communist values.

And Ayers vision of education is Obama's vision of education. Obama pushes a radical, leftist, communist vision of education that I talked about on my post Break Down Class System in Education by Moving to the Right, not the Left?:

But being the deeply liberal institutions that they are, schools always arrive at the same and incorrect conclusion of how to break down this class system. Schools and the educational world pushes that all students should be equalized by going through education at the same pace (one grade per year), that every student should graduate at the same exact time with the same exact number and sort of classes, that the pace and level of education that is delivered in the classroom should be directed at the average (or even the least) student in the room, that the curriculum that is taught in schools must be exactly the same, that the funding of the school systems should be exactly the same, that classes must be large groups of students all moving at the same pace, and that teachers should be paid the same (or have pay scales that advance the same for everyone, whether they are an effective teacher or not).

The solution that liberals have devised to break down the class system in the education world is a leftist one that attempts to redistribute and equalize effort from those who have it to those who don't- the leftists in education try to use schools to transfer to those students who don't the natural intelligence, curiosity, industry, effort, leadership, communication, writing skills, the right opinions, the right mindset, or whatever that the others students do have. And the result is predictable- an educational establishment that achieves less results with more resources consumed, that falls further behind when measured against the past or other nations, and that does not give students the knowledge and skills to succeed in the future.

President Obama, Jose Rico, Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, and others are radical, leftist, communists who should not be in positions of power over our children's education. Help me remove them from their positions and replace them in 2012 by voting against them.

• American Educational Research Journal

  Many educational journals like this one have RSS feeds to notify you when new research comes out. If you want to keep up with research, I highly recommend you use an RSS reader. I use Google reader on my computer and Mr. Reader on my ipad (because it integrates with Diigo.)

  tags: education research learning researcher_thoughtleader

• Toontastic Version: 1.40 Education App | Macworld

  Toontastic is a highly rated site (that is currently free because it is in the app store hall of fame.) Download it now onto those ipads while you can get it. 
  
  It is for cartooning, tell your story and is great for using with digital storytelling. I highly recommend you get it while you can.

  tags: education eduapp learning

• Blogs May Help Teens Reduce Social Stress | Psych Central News

  I have seen this first hand in students and these findings are totally credible to me. Another reason to have kids blogging. Blogging may help teens improve their self-esteem and enhance friendships, a new study suggests. Moreover, the online activity is especially helpful for teens with social anxiety. Researchers believe this use of social networking is especially suitable for teens who spend a vast majority of their time online. ".

  tags: research learning blogging

• Twins are multiplying, raising new questions for the nature vs. nurture debate - On Parenting - The Washington Post

  Lots of talk about twins and more insight into nature versus nurture. "when it came to explaining why a particular group of children ended up with different IQ scores, 75 percent of the variation was due to genetics, not parenting,”

  tags: research learning twins genetics iq

• Do We Learn in Lines or Circles? - Nimble Copy

  We allow students to have struggles in Flat Classroom and expect to coach them through the teachable moment. this research seems to back up that is the right thing to be doing. is your learning environment too perfect? a recent blog post, David Ginsburg talks about the role of struggle in learning: “Frustration is a precursor to deep, lasting learning. That’s right, students’ grasp of new concepts and skills is often better when they struggle through the process of learning those concepts and skills than when teachers error-proof that process.” ".

  tags: learning research problembasedlearning

• Cognitive skills fade at 45, not 60, new research shows | The Australian

  This is a bit depressing but worth knowing about. if you stress, read Brain Rules about the massive impact that exercize has on improving cognitive skills. Again, this is a correlation not causality. is it we get more sedentary so we decline mentally. "Six Flags Great Adventure and Discovery Education are partnering together to offer free admission to the New Jersey theme park for K-6 students who participate in Read to Succeed, an online program geared to encourage students to read outside of the classroom.".

  tags: research learning

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

• To Figure Out Unknown, Children Rely Less on Words Than Adults Do

  If you work with younger children under the age of 5, you will want to look deeper into this research that shows that words mean less to children than adults when trying to categorize things. ""In the past, we thought that if we name the things for children, the labels will do the rest: children would infer that the two things that have the same name are alike in some way or that they go together," he said. "We can't assume that anymore. We really need to do more than just label things."

  tags: learning research prek preschool language kinderchat

• Character Building Improves Quality of Education

  This is a research study I want to read. "A study of 20 elementary schools in Hawaii has found that a program to build social, emotional and character skills resulted in significantly improved quality of education. The program, which is centered on activities to build character, only takes about an hour a week away from traditional education, but has led to fewer suspensions, lower absenteeism, and better reading and math scores on standardized tests, researchers say".

  tags: education learning character

• For Better Grades, Try Bach in the Background - Miller-McCune

  If you are going to flip your classroom, new research suggests you may want to use classical music as your background music. "New research from France finds students learned more when a videotaped lecture was underscored with classical music. "

  tags: research learning education flippedclassroom music

• Physical activity and better school performance, a closer look - latimes.com

  The LA Times carried an article about the link between physical exercise and learning. it is about time, although the primary conclusions of the several studies are that more studies are needed. cuttng PE may be cutting your test scores. Any Mom of a boy knows that they do better with some rough and tumble in their day (my daughter does too.) ".In the collection of studies, the article's authors found two they deemed high-quality, with both showing a strong correlation between exercise and better school performance."

  tags: learning research health_teacher pe health

• Research in Learning Technology ~ Stephen's Web

  Awesome news. "Research in Learning Technology is the journal of the Association for Learning Technology. It aims to raise the profile of research in learning technology, encouraging research that informs good practice and contributes to the development of policy."

  tags: learning research

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

In my post America's Youth Will Rue the Day They Voted for Obama I wrote:

...(the national debt piled up under the recent budgets of President Obama) is going to destroy the life, liberty, and property of my children and grandchildren. They are going to grow up in a world less secure because our nation will owe money to nations ranging from Middle Eastern oil dictatorships to communist China, our children will have lesser fire and police and hospital and library services than we enjoy today, inflation will destroy savings and inheritances and businesses passed on, Social Security will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), Medicare will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), higher education will be too expensive except for the richest of the youth, and our society will be one which rewards those children whose parents have political connections and not those children who work hard and innovate. A Leviathan will rule over my children and grandchildren, controlling their actions and dictating to them in a poor society that is yet a shadow of what America used to be, all thanks to liberal and progressives and their failed policies which have destroyed the financial and moral foundations of nations, states, and cities already....

...our nation will fall father and farther behind in developing energy and be forced to transfer more and more wealth to tyrants overseas just because Obama and the Democrats are slaves to a failed Green God religion and its corrupting influence.

The very nature of Obamacare is to transfer wealth from young to old, by forcing healthy members of society who are choosing not to buy healthcare to buy healthcare and subsidize the old people in society who use it. The promise is there that someday they'll also get to join in the intergenerational theft, but when America's debt soars ever higher, that promise will not be followed through on, and besides, promises of intergenerational theft are still nothing more than theft.

America's youth will rue the day that they voted for Barack Obama on a naive promise of hope and change and togetherness. They will rue the day....

My prediction was that someday in the future, America's youth will look back on the election of 2008 and think to themselves that they should not have voted for him because in this distant future America's youth will be unemployed and facing crumbling foundations and massive debt. My prediction was wrong- it turns out, America's youth should be ruing the day right now that they voted for Obama, because now none of them have jobs:

Just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs.

That means that almost half of all young people are not getting any job experience and are not gaining critical job skills, and in the decades to come, now will be a lost period during which the future did not set themselves up for a brighter future. Instead the young are draining the resources of other productive people in society by living at home and eating food paid for by their parents, who could have been using using that money to invest or save for retirement or give to charity.

Although I was not able to find any information to compare 55.3% to from the Department of Labor, I was able to find a paper which suggests a pre-Obama employment rate for 16 to 29 year olds of 65%. This suggests that the addition of variable "President Obama" to the American economic equation resulted in an increase in 1 in 10 young people not being able to find a job due to his job-killing policies.

The reason why these young people can not find jobs is not because 'Bush lied and soldiers died' in Iraq, it is not because Bush didn't stop global warming, it is not because the Republicans are 'obstructing' tax increases and increased government spending, and it is not because 'tea party people are racist.' The reason why young people can not find jobs is that legislation and policies passed by Obama and the Democrats make it more expensive to hire workers (such as increased healthcare costs associated with Obamacare), make it more risky to expand production (when government policies could change and turn on any sort of industry), when being productive makes you more of a target (the 'evil rich' are being attacked by class-warfare playing Obama), and that the government is encouraging young people to not get jobs by pushing more student loans on them and getting them covered on their parents insurance longer.

Young people, because they are up-and-coming and energetic and healthy and productive and strong, should vote conservative and Republican, so that government gets off their backs and lets them be all that they can be.

• My Wish List for Education in 2012 | Education Is My Life

  TEacher AJ Juliani (a Flat Classroom certified teacher) writes a beautiful and profound blog on his wish list. He understand and gets global collaboration in the classroom. Especially moving is this quote:
  
  "My wish list for Education in 2012 is centered around the belief that it is time to try “new things in new ways”. It is time to look for “Next Practices” instead of “Best Practices”. It’s time to put ideas that are unproven into practice, learn from our failures, and celebrate our successes. Here is my wish list:"
  
  Worth a read.

  tags: education globaled flatclass all_teachers bestpractices

• Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World

  Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World. written by Veronica Boix Mansilla and Anthony Jackson is now available for free here. This is a great resource for educators who want to incorporate Global Competence into their classrooms and schools.
  
  This is a PDF download.

  tags: education flatclass globalcompetence

• Global Competence - Submit Student Work Now

  The asia society would like you to submit student work relating to global competence now. Please share. There are also a lot of great links explaining this concept on this page. You can also download their free book: educating for global competence.

  tags: education flatclass globaled

• Defining and assessing global competence in teaching and learning - Harvard Dialogues on Global Education

  Harvard's components of global competence.

  tags: education flatclass globaled

• How High-Performing Nations Teach Global Skills | Asia Society

  How high performing nations teach global skills.

  tags: education flatclass globaled worldonline

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

• Task Management for Teams - Asana

  A website that is for teams and is free for up to 30 members in a workspace. We are looking for work flow software for Flat Classroom so this is a neat one to try out. Lifehacker mentioned it as an underhyped app of 2011 because they think it is so great. It is definitely something for those who are interested in global collaboration to test out.

  tags: education flatclass

• Challenge 8: Collaborate and Communicate - Flat Classrooms

  Having an interesting conversation about collaboration versus cooperation. Here, Cynthia Sandler reflects on the difference:
  
  "before this project I would have said that of course it matters, collaborative being superior to cooperative.  After the project, however, I am wondering how significant the difference really is.  I see that there was more discussion and perhaps critical and creative thinking within the collaborative group.  They probably got a lot out of the process of this project and continued to hone their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills  However, the project assignment was asking for a particular product, not grading the process, so I would say that the groups who divvied up the work did some great critical and creative thinking by deciding that that would be the most effective and efficient way to get the job done.  "
  
  My own thoughts are:
  "I think this is a great point about cooperative and collaborative. Both can create great outcomes, that is sure. In this case, you're not teaching collaborative skills, so cooperative or collaborative would be fine for either, however, in Flat Classroom we do want the students to specifically know how to collaborate so we do care. Of course, the argument always comes up, "but it looks fine, you shouldn't care if we collaborate." I think the struggle is that school seems to encourage cooperation not collaboration and so they should learn it somewhere. There are certainly struggles with this."
  
  Please feel free to share your discussions on the original Ning post.

  tags: flatclass globaled education cooperation collaboration

• iCitizen Project - What does it mean to be a citizen - nationally, globally, and digitally?

  A school project about what it means to be a citizen. I'm looking to see if students are actually interacting with other classrooms (which is what needs to happen) but it looks like they are using Schoology so perhaps they are. It is important to not just talk to the world or at the world but to talk WITH the world.

  tags: education flatclass globaled

• Mind the Gap Year: Global Citizen Year Turns 18-Year-Olds into Future Leaders - Education - GOOD

  Abby Falik was turned away from the Peace Corps and created a post-high-school program called Global Citizen Year. This next year they will be traveling to Ecuador, Brazil and Senegal where they will teach or translate English, help farmers with internet resources or help local teachers use search engines for lesson planning. The price tag is close to 30K but I think global experiences like this are going to increase for a world that is beginning to value the global competency that comes from travel and participating in global collaborative experiences (like Flat classroom.)

  tags: globaled flatclass education

• The World Peace Game | Edutopia

  A TED video from a fourth grade teacher who is helping fourth graders understand world peace. Very inspirational.

  tags: flatclass education globaled

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