Tip of the Week – Probable Passages

I heard about this pre-reading activity several years ago from a language arts teacher and adapted it so I could try it with upper elementary and middle school social studies kids. Probable Passages is a pre-reading strategy that integrates prediction, summarization, vocabulary instruction and story frames.
The strategy asks students to use key concepts, terms and [...]

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History for the 21st century

Just spent the last few days at the Midwest Educational Technology Conference in St. Charles, Missouri and, like most tech conferences, there were blogs, wikis, internet cafes, wires and pliers, Web 2.0, etc.
You know what I’m talking about. A lot of general ideas but few specifics about how to actually use some of this stuff [...]

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History through the lens of baseball

The Baseball Hall of Fame has some some nice instructional units focusing on topics such as economics, civil rights, geography and labor history. I really like the way the education staff at the BHOF tie these complex historical topics to baseball.
You can use the units as is but they become even more powerful when combined [...]

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The more things stay the same

First full day at METC in St. Charles, MO and it’s been good and bad. Some serious learning going on but an absolute internet nightmare. Just seems that a technology conference would be able to provide consistent internet access.
I was able to spend part of the morning with Howard Pitler from McREL. He started his [...]

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Is Google not good enough?

I’m sitting here at Monroe Elementary School in St. Charles, Missouri for a METC pre-conference session on finding and evaluating internet information.
Carl Heine from the Illinois Math and Science Academy is leading us through today’s discussion and he’s using the academy’s 21st Century Information Fluency site.
Carl introduces the idea of digital natives using Prensky’s stuff but [...]

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