Learning, Teaching & Leading Today

"You teach a course where you normally lecture to students during class time. They work on homework and group assignments during their own time. What if there were a way to do the lectures outside of class time so you could use class time to have students work on activities together? Welcome to Flipping the Classroom Simply Speaking."

Forvo: the largest word pronunciation dictionary in the world, now with translations. All the words in all the languages pronounced by native speakers

"Forvo is the largest pronunciation guide in the world, the place where you´ll find millions of words pronounced in their original languages. Cool, isn´t it? Be a part of this cultural phenomenon now!

Who makes Forvo?

Forvo was born as an idea in 2007, and is online since January 2008. Just a year later Forvo became the largest pronunciation guide in the world with audio pronunciations in more than 200 languages. 

The owner of this site is Forvo Media SL, from San Sebastián (Spain). If you want more information about Forvo contact us here."

"One of the big topics Pink tackles in his current book is the idea of moving from transactions to transcendence — to making something personal. That’s the best way to 'sell' students on what they’re learning, Pink maintains. This has been a recurring theme in education: connecting what’s taught in classrooms to students’ personal lives. But, as evidenced by current school dynamics, that’s not the way the tide is moving.

'Most of our education is heavily, heavily, heavily standardized,' Pink said. 'So, 11-year-olds are all together in one room. No 10-year-olds, and certainly no 13-year-olds. And [assuming that] all of those 11-year-olds are the same, we’re going to put them all together in a 35-kid classroom. Every educator knows that doesn’t work well. Every educator knows about differentiated instruction. The idea that you treat everybody the same way is foolish, and yet the headwinds in education are very much toward routines, right answer, standardization.'"

"'The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.'"

"The quest to find one’s purpose and live the creative life boldly is neither simple nor easy, especially for a young person trying to make sense of the world and his place in it.

In the spring of 1926, Sherwood Anderson sent his seventeen-year-old son John a beautiful addition to history’smost moving and timeless letters of fatherly advice. Found in Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children (UK; public library), the missive offers insight on everything from knowing whose advice not to take to thefalse allure of money to the joy of making things with your hands:

'The best thing, I dare say, is first to learn something well so you can always make a living. Bob seems to be catching on at the newspaper business and has had another raise. He is getting a good training by working in a smaller city. As for the scientific fields, any of them require a long schooling and intense application. If you are made for it nothing could be better. In the long run you will have to come to your own conclusion.'

'The arts, which probably offer a man more satisfaction, are uncertain. It is difficult to make a living.'

'If I had my own life to lead over I presume I would still be a writer but I am sure I would give my first attention to learning how to do things directly with my hands. Nothing gives quite the satisfaction that doing things brings.'"

"The Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, a three-year study designed to determine how to best identify and promote great teaching, today released its third and final research report. The project has demonstrated that it is possible to identify great teaching by combining three types of measures: classroom observations, student surveys, and student achievement gains. The findings will be useful to school districts working to implement new development and evaluation systems for teachers. Such systems should not only identify great teaching, but also provide the feedback teachers need to improve their practice and serve as the basis for more targeted professional development. The MET project, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a collaboration between dozens of independent research teams and nearly 3,000 teacher volunteers from seven U.S. public school districts.

“Teaching is complex, and great practice takes time, passion, high-quality materials, and tailored feedback designed to help each teacher continuously grow and improve,” said Vicki Phillips, Director of Education, College Ready – U.S. Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Teachers have always wanted better feedback, and the MET project has highlighted tools like student surveys and observations that can allow teachers to take control of their own development. The combination of those measures and student growth data creates actionable information that teachers can trust.”

The final report from the MET project sought to answer important questions from practitioners and policy-makers about how to identify and foster great teaching. Key findings from the report include:"

"The THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND PROJECT is an interactive documentary to record us all singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

Please record your cover by May 15, 2013, to be included in a video-mosaic (“mash-up”) of the “This Land” song that’ll stream on PBS.ORG.

The project is produced by American Masters/THIRTEEN in New York. It’s in support of the Woody Guthrie centennial, which is the basis for the project and partnership with the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives as they have been hosting Woody 100 events, concerts, and programs throughout the past year.

In addition to the final compilation video, the website’s focus will be the crowdsourced “This Land Is Your Land” songs: a place to experience as well as catalog for the historical record a diverse collection of a song that’s a part of our national canon, reflective of our American way of life.'

"Curation, reflection, and contribution are all equal components within this model. Curation requires learners to evaluate information and organize it. Reflection encourages learners to unpack their learning in public spaces, such as blogs. Contribution demands that learners “give back” to both digital and face-to-face communities either through discussion or production. By engaging in all three parts of this model, educators can ensure that they adequately synthesize and consider important artifacts. This process is a far cry from simply storing and organizing “cool stuff.” 

     After engaging in the User Generated Learning process for almost a year, I [Kristen Swanson] can attest that it results in rich, social learning. I only save that which is aligned to my goals and the goals of others with whom I connect. I have fewer links, videos, and interactive sites, but I have more conversations and perspectives to consider. I’ve joined this course as a way to increase my focus on community, not content."

If you're too afraid to do something, watch this video."

"We’ve [Wikispaces.com] heard from many of you that you’re always looking for more training and professional development resources. We’re excited to share with you some fantastic examples of how educators are using wikis to bring together their professional development resources. We hope they spark your creativity."

"Forget the small stuff, for now. What's your big objective?" "As ... we bid another year adieu, our thoughts turn to making resolutions: this year I will lose that extra weight, drink less alcohol, give up sugar, get out of debt. All worthy goals, but why do we perennially return to resolutions that seem based on the idea of fixing all the things we're doing "wrong?"

You can't know what resolution you need until you know what your objective is. In photography, the resolution of the image is entirely dependent on the output you want. If you're looking at an image on your computer monitor, 72 dpi (dots per inch) is fine, but if you want to print that image, you'll need a much higher resolution, say 240 dpi. If you then want to make that image into a billboard, you actually need a relatively lower dpi, because the further away you are from it, the more your eyes will blend the colors for you (think of a Georges Seurat painting).

And that is why I believe we've got it backwards when it comes to making New Year's resolutions. Instead of starting January trying to "fix" all the wrongs, let's take some time to figure out what our objectives really are.

So, dream."