Holt Think: Ed, Creativity, Tech, Administration

Churnalism US

Ever wonder if the news story you’re reading is a product of real journalism or just a spin off of another story posted elsewhere?Discover the journalism you can trust and what you should question.

The Sunlight Foundation’s Churnalism is based on the UK site by the same name and is driven by open-source search engine technology dubbed SuperFastMatch. Both the original Churnalism site and SuperFastMatch were developed by the Media Standards Trust. We at the Sunlight Foundation have partnered with the Media Standards Trust to adapt the site for an U.S. audience and to build web browser extensions with similar functionality.

Copyright in a Copy Paste World

Interesting site for students and teachers dealing with digital plagiarism. Best part of site: Has useful tools to help detect validity of sources and if it is plagiarized or not.

Witch Hunt Takes Down CSCOPE

“…But none of this is likely to comfort the hundreds of rural and small school districts that were using CSCOPE. Sen. Patrick and other state politicians who proclaim their support for local control clearly decided that they trust the gross distortions and wild claims of political activists more than the ability of local school administrators and teachers to choose instructional materials that are appropriate for their students.

This witch hunt isn’t likely to end here, by the way. Right-wing activists are already pointing to other curriculum products they want state officials to investigate. Bringing down CSCOPE — and smearing teachers and local school officials associated with it — has only encouraged them to look for more witches to burn.”

CC Search

Search a wide range of creative commons sites for multimedia material for you or your student projects.

Blog | edshelf: Highlights of latest tools added to edshelf on May 19

edshelf:

We had an incredible number of tools added to edshelf this week. Wow! Thank you, you kind and generous members, for submitting so many great tools.

Here are six notable additions. The first three will help you search through and organize the wonderful world of open educational resources &…

Yuck: The Movie

A brave fourth grader goes undercover to reveal the truth about the New York City public school food service program.

This is what we should be teaching our kids: relevant, rigorous, and showing relationships. 

99 cent sale! 180 Questions

Now on sale for only 99 cents USD!

Designed to get the conversation of education back in your Professional Learning Community. 

For every educator that is part of a Professional Learning Community, there comes a time when the conversation about ‘learning about learning” slows down or even stops. This book is designed to get the conversation going again by providing daily “conversation starters” for PLCs no matter the grade level, the subject area, or the type of school. Tim Holt has created a daily reflection for each day of a typical school year that challenges educators to start really thinking about teaching and learning on their campuses. 

Some of the 180 Questions seem easy, some are more provocative, and some are humorous. All however, are designed to get the conversation in PLCs back to the subject of education. Each question is followed up something that allows the reader to delve more deeply into the topic, be it a web link, an essay, a video, or even a quiz. 

Teachers and administrators alike will benefit from asking themselves and their PLCs these 180 Questions. 

The Honor Roll: 50 Must-Read K–12 Education IT Blogs

For those of you that are trying to convince colleagues to read education blogs and don’t know where to point them, this is a pretty good starting point. 

Update: Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share

From the great webspace EdSurge: 

The popular free coding language will show that it has just been scratching the surface when it gets an overhaul on May 9th. Scratch 2.0 will feature profile pages that let users show off their content, comment, and favorite projects. Users will also be able to see the inner workings of projects they like and modify them. Other improvements include the ability to use vector graphics, create unique coding blocks, use the webcam for motion games, and connect to cloud data—allowing users to do things like create games with global high scores. Not bad for an “introductory” language!