Holt Think: Ed, Creativity, Tech, Administration

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.

CC Search

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

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. 

180 Questions on sale for just 99 cents USD

My first iBook, 180 Questions. Now on sale for 99 cents from the iTunes Bookstore. One week only. If you have not purchased an iBook, try this out. Written especially for those of you with iPads. 

From the description: 

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. 

Please pass this on to fellow educators that might benefit from having a work that helps them in their professional learning community.

Texas Education Agency - Dyslexia Technology Plan

Anita Givens
Associate Commissioner
Standards and Programs

On Sale: 180 Questions for only 99 Cents

Beginning May 15 and for one week, my iBook 180 Questions will be on sale for just 99 cents USD in almost all iTunes stores across the globe. Now is your chance to got this book right before summer at an incredible price! Just 99 cents! 1/4 of a grande latte at Starbucks! Less than a 20 ounce Coke! Less than half the price of a big Mac! Almost half a cent a question! What a deal! 

You know you want it! Now is your chance to own it at an incredible price!

Willingham has it wrong. It is not the kids, it's the content

Most teachers t think that students today have a problem paying attention. They seem impatient, easily bored. I’ve argued that I think it’s unlikely that they are incapable of paying attention,…

Daniel Willingham is starting to turn into the 21st Century equivalent of the old man that sits on his porch and yells at kids to get of his lawn. In this essay, he waxes poetic about kids that used to be able to pay attention to things in order to learn them. That those darn kids these days are too quick to judge if something is worthwhile or not to study,

What he completely ignores of course, is whether the kids are correct or not. Perhaps the material IS not interesting. Perhaps the material IS not relevant. Perhaps it IS boring. 

He essentially is saying the same old tired “You should do it because I told you to” routine that probably his great great grandteacher told him 100 years ago. 

The other point he misses in his mind dropping is that while there is a lot of content (which amazingly he kind of dismisses as a bad thing) the skills we should be teaching kids is how to dig through all that content for what is good and what is bad, not just ignore all of it and stare at walls.

Maybe that is the real reason kids hate school…old people teaching old ways to a future that does not exist.

Ed Surge's Best of School Tools: Q1 2013

“Here’s a rundown of the best s’cool tools from the first quarter of 2013. These are the tools that had you clicking, sharing, and tweeting away. Per the usual, we’re only highlighting those tools that are free to use (in some capacity) or currently in beta.