Active Learning Blog Carnival

No child left thinking

2010-01-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

Video of Dr. Joel Westheimer speaking about his article.http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4223796

Another school year begins

2009-09-03T13:47:00.001-07:00

So Long, Farewell, Goodbye

2009-06-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

I began this carnival in 2007 to promote both Active Learning and Educational Blogs. When I began the journey there were very few blogs about education and now there are 100,000’s of them.

I have regretfully come to the conclusion that there is no longer a need for this blog carnival and this is the last edition. I might resurrect it as a university only blog in the fall, but that has yet to be decided. My Active Learning links (1,200+) will remain available at http://delicious.com/active_learning or through clicking on the key words in the right hand column of this blog.

Best wishes to all my regular contributors, you have made a very time consuming process a pleasure.

Deirdre

June Carnival

I love music as a learning tool and Listen and Learn has provided many wonderful examples to us. Here is her latest song to accompany the book Down by the Station.

Myscha Theriault submitted some great resources in Spelling Activities: Twenty-Seven Ways to Practice in Style.

Kids Love Learning shared wonderful ideas for young children in Creative Hands on Learning.

I am pleased to inform you that one of our regular contributors to the carnival SharpBrains has recently published a book The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Awesome Resources for Curious Teachers provides us with Project-Based Learning: Top 6 Resources.

TutorFi shares 10 Tips to Improve Your Math Skills Everyday.

Aptly named A Revolution in Fiction asks How to spark an interest in literature among today’s students? Creativity.

Dr. Michael Wesch’s Course Approach

I promised several people that I would write about Michael Wesch’s approach to teaching and how it might be used in a K-12 class. Dr. Wesch is famous for his video A Vision of Students Today.

The basic format is this:

First 3 weeks: exploration stage
Second 3 weeks: guided introduction to the field
Next 4 weeks: self-guided research
Due at 11th week: Research paper (followed by collaboration exercises)
Final (16th week): Share with world (video, website, etc.)

Exploration Stage

The purpose of this stage is to give students an opportunity to investigate current issues, practices, research and thinking in the discipline. Note that Dr. Wesch provides the resources for the students so they aren’t completely without guidance. They also have a task to complete that provides evidence of their thinking about the exploration. This stage provides a big picture of the role of the content they will be learning in the world, discipline, course or the individual lives of students.

Ex. Math

When I taught in the classroom, fractions were a stumbling block for many of my students and I usually began with exploring all the ways that fractions were used in their day-to-day lives. My students’ favourite was my bringing a cake or pizza to class which I then allowed them to cut into fractions and share. I usually chose a couple of poor math student for this task because most kids understand sharing equally and they started the lesson feeling like they could do fractions because they could cut the food. This was followed by a brainstorming session about all the ways people use fractions (pieces of things) every day.

Ex. Literature

Begin not with the individual books but with the concept of genre. Take the students on a trip to a library or bookstore and ask them to figure out how the books are organized. If that isn’t possible, ask them how they would find a book to read in the school library. Brainstorming all the categories you could put books into might also assist with this stage. Bring in some best seller lists and have them to identify which categories they represent. Ask them to identify their favourite genres. If you are studying a book this year from a previous century, ask them about how genres might have changed over time.

Guided Introduction to the Field

This is the standard teaching phase where they are actively involved in learning the primary concepts.

Self Guided Research

In Dr. Wesch’s class the students are developing their self directed research proposals during the Guided Introduction stage, these proposals are posted on a wiki and combined into a collaborative class research project. In a high school class, this might be a reasonable process but if the concept of proposing and collaborating on research is inappropriate that doesn’t mean that the class couldn’t have a discussion or brainstorming session about what type of information needs to be explored further and how the assignments might be divided up.

Ex. Math

In the fractions class, each student might be assigned to observe or ask their parents how they use fractions (measure, divide, calculate etc.)

Ex. Literature

This is the ideal class to list key themes from a book they are studying and brainstorm what types of research might students conduct about those themes including historical, cultural and individual implications.

Research Report

Wikis, videos and class blogs are great ways to share the results of the research whether individual or collaborative.

Ex. Math

Have students identify categories (home, trades, restaurants, scientists, doctors, artists) and list how their parents use fractions under the different categories.

Ex. Literature

This is the perfect class for using a wiki that might be organized under specific themes where students post what they learned.

The impact of this process is heightened if they share the wiki/blog/video with parents, another class or the world. If you need to restrict outside access, the fact that students have an opportunity to see and learn from each others work can be very powerful.

Media Literacy ABC's

2009-06-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

A great little video for introducing Web 2.0 tools

For She Was Born in Another Time

2009-05-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

The latest effort by the New Humanities Collaborative to tell the story of how reading and writing have been transformed by the web. What does it mean to write? to read? to publish? The answers to these questions, once obvious, must now be reimagined. Can the educational system rise to the challenge of preparing students to live, work, think, and thrive in an environment of ceaseless change?

Part One

Part Two

Don't Limit A Child To Your Own Learning

2009-05-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

CopyrightEdupics

Don’t limit a child to your own learning,

for he was born in another time - Rabindranath Tagore

This quote reflects issues that I have been thinking about a lot in the last couple of months. My own learning preference is changing. I have spent my life learning from paper; I would read the labels of soup cans if there wasn’t a book or a newspaper handy. I didn’t realize my learning style had changed until I watched Joe’s Non-Netbook, I still read a lot but most of my reading is online with all the interactivity that implies. I now find newspapers profoundly unsatisfactory because they provide only the briefest of summaries, instead I hear the latest news on Twitter and then go to other sources for details. Many of the textbooks available in my area are out of date by the time they are published and they are increasingly overpriced.

The most significant change for me is my replacing of learning from paper to learning from people, people scattered all over the world, from different backgrounds, and different age groups. People I never would have had access to if the Internet didn’t exist.

So let’s begin this carnival with a video made by high school students in California, talking about what they want in a teacher. Read more at Teacher, Revised.

Creating Lifelong Learners shows you How to Get Started Making Class Movies and shares his series on 10 Myths about Writer’s Workshops.

Continuing her series about student art shows, My Creativity Blog provides us with ideas for Rewarding Student Participation in a School Art Shows.

Thinking in Mind shares student work in Remixing in the Classroom: Student Propaganda Panels.

Sharp Brains examines the role of the art in developing children's brains in Arts and Smarts: Test Scores and Cognitive Development.

Tomorrow’s Professor writes about Ways to Teach Peer Writing and Response, in Any Course and Any Size Class.

TLC Lessons Learned shares what they learned about Increasing Student Engagement.

Craig Fenton wants us to know about A New Use For Twitter, it can be a great writing exercise.

Active Learning in the News

Bright Surf com reports Study shows simple writing assignment improves minority student grades.

New York Times reports on a medical schools conversion of basic sciences in Team Program Is an Experiment in Active Learning.

Resources

English Speaker shares Online Tools for Practicing English Grammar.

Debt Free Scholar shares 9 Essential Free Programs Every College Student Must Have.

Online University Reviews offers 100 Resources to Help You Read Better and Faster.

Online Universities and Colleges provides The Master List of Free Online College Courses.

Top Online Engineering Degree writes about 35 Gmail Labs.

Web 2.0 For Teachers Here you can find a collection of recommended Web 2.0 sites for EFL ESL teachers.

1^stwebdesigner posts 28 Photo Editing Websites to have Fun With.

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before May 1st.

How are you going to keep them in the industial age, after they've been connected

2009-04-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Issue of the Month

In his article Irresponsible Professors and Lonely Students, Britanica Blog writer Peter Augustine Lawler claims students today “embrace, by default, the most radical versions of the modern idea of freedom — called postmodern relativism on the left and libertarian nonpreferentialism on the right. Students, more than ever, are free to choose in all areas of their lives in college. They have almost limitless freedom in choosing what to study, and hardly anything moral or intellectual is required of them. What few requirements that are imposed on students are so broad and flexible as to point them in no particular direction at all. In the name of freedom and diversity, little goes on in college that gives them any guidance concerning who they are or what to choose.” What do you think? Do you think "the strong and the beautiful “hook up,” the weak and the ugly are condemned to sexile, the clever use their cunning to master the fraudulent arts of networking and teambuilding or to become trendy, marketable intellectuals, and the timid and decent are shown the vanity of their slavish moral illusions." ?

Motivating Yourself and Your Students

In my university workshops, I frequently hear the complaint that “My students don’t want to participate in …, they prefer passive learning. How do you motivate them to try something new?" Several writers this month were also wondering about that question.

My English Pages reminds us of the importance of motivation in Motivation- Be motivated to motivate!

Brain Blogger asks how do we motivate individuals to change their behaviors in Changing the Error of Our Ways.

On a similar theme, in Teaching with Depression: Is There Any Way Out?, Jesse Scaccia asks about teacher self motivation and the black dog of depression.

Stale Cheerios discusses the concept of motivation in her article ORCA: Part 2. Steve Martin. When teaching an animal (or human), how do we use motivation? Are we doing things that actively engage the animal in the learning process and inspire them to want to learn? Or are we forcing the learning upon the unwilling animal?

My Creativity Blog asks Why Organize A School Art Show? as a great example of motivation.

Invent Creativity looks at the other side of motivation, inspiration in Creativity Inspired Through Culinary Arts.

Many of the students I work with are very extrinsically motivated by marks, competition for advanced placement or fear of punishment because our schools use a behaviourist model of motivation. In my ideal vision of the world, I would like to see more intrinsic motivation that is based in a lifelong love of learning and a curiosity about how things work. John Keller’s ARCS model for designing content that motivates is one way of thinking about how we might make that change.

Active Learning in Practice

Alistair Bomphray defends small schools ability to work with the whole student in Do small schools lie to their students? This article continues the theme of what is the definition of learning.

Miss Kim Dance Blog wonders about the lack of opportunity to use imagination at preschool and says Let them Play.

Big in Japan talks about preparing non-English learners for English language speech and debate contests but his ideas apply to helping students prepare for public speaking in many situations.

Living the Scientific Life asks "Would you like to play a new computer game and help scientists analyze protein chemistry -- at the same time? Baker is using Foldit to help him analyze the structure of proteins, because kids and adults are a lot smarter at this than supercomputers."

Myscha Theriault addresses one of the most difficult learning styles to incorporate into your classroom in Three Easy Ways to Provide Tactile Instruction for Parts of Speech.

Gen-Y Blogger, a university student has been very prolific this month and shared Shakespeare - How I became a fan, The best books to build your SAT vocabulary and World Affairs Challenge Competition.

Joe's Non-Netbook was my greatest inspiration of the month! Sometimes we make the assumption that our way of learning is the best way. This short video shook my assumptions about books.

Learning Resources

Meet Me At the Corner has kid friendly instructional videos.

Teaching that Sticks is compiling Interactive Writing Sites.

Debt Free Scholar shares 20 free online courses from traditional colleges and universities.

Learn-gasm shares 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Librarians on Twitter.

Check out the Delicious tags to the right. I have over 900 resources at every level and in most disciplines.

Next Month

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before May 1st.

Information R/evolution

2009-03-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

This video by Dr. Michael Wesch, a professor of cultural anthropology explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

Now take a look at Joe's Book.

Just Because You Taught IT, Doesn't Mean That IT Was Learned

2009-03-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

Created using Wordle

Law and Public Policy writes about The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching.

ScienceGeekGirl contemplates The Burden of Proof: What does education research really tell us?

Thinking in Mind provides a blog post discussing the power of capturing student voice for self-assessment and demonstrating content understanding. How are you actively involving students in the assessment process? Please let us know!

Dangerously Irrelevant reports on the The Iowa Series - articles he wrote about 21 Century Skills, the new buzzword.

Britannica Blog shares Impatience with Bad Teaching “My host summed it up beautifully: They wonder why we have a high dropout rate and crime rate—but they don’t teach us what we need to know.”

Doomsday Labs interviews the creator of Question Box, which “brings the internet to people who will likely never get online in their lives, or at least in the near future. It’s a local language telephone hotline that connects people to Operators. They connect to the Operator through Question Boxes, which were designed especially for the project.”

Multimedia Learning shares his thoughts about using multimedia like Abe Lincoln’s Facebook page for teaching.

Listen and Learn has another great song to help people learn prepositions Under, Over, In and Out.

Invent Creativity gifts us with 10 Ways to Get Inspired.

The Wise Curve thinks there are 5 Good Reasons Why You Should Buy a Lot of Books.

Active Learning in the News

Thai Teachers. Info reports on Teaching Materials and Art Technique : Using Research Case Studies .

Education Change Org writes Another Foray into Tech and Literacy: Contra The New Yorker about whether books are the sole form of reading.

Delphos Herald reports on “FFA members head to Franklin Elementary to mentor kids on the importance of agriculture as part of the PALS program (Partners in Active Learning Support).”

Plymouth’s Wicked Local reports that “Fifth-grader Sariad O’Brien, 11, likes doing her homework right after school and then being part of the critical thinking group. She enjoys the kind of games they play.”

http://www.vadlo.com/Daily_Research_Cartoon.html

Websites of the Month

The Art Inspired Wiki has lots of links to Art resources. Love the creativity.

Weboworlds – Visual Vocabulary is a great resource for ESL and basic literacy teachers. I enjoy it because it’s funny.

Wordia - videos that redefine the dictionary.

International Edubloggers Directory - an up to date directory of edubloggers from around the world and provide an easy way to find out what other edubloggers are blogging about.

RADCAB - a rubric for evaluating online information.

Save the Tree Octopus - A Critical Thinking/ Media Literacy Exercise to share with your students.

Next Carnival

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before April 3rd.

More discussion on the "dumbness" of the Net Gen

2009-02-23T13:45:00.000-08:00

VS.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

This reminds me of a lecture I attended 10 years ago, put on by a professor who was retiring from teaching because "young people today are morons". After 30 minutes of listening to him quote Aristotle in the original Greek, I realized he was educating for a 19th century world that no longer existed and he was right, he should retire because his students didn't want to learn what he was teaching.

So the question resurfaces, what does it mean to be intelligent? How does one demonstrate intelligence in a world that no longer depends on written communication? Why does every generation since the Greeks complain about how stupid their children are?

Just for Fun - The Twitter Song

2009-02-23T13:16:00.000-08:00

A great song about twitter, my latest technology addiction.

If Hamlet's players used twitter

2009-02-15T10:05:00.000-08:00

Check out the beginning at McSweeney's

The king sent Hamlet a goblet of wine.

The queen likes wine!

The king likes ... oh crap.

The queen, the king, Laertes, and Hamlet are now zombies.

Horatio says well that was tragic.

Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, says yes, tragic. We'll take it from here.

Denmark is now Norwegian.

What is the Nature of Digital Wisdom?

2009-02-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Cartoon by Nick D Kim, http://www.lab-initio.com/
Used by permission

Debate of the Month

Two articles this month about how computers influence thinking have resulted in very different definitions of intelligence. Take a look and tell me what you think.

From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom - In an unimaginably complex future, Marc Prensky argues, the unenhanced person, however wise, will not have the tools of wisdom that will be available to even the least wise enhanced human.

Science Daily asks Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?

Now read Education Changes response to the Science Daily article.

Website of the Month
More than 21 ideas to reach 21st century learners

Articles

Listen and Learn shares another great song that teaches social science 44 Presidents: A Rap.

The Teaching Tips Machine suggests the Think-Write-Discuss Lecture.

The Reading Workshop finds a flaw in Study Island, an otherwise excellent online learning program that features lessons and remediation by bumping students down to lower grade levels if they are unable to pass the tests.

New Great Books reviews Sparks: How Parents Can Ignite the Hidden Strengths of Teenagers.

Crosswords for fun suggests Hangman - A Great Word Game For All Ages!

Learn-gasm shares 100 Best Blogs for Learning about Africa.

Best University explains 101 Time-Saving Google Tricks for Work, Play and Learning and 101 Free Open Course Classes to Learn How to Build ANYTHING including engineering, computers, biology, chemistry, media art and architecture.

Online Nursing Degree wants us to know about 50 Great Learning Tools & Video Games for Nurses & Health Professionals .

Phlebotomy Technician Schools introduces Top 20 iPhone Apps for Overwhelmed Students .

Active Learning in the World News

Enctoday describes Bridging the gap: Program keeps children active, learning when school day ends.

ITC conversations - Phil Long reviews lessons learned from MIT's TEAL (technology-enabled active learning) initiative, and discusses the related work he and his team are doing at the Center for Educational Innovation and Technology at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Grinnell science students describe their undergraduate research experiences.

Asia News reports S$4.5b to be spent in next 10 years to revamp primary school system.

Malta Independent Online describes Bid to raise primary students’ basic competence levels.

The McGill Tribune reports From Mozart to metal: all genres of music can help facilitate the learning experience.

The Bangladesh Daily Star suggests Building the classroom around children.

Next Carnival

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before March 6th.

It's time for a different kind of university

2009-01-23T10:44:00.001-08:00

Kaplan University has taken an interesting approach to advertising. What do you think?

Kaplan University Advertising Spot

Kaplan University Advertising Spot Two

Learning Occurs in Social Networks

2009-01-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros' Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.

Anyone is free to use this video for educational purposes. You may download, translate, or use as part of another presentation. Please share.

Be It Resolved to Delight, Puzzle, and Astound in 2009

2009-01-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

Listen to 2009 is here from Listen and Learn Music, a site with music for schools home and play. We need to sing more! I love starting sessions about teaching in medicine with The Drug Song(language caution).

Website of the Month

The Green Monkey Homes website was created by 6th grade students at Jesuit Middle School of Omaha as the culminating project for a green energy unit. Students researched and created the content (including the quizzes and pictures) on their pages.

Technology Find of the Month

Anki is a spaced repetition system (SRS). It helps you remember things by intelligently scheduling reviews, so that you can learn a lot of information with the minimum amount of effort.

Stories From the Field

Tourmaline Bear shares A quote for all the teachers in the world. I concur with her resolution whole heartedly.

Collablogatorium says “…a fantastically simple idea can be of a huge impact for people. The Flickr Love Project is such an amazing example of a connector.”

A Thanksgiving Memory is a great example of active learning from a Sidetracked Mom’s childhood.

Thinking about Teaching and Learning

Using the wider web to encourage critical thinking is a series of exercises designed for classroom or seminar use, aimed at sixth formers and first year undergraduates. Intended to develop students' analytical abilities, these resources use the Web – which offers unparalleled opportunities for comparative study of different types of writing and argument – as source material.

Thomas West writes about music, but his ideas cross disciplines. He says,

“When I inevitably have a student tell me that a song they are striving to play on their musical instrument is too hard, I always give them the perspective that "hard" and "easy" are completely subjective terms relative to one's level of experience with any given task.” in his article The Myth of Difficulty and

"Many students of music go through their entire career as a member of a public school music ensemble and never achieve true independence of ability on their instrument. They can only play their part if someone else is playing along with them, and even then there are still parts of the music that they have to either leave out or water down. Can an average music student ever develop true mastery?"

The Reading Workshop reports “Rambunctious (energetic, boisterous, lively) Reading is a method of reading aloud where students work in pairs to improve their reading.”

Britannica Blog in Study Skills ought to include an understanding of memory says “Schooling in the United States—especially beginning around the sixth grade—requires that students do a certain amount of memorization. Sometimes the demands on memory are overt and narrow, as when students are given a spelling list to learn, and other times the memory demands are implicit and broader, as when students are asked to compare a poem they are reading in class to one that they read a week ago.”

Your Teacher Links submitted three articles that I am pleased to share Teaching test taking skills doesn’t mean you are teaching to the test , Scissors and Glue and Glitter, Oh No!, with resource links for projects and Teach Success Part II, a great article about preparing students for assignments.

Crosswords for fun promotes “Word puzzles such as crosswords are a great example of an active learning strategy. They assist students in developing their general knowledge, research, concentration and logic skills. They can be an individual or a group activity, which is great in the classroom. Once they have finished the puzzle, they will really feel a sense of achievement; and realize they have either remembered information they already knew or have learned something they didn't know before.”

Perspicacious.org from Alaska shares How to teach children/anyone why we have seasons.

Educational Research

Brain Blogger says, “It used to be accepted as fact that boys are naturally better than girls in math. With time, what was taken as a fact has become an assumption that boys are more inclined to do math than girls.

Britannica Blog reports on the importance of checking the accuracy of second hand research in Buyer Beware.

Student Resources

The Wise Curve shares 4 strategies to improve your memory and 70 tips to become a super student.

Learn-gasm found the 100 best blogs for fashion and design majors.

Tutor.fi suggests Six steps for success in school.

Richard Shelmerdine writes about the Link Method of improving memory.

Next Carnival
Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before February 6th.

Learn to create images

2009-01-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

In this six-week online workshop offered through the Electronic Village Online, you will be introduced to various online image manipulation tools and will learn how to effectively incorporate these resources into their teaching practices. You will explore how images can be used in educational settings for photo sharing, storytelling, slideshows and comics creation, as well as understand how Creative Commons licensing can be beneficial for classroom use. By the end of the workshop, you will have the chance to develop a plan to begin incorporating digital production into their lesson plans.

Check out Images4Education for more info.

Free Webinar for Science Teachers

2008-12-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

Just recieved this message:

Dr. Michio Kaku agreed to do a free webinar for both teachers and students at noon EST on December 17th. It's intended for teachers to share with students and Michio is a great speaker to get people excited about science given how he relates complex subjects to what they see on TV and in movies, I think there's be a ton of classes that'd be interested in it. The registration link is at http://tinyurl.com/michiokaku or you can read more about him at mkaku.org.

Save Lively Campaign

2008-12-10T10:57:00.001-08:00

http://digiteendreamteam.blogspot.com/

Winter's Chill

2008-12-02T07:59:00.000-08:00

Here in Canada, winter is creeping up on us slowly and I am reminded how all our academic responsiblities at this time of year can overwhelm us and make it difficult to try new ways of teaching and learning. I am also thinking about how technology change occurs with us barely noticing. My daughter and I were eating supper at a restaurant during the US election. I wondered how the election was going and she pulled out her IPhone, hooked up to CNN and read me the results. How incomprehensible that would have seemed 20 years ago when she was born! I am currently working on a Virtual Conference with a team of doctors from Portugal. We are probably going to hold the conference in Second Life. So welcome to the first carnival of Year 2 where all the articles this month are web related!

A new resource for K-12 - a message from Steve Hargadon

I've created a collaborative site which I hope will help to build the Free and Open Source Software ecosystem in K-12. The wiki is now at http://wiki.k12opensource.com/, and I've set up a Ning community just for Open Source in K-12 at http://community.k12OpenSource.com/.

I hope you'll come join the community and help to build it. I believe that having an inviting and easy-to-use social network will increase exposure, adoption, and idea-sharing around Open Source in K-12 at a time when it is truly needed (both financially and pedagogically). We'll also need some folks to start groups around favored programs--please consider coming and doing that!

Theories

Everyone Needs Therapy shares her thoughts about whether blogging is a safe, educational, therapeutic activity in A Chandler is Safer.

Resources

Match A College says "From web browsing to research to blogging to collaboration, these 50 apps will provide a taste of what may be on the horizon with the semantic web in education."

Royalty Free Music - the name says it all.

The Pathfinder Project - Enhancing Students' Learning Experiences Through the Use of Digital Storytelling.

BBC Wales -A Guide to Digital Storytelling -These guides are written for those helping others to make digital stories but most of the guidance is still relevant if you're making your own story.

Dumb Little Man says "Here are 15 such super-useful sites which aim to provide you with all the tutorials you'd ever need."

Educational Games Research shares 10 great sites for free educational games.

Ryan Bretag created a Blogging Rubric which he has shared on Creative Commons.

Iya-ola from Future Labs is a collection of language learning games with a difference: the player can only progress through collaborating with a learner in a different country. Iya-ola provides carefully structured language exercises using web-based audio-visual chat technology.

Next Carnival

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before January 4th.

Science in Second Life

2008-12-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

The New Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach

Genome Island

Imagine the opportunities for all students around the world to obtain a first class science education through a combination of online opportunities and in class discussions. What do you think this might say about the future of education?

2008 Edublog Awards

2008-11-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Support your favourite sites or articles by nominating them for Edublog Awards

"Holy macaroni, it’s the 2008 Eddies, which makes it 5 years of Edublog Awards! And these awards are going to better than ever!

First up - there are actual, genuine, prizes (as well as tasty badges and the respect of your peers). The winner of each category will get a years free Edublogs Campus subscription for themselves or their institution worth US$900… so that’s over $10,000 worth of prizes on offer!

Second - it’s time for you to show your love in public… all nominations must be made in the form of a blog post!

So, what are you waiting for? Nominations are open until the end of November, and voting will begin at the start of December. You can find all thenomination instructions here - but to sum them up: Write a post on your blog linking to http://edublogawards.com/2008/and the blogs that you nominate."

-Edublog Awards

The Carnival has a Birthday!

2008-11-01T14:43:00.001-07:00

We have reached the first year milestone with 3,707 readers! Thank you to all the contributors over the last year, without you this blog would never have happened.

Listen and Learn shares a great song that helps young students learn the concepts of wait, go, and stop.

Library Banter shares some interesting active learning techniques she recently experienced.

Redjotter shares a low tech technique to involve students in critically thinking about design.

Angela Maiers Education Services has a video mini lesson that demonstrates with elementary students how their brains learn best, where attention is controlled, and how motivation affects engagement and overall understanding.

Digital Storytelling Finds Its Place in the Classroom reports that after the Place Project, fourth and fifth graders responded to the survey. "Are you a writer?" Ninety-nine percent said yes.

Campus Technology has a great article about Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students.

Active Learning in the News

The Times of Malta reports on a Grade 11-12 class that visited the Inquisitors Palace as part of their history class. To prepare for the visit, the students first held discussions, conducted research and wrote about the Inquisition. It was also decided to act a role-play at the palace, using a script based on an actual Inquisition case.

The Hindu reports nearly 1,000 newly appointed block resource teachers (BRTs) enjoy the advantage of undergoing an intense orientation into activities of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), Activity Based Learning (ABL), and Active Learning Methodology (ALM), at the very outset.

After “seeing where the holes are and looking at what needs to be changed to make the learning experience the best for the students and to see what is needed to engage them in active learning,” two Deer Creek schools received perfect scores of 1500 on the Academic Performance Index (API) Oklahoma Core Curriculum test.

Active Learning Resources

Edublogs has a series of tutorials about using blogs to teach.

Larry Ferlazzo shares The Best Multilingual & Bilingual Sites For Math, Social Studies, & Science.

Thinkport has lots of interesting resources including Create your own museum.

Marilyn Western's Technology Tips for Classroom Teachers has a vast library of tutorials for k-12 teachers.

Thumann Resources shares 21 ed tech leaders you just have to meet

Widget of the Month
The Searchme Widget
Type in a search category. Clicking on the pages as they pass by will open the webpage.

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before December 1st.

How To Maintain Classroom Discipline

2008-10-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

A 1947 teacher training film, the message about motivating and involving students still applies. I also enjoy the idea that film was used for teaching 60 years ago.

Great Example of Creative Math Teaching

2008-10-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Sine, Cosine, and Tangent are functions which use special ratios of triangles that one shouldn't lose. The purpose of this Rap song is to show you the best way of remembering Sine, Cosine, and Tangent on the test day.

The words are available on UTube

Why Books like “Real Education” Infuriate Me

2008-10-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

This is my response to There he goes again in the October Carnival below. People like Charles Murray perpetuate two myths that every teachers should examine in themselves.

The Myth that Poverty = Low Intelligence

I will let the sociologists argue about the inherent racism in poverty or how nutritional deficits and lack of intellectual stimulation in homes without books affects school achievement. I will do what I do best - tell stories.

Meet Dr. Alika Lafontaine, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, a physician of Métis ancestry from Saskatchewan who was labeled developmentally delayed as a child.

Alika is one story of a prominent person who didn’t allow early labels to limit his achievement but there are lots of stories that don’t make headlines. I taught Adult Upgrading classes in Ontario and Saskatchewan for 20 years and I saw stories like the following repeated over and over in my classroom:

Young women stressed from looking after younger siblings because mom was working two jobs or incapacitated, who rarely attended school, dropped out at 16 and found themselves raising their own kids on welfare. Imagine the glow on their faces when they tell me they are helping their kids do their homework.
Children taken into care before they started school who move from foster home to foster home until they end up on the street; many of them functionally illiterate not because they can’t learn but because they never attended school long enough to learn. Imagine them holding a high school graduation certificate.
Young people of Aboriginal ancestry whose parents hid them in bush camps so they wouldn’t be sent to residential schools. Imagine them writing stories about their experience.
The young man with a brilliant head for math who drowned his pain over an abusive and impoverished home life in addiction, sobered up in jail and went on to graduate from university.
The young woman with a childhood IQ of 145 (I saw her assessment) who started hooking at 12 because an older sibling turned her out. She was so brain damaged by drugs at 30 that she could barely read. She became a worker with street people.

At the heart of all these stories is not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of opportunity to learn because of grinding social and economic issues.

The Myth that Lack of University Degree = Low Intelligence

When I taught upgrading, I spent a lot of time with trades people who taught in our vocational stream and I began to see how an 18^th century myth about the lower classes being unintelligent and only capable of manual labor had become linked to a concept that upward mobility = a university degree. So let’s examine that:

Trades like electrician, plumbing, construction, and mechanic require better math skills than most Arts programs.
Many of these trades people have higher incomes than university graduates and will continue that trend if they own their own company.
Several of the people I knew had always planned to teach the trade when the physical labor became too onerous. Many of them had teaching degrees obtained at age 40+.
We have an extreme shortage in Canada of skilled labor because parents and schools have bought into the myth that whenever possible kids should be channeled towards university degrees.

People like Charles Murray use intelligence science to excuse racism and classism in the same way that scientists of a past generation used brain bumps.

October Carnival

2008-10-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I am very busy this month and the carnival had to be reduced to basics.

I am thankful to Karen at the Britannica Blog for telling me that “Charles Murray (of the controversial Bell Curve book) has a new book out on education that argues that some kids are not worth the time and trouble to educate because they are 'just not smart enough,' in his words, to learn anything more than manual skills. And he can prove it! Scientifically! A controversial but important topic in education.” Regular readers of this blog can imagine how offended I am by the notion that class denotes intelligence or the right to an education. I will be writing more about this later.

Britannica Blog also submitted another issue in the ongoing saga “Young teachers who stay just long enough to be discouraged and a big bulge of baby-boomer teachers starting to retire, leaving a lot of kids being taught by people on their way in and out of teaching.”

Teaching Challenges shares a wonderful example of teacher creativity in Teddy Bears Picnic.

Damien at Dynamite Lesson Plan talks about how to Activate Prior Knowledge. A new blogger, he hopes you find his approach useful, so send him your comments and encouragement.

This article takes a training focus but many of his suggestions apply to training at any age How to Empower Someone to Become a Learner .

Hope For The Future

2008-09-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

A new school year in North America and my thoughts always turn with excitement to all the things I hope to achieve this year. I am encouraged by all the countries in the world that are promoting active learning (see the news section), and revitalised by great conferences I attended over the summer with young (and old) teachers wanting to make a difference in the lives of their students.

The image is from the Photo-Objects collection

Creativity

Creating Lifelong Learners writes about ideas for students to promote anti bullying campaigns by creating PSA’s.

@EDU writes about how “Creative writing is often overlooked at school, since state testing and heavy curriculum requirements dictate how much of our teaching time is spent. This is a shame, since students generally write with great enthusiasm when encouraged to tell fictional stories, especially science fiction and fantasy.”

Active Learning Research

Oxford Journals reports “On strategies contributing to active learning”.

Medical Health Articles reports on a study saying “Some video games might deserve more credit than they get, and could be a good teaching tool.”

Brittannica Blog states “When the National Endowment for the Arts issued its 2007 research report, To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence, the intent was to provoke just this kind of serious discussion, as seen in this forum at the Britannica Blog, about the role of reading in American cultural life. But opinions will get us only so far. Facts are necessary.

Data Systems Plus asks How Useful are Automated Social Bookmarking Tools?

Resources

Online Education Database says Thanks to online book clubs, book trading networks, social media sites just for librarians and book lovers, kids' networks and more, connecting with your fellow bibliophiles and gnashing about favorite books is easier than ever in 100 places to connect with bibliophiles.

College Degree presents 100 Extensive University Libraries from Around the World that Anyone Can Access.

Websites of the Month

Cornell’s Garden Mosaic connecting youth and elders to investigate the mosaic of plants, people, and cultures in gardens, to learn about science, and to act together to enhance their community.

Creative Writing Prompts has over 300 ideas to get your students writing. Just click on a number.

Active Learning in the News

Future Making Serious Games (one of my favourite science bloggers) reports on how the navy is using game technology to teach critical thinking.

Minnesota Women’s Press reports on “WordsAndPictures: Girls’ films prove age doesn’t matter when you’re sharing the story of your life.”

The Calcutta Telegraph reports “Time has come to scrap the heavy school bags as the East Singhbhum district education department is planning to introduce active learning methodology (ALM) and “learning by doing” education module within a week”.

hattiesburgamerican.com reports on course redesign initiatives “The goal of the initiative is to restructure the delivery method of courses, particularly multi-section courses, by blending existing technology and traditional instruction along with other active learning approaches to improve student retention and learning outcomes."

Etutopia reports on “Writing Aloud: Staging Plays for Active Learning: Theater projects make students invest in their writing.”

Red Orbit writes about an elementary school science initiative in "Using Object Boxes to Teach the Form, Function, and Vocabulary of the Parts of the Human Eye."

The Gadsden Times says NCLB needs an update.

ABS-CBN News Online reports on 585 students graduate from DepEd’s alternative learning program.

The World Magazine reports “Egypt is moving closer towards the realisation of its goal of universal female enrolment in primary schools. The revised curriculum will encourage critical thinking through active learning.”

Rafael Mompo reports on the changes in the European Learning Community.

The Star Online reports on “Singapore’s primary schools have come up with ways to help high-ability kids not placed in its Gifted Education Programme realise their full potential.”

Times of India reports on the Tamil Nadu’s teaching methods that impressed the World Bank.

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before October 4th.

Preparing the Harvest

2008-08-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

August, the last month of school break in North America seems like an appropriate time to think about what we are going to do differently in our teaching. The image below is of a canola field in August in Saskatchewan.
Submissions this month supported that and you will see a large number of teaching resources listed this month. Enjoy!

Science Geek Girl writes about one of my favourite topics Twisting the Ivory Tower (OR Change in university physics.)

Aesthetics in Education shares her ideas for Fantastic Field Trips: Part 2.

Steven’s Web asks Should Instructors Provide Students with Complete Notes.

Scope Crepe reviews the book The Back of the Napkin for ideas about visual thinking, one of my favourite activities.

Teaching Tips shares her list of 25 Teachers Who Drastically Changed the World. The teaching profession is so often down played in our society that it’s great to be reminded of teachers who made a significant difference.

Kobus van Wyk from South Africa presents Production line learners.

Natural Mum asks Learning Styles - What is your child’s? I know learning styles are a hotly contested item in the academic world. What do you think? Does the idea of learning styles increase your ability to actively involve people in learning?

Invent Creativity writes about 40% Concept and 60% Execution. I’ve had a lifelong attraction to creative people and am saddened at how many never move past the concept stage. Is this a characteristic of creative people or is it a social distrust of creativity or both? What do you think?

TeacherJulie offers 3 Tips for Keeping Your Cool in Special Education.

Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has an interesting Model of Engagement with Social Media.

Networking with Other Teachers

Questler is an informal learning network that enables you to reflect on your everyday learning with individuals that share your interests and quests. Together you can start conversations, discuss and share your opinions.

Classroom 2.0 has 10284 members who are interested in sharing ideas about teaching.

College 2.0 is specifically for university teaching and has 320 members.

Active Learning in the News

This report has been making the rounds of blogs everywhere; Study reveals passive learning imprints on the brain just like active learning. What do you think? Does the study really mean what the headlines claim?

David’s Weblog reports on a study of 90,000 students in 14 Australian Universities in What do students find useful.

New Syracuse middle school will use interdisciplinary projects to reach students.

This summer, the Aspen Science Center’s High School2 (HS2) has entered its second year, doubled its size, and is arguably distinguishing itself as one of the more unique programs available for so-called “disadvantaged” youth.

The Patriot News discusses Inventing fun ways to learn! Coming to grips with science.

The Virginia Beach Pilot reports in Teaching to students' minds, not just to the test.

News Sentinel reports on how the intense research and work that went into selecting and implementing Everyday Math paid off.

Teaching Resources

WIDE World builds on thirty years of classroom-based research from Project Zero and the Harvard Graduate School of Education to provide professional development programs that incorporate the essential elements - the DNA - of effective teaching, includes information on the Collaborative Curriculum Tool.

Teaching Tips shares 100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of and The Art of Learning Better: 101 Tips to Find and Fit Your Learning Style.

Read! Move! Learn! : Active stories for active learning, a new book for early childhood.

Distance Degrees.com shares 100+ Sources for Free-As-In-Beer Books & Texts Online.

Pajama Mommy writes about using educational games with her children. I home schooled my daughter who struggled in the normal school system because of dyslexia, computer based games were incredibly useful for her. It saddens me to see how few of these are available today.

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day writes about the Broth, a website that lets you create password-protected private “rooms” where people can cooperate on creating a piece of art.

Sharp Brain shares resources that inform his understanding of the brain in Learning & the Brain: Resources for Educators.

3D Topicscape SE lets students organize notes, preparations for term papers, web research findings and reference information in a very new way: in 3D and it's free.

Perry Public Schools has a great list of online K-12 resources.

Art Education Links

Busy Teachers website has links to K-12 lesson plans.

Vetoque is designed for drawing and painting using some tools a bit different from the usual ones. Kids at Nursery and Primary levels would find this game very interesting. You can find an article about this tool here.

Smart Teaching lists 101 Ways to Cope with Teaching Stress. I thought this was a good choice to end the carnival.

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before September 5th.

Serge Ravet on ePortfolios and Informal Learning

2008-08-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

Serge Ravet describes his ideas about ePortfolios for life.

Graham Attwell on ePortfolios

2008-08-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

ePortfolios are a great way to provide representation of student's active learning. Graham Attwell talks about their usefulness as a reflective tool.

Deleted from Facebook

2008-07-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well folks here's an interesting dilemma. Facebook deleted me and claimed I was a spammer because I send monthly reminders about this blog to friends and members of educational groups. I've always thought of spam as commercial or malicious or those annoying "Are you my friend?" mass mailings. For those who don't know me, I am a legitimate educator at a Canadian university. I recieve no renumeration for this blog and regularly lose a weekend a month preparing it.

I'm not all that upset about the deletion because I think Facebook is a disappointing method of social and professional connection. The only thing I find useful is the notification about upcoming events.

So I will find other ways of letting people know about the publication.

Schools Out

2008-07-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

The school year comes to an end in North America and my local television station has a persistent ad about kids losing knowledge over the summer and therefore parents need to enroll them in special summer classes as if learning can only occur in a classroom with seat firmly pressed to desk. My childhood memories are full of creativity -building forts, making neighborhood plays, creating games, imagining life in ancient cultures. What did you learn on your school vacation?

Thanks to Nearing Zero

Active Learning in the News

Dublin’s Independent reports that Mistakes are okay in new Leaving Certificate pilot project.

Tyler Independent School District Teachers interactively participated in multiple exercises concentrating on active learning and listening.

Breakthrough children's video series prepares kids ages 2-5 for childhood's big milestones while making them the star of the show.

Brittanica blog is concerned about the recommendation to end the Reading First program because of the Institute of Education Science’s interim report.

Turning Technologies LLC, a leader in the student response industry, and mimio, a leading provider of interactive and digital whiteboard technology, today announced a North American distribution agreement that allows Turning to bundle mimio interactive whiteboard products with Turning's education and professional response solutions.

Red Orbit looks at Addressing the Crisis in College Mathematics.

Can a self-centred Bangalorean appreciate a bag of tricks in remote Barabanki?

Theories

An Amazing Mind claims Sucky Schools - How To Repair Our Education System. What do you think about his ideas?

SharpBrains writes about a very basic yet powerful method of cognitive and emotional development, for children and adults alike: Play. Dr. David Elkind, author of The Power of Play: Learning That Comes Naturally, discusses the need to build a more "playful culture".

GNIF Brain Blogger writes “Raising a child is not easy for anyone, but when your child has ADHD, it can become much more difficult. It is especially difficult when your child is in a classroom environment that cannot fit your child’s needs in Does Having ADHD Mean Doing Poorly in School? This is an issue close to my heart because I had two children with unusual learning styles.

Lisa’s Online Teaching Blog compares dog and cat learners. I’m a cat who occasionally dresses up as a dog.

Teaching Tips

SharpBrains love to learn, and to see others learn. That's why we hope you enjoy this essay 10 Brain Tips That Help Me Teach…and Learn by educator Laurie Bartels as much as we do.

Mathew Needham wants you to know that with programs like Garageband, iMovie and Voicethread, students can be planning and creating projects that are probably just as much fun and equally easy to use as computer games in Computers: They’re Not Just for Games Anymore. Here is a great example of kids creating videos.

Teaching Tips.com offers 100+ Resources for Teaching Without Textbooks.

eLearning4schools.net feels it is important to highlight the usefulness of music in creating a safe and calm environment for learners to learn.

Culture Shock reviews The Top 10 Free Resources For Learning Languages Online.

@edu shares these dazzling interactive sites, reminding us of Aristotle's maxim to both teach and delight because we know the positive results of getting our students to write about issues.

Learn English articles writes about Using Word Games to Improve Recognition Skills.

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before August 3rd.

June Carnival

2008-06-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

June saw Kevin McCluskey, Program Manager of E-learning at the Department of Education in New Brunswick take on the onerous task of guest editor; he ploughed through 60 articles to bring you the following 12 articles. Thank you Kevin, for doing all the hard work to bring this edition home.

Thinking about Active Learning

Adventures in Daily Living provides a thoughtful article about how "Writing instruction is about error correction in the same way that gardening is about weeding."

College Degrees.com suggests that "Embracing the trend of user-generated content allows you not only to spread even more information, but to engage library users as well. Read on to find out how to go about doing this, and pick up some handy resources along the way."

Fashionable Mathematician writes "Perhaps it is my personal bias as a student of mathematics, but I’ve always thought that mathematics is best learned by actually doing problems."

Media and Education
SEO Rapper - I love it provides an example of using rap to teach about web site design.

ESL
Introduction to Adverbs

Online Education

Marcus Hochstadt says “There’s a constant debate between designers and search engine optimizers… and maybe you can guess what it is! It’s the war between including fancy designs with images versus focusing on providing relevant text.” He also explores protecting your computer using Deep Freeze.

Stephen’s Blog discusses the impact of making his business mobile.

Degree Talk Blog explores how Distance Degree Programs offer New Opportunities for Chronically Ill Students.

Teaching Resources

10 Free Online Award Generators for primary and secondary schools

With environmental awareness on the rise, so many resources are now available to help transition your school to a greener place. Below are over 50 ways to make your school a more earth-friendly campus. Recruit helpers and get creative to make the job fun.

Larry Ferlazzo suggests The Best Sites For Students to Easily Create & Display Online Projects

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before July 6th.

June's carnival is delayed

2008-06-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

We are a little late with this months carnival because I've been away at an International Conference. Meanwhile take a look at this great video from Australian Phoebe Winsor

Little Thoughts Bubbling to Life

2008-05-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks again to Nearing Zero

May in Saskatchewan is the beginning of spring, tulip shots appear, crocuses bloom. School teachers prepare for the end of the school year, while university professors dash off to conferences. It’s a great time to reflect on what you’ve done differently in the last year to improve your students’ experience of learning. This is the 7th carnival and I have learned so much from all of you. Thank you for submitting! Thank you for reading! Next month we will have a guest editor for the first time. If anyone would like to act as a future guest editor, please contact me.

Question of the Month

Is differentiated instruction a reasonable path to take to make inclusive education more attainable?

This is a really difficult topic for me because my daughter is severely dyslexic; her early school years were nightmares of bullying and refusals to accept her as part of project teams. Sometimes the teachers were the biggest bullies because they treated her like she was stupid instead of disabled and gave her tasks to do below her intellectual level because she couldn’t read. I finally pulled her out of the school system and home schooled her. She became a strongly self-directed learner and developed a talent for movie making. When she returned to school in grade ten, she initially had people refuse to have her on their team because she would pull their mark down, but teams who accepted her quickly learned that her creativity and research skills paid off. Unfortunately, she quit school in Grade 12 because she didn't get the help she needed with math and science (a not uncommon issue since accomodations are easier to develop in english and the social sciences.)

Laura Robb recommends differentiating reading instruction. When I taught in Adult Basic Education, we had a 1/2 hour reading time everyday where students read a book of their choosing from the school library. It was a very useful tool for improving literacy; students read everything from how to books to romance novels. They also learned to use a library. Once a month, students wrote reports on what they learned from their reading.

Creating Life Long Learners (one of our regular writers) explores Differentiate This! Part One: Why?

Active Learning in the News

The Bohol Chronicle from the Philippines reports “Through games, as an active learning process, AMA will direct students’ attention to the competencies or skills that will equip them to survive college and succeed in future jobs.”

Accredited Degrees lists the Top10 free math and science online courses.

State of the Brand reports People with autism get a second chance in Second Life.

Thoughts on Active Learning

Sharp Brains (another regular writer) shares his interviews with 15 cutting-edge neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists on their research and thoughts.

World Scientific has published a new book on creativity for teachers.

Polishing the Pearl has some interesting ideas about using silence as a communication tool. In Wait Five Minutes, he discusses violence.

To Struggle is a Gift writes about the value of discovery learning.

Teaching TIPS

LOLA Project Papers is part of The Sustainable Everyday Project (SEP) that proposes an open web platform to stimulate social conversation on possible sustainable futures. There are some great suggestions for teaching sustainability to young people on this site.

Distance Degrees lists Tips for Transitioning the Special Education Student into Adulthood.

Pimping Your Grades suggests Students: Use the Link Memory System to Memorize Anything.

The Library Collective has a great activity for reading the book Little Pea to preschoolers.

Teachers Call explores How to Teach Speaking in ESL classes.

Learn English Articles submitted Effective Ways to Practice Business English.

UW-Platteville Distance Education Blog shares 12 Free Online Tools to Help You Study.

Featured Website

The Foundation for Critical Thinking has published downloadable guides to critical thinking in 9 languages.

Next Month

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before June 8th.

TED talk about creative thinking

2008-04-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

A must-see for every parent and teacher. Education guru Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. Sir Ken Robinson is author of "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative," and a leading expert on innovation in education and business.

April Showers

2008-04-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

Step right up and we will kick things off with:

Creating Life Long Learners shares his new video Mr. Winkle Goes to School: Movies for Professional Development about the need for modernizing schools in the face of a changing world to include technology integration, project based learning, etc.

Active Learning News

Life-Long Learner, Life-Wide Learner urges that we imagine 1 day - lowering the barriers to education
Heather Johnson submitted her suggestions for free online courses available from Yale.
LJworld reports on a study that seems to verify homework’s value.
Red Orbit reports on an ANOVA’s student descriptions of the ideal professor .
TES reports on a teaching programme adapted from a school in the Basque country in northern Spain that has helped St Timothy’s Primary in Glasgow’s east end win accolades.
ABC news reports that “The PBS Kids Web site has long been a go-to destination for parents looking for quality online content for preschoolers. But now that same organization has come up with a more robust option, called PBS Kids Play! “

Thoughts about Teaching and Learning

Thoughts outside the Indonesian Box reminds us of how important Thinking Outside the Curriculum is.
Pair of dimes for your thought reflects on Synthesize and Add Meaning .
Digital Digs critiques writing assignments that discourage critical thinking in More Tales from the Third Grade Classroom .
Life, Love and Learning poses Three Types of Action.

Active Learning Techniques

ALPS – Harvard universities website on Active Learning Practices for Schools
Andrew Rondeau has written a guest post about using Story Telling to Inspire Audiences .
College degree shares 15 Facebook Apps.
Coms 4771 shares a list of active learning techniques for Teaching Computer Science.
90 Low Cost Activities that might inspire ideas for the classroom.
Smart Brains submitted a brain teaser on how to Exercise our Visuospatial Skills/ Parietal Lobes, by Pascale Michelon.
Stepen Downes recommends How to Create a Great PowerPoint without Breaking the Law .
University of Minnesota has a great tutorial on Active Learning with PowerPoint.
Zaid Alsagoff discusses Coaching Critical Thinking to Think Creatively!

Preschool
Mesoj encourages parents to actively involve their child in reading and learning a new language in How to Encourage Early Language Development .

Primary
Caroline Gibso describes her experiments with Children Teaching Each Other.

University
Academic Technologies claims Want to Record your Lecture? I’ll Try to Talk you Out of It!
Psych Matters shares great suggestions about Preparing for an Essay Exam.

E-Learning
Rika provided some great examples of Evaluation Methods.
E Learning 4 Schools was prolific this month, he submitted

ESL
Lesson Plans submitted Reading Log For Activators And Other Assignments .
Teachers Call shares Pronunciation Software to Improve English Pronunciation

Next Edition
Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before May 9th.

Bloom's Taxonomy revisited

2008-03-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

I just discovered this image that adds to the assessment discussion. It is based on Clark, B. (2002). Growing up gifted:Developing the potential of children at home and at school.Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall and was found at http://www.apa.org/ed/new_blooms.html

Knowing what they know - Assessing students in constructivist classrooms

2008-03-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

When I do workshops about constructivist teaching methods, the most frequent comment I hear is “Yes, but how do I give marks in this situation?” I’m not going to debate the value of marking in this article, but I am going to try to share some of the assessment approaches that people are using at various levels of education.

Creating Meaning
Constructivist learning environments actively engage students in understanding course content at a deeper level than memorizing facts. On a larger scale, it is assumed that constructivist environments encourage students to socially and critically develop personal knowledge about their world. Some of the better-known early theorists are Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Jerome Bruner.

Process vs. Progress

I know several thousand things that won’t work - Thomas Edison

Constructivists believe in the importance of the journey. Learning to work as a team member, learning to think creatively and critically, learning to problem solve are as important as learning that 2X2=4.

Some of the methods of assessing the journey include:

Portfolio of work

BC Graduation Portfolio

Portfolio Assessment in Mathematics Education

What Teachers Learn from Student Self-Assessment

Team tasks

Making Group Work Count

Group Projects and Group Grading

Peer Assessments and Peer Evaluation

Integrating Peer Assessment

Project based learning

Think Tank

Evaluating Student Projects

Assessing Projects

Problem based learning stages

Student Assessment in Problem Based Learning

Research and Problem-based Learning in Undergraduate Courses

The Big Six

Participation marks

Assessing discussion forum participation

Webquests

WebQuest.org

WebQuest examples (Middle School)

Journals, Blogs, Wikis

Evaluating Student Assignments

Getting more out of journal clubs (University)

Some of the methods of assessing whether the student has reached the destination include:

Higher order exam questions

Five Basic Types of Questions

Analysing Question Stems

Generating Question Stems

Integrating Question Stems

Questioning Questions

How to Write a 4 Star Response (Middle Years)

Classroom Assessment Techniques ( more formative)

Extended matching questions (currently used in Medicine)

What are Extended Matching Sets Questions? (University)

High School Example

Extended Matching Questions (University)

Case studies

Assessing Case Based Instruction

Solve Problems

The Art of Complex Problem Solving

Problem Solving Skills

The Big Six Game

Create Graphic or Visual organizer (Pattern making skills)

Writing Fun (K-12)

The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them

Graphic Organizers that Support Specific Thinking Skills

Variety of Graphic Organizers

Marking Strategies
Expectations and feedback must become explicit and visible in order to:

Guide student effort

Guide student learning

Guide changes to your teaching

Guide objective marking

Checklists
Project Based Learning Checklists K-12

Rubrics
For a more comprehensive look at rubrics, click on the rubrics link under My Del.icio.us which includes a large number of links such as 4Teachers Family of Tools .

Please share other examples by using the comments function.

Fifth Active Learning Blog Carnival

2008-03-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the fifth edition of the Active Learning Blog Carnival.

Another great cartoon from Nearing Zero

International News

Science Blog reports that No Child Left Behind = More High School Dropouts.

Qatar Symposium on Science Teaching and Learning reports on professor of physics at WCMC-Q, Roger Hinrichs who said "the joy of self-discovering and applying will stay longer with students than just memorization of the facts."

Bunham on Sea news shares an Active Learning Centre for people over 50.

Students at Gettysburg College are working with Professor Christopher Fee to create “The Secret of Otter’s Ransom: An Electronic, Interactive, InterdisciplinaryIntroduction to the Medieval North Atlantic.”

Teaching Expertise examines the Uk’s Campaign for Learning- how schools can help learners to become self motivated and independent.

Red Orbit reports on REACH: A Framework for Differentiating Classroom Instruction.

San Bernardino news reports Power Teaching (a technique discussed in last month's blog) engages students in active learning.

Greg Laden’s Blog writes “In a state like Minnesota, with expansive rural areas and a geographically concentrated higher education infrastructure, this may be the best way to deliver higher ed opportunities to an education-hungry population.”

Active Learning Theory and Techniques

Tim Gellar’s article on How to Improve Critical Thinking Using Educational Technology.

What is a 21st Century Education including a comparison between 20th and 21st century schools.

Will Richardson’s article on the Unlearning curve “One of the most challenging pieces of figuring out how to move education forward in a systemic way is "unlearning curve" that we teachers and educators have to go through to even see the possibilities that lay before us.”

Further Thoughts discusses Getting more out of journal clubs.

Sharp Brain advises Maximize the Cognitive Value of Your Mental Workout.

K-12 Examples

Creating Lifelong Learners begins a multi-part series in which he shares the films they’ve made in his class and how they made them.

Sharp Brains shares a great essay by Megan, a high school student about Musical training as mental exercise for cognitive performance.

Teachers Call reflects on the need to plan your lessons out well in Computer Mediated Communication & Teaching Grammar.

Take a look at the many ways teachers have developed plans & utilized Project VIEW training & videoconferencing opportunities to enhance the lesson & engage the student.

Resources

Jessica Hupp shares e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students and 25 Useful Social Networking Tools for Librarians

20 Great books to get you reading.

Next Edition

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before April 6th. Next month's edition will be dedicated to assessment methods in creative environments.

Assessing Active Learning - Remembering

2008-02-02T13:16:00.001-08:00

I picked this cartoon from Nearing Zero because I work in medical education where for years pain, embarassment and punishment were the preferred method of motivating students and faculty alike. This technique works in a limited fashion because it forces conforming without thinking to a set of rules; on the other hand, it also creates bullying, avoidance, apathy and educational scars that last a lifetime. Learn Me Good has a great video about Flip Flopping, one of the behaviours that results from trying to tell the teacher what they want to hear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgnU3ASnb9s

This month’s important question: How do you and your students assess how well they are achieving the course goals/objectives/learning plan?

For ease of use, I have divided what we want to assess into the following four broad categories:

Remembering
Knowing
Creating
Connecting

This month, I will focus on assessing how well students remember required facts, processes and theories. For teaching techniques, see: http://blogs.usask.ca/medical_education/archive/2007/10/active_learning_1.html or http://blogs.usask.ca/medical_education/archive/2008/01/active_learning_6.html.

In Bloom’s taxonomy

Remember
Recognizing
Recalling
Understand
Interpreting
Exemplifying
Classifying
Summarizing
Inferring
Comparing
Explaining

Formative Assessment Methods

Active learning environments provide a unique opportunity for students to constantly be receiving feedback on how well they are doing. Here are some examples of tools that help give you and your students’ feedback:

Closed Questions
Cumberland County Schools has created some great bookmarks to help people think of questions based on Knowing and Applying in Marzano’s taxonomy. One of the best teachers in medicine constantly asked closed questions in an exciting and dynamic way as he shows animations and live action recreations in his 100 student classroom.

Clickers
All first year medical students at my university recieved clickers this year and they love using them for instant feedback on learning. Here is an explanation http://telr.osu.edu/clickers/

Games
Flashcards http://www.educationalpress.org/
Crossword Compiler http://www.crossword-compiler.com/
PowerPoint Games http://facstaff.uww.edu/jonesd/games/index.html
Quiz Games http://quizlet.com/ or http://hotpot.uvic.ca/
Look under the games link in my Delicious (right hand column) for more examples

Memory Devices
Graphic organizers http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/
Mnemonic http://www.web-us.com/memory/mnemonic_techniques.htm or http://www.medicalmnemonics.com/

Lists: use numbers to help students remember a series of words, steps etc.

Power Teaching recieved very good coverage by So You Want To Teach? in Revolutionary Teaching Style http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/videos-revolutionary-teaching-style/ by including video examples from Grade 1, 3, 4 and 6 as well a College Philosophy class.

Please send other examples of formative assessment through the comments section.

Summative Assessment Methods

Testing students’ ability to memorize is a minefield because of the standardized testing questions being raised at every level of education. One way of dealing with this issue is to take a critical look at your course objectives and determine the following:

what fundamental information students only acquire through memorization. (You may find your answer is very little.
how much can my students memorize without it taking time from the higher order thinking skills required to understand course content.

Some methods of summative assessment, you might want to investigate:

Extended multiple choice
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JVME/V20-3/wilson.html or
http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/journal/vol1/beej-1-2.htm

Math
http://www.nagb.org/pubs/m_framework_05/chap5.html

Quizzes
http://quizstar.4teachers.org/

Process mapping
http://www.education-world.com/tools_templates/template_processchart.doc

Please send other examples through the comments section.

Finally Sharp Brains reminds us of Mindfulness and Meditation in Schools for Stress and Anxiety Management http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/01/29/mindfulness-and-meditation-in-schools-for-stress-and-anxiety-management/

Next month, I will examine processes for assessing how well your students know/critically understand the content of your course. Please submit articles, examples by March 2nd.

The Fourth Active Learning Blog Carnival

2008-02-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

Another great image from Nearing Zero http://www.nearingzero.net/.

Active Learning News

BBC in the UK asks What makes a good teacher?http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7209096.stm.

From India, the Department and the SSA team are lauded for the successful implementation of the activity-based learning methodology and the active learning methodology for the primary and upper primary sections in all government and aided schools http://www.hindu.com/2008/01/30/stories/2008013060100700.htm.

The University of Minnesota announces Active Learning (Flexible) Classrooms: An Innovative Partnership Project http://dmc.umn.edu/spotlight/active-classrooms.shtml.

Theories

The Bamboo Project Blog revisits her drawing of The Social Media Spiral and asks for our comments on which version we prefer http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/2008/01/the-social-me-2.html.

Innovate the Journal of Online Education has research articles on Learning at a Distance: Engaged or Not? http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=438&action=article and How Gaming and Avatars are Engaging Online Students http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=485&action=article.

Flex-e-bility reviews the book Engaged Learning with Emerging Technologies at http://flex-e-bility.blogspot.com/2008/01/engaged-learning-with-emerging.html.

Sharp Brains writes about Learning & The Brain: Interview with Robert Sylwester, the author of The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy . You can read the interview at http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/01/06/learning-the-brain-interview-with-robert-sylwester/.

Techniques

Artichoke comments on the nexus between the best evidence synthesis and social networking technologies. http://artichoke.typepad.com/artichoke/2008/01/if-i-was-ewan-1.html .

Chris Brogan writes a blog that consists only of comments in The Power of Comments http://chrisbrogan.com/the-power-of-comments/ .

Creating Lifelong Learners promotes Why Integrate Video Production in the Classroom? http://www.needleworkspictures.com/ocr/blog/?p=220 .

Joyful Learning is a new book that includes directions for 50 different active learning structures, give examples of each, and provide a range of adaptations for students who may have movement, sensory, learning, and cultural differences. http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1FPJMVNEZI5AI .

Learning at Light Speed Weblog advocates Thriving on Chaos - The Road to Creativity http://learningatlightspeed.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/thriving-on-chaos-the-road-to-creativity/ .

Luke Houghton asks Why should we teach students how to manage real life problems? http://lukehoughton.com/2008/01/02/why-should-we-teach-students-how-to-manage-real-life-problems/ .

Teachers Call says give the students the opportunity to practice and develop descriptions and descriptive language by using photos. http://teachers-call.com/2008/01/descriptive-photos-in-the-call-lab-one-idea-many-language-lessons.html .

Technology Matter writes about his experience with Technology and Blogging as a Learning Method http://www.technologymatter.com/2008/01/technology-and-blogging-as-learning.html .

Personality Of Teaching says Student Comments: Fear them or Succeed thru Them http://personalityofteaching.com/building-student-relations/student-comments-fear-them-or-succeed-thru-them .

Tools

PR Newswire has articles about Studywiz Spark being the first to customize its online learning management system specifically for the iPhone, iPod and iPod touch. http://sev.prnewswire.com/education/20080129/NETU05029012008-1.html and kidzart http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/2/prweb666063.htm

Further Thoughts on Motivation

Hoodathunkit shares My Frustration Essay http://orbadviser.livejournal.com/179793.html

Bootstapper submitted the Top 100 Motivational Blog Posts of All Time http://www.businesscreditcards.com/bootstrapper/top-100-motivational-blog-posts-of-all-time/

How To Learn Computer Programming Fast writes about How to Overcome Procrastination in 8 Easy Steps.
http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/01/02/how-to-overcome-procrastination-in-8-easy-steps/

Does anyone else notice a pattern to these thoughts about student motivation? Please share your comments here.

Next Edition

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before March 3rd. Next month's edition will be dedicated to assessment methods in constructivist environments.

The Third Active Learning Blog Carnival

2008-01-07T12:04:00.000-08:00

Inspiring And Defying

Welcome to the third edition of the Active Learning Blog Carnival. Last month readership topped 605.

The cartoon is provided by Nearing Zero, a great resource for Science Cartoons http://www.nearingzero.net/

This Month’s Big Question - Student Motivation
What motivates students to participate actively in learning? Is it fun, marks, interactions with others or more altruistic goals? Does standardized education put more emphasis on marks and less on thinking? Are students more extrinsically motivated because of increased competition for jobs and scholarships? Are defiant students lacking motivation?

WritopiaLab submitted several posts about this important topic:

Was it worth it? – thoughts on an 8th grader’s submission to an award program http://writopialab.blogspot.com/2007/11/was-it-worth-it.html. This article was particularly meaningful to me because my daughter started writing plays in 7th grade. She was devastated in Grade 9 when a creative writing teacher (who had never written a play or studied creative writing) gave her a very poor mark on a piece she had written. I subsequently took the play to a professional playwright who loved it and thought the work showed incredible talent. Which brings up another question – How do you validly assess a genre that you aren’t familiar with?
Yah motivation by an 8th grader talking about what motivates her http://writopialab.blogspot.com/2007/12/yay-motivation.html
Poetry Slam discusses competition’s effect on motivation http://writopialab.blogspot.com/2007/12/poetry-slam-now-thats-competition.html

The University of Honolulu provides an excerpt from Tools for Teaching http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/motiv.htm

The Teaching Effectiveness Program, University of Oregon has a very thorough resource on this topic. http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/faqs/motivatingstudents/motivating.html

The University of Berkley provides some techniques for inspiring university students to do their best work. http://teaching.berkeley.edu/compendium/sectionlists/sect20.html

K-12
Three students at the University of Maine submitted Activity One for: Cooperation in the Classroom that combines learning visual organizers and VoiceThread. http://umoedt555.blogspot.com/2007/12/activities-for-cooperation-in-classroom_14.html

Rebecca Wallace-Segall writes about teaching students to write memoirs http://writopialab.blogspot.com/2007/12/back-in-public-school.html

General
The E-Learning Curve writes about The Principles of Constructivism http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2007/12/constructivism-pt3-principles-of.html .

If You Build It ... Wait They are Already Here discusses the results of a social networking and education study http://mrmaher.wordpress.com/2008/01/01/if-you-build-itwaittheyre-already-here/ .

Creating Livelong Learners learned some lessons from Jim Cramer about energizing the classroom http://www.needleworkspictures.com/ocr/blog/?p=201 .

Meming of Life talks about Thinking by Example – a parents guide that is also meaningful for teachers http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=181

Total Wellbeing writes an article about The Power of Music http://totalwellbeing.blogspot.com/2008/01/power-of-music-link-between-musical.html

Tools
Homeschooling Journey lists Online Spelling Resources http://homeschoolingjourney.com/online-spelling-games/

Larry Ferlazzo lists The Best Web2.0 Applications for Education http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2007/12/21/the-best-web-20-applications-for-education-2007/#comment-630

Langwitches lists the Best Web2.0 Applications for Elementary School http://www.langwitches.org/blog/2007/12/22/best-web-20-applications-for-elementary-school/

Website of the Month
The Institute for Learning Centered Education http://www.learnercentereded.org/
The Institute offers support and resources to persons engaged in developing learner-centered schools through innovative educational strategies founded on constructivist approaches. The Institute's activities will model inclusion of and respect for the diversity of people in the society at large.

Thank you to everyone who submitted this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of active learning blog carnival using our carnival submission form before February 3rd. Next month's edition will be dedicated to assessment methods in active environments.

The Second Carnival Parade

2007-12-03T10:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the second Active Learning Blog Carnival. The number of submissions doubled from last month. I am rejuvenated every time I read about the wonderful engaging work that people are involved in.

This anatomically correct candy heart is a wonderful example of what I call "Creating Meaningful Artifacts of Learning" and the theorists call constructionism. The heart was made by Nathan Sawaya.

Debate of the month

Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching. http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf

Stephen Downes critiques
http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/11/response-to-kirshner.html

Stephen Downes lists others responses http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/11/kirschner-sweller-clark-2006-readings_12.html

What do you think? I would love to read your comments on this important discussion.

Recent Articles

Institute for Interactive Media and Learning says “Simply by changing the assessment of your subject, you can affect the way students engage with the subject content.” Note the list of resources on the right. http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/assessment/

The Journal at Queen’s University interviews Professor Jill Scott, who sees little distinction between professors and students. http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2007-11-28/news/future-bright-academics/

From Indonesia, Learning Instructional Technology promotes E-learning in Higher Education http://chaerumandiary.blogspot.com/2007/11/e-learning-in-hgiher-education.html

Living by Design talks about using mindmaps in How to read more effectively. http://ananga.squarespace.com/ananga-living-by-design-blog/2007/11/17/how-to-read-more-effectively.html

Milton Broome asks How do we assess the impact of Second Life for Educational Purposes? http://milton-broome.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-assess-impact-of-second-life-for.html

I recently discovered that a lecture in Second Life can put me to sleep as fast as a lecture in real life.

The Portfolio Community of practice answers What is a philosophy of teaching statement? http://portfoliocommunity.edublogs.org/2007/11/28/what-is-a-teaching-philosophy/

Research evaluates Active Learning Through Classroom Role-Play
Simulation of National Elections for Upper-Year Comparative (Industrialized) Courses http://paquetteresearch.blogspot.com/2007/11/active-learning-through-classroom-role.html

West Valley College explains Seven Principles of Effective Teaching: A practical guide for evaluating online courses http://www.westvalley.edu/trc/seven.html

Sharp Brains writes about Cognitive Fitness – 10 Myths Debunked http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/10/30/cognitive-fitness-10-debunked-myths/

WritopiaLab is a non-profit organization that seeks to create and sustain a diverse community of young writers. In this article, the author talks about Lessons from the Newest Generation of Writers (& Thinkers) http://writopialab.blogspot.com/2007/11/lessons-from-newest-generation-of.html

K-8 Examples of Active Learning

Backyard Birder describes The childhood of John James Audubon because sometimes we need to learn from the past. http://www.backyardbirdingblog.com/the-childhood-of-john-james-audubon/

High School Examples of Active Learning

Advanced Placement Environmental Science is a wiki with ideas for teaching science http://goapes.wikispaces.com/

Math 12 is an example of a wiki created for a math class http://acrospire.pbwiki.com/

VisualMath Learning is a resource for students who need a more visual approach to learning math http://www.visualmathlearning.com/index.html

Interactive Examples of Professional Development for Teachers

Classroom 2.0 is a Ning network for teachers interested in technology. This site was nominated for an Edublog award. http://classroom20.ning.com/

EdTech Talk provides a wiki that collects a variety of downloadable audio resources http://acrospire.pbwiki.com/

SCoPE provides scheduled and moderated discussions by volunteers in our community http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca/

Student Bloggers’ Views

College and Finance writes about The Art of BS: How to Succeed on Papers and Essays
http://www.collegeandfinance.com/the-art-of-bs-how-to-succeed-on-papers-and-essays/

Leblanjo describes Experiential Learning in Business Education http://leblanjo.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/experiential-learning-in-business-education/

Wakish, a student at the University of Mauritius blogs about Is a blog the platform you need? http://wakish.info/?p=48

Tools for Active Learning

Conscious Play promotes using an easel http://consciousplay.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-buy-easel.html

Dust and Magic shows a video of Scott Osterweil, Creative Director of the MIT Education Arcade, talking about a new educational game, Labyrinth. http://dustormagic.blip.tv/

Future Making Serious Games discusses Kerpouf, an interactive story/movie maker. http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com/2007/11/serious-games-to-rethink-what-is.html

Maria Fernandez from Learn a Foreign Language is excited about multimedia pdf, a pdf that at first sight looks like any other, and can be downloaded and saved in the same way, but has got many more features. http://languagebookworld.com/2007/09/multimedia-pdf.html

OEDb: Online Education Database lists 101 Web 2.0 Teaching Tools http://oedb.org/library/features/101-web-20-teaching-tools

Principled Discovery describes a simple circuit that could be constructed at home that responds to student’s answers http://principleddiscovery.com/?p=686

Virtual Hosting suggests The Del.icio.us Toolbox: 50+ Del.icio.us-related Scripts, Tools, and Tutorials http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2007/the-delicious-toolbox-50-delicious-related-scripts-tools-and-tutorials/

Thank you to all the people who submitted articles for this month's parade. I find people's ideas and thoughts exciting and uplifting. The next submission date is Jan. 07 at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_2804.html. The next carnival will be January 12th.

Technorati

2007-11-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

This blog is now included in Technorati. See the link on the right to add it to your favorites.

Technorati Profile

The Carnival Parade

2007-11-05T10:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first edition of the Active Learning Blog Carnival. I’d like to thank all of the people who submitted articles and suggestions. The image is from Nearing Zero, a great resource for science cartoons.http://www.nearingzero.net/

Recent Articles

Active Learning and Technology: Designing Change for Faculty, Students, and Institutions http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0752.asp

American Business Hasn’t A Clue – The always controversial Dr. Roger Schank taking on the issue of what we teach http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=48635

Theory into Practice

Early Years

The examples in this site show how pre-school establishments and schools in Scotland are already putting in practice active learning approaches. http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/earlyyears/sharingpractice/approachestolearning/learningthroughplay/index.asp

Telling the New Story is a video about a teacher in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, who uses a variety of active learning techniques. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ8VAef8QM4

High School

Roger Schank’s online high school science program http://vista.engines4ed.org/home/index.htm

Youth Voices – an example of a social networking blog with 1323 active users. http://youthvoices.net/elgg/_weblog/everyone.php

University

Dr. Carl Wieman, the Nobel Laureate physicist has been making the news lately as he inaugurates the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia. http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/

Here are two recent news articles about this initiative.

http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Education/article/273356

http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2007/07nov01/winds.html

Scenes from a classroom- making active learning work has some great videos about getting started with active learning http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/active/index.html

Training

Sharp Brains is a website about actively engaging your brain. There are examples of brain fitness techniques as well as articles about brain science http://www.sharpbrains.com/

Individual centred training is a blog article submitted from Human Imprint about the importance of considering visual and verbal learners in your training http://thehumanimprint.typepad.com/the_human_imprint/2007/09/individual-cent.html

Tools for Active Learning

The Common Craft Show – Explanations in Plain English is a great UTube site for people who want to help others understand Web 2.0. Videos include social bookmarking, wikis, social networking and RSS feeds in simple to understand formats. http://www.youtube.com/user/leelefever

Fresh Geeks submitted some ideas to encourage young children to develop their creative skills http://www.freshgeeks.com/uncategorized/fresh-minds-kids-and-digital-art.html

Blog Worth Watching

A blog with an innovative approach to active learning will be featured each month. This month blog is:

Future Making Serious Games is a great overview of how serious games are being used in education and includes some stunning visual images. http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com/

Next Carnival Submission Date: December 2nd, 2007

Blog Carnival

2007-10-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

To submit articles to the Active Learning Blog Carnival, go to http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_2804.html and follow the instructions.

Welcome to the Active Learning Blog Carnival

2007-10-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

This blog will be a collection site for articles and other news about active learning. The blog will be posted at the beginning of each month. Submission deadline is the first Sunday of each month.