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Choate’s iPad program.
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Macbeth Defeated at Dunsinane | History Today
On this day in 1054: Macbeth was defeated at Dunsinane http://t.co/yZkvTNaz
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Physicists study Homer’s Iliad and other classics for hidden truths
Physicists study Homer’s Iliad and other classics for hidden truths: http://t.co/omu33fTr
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Google’s 80/20 Principle Adopted at New Jersey School
As discussed today at #digicon12 here is how we give our teachers time to learn/innovate http://t.co/xyP9xz67
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Three Things to Unlearn About Learning | MindShift
Three Things to Unlearn About Learning from @MindShiftKQED http://t.co/KQT10qH7
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Tracy Chevalier: Finding the story inside the painting | Video on TED.com
Today’s #TED: Tracy Chevalier tells 3 stories drawn from classic paintings: http://t.co/VEhVj31P
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Pixar's Golden Storytelling Rules Illustrated in Legos – My Modern Metropolis
Pixar’s Story Rules Illustrated in Legos http://t.co/DSoiiWcp
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Ten Ideas for Teaching Teachers Technology | Edutopia
New from @moniqueflick: 10 Ideas for Teaching #Teachers Technology http://t.co/MQTVjh3r #edchat #edu
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Beowulf and Iliad ‘more plausible than Shakespeare’ – Telegraph
Beowulf and Iliad ‘more plausible than Shakespeare’ http://t.co/916COo0s
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Paris Review – Where Daisy Buchanan Lived, Jason Diamond
Where Daisy Buchanan Lived http://t.co/thn6lFfE via @zite
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6 Easy Steps for Designing Problem-Based Learning Assignments > Eye On Education
6 Easy Steps for Designing Problem-Based Learning Assignments http://t.co/B8Uh2g2u via @zite
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Blogging in the classroom: why your students should write online http://t.co/y1xKNoWB via @guardian
Monthly Archives: July 2012
The Future of Books
Thank you to my WA colleague Wendy for bringing this wonderful iPad app to my attention:
This app is a digital book based on an Academy Award-winning short film entitled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. It’s a fabulous film that tells a mesmerizing story about the power of books—how we can give new life to old books by reading them, and they can, in turn, give life to us; how they can change our lives and help us write our own life story. The film comes bundled with the app, which is currently $4.99 (and a true bargain). The reader can interact with every page of the digital book. You can help Morris get lost in a book, spell with alphabet cereal, make books talk, and so many other cool events drawn from the film. As you read, a narrator reads the story to you, the text of which runs along the bottom of each page. My son and I sat down together and read it. He rarely comments on things we read, but he kept saying “Great!” as we were reading. Even though Dylan is verbal, he rarely talks (and when he does, it is often echolalia rather than a direct response), and it is unusual for him to make any remarks at all when he’s engaged in activity like using an iPad app, but he simply loved this one. It didn’t take him long before he was touching everything on the screen to see what it would do.
Two other digital books have recently been released which I haven’t had a chance to purchase yet: T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:
And the complete collection of William Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which includes Patrick Stewart, Stephen Fry, and David Tennant (among others) interpreting the sonnets:
(“Sonnet 29” is my favorite poem, by the way.)
In addition to dramatic readings, both apps include the complete text for a new multimedia reading experience, as well as also includes commentary and notes to help readers understand the text and make connections. For the kind of experience you get with these apps, the prices really can’t be beat, especially if you consider that a good paperback copy of either The Waste Land or Shakespeare’s Sonnets, complete with annotations (never mind the media) would probably run at least $13.99.
No one asked me to endorse these apps, but I’m so excited about the rich reading experiences they offer. Would you want to read every book this way? Perhaps not, but for particularly thorny texts like The Waste Land or the Sonnets, it makes a great deal of sense to include all these tools for comprehension and extension that will help readers from a variety of backgrounds—learning difficulties, English language learners, disabled as well as gifted and/or avid readers. I can see the power a book like any one of these three would have. I don’t know how you feel, but the possibility of teaching these books, using these materials, is exciting. I keep thinking of Miranda (and not in the usual ironic kind of way): “O brave new world that has such books in in it.”
Diigo Links (weekly)
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Mark Anderson's Blog » The iPad & Critical Pedagogy
it’s not about the latest app… The iPad & Critical Pedagogy http://t.co/hSCU6yuy via @zite
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Tenement Museum New York City – NYC Museum
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum in NY is located at 97 Orchard, which was home to nearly 7,000 working class immigrants from over 20 nations from 1863 to 1935. The museum site houses photographs and even a RPG enabling website visitors to take on the role of a recent immigrant, choosing a name, a job, and more, all guided by an actress portraying Victoria Cofino, who lived at 97 Orchard in the early part of the twentieth century.
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PocketMod: The Free Recyclable Personal Organizer
Make paper foldable organizers and study aids for all kinds of subjects.
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New Blog Post: Some Fantastic And Fabulous Ladies To Follow On Twitter http://t.co/j1HST22L
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Italo Calvino’s List of Reasons Why We Should Read the Classics | biblioklept
Italo Calvino’s List of Reasons Why We Should Read the Classics http://t.co/O920EVve via @zite
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Gordon Parks’s Alternative Civil Rights Photographs – NYTimes.com
These startling images would be excellent to share with students studying books like The Bluest Eye and A Lesson Before Dying.
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The Nerdy Teacher: The Epic @Evernote Experiment #edchat @EvernoteSchools
The Epic Evernote Experiment! http://t.co/5Bgo9VJk – How I plan to use @EvernoteSchools in my classroom. Thanks to @Doxiescanner for helping
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The story of ex-slave Jordan Anderson’s famous letter to his master – News-Sentinel.com
Jordan Anderson’s letter to his former master would be great for social studies classes. This article tells the story behind the letter and shares the letter alongside its story.
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4 Excellent Homework Apps for your iPad
4 Excellent Homework Apps for your iPad http://t.co/HIPnFasV #edtech
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Free Technology for Teachers: QR Code Treasure Hunt Generator
QR Code Treasure Hunt Generator http://t.co/UteiUZuu
Commenting Issues
If you’ve been having trouble commenting, the problem has been fixed. Sorry for any inconvenience. It looks like a couple of my WordPress plugins didn’t play well together. Thanks to Nancy and Beverly for letting me know about the issue. Any time you have difficulty using the site, I appreciate it if you let me know so I can fix it.
Diigo Links (weekly)
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Homepage for LEGO Mindstorms robotics.
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How to Get Your Kindle Highlights into Evernote | Michael Hyatt
Instructions for using the Evernote Web Clipper to save your highlights from your Kindle page.
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Blogging About The Web 2.0 Connected Classroom: So…You Wanna Use Voicethread
So…You Wanna Use Voicethread? http://t.co/qwgqAQW4
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The Innovative Educator: 5 Reasons to Allow Students to Use Cell Phones in Class
5 Reasons to Allow Students to Use Cell Phones in Class http://t.co/55GM9A6O via @zite
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Book Drum is the perfect companion to the books we love, bringing them to life with immersive pictures, videos, maps and music.
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Infographic tool http://t.co/AhXnu3dB Create infographics, just upload images & drag them into place. #edtech
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I Teach English to Great Kids…A Blog: Things I Learned from #ISTE12
My incomplete and woefully inadequate list of things I learned at ISTE12. http://t.co/GWmXX5QT #ISTE12
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The Teacher’s Quick Guide To Pinterest | Edudemic | Education and Technology Hand in Hand | Scoop.it
The Teacher’s Quick Guide to Pinterest http://t.co/Nmy0vzOS #edchat #edtech
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Copywrong: How Well Do You Know Fair Use?
http://t.co/5bH1LCGJ via @cjr -
3 Ways To Use Pinterest In The Classroom | Edudemic
3 Ways to Use Pinterest in the Classroom: http://t.co/sFrISOfC #edtech #edchat #pinterest #socialmedia
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LOST Magazine – The Sun Also Rises
The interesting story of how Ernest Hemingway’s classic Lost Generation novel The Sun Also Rises got its title. Also, a great anecdote about Max Perkins and Charles Scribner.
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Books That Shaped America – National Book Festival (Library of Congress)
The Library of Congress shares an exhibition of “Books that Shaped America.” Librarian of Congress James H. Billington says that the list is “intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this initial list or not.”
First Week
I just finished my first week as Technology Integration Specialist at Worcester Academy. My preliminary verdict? I’ve never been this happy at any job before. I have been working on SMART Board training and Wikispaces training for faculty, learning how to use Schoology (a great tool that is overshadowed by big competitors Moodle and Blackboard), building LEGO robots, and just generally becoming acclimated to the new environment.
I’m really excited about the role I will be playing in the school. In addition to my technology integration duties, I will also teach a middle school class on digital citizenship and a tenth grade English class, and I will co-sponsor the school’s LEGO Robotics club for middle schoolers. I am super excited about the LEGO Robotics club, especially after one of my new buddies from Carolina Day School reached out to me via Twitter to suggest a collaboration between our two schools.
Besides having colleagues who are excited about technology and are doing exciting things with technology integration in an environment that encourages and requires technology integration, I also have a variety of tools at my disposal. I have never been able to have access to all the tools—including professional development—that I need to do my job. That may sound like an astonishing statement, but most educators can completely relate to it. In fact, that’s the most overwhelming part: not knowing what to use.
I haven’t even taken time yet to process my first ISTE experience on this blog, but that will be forthcoming. I’m really excited about the year ahead. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, moving my family so far away, particularly when my children are on the autism spectrum and don’t like change. They had no memories of ever living in any other house than the one we lived in. They have adjusted surprisingly well, and I think once school starts, they will be happy. I like New England, too. Moving can be such a stressful event, and our move didn’t go as smoothly as we’d have liked. (Word of caution: Don’t hire Summit Van Lines to move your things. They gave us a low initial quote, but turned out not to be terribly cheap in the end, AND they took two weeks to deliver our stuff. I was not happy with them at all. They were almost impossible to communicate with, in addition to the other issues. Steer clear!)
In all, it’s looking like a very good change, and I’m really happy.
Diigo Links (weekly)
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Important: my stepdaughter is raising tuition for a program at Georgetown. If you can donate even $10, go here: http://t.co/oEUw6HXG
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PicMonkey – Photo Editing Made of Win
Have students use PicMonkey to create book trailer collages: http://t.co/vJmJQwW8 . No registration required.
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We’re loving this video from @CodeClub whose mission is to inspire kids to learn to code: http://t.co/xAc7LaQK
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Great video Clip how audio recordings can be used in books & accessed via QR codes: http://t.co/UU59DAu6 http://t.co/jI0v4bae via @pinterest
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Why Students Should Learn to Write for the Public | MindShift
Why Students Should Learn to Write for the Public http://t.co/2UWNXNjk #edchat
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The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Tinkering and Maker Education « User Generated Education
The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Tinkering and Maker Education http://t.co/JhrD5Ft6 via @jackiegerstein
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Digital, print, oral: Shakespeare’s Sonnets for iPad brings reading full circle | The Verge
My favorite part of Shakespeare’s Sonnets for iPad? It’s not one thing. All the scholars/readers disagree about it. http://t.co/mxYv7B2y
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Historypin is a way for millions of people to come together, from across different generations, cultures and places, to share small glimpses of the past and to build up the huge story of human history.
Everyone has history to share: whether its sitting in yellowed albums in the attic, collected in piles of crackly tapes, conserved in the 1000s of archives all over the world or passed down in memories and old stories.
Each of these pieces of history finds a home on Historypin, where everyone has the chance to see it, add to it, learn from it, debate it and use it to build up a more complete understanding of the world.
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The Easy Portfolio App—ePortfolio Tool for Students & Teachers « Mr Robbo – The P.E Geek
The Easy Portfolio App – ePortfolio Tool for Students & Teachers http://t.co/ZBOEBQIJ
Email Subscriptions and Theme Changes
Those of you who receive post updates in your inbox will want to take note of some changes. Up until now, I have used Feedblitz to manage email subscriptions. However, in order to streamline services and make things a little easier for me, I am discontinuing support for old Feedblitz subscriptions as of one week from today, July 8. At that time, I will delete my Feedblitz account. If you would like to continue to receive posts in your inbox, please visit the blog at huffenglish.com (assuming you are receiving this post in your email), and look for “Subscribe to Blog Via Email” in the sidebar on the right of the page. Enter your email address and click the “Subscribe” button. You might receive posts twice during the one-week grace period until I delete Feedblitz. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I have been dissatisfied with the Feedblitz option for some time, and it is my hope that if you want to continue to receive posts via email, this option will work for you.
In other blog-related news, after many years, I have changed the blog theme. If you are interested, I have installed the Twenty Eleven theme from WordPress. I like the font and the clean look. I have streamlined some of the sidebar content. You can also now find my links, categories, and a tag cloud on the bottom of the page. My links area used to be on the upper left hand side under the disclaimer. I link to several social networks and other sites, such as the English Companion Ning, and some of my website content that for whatever reason I didn’t want in the navigation bar on the top.
Let me know if you are having any trouble finding things. I hope you will find the site just as easy (perhaps easier) to navigate.
Image via derrickkwa
Diigo Links (weekly)
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Google Brings Chrome and Drive to iPhone and iPad, Docs Goes Offline | Techland | TIME.com
Google brings Chrome and Drive to iPhone and iPad, Google Docs now works offline | http://t.co/zj1rLDr4
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You Just Attended an Awesome Conference. Now What? | Edutopia
[Timely] You Just Attended an Awesome Conference. Now What? http://t.co/aYusy6ud #ISTE12 #edchat
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The Nerdy Teacher: Connections #ISTE12 #EdChat
Connections – A new post on what #ISTE12 means to me and many others. http://t.co/eg5AQCw4
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101 FREE Tech Tools for Teachers Livebinder — F
101 FREE Tech Tools for Teachers Livebinder http://t.co/GWLsrVXI #sk12 — From our #ISTE12 lecture!
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Another good one. RT @mrhgaddis: The Ultimate Simplified Guide to The Use of @Evernote in Education http://t.co/PXiCSa4s #iste12
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Literacy in the Digital Age – Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything
My #iste12 presentation, Literacy for the Digital Age, published online. http://t.co/ng7YMTxD
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A Tempting Trio: Twitter, YouTube, and Diigo in the Classroom – ISTE 2012 Conference Ning
Waiting for A Tempting Trio: Twitter, YouTube & Diigo in the Classroom to begin. Resources here: http://t.co/ebMvuWL5 #iste12 #iste2012
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Thanks for stopping by and saying Hi. So glad are
@danamhuff Thanks for stopping by and saying Hi. So glad #qrcodes are working for you. Great stuff!
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SocialEdCon Ed Tech Unconference Attendees Share Conversation, Web 2.0 Tools | ISTE Connects Blog
New blog post on #socialedcon, including list of #smackdown tools now available at http://t.co/dVko21Gg #ISTE12
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SlideWriter for iPad on the iTunes App Store
I need slidewriter for editing on my ipad http://t.co/yOjV6PzM #smackdown #socialedcon
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My #ISTE12 page http://t.co/x6I2xHRY. Meeting my PLN family is awesome. http://t.co/wpG1CO5E
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#smackdown SlideWriter for iPad
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Please share #ISTE12 SocialEdCon Smackdown list for My Smackdown page http://t.co/E8KpRYSX Thanks
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applist.me — There’s a list for that!
Like this applist.me tool RT @cnansen: #smackdown I just published a list off all my iPhone Apps http://t.co/GthuFTcj via @applist_me