When searching becomes sweet

SweetSearch is a Search Engine for Students.

It searches only the 35,000 Web sites that our staff of research experts and librarians and teachers have evaluated and approved when creating the content on finding Dulcinea. We constantly evaluate our search results and "fine-tune" them, by increasing the ranking of Web sites from organizations such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, PBS and university Web sites.

The above comes from the SweetSearch about page. 

SweetSearch falls into the category you've got to see it to believe it. To do so, click here.

Karl Goehring

Serge Gambucci

Free audiobooks

Books Should Be Free is a website from which you can download free audiobooks.
These books are in the public domain. And you can search by title, author or keyword.
To learn more, click here.

Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

The concept of “college readiness” is increasingly important in discussions about students’ preparation for postsecondary education.
This Framework describes the rhetorical and twenty-first-century skills as well as habits of mind and experiences that are critical for college success. Based in current research in writing and writing pedagogy, the Framework was written and reviewed by two- and four-year college and high school writing faculty nationwide and is endorsed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project.
Habits of mind refers to ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and that will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines. The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing:

• Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world.
• Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
• Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
• Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
• Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
• Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
• Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
• Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

The above comes from the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing webpage.  To learn more, click here. 

(Full disclosure: I have affiliation with the National Writing Project.---Nancy Devine, blog administrator)

Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

The concept of “college readiness” is increasingly important in discussions about students’ preparation for postsecondary education.
This Framework describes the rhetorical and twenty-first-century skills as well as habits of mind and experiences that are critical for college success. Based in current research in writing and writing pedagogy, the Framework was written and reviewed by two- and four-year college and high school writing faculty nationwide and is endorsed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project.
Habits of mind refers to ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and that will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines. The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing:

• Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world.
• Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
• Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
• Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
• Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
• Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
• Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
• Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

The above comes from the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing webpage.  To learn more, click here. 

(Full disclosure: I have affiliation with the National Writing Project.---Nancy Devine, blog administrator)

New blog feature

Grand Forks Central Literacy is on Goodreads. What is Goodreads?

Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 4,400,000 members who have added more than 120,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006. 

What is the new feature?

Along the ride side of the blog, you'll find a widget displaying books about literacy that the Grand Forks Central Literacy committee has read.  Books that relate to literacy will also begin showing up in the widget.

Teachers' Domain

Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You’ll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities.

Browse Teachers' Domain resources by standard! Search by your individual state educational standards, Common Core State Standards, or national standards from organizations such as NCTE and NCTM. 

To learn more about Teachers' Domain, click the above hyperlinked text.

Considering formative assessment

Summative assessments, or high stakes tests and projects, are what the eagle eye of our profession is fixated on right now, so teachers often find themselves in the tough position of racing, racing, racing through curriculum.
But what about informal or formative assessments? Are we putting enough effort into these?

What Are They?

Informal, or formative assessments are about checking for understanding in an effective way in order to guide our instruction. They are used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study. And if we use them correctly, and often, yes, there is a chance instruction will slow when we discover we need to re-teach or review material the students wholly "did not get" -- and that's okay. Because sometimes we have to slow down in order to go quickly.
What this means is that if we are about getting to the end, we may lose our audience, the students. If you are not routinely checking for understanding then you are not in touch with your students' learning. Perhaps they are already far, far behind. (Rebecca Alber at Edutopia)

The above excerpted text comes from Rebecca Albert's blog at Edutopia. To read more, click here. 

Reading on a special day

Special visitors came to yesterday's session of Literacy Lunches to share their take on Valentine's Day. Aphrodite (Grand Forks Central senior Jacy Thibert) and Cupid (GFC senior Hailey Adams) read from texts about hugs and kisses and secret admirers.

In Secret Valentine, read by Aphrodite, Molly the Mouse gets a Valentine from a secret admirer/friend and sets out to find who it is. From Hugs and Kisses, read by Cupid, we learn that hugs and kisses can come in all kinds of forms and that, "kisses, like gifts, are for when you feel like giving and receiving." And in Froggy's First Kiss, read by both Aphrodite and Cupid, Froggy gets his first kiss from a girl.

Thibert and Adams said that they chose the books they did  "to show that Valentine's Day isn't just for romantic couples, but rather is a day to express true love and affection for any special people in our lives."

If you want to check out the selections from yesterday, here is more detailed information about each book. Secret Valentine is by Laura Damon. Hugs and Kisses is by Bruce Davis and Genny Wright. Froggy's First Kiss is by Jonathon London and Frank Remkiewicz.

Those darned elements

The Periodic Table of Comic Books is a project of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. The idea is that for every element in the Periodic Table of Elements there is a comic book reference. Clicking on an element in the periodic table displayed on the homepage will take visitors to a list and images of comic book references to that particular element. After looking at the comic book reference if visitors want more information about a particular element they can find it by using the provided link to Web Elements. 
(from Free Technology for Teachers)

To go to the Period Table of Comic Books, click here.

Jan Jelliff

What is Creative Commons?

The idea of universal access to research, education, and culture is made possible by the Internet, but our legal and social systems don’t always allow that idea to be realized. Copyright was created long before the emergence of the Internet, and can make it hard to legally perform actions we take for granted on the network: copy, paste, edit source, and post to the Web. The default setting of copyright law requires all of these actions to have explicit permission, granted in advance, whether you’re an artist, teacher, scientist, librarian, policymaker, or just a regular user. To achieve the vision of universal access, someone needed to provide a free, public, and standardized infrastructure that creates a balance between the reality of the Internet and the reality of copyright laws. That someone is Creative Commons.

What is a Creative Commons license?

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.


To learn more about the Creative Commons, click either of the blocks of hyperlinked text above.

Set aside an hour or two and explore

No website provides more information about technology and links to technology resources than that of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies (C4LPT). Jane Hart, its founder and curator, has a blog, Jane's Pick of the Day, which features reports about technology and social media as well as links to new online resources. 


She also compiles lists of the best web tools each year and has included the best web tools for education. To read that list, click here. Many of the web tools on the list are free. 

An error?

There are two types of grammar: Descriptive, which describes what is customary, and prescriptive grammar, which prescribes what should be. A tension between the two systems is inevitable — and healthy; it keeps us thinking about what we’re saying and writing.
Allowing mob rule at the expense of some governing of composition is madness, but a diction dictatorship is dangerous, too. As with any prescription, an overdose is contraindicated. Here are some hard pills to swallow for language mavens who require a strict adherence to rigid syntactical patterns at the expense of, well, language: (from Daily Writing Tips)

What doesn't constitute an error in language use? Click the above hyperlinked text to find out.

Interesting online presentation tool

Thoughts on using Prezi as a teaching tool on Prezi

The above Prezi gives you a sense of what Prezi can do.

Why use Google Docs?

Why Use Google Docs?

View more presentations from lindahb1950.

A resource for SMARTBoard users

:Talking SMARTBoards & Much More is a great go-to blog for learning about...yes, you guessed it...SMARTBoards.

Take a look below at part of a representative post:

The Science Museum of Minnesota offers some wonderful interactive activities and lessons on the workings of the human heart and lungs.  Habits of the Heart was developed as a resource for students and teachers interested in learning about the cardiovascular and circulatory systems.  You will need certain plug-in such as Macromedia Flash viewer and QuickTime. The site also offers three videos that explain coronary bypass, heart replacement and angiocardiography.  Simply click the images on the page to view those videos- just as an FYI, the videos are quite graphic!  If that’s not enough they also have a fabulous page of  hands-on lessons to support classroom learning.  

To learn more, click the hyperlinked text above.

Another great education blog

Instructify is where teachers can stock their toolboxes with practical, time-saving classroom ideas and cutting edge methods of instruction. It’s where to find useful, free technology to utilize in the classroom. And it’s a fun place to spend your planning period.
Instructify is also a verb. To Instructify means to find new ways to present the same old content. Or MacGyvering anything from software to Post-it notes into something you can teach with. It also works great as a command. As in, “Don’t just teach, Instructify!” (from the About page at Instructify)

Instructify is one of those "go-to" blogs about education resources online. To learn more about Instructify, click the above hyperlinked text.

Videos made easy and easily

Turn your photos & videos into pure amazing.

Animoto automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. Fast, free and shockingly easy.

If you're looking to make short videos with pictures, check out Animoto by clicking on the above hyperlinked text.