John Stossel In The Classroom & More

I just got my copy of John Stossel in the Classroom & viewed it.  Good stuff.  He addresses the following topics and more:

Should everyone really vote?
Should farmers really get subsidies?
Is it really impossible to achieve the American Dream?
Who can make better more efficient roads, government or private companies?
Why do so many people want to be famous?

In addition to the DVD, his website has all kinds of resources including teacher guides and a video of the month that you can stream straight from your computer.

This is a great tool for parents, too.  Make sure your kids really understand capitalism, government, and their relationship to them both.

If you haven't got your copy yet, you can do so at his website, http://stosselintheclassroom.org/.

Picked Last For The Kickball Game?

Here's a way to ensure you don't damage a kid for life by letting him get humiliated in front of all his friends just because he might be a little kickball challenged.  It's called Team Maker & it's super simple.

I found this resource over at Makeuseof.com, where I find tons of outstanding free resources.

What is Back Channeling & How To Teach With It

Wikipedia defines back channeling as "the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks."

In a nutshell, the teacher is presenting information and the audience is fully engaged by listening AND typing notes and questions back & forth to one another.  I know...it sounds crazy, but it works.  Rather than just being passive listeners, students have to be fully engaged in the discussion taking place.

TodaysMeet is a free service that lets people set up private chatrooms.  Set-up takes less than 30 seconds and students can be logged in and back channeling within a minute.


Notice there's even a way to integrate Twitter by using hashtags.  Why would this be useful?  Lets say you give your students a homework assignment to watch the State of the Union speech and back channel their questions & comments throughout.  If you were to put the hashtag #sotu anyone on Twitter would have their comments automatically posted to your chatroom without them even knowing it.  This might be helpful to give your students a different perspective on what they're watching.

Just provide your students with the website address, have they type in their name, and you're off & running.

Below are a couple good posts regarding back channeling in a classroom.  It would also be useful for homeschooling networks to facilitate online live discussions about things just like the State of the Union speech.

• What is backchanneling and how can you use it in your classroom? 
• Backchanneling in Middle School Social Studies

Wordle for Comprehension & More

Use Wordle to create visual representations of any text.  Taking a look at a Wordle before or after reading will increase comprehension.

I used Wordle to create my header for this blog.

It's so easy.  Just take a piece of text, paste it into the text box, and click the Go button.  You can change everything form the layout to the colors to the font, and you can even rerun the process with a click to get a format more to your liking.

The possibilities are endless for Wordles.  Use for shirts, recognition, memorization help, encouragement, etc. Interested in some more ideas?  Here's a presentation at Slideshare with all kinds of ideas.