world-shaker:
futurejournalismproject:
Political journos and junkies take note: Cracked creates a handy guide to evaluate an article’s newsworthiness:
#5. The Headline Contains the Word “Gaffe”
A politician accidentally misspoke in a way that made him or her look silly, and the opponents are pouncing on it.
#4. The Headline Ends in a Question Mark
A news story so questionable the publication literally felt the need to mark it as such.
#3. The Headline Contains the Word “Blasts”
A politician or other prominent person has taken to a microphone to say something inflammatory about the other side, usually by rephrasing their own party’s talking points over and over.
#2. The Headline Is About a “Lawmaker” Saying Something Stupid
A low-level politician with no power said something incredibly stupid, and the opposing party is trumpeting it from the mountaintops to make everyone in the low-level politician’s party look stupid.
#1. The Headline Includes the Phrase “Blow To”
Neglecting to explain hugely important policy changes in favor of focusing on the drama, and how it affects the personal political careers of the politicians involved.
Read through for explanations and examples of each.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
3 weeks ago -
163
1. The people in charge have all the answers.
That’s why they are so wealthy and happy and healthy and powerful—ask any teacher.
2. Learning ends when you leave the classroom.
Your fort building, trail forging, frog catching, friend making, game playing, and drawing won’t earn you any extra credit. Just watch TV.
3. The best and brightest follow the rules.
You will be rewarded for your subordination, just not as much as your superiors, who, of course, have their own rules.
4. What the books say is always true.
Now go read your creationism chapter. There will be a test.
5. There is a very clear, single path to success.
It’s called college. Everyone can join the top 1% if they do well enough in school and ignore the basic math problem inherent in that idea.
6. Behaving yourself is as important as getting good marks.
Whistle-blowing, questioning the status quo, and thinking your own thoughts are no-nos. Be quiet and get back on the assembly line.
7. Standardized tests measure your value.
By value, I’m talking about future earning potential, not anything else that might have other kinds of value.
8. Days off are always more fun than sitting in the classroom.
You are trained from a young age to base your life around dribbles of allocated vacation. Be grateful for them.
9. The purpose of your education is your future career.
And so you will be taught to be a good worker. You have to teach yourself how to be something more.
(Source: braddogott, via adventuresinlearning)
robertreich:
What are the three demographic groups whose electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people. Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young people.
It’s almost as if the GOP can’t help itself.
Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps…
1 month ago -
323
world-shaker:
The most damning information here:
Dropbox — terms can be found here:
“Your Stuff & Your Privacy: By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.”
Google Drive — terms can be found here:
“Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps).”
1 month ago -
203
robertreich:
Europe is in recession.
Britain’s Office for National Statistics confirmed today (Wednesday) that in the first quarter of this year Britain’s economy shrank .2 percent, after having contracted .3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. (Officially, two quarters of shrinkage make a recession). On…
1 month ago -
86
adventuresinlearning:
9 Ways to Assess Students without Standardized Tests
- Look at student’s school work -Students are doing work across the year. Let’s assess that, rather than a bubbletest. For instance, we can look at a piece of writing and use a standardized rubric to measure that. We can listen to a recording of a student’s reading and retelling and use a standardized measure to assess their readIng and comprehension level. The great thing is that teachers already do this. No need to fork over millions to a publisher and grading staff.
- Games -More and more games are being created that allow us to determine a student’s level mastery by their ability to progress in a game. Simulation games/contests and games like Tabula Digita, Manga High are examples.
- Challenges -In real life we’re assessed by how well we do, not how well we fill in bubbles. Instead of bubble tests, support young people in in tackling real challenges to demonstrate their capabilities and get scouted for awesome apprenticeship/internship/career opportunities. This is exactly what companies like Rad Matter (life is rad, make it matter) do.
- Badges and Points -Folks like Tom Vander Ark (Author, Getting Smart) predict badges will be big in education and I agree. A badge (think boy/girl scouts) is an award for demonstrated mastery of a skill that has become popular as a reward mechanism in games and social networks like foursquare.com.In education a badge could be awarded for successful completion of an activity. An example of this is Code Academy co-founded by Columbia U dropout (school got in the way of learning) Zach Sims. Code Academy is a site where you learn to program by actually coding and as you do you receive points and badges as you complete each exercise. I’m a newbie learning Java and html. I have 22 points and 2 badges.
- Real World Work -Encourage students to get out of the classroom and into the world doing work in an area of interest. The iSchool is an example of a school that does this well with their Areas of focus Program. Staff supports students in figuring out what it is that interest them and them helps them go out into the world and do it via an internship, apprenticeship, job. Just like in the real world, their work is assessed by their supervisor.
- Real World Projects -I talk to so many students who are doing amazing work…just not in school. They’re making viral videos, writing for publications or publishing their own blogs, engaging in public speaking, etc. The problem is, in today’s paradigm of school, when we do work worthy of the world, this just doesn’t matter. Let’s change that! When kids are doing amazing things in the world, let’s give them credit for it.
- Real World Accomplishments Why is it that in most cases, school will only provide credit for that which is done during their hours on their terms. Why can’t students get credit for accomplishments achieved outside of school if they provide evidence. For example, complete a marathon, win a dance contest or volleyball tournament, get physical education credit. Compete in a pig competition, get science credit. Write a travel review, get social studies credit. Perform in a recital, get music credit. In these cases, the assessment doesn’t come from the school, it comes from the real world, and that’s a good thing.
- Personal Success Plans -Assessment should be customized to the student, not standardized to the system. This is exactly what happens with a personalized success plan with measurable goals. Teachers work with students to help them identify their goals then develop a real plan to achieve them. This involves input from teachers, mentors, family, friends, and community. The teacher, students, family. mentors, etc. can see at any time the student’s progress at anytime and provide scaffolded support as necessary.
- ePortfolios -ePortfolios provide a great way to capture, document, make meaning, and share with others what we learn. They are a wonderful assessment tool that tells much more about a child than a letter or number on a piece of paper. Not only that, they form the basis of what can lead to academic and career success. There are numerous ways to create free, student-owned ePortfolios. Knowit App is a new site that is helping students do this work, but as ePortfolio guru Helen Barrett explains, Google Sites and Wikispaces are also great resources.
1 month ago -
55
stfuconservatives:
The same thing he did to raise them:
NOTHING!
-Joe
1 month ago -
552
