Royalty Free Music and EmbedPlus

Royalty Free Music and EmbedPlus

Two quick great websites I came across today that deserve more than a tweet.  Jewel Beat: Check it out…some great sounds, songs, and effects. All royalty free and all they ask is you link back to their website. Great resource for student videos, podcasts, and use in projects. EmbedPlus: Take YouTube videos to the next level. Just copy and paste […]

Wiktionary in the EAL Classroom

Wiktionary in the EAL Classroom

My favorite part of the CoETaIL program that Kim and I run is coming up this semester. The 5th and final course for the certificate includes teachers having to apply what they’ve learned in the first 4 courses in their classroom. Last week I met with Donna Hurst one of our EAL and IB TOK teachers and we hashed out […]

Machines won't Replace You, Communities Will

Machines won't Replace You, Communities Will

Last Friday I had the pleasure of Skyping into a school in Singapore to talk about my TEDx Talk I did back in September. The principal showed it to his staff and then invited me in via Skype to answer questions. I got into a conversation with one teacher about whether I believed that teachers would be replaced by machines. That, according […]

Fishbowls and Chat-rooms

Fishbowls and Chat-rooms

I wanted to follow up on the reverse instruction lessons I’ve been working with teachers on.You can read the first blog posts here on the outline in English and U.S. History. Here’s a bit of the chat conversation: ‹Alex› what if there was no external validation? wouldn’t we all become crazy? ‹TK› we cant live alone isolated within ourselves ‹Holden […]

Why I #hashtag all me tweeted links

Why I #hashtag all me tweeted links

Some rights reserved by ntr23 Many of you that follow me on Twitter might wonder why I’ve been using a hashtag on every tweet I share with links to websites I find interesting. The simple answer is I’m lazy…..I always look for ways to reduce my clicks. I use to bookmark the websites I found, then I blogged about them […]

Reverse Instruction – U.S. History

Reverse Instruction – U.S. History

U.S. History has to be one of the hardest classes to teach at an international school. When at best half your students would be from America and at worse none…yet our U.S. based curriculum says we have to teach it. So how do you motivate students who for the most part have no buy-in into U.S. History? The teachers do […]

Google to hold first ever Global Science Fair

  Now this is just down right cool! Mashable is reporting that in a few hours from now on 1/11/11 Google will be announcing the first ever global science fair. So many possibilities and I can only image what students will submit. The fair is open to 13 – 18 year olds from around the world and the prizes range […]

Reverse Instruction in IB SL English

Reverse Instruction in IB SL English

  reverse instruction Today was our first day back to school after the holiday break and the first day of my little reverse instruction experiment with teachers and students. Jim Fitzgerald, who I’ve blogged about before, decided he’s be one of my guinea pigs….again.  What is Existentialism? Every good student-led lesson starts with a guiding or essential question and here […]

New Year, New Theme, and Free Stuff

New Year, New Theme, and Free Stuff

SunSet from Condo in seattle Yawn…..stretch…..and slowly pulling myself back into the real world after almost three weeks of vacation that included little time on the computer and a lot of time with friends and family. The way holidays should be. The big technology gift this year actually went to my wife. Her sister bought her the new Kindle which […]