Using Wordle

ReadWriteWeb ran the full text of the inauguration addresses of President Obama, President Bush's 2005 speech, President Clinton's second address, Ronald Reagan's first address, and both of Abraham Lincoln's through Wordle. Since Wordle basically does a word count and displays the most frequently used words in the largest type, this is an interesting way to analyze the content of the speeches.

Interactive Tool

This looks like it has potential for many uses in a classroom or working group. Exploratree:

Exploratree is a free web resource where you can access a library of ready-made interactive thinking guides* print them, edit them or make your own. You can share them and work on them in groups too.

The site has ready make guides to explore. Here's a good one for Information Literacy. 

You can customize a guide and fill it in online or print out a blank guide to work offline. If you register, you can share and save your guides. Exploratree comes from Enquiring Minds, a Microsoft-supported effort in the UK--which probably explains why some of the thinking guides are in Welsh.

Be sure to blog if you use this tool.

*Thinking guides support the thinking or working through of an issue, topic or question and help to shape, define and focus an idea and also support the planning required to investigate it further. 

Blocking the Internet

Edutopia has an article on filtering in high schools written by a high school senior--which is appropriate given a conversation I had tonight at the MILI meeting in Chaska. Here is the article: Stop Blocking Online Content: Severely limiting Internet access does high school students a disservice. Read the comments, too; they add a lot to the discussion.

1.20.09

http://obeygiant.com/headlines/obama

Get ready to celebrate the inauguration with an icon generator based on this well-known campaign poster. From Paste Magazine.

Obamaconme.com

Weekend Watching

TeacherTube has posted its Top 5 videos in various categories--highest rated, most watched, etc. This one is still powerful, I think.

Ethics and Youth

This report offers some data that your role in teaching about copyright and plagiarism is more important than ever. The Ethics of American Youth 2008 Survey has some bad news:

CHEATING. Cheating in school continues to be rampant and it’s getting worse. A substantial majority (64 percent) cheated on a test during the past year (38 percent did so two or more times), up from 60 percent and 35 percent, respectively, in 2006. There were no gender differences on the issue of cheating on exams.

• Students attending non-religious independent schools reported the lowest cheating rate (47 percent) while 63 percent of students from religious schools cheated.
• Responses about cheating show some geographic disparity: Seventy percent of the students residing in the southeastern U.S. admitted to cheating, compared to 64 percent in the west, 63 percent in the northeast, and 59 percent in the midwest.
• More than one in three (36 percent) said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment. In 2006 the figure was 33 percent.

The study and report are from the Josephson Institute , a non-profit that "develops and delivers services and materials to increase ethical commitment, competence, and practice in all segments of society." The report is based on surveys of 30,000 high school students across the country from public and independent schools (including religious and non-religious independents). In addition to the questions about cheating, students were asked about their behavior related to lying and stealing. Detailed results by question, gender, etc. are on the survey report page.

There is a link on the Josephson Institute's front page to an Adult Integrity survey if you want to see how you compare to others as a good role model.

Hints for Classroom Blogging

Edutopia has an article on classroom blogging that includes some useful hints. Edutopia is the web site and magazine from the George Lucas Educational Foundation. Always something interesting and useful, so it is worth adding to your Google Reader.

Digital Media and Learning Research

Wondering if social network sites, online games, video-sharing sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are having an impact on students and learning?

“It might surprise parents to learn that it is not a waste of time for their teens to hang out online,” says Mizuko Ito, University of California, Irvine researcher and the lead author of the most extensive U.S. study to date on teens and their use of digital media. The study showed that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online often in ways adults do not understand or value."

"Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures" report is the result of three-year collaborative project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley, the digital youth project explores how kids use digital media in their everyday lives.

Read more here:
Two page summary (PDF)
White Paper (58 pages-PDF)

The Digital Youth Research Web site has a lot of interesting information on this project, including some field stories/case studies presented by project researchers. Definitely worth spending some time exploring.

New Delicious Feature

This is timely, since we are discussing Delicious this month in the meetings. Delicious added a new feature--bulk editing for group tagging/un-tagging and sharing/un-sharing. More here, along with some "wish list" stuff in the comments. http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2008/12/tag-the-season-in-bulk.html