Happy Spring Language Arts teachers!!!!  I am NOT feeling it... how about you?  Well here are a few links that might bring a little sunshine to your corner of the world!

• Google Tools in Bloom's Revised Taxonomy
• How a Web Search Works
• 10 Resources for Teaching Reading/Literature with Technology
• 5 Simple Things to Help Teachers with Web 2.0
• Video 21 - Are you wondering what 21st Century Skills look like in the classroom?  This is a great list of videos that give examples of different instructional skills.

NROC Webinar Invitation - March 2011
Register today for this month's NROC webinar:

"Algebra 1—An Open Course:
New Resources for New Approaches"

Featuring...
Ruth Rominger, Director of Learning Design, National Repository of Online Courses
Abbie Bosserman, Algebra Teacher, Sierra Vista High School, CA
Andrew Shean, Partner of San Diego County Office of Education; and College of Education Faculty, Ashford University

Thursday, March 31 at 2pm ET

Join us for a project update and learn about early pilot experiences with NROC's new Algebra 1 curriculum. Discover how these "open" resources are being adapted by schools for use with credit recovery, independent study, and first time algebra classes - incorporating new models of instruction in blended, online and face-to-face environments. The research approach for gathering efficacy data will be outlined and the impact of pilot experiences on professional development resources to accompany the course will be discussed. Take a tour of the course at NROCMath.org today.
 
You are invited to attend this free webinar offering. Seating is limited, so click HERE and register today!

If you experience any difficulty, please contact Dani at: dpedrotti@montereyinstitute.org

If you are already using Google at your school or if you are planning to go Google soon, check out these great lesson plans I found.  Use the different Google tools to do these great activities!  These look like a lot of fun and very "21st Century!"  See what you think!

What did you try?  How did it go?
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/lesson_plans.html 

I have a browser full of links to share this week.  Hope you can use this smorgasbord of resources!

• 11 Math Resources to Try in 2011 is from Ryan Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers which you can subscribe to using your blog reader or you can get his updates in Facebook!
• Interesting Ways to... is a listing of all the Google Presentations done by Tom Barrett who built a beginning of these slideshows and then crowd-sourced them to fill in more ideas.  These are great ways of using particular tools such as Google Docs, Visualizer, QR Codes, Audio, and more!
• 50 Exciting Ideas for the Classroom Using Google Earth 
• Apps Gone Free is a daily posting of iPod/iPad apps that are free for a day.  don't be distracted by the games that they post, there are some for everyone on this site! 
• You Tube Time Machine for finding You Tube videos based on date!  There are some very old videos on there!
• Fun ideas for putting project based learning in your classroom.  Learn Through Projects from Tony Vincent

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to read a couple of articles that I thought you might like to read.  I plan to share these with other groups.  These articles talk about changes in education that I think we can no longer ignore hoping they just "work themselves out."

This is the Top 10 Predictions of 2011 from Tech and Learning. Most of them deal with technology.  For you, this may not be a surprise but maybe for some!

This second article is from Connected Principals blog written by David Truss titled, Less is More; Teach Less, Learn More.  This article contains a video that is about 25 minutes long.  This is well worth your time!  I found this most interesting as he spoke of Finland's education system, which is best in the world.  How does it compare to the US?  How does it compare to YOUR district?  This article is not about technology.  This is about instruction.

What did you find most surprising in these links?  Who did you share them with?

Here is a simple way to see if you are using/teaching those 21st Century Skills.
http://blog.simplek12.com/education/21-signs-youre-a-21st-century-teacher/

Read more about 21st Century Skills at: http://www.p21.org/

Want to know more about the flu trends across the globe?  What to use the oil spill as a discussion piece with your students?  Check out http://www.google.org for more!

Flu Trends - http://www.google.org/flutrends/

I just read this article by Daniel Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind."  A highly recommended read for educators.  He also hosts a blog where he wrote a brief post on an innovative math teacher, Karl Fisch.  Check it out! 

http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/09/what-a-high-school-algebra-teacher-can-teach-us-about-innovation