Presented in collaboration with the Association for Middle Level Education.

Jokes You Can Use:

A man was telling his neighbor, “I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but it’s state of the art. It’s perfect.”

“Really,” answered the neighbor. “What kind is it?”

“Twelve thirty”

Steven Spielberg was busy discussing his new action adventure about famous classical composers. Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were in the room. "Who do you want to play?" Spielberg asked Bruce Willis. "I've always been a big fan of Chopin," said Bruce. "I'll play him."

"And you, Sylvester?" asked Spielberg. "Mozart's the one for me!" said Sly.

"And what about you?" Spielberg asked Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"I'll be Bach," said Arnie.

Eileen Award:

Google+: Corivida Raven,

eMail: Robert Jackson

Diigo: Rob Belprez

Advisory:

Family Research

The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/fashion/the-family-stories-that-bind-us-this-life.html

Snooze

Do your students use the snooze button?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P6zcSFA7ymo

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or [email protected])

Meaningful Science

I was recently reading the March, 2013 issue of Science Scope, a magazine for Middle School Science Teachers, published by the National Science Teachers Association. Inez Liftig, Editor of Science Scope writes a column entitled "The Editor's Roundtable." In this month's column, she wrote on the topic of making science meaningful. Here are her four suggestions:

1. Get to know your students.

2. Use authentic tasks to build conceptual bridges between school and everyday life.

3. Design tasks at the right level.

4. Give students choices.

From the Twitterverse:

#mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Resources:

Open Sankoré

http://open-sankore.org/

Teach This

http://www.teach-this.com/

http://www.opusmath.com/

Web Spotlight:

http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/43964027331/james-baldwin-illuminated

John Hattie - Educational Research

Part 1 & 2 of edited highlights of a talk given by John Hattie who has led a team at Auckland University, New Zealand which compares the effect on learning of over 100 classroom interventions.

This section looks at methods with negative, or very low effect sizes. Hattie points out that most educational debate is about things which do not really work well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sng4p3Vsu7Y&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pD1DFTNQf4

iPad:

Makayama Movie Mount for iPad 2nd, 3rd, 4th Gen

Movie Mount (See also Show 176)

iPad Video Production

With the Movie Mount, you get 10 new features for your iPad (beware that the additional equipment is not incuded):

Attached a tripod for stable shots, pan & tilt camera movements. Standard screwfitting.

Use 37 mm conversion lenses, such as wide angle and zoom*. Such as: US / EU

Slide on-the-fly between the built-in lens and the conversion lens.

Use shotgun microphones for better sound (requires splitter cable). Such as: US / EU

Use an optical viewfinder to shoot in bright sunlight. Such as: US / EU

Use a video light for better performance in low light. Such as: US / EU

Easier iMovie editing, with a 9 degrees working angle.

The mount allows your iPad to stand upright and be used as monitor.

The free Movie Mount iPad app allows you to manually control video recording

Fully compatible with Smart Cover.

http://www.makayama.com/moviemount.html

Half-Baked Ideas . . .

Are conferences better if they are free or paid?