I read the book " The Diary of Anne Frank" as an eleven year old and was inspired to begin writing my own diary, which I have continued for over 30 years. I am convinced that Anne’s diary was one of the triggers that made me a documenter. I was able to fulfill a lifelong goal to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam this past week. The actual house, Anne and her family hid for over two years from the Nazis is now a museum. I am reflecting on my visit to the museum through the lens of an educator who believes in: the power of writing via blogging as a teaching and learning tool documentation for learning of and from our experiences the imperative of sharing and connecting to contribute to a global perspectives. The museum allows people to walk into the tiny rooms of the "secret annex" and "feel" the fear always present of being discovered,  how to survive, the worries how and when the war will end, family dynamics and interactions. The list goes on. The Anne Frank House is a museum where visitors are given the opportunity to personally envision what happened on this very spot. Anne’s father, Otto Frank, specifically requested that the rooms were to be kept empty to symbolize the void left by all who were taken and never returned. There are pictures in each room ( I believe from 1999) when the rooms were recreated WITH furniture for demonstration purposes only. The stairs leading up to the secret annex The bookcase concealing the entry door to the secret annex Sprinkled throughout the museum are quotes from Anne’s diary, video interviews of the survivors and their memories. One wonders, how the survivors were able to cope and continue life after the war. One of the quotes I heard (I believe it was from Otto Frank, Anne’s father), struck me specifically since we were traveling with my children and granddaughter. (quoted by memory): "…all her would-have-beens… are our opportunities…" I could not help myself to make connections of Anne’s determination to write, the diary, the museum and the profound impact her words still have to visitors of the house and readers of the book. I continue to ask myself about the importance of documenting with an audience in mind and the moral imperative to "preserve"(through different media)  our lives, thoughts and ideas for future generations to LEARN from. From the Anne Frank Organization we learn that Anne and the other people in hiding thought similarly. On March 28, 1944, the people in hiding hear a special news report on the Dutch sender broadcasting from London, Radio Oranje (Radio Orange). Dutch Cabinet Minister Bolkestein announces that diaries and other important documents will be gathered when the war ends, as a record of what happened to the Dutch people during World War Two and to be preserved for future generations. The people in hiding immediately think of Anne’s diary. In some shape or form, Anne Frank’s diary put me on the path so many years ago to journaling and decades later to blogging and documenting for learning. The diary, a journal, that allowed Anne to express her inner feelings and thoughts and cope with her terrifying situation is in contrast to the Anne, her family knew. Her father said after reading his daughter’s dairy: For me, it was a revelation. There, was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had lost. I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings. Otto acknowledges that: When you write in such a profound manner and share your thoughts and innermost feelings, the impact on the world can be robust. What lessons can we learn and what parallels can we draw when thinking of Anne Frank as a writer? The Anne Frank Organization dedicates a section of their website to this question. "The nicest part is being able to write down all my thoughts and feelings, otherwise I‘d absolutely suffocate." I wonder, what the world would have lost, if the diary and loose papers would have been lost or Anne’s father would have decided to not publish them? I also often wonder about Anne’s sister Margot. She wrote a diary as well. What happened to it? Was it lost? We know so little of Margot. She was there alongside her sister. Why did she not "survive" in the minds of her readers from around the world. What we learn from her, is only THROUGH Anne. What was her inner voice like? What did she stand for? In light of Anne Frank, maybe we can look at blogging, snapchatting or instagramming for learning from yet other angles: writing, even when you are in "hiding", with an audience in mind writing as a form of "surviving" (on an emotional as well as physical level, when our time on this earth is over) importance of sharing one’s voice with the world… for the world to learn about our perspectives reflect, create, connect, publish and share documenting, even mundane (to us) situations, routines, thoughts, ideas (see Obvious to You, Amazing to Others by Derek Sivers) write about one’s experiences, accomplishments, ideas or taking photos of oneself (selfies) might/should not be seen as "bragging" or narcissistic, but as a way to document our lives, redefine what beauty means to us, NOT though the eyes of a middle man (ex. publishing company or an editor, or the more economically advantaged crust of society, nor the fashion magazines) we all know that history was written by the victors. What about the other side to the story? What about the experiences of the loser’s side? What about the voices of the silent ones, the forgotten ones, the less privileged ones? What is our morale responsibility of sharing our voices and experiences? the imperative to never forget our responsibility to pass on knowledge and teach future generations I think Anne Frank would have become an amazing blogger, if she would have lived to see the age of self-publishing. …and I remember…. "her would-have-beens… are our opportunities…"        

Why Technology Alone Won’t Fix Schools is a good article published today at The Atlantic. Here’s an excerpt: I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles Highlighting Why We Need To Be Very Careful Around Ed Tech.

As regular readers know, it’s time for me to begin posting my mid-year "The Best…." lists. There are over 1,400 regularly updated lists now.  You can see them all here. As usual, in order to make this list, a site had to be: * accessible to English Language Learners and non-tech savvy users. * free-of-charge. * appropriate for classroom use. * completely browser-based with no download required (however, I’ve begun to make exceptions for special mobile apps). Some sites I’m including this year are primarily geared towards teachers creating content for classroom use, but could also easily be used by students. It’s possible that a few of these sites began earlier than this year, but, if so, I’m including them in this list because they were "new to me" in 2015. You might want to visit previous editions, as well as The "All-Time" Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education; The "All-Time" Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly and The "All-Time" Best 2.0 Tools For Beginning English Language Learners. You might also want to see my recent ASCD Educational Leadership article, Apps, Apps Everywhere: Are Any Good, You Think? The Best Tools For Creating "Word Frequency Charts" For Books, Articles & Movies is a new Web 2.0-related "Best" list I published this year. The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2014 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2013 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2012 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2011 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2010 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2009 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008 The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007 I don’t rank my mid-year lists, but do place them in order of preference in my end-of-year lists (though I did add three of them to my All-Time Best list - Quizizz, Edueto, and the StoryCorps app). Just because a tool is on this mid-year list does not mean it will make the cut for the year-end version. Feel free to let me know if you think I’m leaving any tools out. Here are my twenty-sixt  choices for The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2015- So Far (not ranked in any order): I’ve written about Russel Tarr’s site ClassTools many times, including featuring it in a post titled This Is The Best Web 2.0 Site For ELLs & May Be The Best One For All Students. He recently released another tool to join the many he has already. It’s called the Breaking News Generator!. Students can create a screenshot of a newscast with a news crawler at the bottom. Like his other tools, it’s free and simple to use. Quizizz, which is free, lets you access tons of previously-created learning "quizzes" and also lets you create your own. Once you as the teacher joins, which takes seconds, you pick a quiz; are given a code for a virtual room; then give the code to your students, who just log in with the code and a nickname (they don’t have to register with the site). When all your students are set, you click "start game." You see the leader board as do the students as they’re progressing through the quiz. In a number of ways, it’s similar to Kahoot. However, the key advantage that Quizizz seems to have over Kahoot is that with Quizizz, students see the questions, answers, and their leaderboard on their devise. With Kahoot (and please correct me if I’m wrong), students’ devices only show the answers and they have to look at an overhead to see the questions. In antiquated computer labs like the ones at our school (and, I suspect, at many others), we don’t have the capability of projecting a screen for students to see it.  I’ve added Quizizz to my All-Time Best list. Deekit is a new tool for collaboratively creating online whiteboards.It’s similar to other whiteboard tools on The Best Online Tools For Real-Time Collaboration list, though it does appear to have more bells and whistles. It’s free — at least, for now — and you can read more about it atTechCrunch. Parapara Animation is a cool new Mozilla tool.  It’s a super-easy way to draw animations. You can read more about it at Richard Byrne’s blog. Edueto has got to be one of the best Web 2.0 sites of the year, and perhaps the most useful one for teachers and students. And it’s free. Teachers can create exercises in any of the forms listed in the above screenshot and assign them to a virtual class they create. Students can do the activity and teachers can track their progress. You can also access a library of exercises created by other teachers that you can assign "as is" to students or edit. The exercises are very easy to create, and each has a short instructional video (I have to say that I wish the videos didn’t move quite so fast, though). One of the particularly important features it has, unlike some quasi-similar automatic activity creators out there is that, for example, teachers can strategically place the blanks to be filled in the "gap-fill" exercise, instead of just having an algorithm choose them. I’ve added Edueto to my All-Time Best list. Hypothes.is is a neat-looking online tool to annotate webpages. Imgur, the wildly-popular photo and GIF-sharing site, has now made it easy to embed the resources they have on blogs and websites, and the embed coded includes automatic attribution. You can read more about it at this TechCrunch post. Classmint is like a super Flashcard site. Render Forest is an online video-maker. You can learn more about it from The ASIDE Blog. Meeting Words is online tool for creating documents collaboratively. You can read more about it at Richard Byrne’s blog. Russel Tarr unveiled yet another new feature at his ClassTools site that lets users create a "3D Gallery" with captions. Anyone who’s every listened to NPR is probably familiar with StoryCorps, and I’ve published several posts sharing their resources. They recently unveiled a new free mobile app at the TED Conference that allows anyone to record an interview with anyone and upload it their new site, StoryCorps.me. They have both iPhone and Android versions, and they’re great! The app provides multiple suggestions for questions, depending on who you are interviewing (you can also add your own). It’s a perfect tool for having students interview their parents, grandparents or other older family members (which also makes it easy to ensure students have parental consent — by the way, their policy states users must be over 13). It’s super-simple to use. Of course, classmates could also interview others, as long as teachers had parental permission. I’ve added this app to my All-Time Best list. I have a lengthy list of free tools at The Best Tools For Creating Visually Attractive Quotations For Online Sharing. Here’s a new addition to that list: Live Luv Create .You can use many of their stock images or use your own, and then add text. The two negatives to the site are, one, even though it’s free, you do have to register with it. Most of the other tools on my list let you create quotes without requiring registration. The other problem is that though it provides an embed code when you first create your image, unless you grab it then there doesn’t appear to be any way to find it again. Five Thirty Eight wrote an extensive article  about a new free Google Chrome Extension called Draftback. It allows you to see the entire writing process unfold for any Google Doc. In other words, every mistake, correction, revision, etc. — either in the "realtime" it took or in a "speeded-up" time. You can then easily embed the created "Draftback." I’m not sure if it’s just a cool toy that people will use once to try it out, or a tool that could be very effective in teaching writing to students. Firefox has unveiled "Hello," a video-calling system that is built into its browser. No registration is necessary. All you have to do is easily "create a conversation," name it, and send the url link to the person with whom you want to talk. You can also create a contact list. They can use other browsers, like Chrome, and still use the link to the video call. Unfortunately, it appears to me that you can’t have group video chatrooms — in other words, it appears that you can just have two computers using the url address. Trello is another free tool that teachers and students can use to create online corkboards/bulletin boards (like Padlet and other sites on The Best Online Virtual "Corkboards" (or "Bulletin Boards")list). Prezi, the incredibly popular (though, to me, still rather discomforting to look at) presentation tool, has unveiled an iPhone app called Nutshell. Presentate is a new tool for creating online presentations. It looks nice, but you have to register for its beta. I received my invitation fairly quickly. I’m not convinced the world needs yet another online presentation site, but I’ll still add it to The Best Ways To Create Online Slideshows. Thematic is another tool for creating slideshows. I like it a little better than Presentate, and it’s now open to the public. You can learn more about it at Richard Byrne’s blog. I’m adding it to that same "Best" list. Speaking of online slideshow tool, here are two more: One is Bunkr. Last May they unveiled a "new" Bunkr, which was a big improvement. Recently, they supposedly unveiled a new Bunkr which has been completely redesigned. You can read a wayover-the-top review of it at TechCrunch. It is worth a look, though. Sway is Microsoft’s new online slideshow tool. Here’s another new online game from Russel Tarr’s ClassTools site: It’s called Connect Fours and is based on a BBC game show that I’ve posted about previously in "Only Connect" Is A Great Game For The Classroom. As I wrote then, the concept of the game was great was for English Language Learners, but the online BBC game itself was too advanced for them. I had suggested, though, that it would be easy for students and teachers to create their own versions with paper and pencil, and I’ve done that numerous times in my classes. Thankfully, though, Russel has now created a super-easy version that teachers and students can use to make their own online without having to register. In the game, there are sixteen squares with words on each one. The player needs to use the words to create four categories of four words each. It’s a great game that helps develop the higher-order thinking skill of categorization. Russel Tarr has yet another new online game called Dustbin. Students can very easily create a game — without registering — that requires players to categorize words. Categorization is a higher-ordering thinking skill, and I’m always on the look-out for interactives that have that requirement. I’ve previously posted several times about how much I love the Shadow Puppet app — there isn’t anything out there that’s an easier tool for creating a quick audio-narrated slideshow. It’s perfect for English Language Learners. Today, the company behind Shadow Puppet has just released another new and free educational app that looks like it could be very useful. It’s called Seesaw, and basically lets students easily create digital portfolios that can be shared with teachers and parents. It’s free for teachers and students, and has a free and paid version for parents. There’s the the new Public Domain Project, which offers a growing number of tens of thousands of images and clips that can be used freely. Hstry is a nice new online too for creating timelines. Richard Byrne wrote a post about it, and I’d suggest just you visit his blog to learn more. As he points out, one of the particularly nice features of this free tool is that teachers can create virtual classrooms for their students. Let me know what you think!

The Fallen Of World II is both a video and an interactive. The video is described as: An animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, The Fallen of World War II looks at the human cost of the second World War and sizes up the numbers to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts. I’m adding it to The Best Online Resources For Teaching & Learning About World War II (Part Two). The Fallen of World War II from Neil Halloran on Vimeo.

It’s going to take me a long time to dig into the numerous studies and statistics cited (and linked to) by Thomas Edsall in his lengthy NY Times Op-Ed today headlined How Do We Get More People to Have Good Lives? He looks at income equality, Social Emotional Learning Skills, pre-school education — just to name a few topics he covers. Here’s a short excerpt from it: For now, I’m just adding it to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources.

I have pinned over 12,000 visual resources on my Pinterest Boards, and over 7,000 of them are ones I haven’t shared here on my blog or on Twitter. You might find some of them useful…  

The Nevada legislature has just approved a bill letting parents take their child from a public school and use taxpayer money to pay tuition at a private or religious school - or even for homeschooling. Here’s an excerpt from a Washington Post article about the new law, headlined The ultimate in school choice or school as a commodity? Ed Week also has an article on it, School Vouchers for All? Nevada Law Breaks New Ground. The law is sure to be challenged in court and, with luck, it will be overturned. The new law could be a very dangerous precedent that could encourage other states to try the same thing. You can read more about why this kind of voucher programs is so dangerous at The Best Resources For Learning Why School Vouchers Are A Bad Idea (& Other Commentaries On "Choice"). Nevada Association of School Boards also has an excellent analysis of these kinds of voucher initiatives.

I’d be interested in hearing from people who are more familiar with language acquisition research than I am about the info described in this video:

© 2009 Michael Mandiberg, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio From discipline-and-punish to a culture of prevention is the headline of an article from The Notebook in Philadelphia about a school that’s implementing the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) system. Here’s how it begins: For Amy Williams, principal of the William Dick Elementary School in North Philadelphia, it had to rank among the strangest frantic parent calls she had ever received. "He’s crying because I washed his pants," the mother of a 4th-grade boy told her. Unfortunately, the pants had contained the boy’s wad of "Cat Cash," play money handed out by teachers at the school to reward good behavior by individual students and whole classes. For the students, collecting the Cat Cash — named for the school mascot, the panther — may be a game, trading the cash for goodies ranging from stuffed animals to class trips. I’m really not that familiar with PBIS, though my impression is that extrinsic incentives like "Cat Cash" is a major part of it. It will be no surprise to regular readers that I’m not a fan of this kind of system, since I’ve written a zillion posts and three books about the negative impacts of extrinsic motivation. I’m not going to recite the research and reasoning that backs-up my position here — those links will take you to all of that. However, I also want to repeat, as I’ve written before, that doesn’t mean I believe that extrinsic motivation can never play a role in classroom management. In fact, the most effective — by far — system that I have found to regain control of an out-of-control class is one that used just about the most common incentive system in classrooms today — points. I wrote a very popular post, and a book chapter about it. You can read my piece titled Have You Ever Taught A Class That Got "Out Of Control"? So, yes, using points or "cash" can be very effective in the short-term with a class, but if you want to teach long-term Social Emotional Learning Skills, I believe that having an exit strategy (which you can read about in that post) is absolutely critical. Notice that I said "with a class." On occasion, I might have a individual student who is facing so many challenges that he/she appears immune to every strategy I know of to help create the conditions for his/her self-motivation. In those very rare instances, I will use extrinsic incentives. Almost without fail, other students recognize that student’s specific challenges, and there are no complaints about favoritism. I’d be interested in hearing from readers more familiar with PBIS than I am — are extrinsic motivators as central to that strategy as the article seems to say? Am I being too judgmental?

Every month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in post. If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my "tweets" on Twitter profile page. You might also be interested in The Best Tweets Of 2014 — So Far and The Best Tweets Of 2014 — Part Two. [View the story "June’s (2015) Best Tweets — Part One" on Storify]

Another day, another annual mid-year "Best" list (you can find all 1,400 Best lists here). You might also be interested in: The Best Videos For Educators In 2014 - Part Two The Best Videos For Educators In 2014 - So Far The "All-Time" Best Videos For Educators The Best Videos For Educators In 2013 - Part Two The Best Videos For Educators In 2012 — Part Two The Best Videos For Educators In 2012 — Part One The Best Videos For Educators In 2011 Part Two Of The Best Videos For Educators — 2010 The Ten Best Videos For Educators — 2010 And you might also want to see The Best Funny Videos Showing The Importance Of Being Bilingual — Part One ; The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner ; The Best Video Clips Demonstrating "Grit"; and The Best Fun Videos About Books & Reading. You might also want to check out The Best Video Collections For Educators ; The Best Video Clips On Goal-Setting — Help Me Find More ; The Best Movie Scenes, Stories, & Quotations About "Transfer Of Learning" - Help Me Find More! ;  The Best Funny Videos To Help Teach Grammar - Help Me Find More ; The Best Videos About The Famous "Trolley Problem" and The Best Videos For Teaching & Learning About Figurative Language. Here are my choices for The Best Videos For Educators In 2015 - So Far (some may have been produced prior to this year, but are just new to me): Here’s a video and article about turning a Van Gogh painting to 3D. I think it would be useful in a Theory of Knowledge discussion of perception and art…: Here’s a great one on a "Growth Mindset," which I’ve added to The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A "Growth Mindset": Vox shared this very useful video. I’m adding it to A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism - Help Me Find More. John Spencer shared this great video on Twitter. In addition to just being fun to watch, English Language Learners could watch it and then describe what they saw happening….: Learning about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a key lesson in most IB Theory of Knowledge courses, and I’ve also been able to integrate it into my English Language Learner classes, too. You can see many of the resources I use in the classroom, including student-made videos of modern parable versions, at our class blog. Today, TED-Ed released a lesson and accompanying video that will be a nice addition. John Lewis was interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Here’s the extended interview (there may be something wrong with the show’s embed code. If you can’t see it here, go directly to the Daily Show site): The Daily Show Daily Show Full Episodes, More Daily Show Videos, Comedy Central Full Episodes I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Teaching About Selma. I’ve previously shared about a group called PERTS from Stanford, which is working on growth mindset and other SEL issues. They’ve now published short videos on topics that would be useful in the classroom, and have a site that they are expanding to helped interested educators connect. In addition, that same site has good resources on helping students learn from mistakes and providing students effective feedback. Here is just one of the videos on the site. I know I’ll be using a number of their resources in my classroom: I’ve previously written posts about Dan Pink’s great National Geographic series, Crowd Control. You can now watch forty-one short clips from the show on National Geographic’s YouTube Channel. Here’s one sample: They’re excellent for use in many lessons, particularly for IB Theory of Knowledge when we study human sciences. I’ve previously posted about studies showing that physical movement can help second (or third) language learning (you can see those posts at The Best Resources On Students Using Gestures & Physical Movement To Help With Learning). Here’s a video on that research: The question, "Was Mathematics invented or discovered?" is discussed in almost every IB Theory of Knowledge class. I’ve previously posted about a a TED-Ed video on this topic that I didn’t think was a very good one. The World Science Festival has just published a much better video responding to this question, and which I’ll definitely be using in class: This video from The SciShow on YouTube is about the Nobel Prize for medicine given to the developer of the lobotomy. It’s of particular interest to me since my Uncle was one of a number of immigrant children from low-income families who were diagnosed with so-called behavior disorders and lobotomized. This practice took place in the 1940’s. He was institutionalized for the rest of his life following the procedure. I have vivid memories of his visits to us — from the moment he entered our home he was always looking at his watch concerned about getting back to the hospital on time. Here’s an intriguing video from BuzzFeed. Thanks to Open Culture for the tip: I’m adding this video to The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner. It definitely demonstrates perseverance… Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the meaning of life to a six-year-old: Three years ago, the PBS News Hour did an excellent segment on self-control (I originally posted about it at Here’s A Video On Self-Control I’m Showing My Students First Thing Next Week). They recently did another very good one, focusing on the Marshmallow Test - you can see the transcript here. My only critique of it is a line that is always infuriating to me when people talk about charter schools. The segment mentions that the KIPP school students are selected by lottery and suggests that makes them comparable to students in other public schools. However, it doesn’t mention the fact that families who are particularly invested in their children’s education are ones who would go through the effort of registering and participating in a lottery, which makes blanket comparisons to students in other schools invalid. Of course, I also have other concerns about KIPP’s "character education" program. Nevertheless, it’s a very good segment that I’ll be showing in class. I’m adding this post to The Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control. There’s a great CBS News video of college football star Malcolm Mitchell’s love reading on The Best Videos For Educators In 2014 - Part Two list (you can also find it at The Best Videos & Articles Where Athletes Explain How Reading & Writing Well Has Helped Their Career). Then I found a second video sharing his story at Jackie Gerstein’s "Best" list of videos. Check it out: I’ve previously shared Sesame Street videos that have been emphasizing Social Emotional Learning Skills like self-control, and you can see them all at The Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control (of course, earlier this week Cookie Monster also decided he was tired of delaying self-gratification). They published a new one that models a classic self-control strategy: Professor and researcher Carol Dweck gave a TEDx Talk shared by TED titled "The power of believing that you can improve." I’ve embedded it below, but you can also see it on the TED site at the previous link. That site also has a written transcript of her comments. Here’s an excerpt: I was also struck by this passage: "…we can actually change students’ mindsets. In one study, we taught them that every time they push out of their comfort zone to learn something new and difficult, the neurons in their brain can form new, stronger connections, and over time they can get smarter. Look what happened: in this study, students who were not taught this growth mindset continued to show declining grades over this difficult school transition, but those who were taught this lesson showed a sharp rebound in their grades." That’s certainly been our experience after teacher Dweck-inspired lessons you can find at The Best Resources For Showing Students That They Make Their Brain Stronger By Learning. Daniel Coyle shared this video on Twitter. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Showing Students That They Make Their Brain Stronger By Learning: Bob Greenberg, who has created an extraordinary collections of short video talks by educators from around the world (see Brainwaves Video Anthology Is A Great Collection Of Short Videos Of & For Educators), came to our school and videotaped me talking about how to help student motivate themselves. Though I talked for longer than I had planned (the video lasts twelve minutes), I think it came out pretty well and people might find it useful. And, of course, check out all of the other videos in Bob’s collection.

Skype has now opened-up its web-based version to everyone. In order to be able to use it for voice or video calling, however, you still have to download a plugin. Much to my surprise, however, my school computer, which has a zillion restrictions on what can and cannot be downloaded, let me do it. This can come in quite handy now for teachers whose districts restrict software downloads, and could make it easier for class conversations with authors, other classes, etc. You can read more about it at this Tech Crunch post. I’m adding this info to The Best Online Tools For Real-Time Collaboration.

© 2009 US Department of Education, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Over the next day or two, I’ll be publishing a post over at Education Week Teacher with advice on creating student digital portfolios (it’s now been published, and you can see it here). I thought it would be useful to share a beginning list of resources here: First, you might find these previous "Best" lists useful (I’ve just updated them): The Best Places Where Students Can Write Online The Best Ways For Students Or Teachers To Create A Website I’ve previously posted several times about how much I love the Shadow Puppet app — there isn’t anything out there that’s an easier tool for creating a quick audio-narrated slideshow. It’s perfect for English Language Learners. Recently, the company behind Shadow Puppet has just released another new and free educational app that looks like it could be very useful. It’s called Seesaw, and basically lets students easily create digital portfolios that can be shared with teachers and parents. It’s free for teachers and students, and has a free and paid version for parents. 5 Free Tools For Making Digital Portfolios is from Edudemic. 4 Free Web Tools for Student Portfolios is from Edutopia. 5 Good Options for Creating Digital Portfolios is from Richard Byrne.

Ways To Help Students Develop Digital Portfolios is the title of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Several educators - Rusul Alrubail, Michael Fisher, Frank Serafina, Kristin Ziemke, Kate Muhtaris, Jeb Schenck, and Joe Rommel - share suggestions on how to effectively utilize digital portfolios with students. Here are some excerpts:

There’s a big new movie coming out in September titled "Everest." Here’s how it’s described: Inspired by the incredible events surrounding an attempt to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain, Everest documents the awe-inspiring journey of two different expeditions challenged beyond their limits by one of the fiercest snowstorms ever encountered by mankind. Their mettle tested by the harshest elements found on the planet, the climbers will face nearly impossible obstacles as a lifelong obsession becomes a breathtaking struggle for survival. The epic adventure stars Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson and Jake Gyllenhaal. Based on what it says on its website, the movie’s producers are also working to raise funds to help Nepal recover from the recent earthquakes. I hope that’s true. As I’ve mentioned many times, Everest is a major unit in our ninth-grade English curriculum. I’m adding this trailer to The Best Sites For Learning About Mount Everest:

I write many posts about recent research studies and how they can relate practically to the classroom. In fact, I post a regular feature called Research Studies of the Week. In addition, I write individual posts about studies I feel are particularly relevant to my work as a teacher. This is the latest in my continue series of mid-year "Best" lists. You can see all my 1,400 "Best" lists here. You might also be interested in: My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2014 - Part Two My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2014 - So Far My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2013 - Part Two My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2013 — So Far My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2012 — So Far My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2011 Hare are My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2015 - So Far: If You Haven’t Read It Already, "The Teaching & Learning Toolkit" Should Probably Be On Your Summer Reading List Quote Of The Day: "Do" Is Better Than "Don’t" Study Finds That Rewards For School Attendance Make Things Worse Measurement Matters….Maybe Not So Much The Limits To The Power Of A Growth Mindset (& The Dangers When We Don’t Recognize Them) Nothing New In New "Top 20 Principles from Psychology for Teaching," But Still Very Useful New Study Shows That Teaching About "Growth Mindset" Works At Large Scale - Or Does It? Three Useful Growth Mindset Resources What Are The School Implications Of New Chetty Study On Geographical Mobility? Useful Tweets On Ed Research From #rEDNY This Looks Like A Pretty Important Stanford Report On Social Emotional Learning Deliberate Practice Redux Quote Of The Day: "Poorer children ‘have smaller brains’, researchers say" Quote Of The Day: "A scientific look at the art of teacher talk" Quote Of The Day: "Asking Advice Makes a Good Impression" & Its Connection To The Classroom Quote Of The Day: The Importance Of Displaying Student Work Quote Of The Day: "Zero-tolerance school drug policies only make drug use worse" Quote Of The Day: The Need For More Teachers Of Color Quote Of The Day: Active Learning Equals More Student Motivation Yet Another Study Finds Constructivism Tends To Work Better Than Direct Instruction Statistic Of The Day: Teachers Need To Feel Like They Are Learning, Too Great Summary Of Research On Developing Creativity Important New Study: No Child Left Behind Hurts Long-Term Student Success Excellent Review Of Writing Instruction Research Second Quote Of The Day: Learning A Second Language "Increases The Size Of Your Brain" Quote Of The Day: Research Supports Independent Reading No Surprise In This Study: Language Learners Retain Vocabulary Better When Connected To Gestures & Images Statistic Of The Day: New Study Finds That Money Matters For Schools Study Finds That Bilingualism Supports A Growth Mindset No, The "Cone Of Experience" Is Not "Research-Based" & Yes, Some People Debunking It Have Way Too Much Time On Their Hands Statistic Of The Day: New Scholastic Study On Reading New Study Finds Value In Social Emotional Learning Study Suggests It’s Time To Put Up Pictures Of Mountains On My Classroom Wall The Best Research On Why Some Students Ask For More Or Less Help Than Others Quote Of The Day: Fast Food Bad For Student Brains Study: Conscientiousness + Curiosity = Academic Success "Should students discover their own math lessons?" "Grit" Runs Amok In The New York Times

© 2009 Jinx!, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio "Knowledge Questions" are a key element of International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge classes. And they can be tricky, both for teachers and students, who have to develop ones throughout the course and particularly for their Oral Presentation. I’ve previously posted about this challenge at The Best Posts On Teaching TOK "Knowledge Questions." This past year, I tried to refine and simplify how I taught students to develop them, and here’s my simple explanation: Knowledge questions combine a Way of Knowing with an Area of Knowledge, are open-ended, and use Theory of Knowledge vocabulary. They should also refer to justification in some way (evidence, beliefs) either implicitly or explicitly. Then, students reviewed these materials: Knowledge claims and knowledge questions Knowledge Questions in International Baccalaureate Subjects It seemed to work well. How can I make it better?

Here’s one more in my series of mid-year "Best" lists (you can see all 1,400 of the lists here). You might also be interested in these previous posts: The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2014 — Part Two The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2014 — So Far The "All-Time" Best Social Studies Sites The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2013 - Part Two The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2013 - So Far All My 2013 "The Best…" Lists (So Far) Related To Social Studies In One Place The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2012 — Part Two The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2012 — Part One The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2011 The Best "The Best…" Lists Related To Social Studies — 2010 The Best Social Studies Websites — 2010 The Best Social Studies Websites — 2009 The Best Social Studies Websites — 2008 The Best Social Studies Websites — 2007 Here are my choices for The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2015 — So Far: Our World Of Data is a pretty amazing collection of interactive infographics by University of Oxford researcher Max Roser. I’ve completed updated my U.S. History Class Blog for English Language Learners. It follows the chapter sequence found in Steck-Vaughn’s "America’s Story" textbook, but certainly the sequence would be useful for any U.S. History class. And here’s our World History Class Blog. It has what I think are the most accessible online resources out there to English Language Learners. Though it specifically follows the chapters in our textbook, Access World History by Great Source (by the way, thanks to Mary Ann Zehr for originally sharing it with me), it pretty much follows the chronology of events that most World History textbooks use. Channel 4 in the UK has created a 4NewsWall which is a wall of news-related GIFs that connect to summaries about the topic. The GIFs are sized based on their popularity. The Associated Press has a series of twenty-six short videos describing the forces behind multiple natural disasters. Vimeo has a great collection of videos in their travel category, and many would be great for Geography classes — assuming Vimeo isn’t blocked by your District’s content filter. Scaling Everest is a very neat new interactive from The Washington Post. Wow, you’ve got to check out this interactive map of 6400 languages from around the world. It’s called Langscape, and is from the University of Maryland. The Problem With History Classes is a thought-provoking article in The Atlantic. It’s perfect for IB Theory of Knowledge teachers, as well as history educators. Paul Krugman wrote a great column headlined Knowledge Isn’t Power. Teaching Tolerance is offering a free documentary on the Selma-to-Montgomery march — a perfect follow-up to watching the Oscar-nominated "Selma" film. Global Trend Tracker shows you the top ten search terms being used in each country around the world. I have a couple of other similar tools on The "All-Time" Best Places To Find The Most Popular (& Useful) Resources For Educators list. One slight advantage that Global Trend Tracker might have over them is that it’s a bit more visual. Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust," is a new and impressive interactive online exhibition from U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. "What If?" Projects From My Theory Of Knowledge Class With The Appropriate Background Knowledge, This Could Be A Good MLK Writing Prompt What the World Will Speak in 2115 is a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. Eat: The Story Of Food is an impressive interactive from National Geographic. It examines the history, health and future of food with what appears to be an almost endless supply of multimedia features. Travel By Drone has thousands of videos from around the world that have been made through the use of drones. They’re searchable by geography through a search box, and they are also pins on a map. I learned about it through an article in The New York Times, Seeing the World By Drone. Here are Social Studies-related "Best" lists I’ve posted over the last six months: The Best Resources For Teaching About Selma The Best "Sound Maps" & Webcams For Teaching Geography Useful Resources For Teaching About #FreddieGray The Best Classroom Resources On The Potential Iran Nuclear Deal The Best Resources For The World Day Of Social Justice The Best Sites For Learning About Susan B. Anthony The Best Ways To Teach About The Paris Massacre - Please Contribute More The Best Resources For International Migrants Day

© 2009 Joe Shlabotnik, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are a number of new resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources (some of the links are going to other lists, and I indicate that): Social-Emotional Learning Review Aims to Help Secondary Schools Select Programs is from Ed Week. Nonacademic Skills Are Key To Success. But What Should We Call Them? is from NPR. Viewpoint: How do you instil good character? is from The BBC. Quiz Yourself: Do You Lead with Emotional Intelligence? is from the Harvard Business Review. New background questions on social-emotional issues being tested to add context to NAEP results. http://t.co/zFQLM1RDH9 — Sarah Sparks (@SarahDSparks) June 4, 2015 Character Lab has unveiled a free goal-setting program and materials called WHOOP. I think the process they recommend — teachers doing it one-on-one with students for twenty-minutes each — is wildly unrealistic for most teachers, but the downloadable packet is useful and I think could be used class-wide. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Students Setting Goals. Talking To Students About Testing is from The Growth Mindset Blog. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On How To Prepare For Standardized Tests (And Why They’re Bad).

I use short, funny video clips a lot when I’m teaching ELLs, and you can read in detail about how I use them in The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL (& How To Use Them). In short, there are many ways to use them that promote speaking, listening, writing and reading. I’ve posted quite a few of them during the first six months of this year, and I thought it would be useful to readers — and to me — if I brought them together in one post. I’ve also published quite a few during the previous seven years of this blog. You can find those in these lists: The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2014 - Part Two The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2014 - Part One The Best Videos For Educators In 2014 - So Far The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2013 - Part Two The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2013 — So Far The "All-Time" Best Videos For Educators The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2012 (Part Two) The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2012 (Part One) The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2011 The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2010 Part Two Of The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2009 The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2009 The Best "Fun" Sites You Can Use For Learning, Too — 2008 The Best Movie Scenes To Use For English-Language Development The Best Funny Videos Showing The Importance Of Being Bilingual Or Multilingual — Part One The Best Pink Panther Fight Scenes For English Language Learners The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner The Best Sports Videos To Use With English Language Learners The Best Video Clips Of Sneaky Critters The Best Videos Showing "Thinking Outside The Box" — Help Me Find More The Best Fun Videos To Teach Language Conventions — Help Me Find More The Best Funny Videos To Help Teach Grammar - Help Me Find More The Best Movie Scenes For Halloween The Best Christmas Videos For English Language Learners - Help Me Find More Okay, now here are my choices for The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2015 — So Far: I Think The Amazing Card Trick Shown In This Video Could Be Modified Into A Fun ELL Writing Activity This video has a surprise ending: "Mr. Line" is a character is a long series of short Italian video animations featuring a long, unbroken, drawn line. Open Culture blogged about the series, and, except for one (and maybe a few more) that are clearly not appropriate for the classroom, they would be great to show English Language Learners and have them write and talk about what they saw. The character primarily just talks gibberish, and the drawings speak for themselves. Here’s an example of one (you can access all of them here): Artoo in Love would be a good video to show English Language Learners and then have them write and talk about what happens in the film: I’ve previously posted about Simon’s Cat videos and how they’re perfect for English Language Learners. Here’s a new one: This would be a fun video to show to English Language Learners and have them describe what they see. It’s in French with with English subtitles, but it’s fun even if you understand the words. One activity I do with English Language Learners is teach several idioms; then have students use them in sentences of their own creation; and, finally, create literal posters illustrating what they have written. So, let’s say they write "Please, keep it a secret - don’t let the cat out of the bag!" (note that they use the idiom correctly and include its meaning in the sentence). They would then draw a picture of a cat in a bag with someone talking to another person, along with their caption. Then, they show it and share it verbally to the class. It can be a lot of fun. Now, in addition to my drawing a simple model to show to students, I’ll be showing them this wonderful short video called "Confessions Of An Idiom." I’ll be adding this post to The Best Sites To Help ELL’s Learn Idioms & Slang. Confessions of an Idiom from Amanda Koh on Vimeo. I’ve previously published several posts about having English Language Learners use photos and videos as fun opportunities to invent "thought bubbles" or dialogues. I’ve also published a similar idea in a post titled What Are People In This Painting Thinking? TED Talks shared a number of short videos they shared at their conference. Some were new, some I had seen and published here, and several would be useful in English Language Learner classes. Two of those useful for ELLs were from a YouTube channel by Chris Cohen that he calls Animal Translations, where he puts his voice to animal thoughts. The accent is a bit thick, so it might be difficult for ELLs to hear everything, but they’d certainly get the idea. Then, students could create their own internal dialogue they could perform while the video was shown on a screen without sound. Here the two samples: A regular feature on this blog has been highlighting all the games that Jimmy Fallon plays on his show that are great ones for English Language Learners. He recently played another one that most teachers are familiar with — Pictionary. Show him playing it with several other stars could be a fun model for students prior to playing the game. When I do it, I model a game in front, and then divide the class into groups of three. Then, in the small groups, everyone gets a chance to be the decider/drawer of the word while they play it three times.

© 2005 Jeramey Jannene, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Today, NPR published an impressive multi-state series on high school graduation rates. You can see all of their grad stories here. Four that I found particularly interesting were: The Truth Behind Your State’s High School Grad Rate, which is an interactive. In Oakland, Struggling For Years To Learn English Thousands Of High School Students Getting Lost In Texas, which is interesting since that state’s supposedly high graduation rate is being used by some reformers to criticize California’s school system. Are High School Exit Exams An Unnecessary Barrier To Graduation? Coincidentally, this vote occurred last week here in California: State Senate votes to end California high school exit test http://t.co/oLIxiTUwHk pic.twitter.com/SVg96Y7YrD — LA School Report (@LASchoolReport) June 3, 2015 I’m adding these last two links to The Best Posts & Articles About Why High School Exit Exams Might Not Be A Good Idea.

© 2014 Dana, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio Along with students in my other classes, my TOK class evaluated the course and me (you can see the forms I used here). As usual, both the course and my teaching was evaluated generally quite highly. And, as usual, though the vast majority of students didn’t share many suggestions on how to make it better (the most common statement was along the lines of "keep it exactly the way it is"), one critique was explicitly mentioned several times, and another typical shortcoming was clearly apparent to me. A few students said I let some take advantage of me by being too flexible. As I mentioned, this always come up in my TOK evaluations. I’m sure there is some truth to these comments, and there are clearly areas where I can "tighten-up." However, I also attribute at least some of this critique to the fact that I heavily recruit students who are not taking any other IB classes, and I think a few others might not have that much experience being in a class with so many others without the same academic background and habits. The other shortcoming I always notice is that when I ask students how they can apply what they have learned in TOK to their lives, the responses — apart from just about everybody saying the presentation and writing skills they learned were useful — are generally pretty shallow. I have tried a number of different strategies to make this kind of "transfer" more effective, but nothing has seemed to work over the years. Next year, I’ve decided that, when we are studying each Way of Knowing and Area of Knowledge, I’m going to be very explicit about connecting them to current events and encouraging students to do the same. One great resources is the free monthly newsletter from Theory of Knowledge.net, which shares current news articles, Knowledge Questions connected to them, and lesson ideas. You can see their archive here, and you can subscribe there also. I can’t imagine why a TOK teacher would not want to receive it! In addition, for a fee, you can subscribe to their premium newsletter. I’d also love to hear other ideas about how teachers have been successful helping students apply TOK concepts to their outside-of-school lives….

A shortage of teachers hits home is an Op-Ed in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee. Here’s the "money quote":

Teachers: What we want everyone to know about working in our high-needs school is the headline of a guest column three of my colleagues - Katie Hull, Dana Dusbiber, Lara Hoekstra - and I wrote for The Washington Post today. It describes what it’s like to work in our high school…