Teachers as Learners

With the explosion of Internet resources and information in the past five years there is so much learning available at our "googletips". Just the other day I came across a tip to make my foggy amateur digital photos look much sharper. Jake Ludington posted an entry in his blog to fix the haze that many of my photos have. Thanks, Jake, my virtual teacher/coach!

And here is more....take a look at this LifeHacker blog entry by Wendy Boswell. Wendy has collated some courses and sessions offered by colleges and universities. And yes, they are free!

Teachers, many of these may help your students. I am looking at helping my son with his understanding of ecomomics from the University of Nebraska. And I might just brush up my Italian with a Brooklyn College course. How about learning some new medical vocabulary to keep up on your healthcare.

Please add your free finds for learning here!
Added 9/26/06 A catalog of FreeNet courses

Structured Note-Taking Increases Comprehension

As I peer in the classrooms of high schools or middle schools the number one activity I see is students taking notes. Dr. Robert Marzano and colleagues in a meta-analysis of research have identified note-taking as one of the nine strategies that increase student understanding.

Now if you stop to read some of the notes that students take, you might wonder how this could ever be true. These notes seem to be nothing more than a "word dump". One way to help students build comprehension while note-taking is using a method like Cornell Notes. With this system, students not only write the important details, but use questioning strategies and summarization to build a greater understanding of the content.

Students could create a MS Word template for note-taking in the three column format or use a pdf generator for a print copy. Teachers, please help students be effective learners by teaching note-taking strategies.

Visual Effects Create Discussion!

Sometimes I run across web content that is just fun! Remember your fasincation in optical illusions? How did that work? Take a look at these interactive visual effects and their explanations. You might learn a thing or two!

But, more importantly, what great tools for discussion and writing! There is enough here to intrigue students to begin asking questions, for sure!