If you regularly use flashcards to build your brainpower but find it too easy to cheat or just inadvertently see through the cards, reader Honda Wang uses QR codes for an inventive solution.

I finally found an applicable use of QR codes in education! Before I started using them for foreign language flashcards, it annoyed me that I could see the English word behind the card when I was studying. Now I can’t see the English word since it’s a QR code!

When he’s ready for the answer, he just scans the code with his phone. Not bad!

Looking for a place to make your own QR codes? Try previously mentioned QR Stuff or QR Code Generator.

Use QR Codes for Better Flashcards [via #tips]

The conference was AMAZING!  We had just under 200 people. (Read below to learn why that is impressive.)  We have already discussed changes for next year’s conference.  We hope you will consider joining us.  Check RMWP.ORG for updates.

This conference schedule is a thing of great beauty.  You can now also download the conference program.

When I first started planning for this conference, I was told to expect around 30 people to show up.  As of today we have about 152 registered.  I am amazed at the support.  I have never done this before.  It has been eye-opening.If you are interested in hearing Kylene Beers and Bob Probst along with 12 other presenters speak, I would encourage you to come on down, over, or up to Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday (27 February 2010).Here is a link to the page where you can register: 21st Century Literacies Conference(I will remove the option to register at 11:59 p.m. the night before the conference.)

I purchased a copy of Janet Allen’s Inside Words this summer at a workshop. Among the AMAZING activities in the book I discovered the Frayer Method. (Click HERE to see a demonstration of the Frayer method with vocabulary).

When I saw it, I immediately thought of how useful it would be to use this to teach voice/style within your students’ writing. If you had them fill out a graphic organizer like the one used with vocabulary above, you could really get them thinking about their own writing.

Then I started thinking about how useful it would be in teaching the differences between the literary periods I teach (everything from romanticism to modernism). Because the influence of these period is often subtle and lacking a strict definition, this will certainly be useful for me next year.

Anyway…this post was more for me than my readers. Just thought I’d share, though.

Here are some PDF worksheets that feature the Frayer methods:

What is the Frayer method?

Frayer Vocabluary PDF

The highly anticipated wolframalpha.com search engine has gone live. Since Lifehacker did such an awesome job posting about it, you can just read about it below. This is sure to change the web. I think it will best serve math and social studies, but it is also a great vocabulary and research tool.

How many football fields would fit between the Earth and the sun? What’s the likelihood of getting 2 heads in 10 coin flips? One search engine calculates all that on the fly and more.

Mathematician Stephen Wolfram’s much-hyped “computational knowledge engine” Wolfram Alpha just went public, and it’s got more than a few data nerds tickled absolutely pink (myself included). Walpha (as I affectionately call it) finds and visualizes real-world data points from natural language queries.

I’ve just spent the last couple of hours throwing every kind of data query I could think of at Walpha. Some of the results were incredibly useful, others baffling, and others just missing. Here are some of the fun facts I learned using Walpha’s calculations.

[Remember, these statistics do not apply to me (Ben). These are from lifehacker.com’s author.]

• I’m over 12,000 days old today. As a 33-year-old American female, my life expectancy is 81.54 years, which means I’ve got till April of 2057 to go, a mere 48 years from now.
• My 70-year-old mother has a longer life expectancy than I do, at 86.17 years. (This makes me wonder what’s wrong: Walpha or my search terms. Update: Actually, it’s neither. Several folks explain that because Mom has survived to see her 70th year, she has a higher likelihood of living longer. Following that, at 94 today, Grandpa’s expected to live till 97. Good news!)
• The oldest person in the world clocked in at 122 years old, though, so we all may have more time.
• It will take readers about three minutes to silently read the 450-word magazine article I spent all day today writing. (And yes, it was exactly a one-page, single-spaced document).
• One in almost 6,000 people have my first name; about 144,000 people alive today are named Gina. Compared to Jennifer and Mary, though, my name’s positively uncommon.
• San Diego county has a higher income per capita than Kings county (Brooklyn). Its unemployment rate is also higher.
• There have been more earthquakes near San Diego in the last five years than I actually felt.
• A Snickers bar has 14 grams of fat, more than a bag of milk chocolate M&M’s or a Twix bar (not combined).
• If a five-foot, seven-inch, 160-pound woman went running at 4MPH for 30 minutes, she’d burn 272 calories.
• The average 12-year-old girl today is around five feet tall.
• Both caffeine and aspirin have beautiful molecular structures.
• 55 mph is about 0.62 x speed at which Marty McFly needed to drive the Delorean DMC-12 in order to time travel (88 mph).
• Turns out she was right when I asked during an episode of The Deadliest Catch: On average, the Bering Sea is less than a mile deep.
• Apple’s bringing in more than half of Microsoft’s yearly revenue.
• As of yesterday, there are a total of 65 recorded deaths due to swine flu.
• Of my three favorite bridges, the Golden Gate is the longest.
• A woodchuck would chuck all the wood a woodchuck could chuck (if that woodchuck could chuck wood, of course).
• So that’s where a second cousin twice removed fits on the family tree.
• A flight from Palermo to Rome is about 30 minutes. The GDP of the US is 6.75 times that of Italy.
• At $25/hour, you make $200 per working day, and $50,000 per working year.
• Pi has a lot of digits. (Go ahead. Click the “more digits” link.)

from lifehacker.com

CONTXTS.com is made for business people who run out of business cards. The idea is for people who find that they have run out of business cards to tell the person to send a text message with their username to 50500.

CLASSROOM USE:
I have set up a contxts account. Text davisbg to the number 50500. (For the purpose of this blog I did set it up as a business card–so if you’d like me to speak at a conference–but I will open another account for classroom use.) You can change the information recipients will see as often as you’d like. Therefore, all you’d have to do is put in homework information instead of business contact information and you’d have an easy way for students to get homework assignments and test reminders. Since students of all socioeconomic levels have cell phones, this might be pretty interesting.

Go ahead. Try it. Text “davisbg” to the number 50500.

I discovered contxts at lifehacker.com.

I recently discovered two sites that will be both loved and hated by readers. Qipit.com and scanR.com both allow you to take pictures of the notes on your board AND/OR documents using your cell phone and convert the picture to a PDF.

I have experimented with this and have found that these sites create surprisingly high quality pdfs. I even have dim lighting from several lamps and 1200 Christmas lights in my room and qipit still created a very high quality pdf of the notes on my board.

This would be great for grabbing a picture of the notes for an absent student or for your own records. You could even created a powerpoint from these by taking a pictures as you moved through the notes in your lecture to later post on your website. There are many uses for these sites.

HOWEVER, I now am a now a firm believer that cell phones should not be allowed in the classroom. During a test, I used to turn a blink eye when students would check the time on their phones. Having seen that in just two seconds I can take my phone from my pocket and snap a picture of a piece of paper, I now will be watching for cell phones during tests. All they’d have to do is snap a picture, send it to one of these sites and/or send the picture to friends in the next class.

If you want a chat option for your website tinychat.com, which is featured on lifehacker today, looks like an awesome option.

I demonstrate this site in the following video. (My next post will show you how I made the screencast)

HOW TO USE TINYCHAT

1. Go to TINYCHAT.COM
2. Click Click to create your chat room.
3. Copy the url for your disposable chat room.
4. Click Enter chat room.
5. Create a username.
6. Send the url you copied to others OR just post it to your website so others will know where to go.

So there you have it. An easy way to carry on group discussions, study sessions, or last-minute-paper meetings without having to repeat yourself. Students can search the previous conversations by hitting CTRL+F and typing in key words to see if certain conversations have already occurred.

First, I would like to say that this is not a joke.

In my previous post about law ruled paper I mentioned printablepaper.net. You can read that post to get an idea of how differently ruled paper can open doors for different kinds of studying/writing. I would encourage you go check out the 450 different types of printable paper you can find there.

In addition to letter sized paper, he site also provides legal, ledger, and A4 sized pdf.s so that you can print it to the sized paper you have.

How to print from printablepaper.net
1. Locate the desired type of paper
2. Save the type of paper to your computer (just like you would any pdf)
3. Then, with the appropriate size of paper in your printer, print the downloaded file.

When I was in college I strolled into the bookstore and picked up a notebook for my class and headed to the classroom. Once the professor entered I flipped it open to find that the first page was defective. The margin line ( which is usually just an inch or so from the left side of the page) was about 4 inches from the left (as seen in the picture to the right). I flipped through the notebook to find that the whole thing was defective. Now planning to return it, I closed the it. In doing so I discovered that I hadn’t bought a college ruled notebook; rather, I had purchased a law ruled notebook.

Over the semester, I found that it was the greatest notebook ever! I found it to be very useful for organizing notes. (To experience law ruled paper, just print it from pritablepaper.net (which is explained in this post).

FOR LITERATURE: To the left of the red line I would write character names, page numbers, or dates. To the right of the red line I would write details from the text, professor commentary, or personal commentary.

FOR PAPERS: I would write my drafts of paragraphs or of outlines to the right of the red line. To the left I would write notes to myself for changes. (I know you can do that on typical lined paper, but with this paper you have more room to make more significant/substantial changes.)

FOR MATH: Because I am a why guy (I need to know why things work the way they work), I needed to take notes on problems demonstrated in class to the right of the red line and explain to myself why I did certain operations to the left of the red line. This helped me when I was studying in the wee ours of the morning after the logic portion of my brain had gone to sleep.

OTHER USES:

• Vocabulary study guide (just fold it back and your have a study tool).
• Words and definitions
• A page to keep up with assignments you’ve had throughout the semester.
• Have your students take tests on it so you can comment on their performance.
• Since I am sure you can come up with a million more uses, I will stop the list here.

Please feel free to leave other suggestions in the comments below.

Our 27th (of 214) posts was an article by Chris about twittering your lesson plans.  Recently, while playing around posterous, I realized how easy it would be to simply send an email to a blog post (or twitter) a couple of questions from the day’s discussions in order to store up questions for your exam.

I will start doing this as soon as I return from our break.  I will not give my students my posterous blog’s name because they should be taking notes.  However, as I tag my blog posts, I will have a record of topics they should revisit for the exam.

The beauty of this idea is that I could either post the actual information they need to know (like the rules of commas) to direct them to the blog around exam time.  Or I could write out the actual questions out and set the blog to private.

The reason I am so interested in posterous is because you can simply send an email from your computer or text message the question from your phone without ever logging in at posterous.com.

TO SEE MORE POSTS ABOUT POSTEROUS, CLICK HERE.

This morning I stumbled across an interesting site that showcased a fun little study guide that anyone can build in about an hour. The plus side to this is that you get to teach/learn a little about circuitry in the process. For students who are a little more interested in science, this might be a way to get them to become interested in vocabulary, math or history.

You could even do this with:
grammar rules
vocabulary
chronology in stories
character traits
chemistry: elements
formulas
science vocabulary
science facts
math equations
math formulas
history time lines
history definitions
historic figures

Check it out:

This week’s project combines some rudimentary circuitry and any subject your child needs a little extra practice in. I would file this with my “Better Than Worksheets” instructional series on drill and practice had I ever created such a series.

The word circuit is obviously historically related to the word circle. Webster’s 1828 defines it thus:

The act of moving or passing round; as the periodical circuit of the earth round the sun, or of the moon round the earth.

Modern technology may have brought some more specific application to the world, but the meaning has not changed much. Circuitry allows electricity to travel around in a circle to do work. Here, we are going to make a simple circuit board that can serve to allow your child to practice any skill that can be answered in a yes/no or multiple choice format. In this case, it will be multiplying by four.

Materials:

file folder (with the open edge trimmed so both sides are th same size and shape)
hole punch
marker
masking tape
aluminum foil
circuit tester

1. Punch holes. You will need two rows of holes. One for each question and one for each answer.

2. Write the problems along one side and the possible answers on the other.

3. Open the folder. On the back side of the side you wrote the problems and solutions, lay a strip of foil between a problem and the correct answer. This is the basis of your circuit board. Fold the ends over the hole and make sure the hole is completely covered by the foil. Insulate with masking tape. Make sure none of the foil is showing on the back side.

4. Continue until all the answers are connected to their problems by a strip of aluminum foil insulated by masking tape. The back will look kind of messy, but that is ok. No one will see it, anyway.

5. Close the file folder. We do a set of problems on each flap, make the circuit board and then tape the folder closed. This helps protect the work.

6. Use the circuit tester to work the problems:

Oops. The circuit was not completed, so the tester did not light up. Try again!

Yeah! She got the problem right, the circuit was completed and the tester lit up.

Caution: When you look for a circuit tester, some contain lead. These are not intended as children’s toys. We searched and found one without lead, but still require our daughter to wash her hands after using it.

THIS POST WAS TAKEN FROM PRINCIPLEDDISCOVERY.COM, A SITE ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING.

In an effort to raise the bar on my tests, I have sought to make my questions more like those found on AP tests.  I want my students to learn in preparation for the tests, but I also want them to learn FROM the tests.  However, the problem I am experiencing is a lack of knowledge of academic vocabulary.

ACADEMIC VOCABULARY
By academic vocabulary I do not mean words you would likely encounter at each grade level (which is mostly what I get when I google “academic vocabulary”). Rather, I mean the vocabulary test-makers use to craft the questions. Those verbs are what often trip students on such assessments. Since they were difficult to find, I decided to add some of the good stuff I found here on this page.

This list comes from the English Companion (by Jim Burke). It is a list of 350+/- words that one might encounter on an assessment. (Even teachers looking for new words to use in objectives on their lesson plans should check these out.) I don’t think it would be a problem to start off 1st graders on many of these words. What a great list! Thanks Jim Burke!

Test Practice sites (worth your time and for all content areas):
The College Board, which created the AP curriculum, I think, provides some well written free response questions that could easily be adapted for the lower level grades.

Here is a GREAT site for teaching students how to preform at the AP and Pre-AP levels. It has a lot of great links. I will definitely be putting this on my bookmark toolbar!

Of course, I cannot leave out WebEnglishTeacher.com out of the mix. At this link you will find ALL things English. This particular link just deals with AP, but just check out their home page for more great materials on just about anything.

For those looking for practice tests on a variety of subjects, you should check out THIS site. By looking at it, it was created a long time ago, but if you click enough times, you will find some really useful test practice materials. Again, I will say that half of the 100 or so sites do not work, but those that do seem pretty good.
This is for the writing assessment used in Florida called the FCAT (Otownteacher, this might interest you). Click on the drop down menu at the BOTTOM of the page to get a curriculum teaching elementary students how to break down the prompts. The test practice is broken down into weeks. After looking at them, I have found that they would be applicable to all states.