Teacher’s Bag of Tricks

• Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Wiki collaboration leads to happiness
  A workflow comparison between email and wikis. Email is good for a few select communications tasks. Wikis are good for other tasks that are non-private. Wikis are a great way to avoid reinventing the wheel.
  (tags: technology wiki web2.0 collaboration productivity)
• Livemocha: Education-blog-list
  A list of edublogging heavy-hitters, based on technorati ratings.
  (tags: web2.0 links)

The website Mind Tools features a brief interactive quiz about motivating team members in the workplace. The questions and suggestions are very applicable to the classroom, as well. Taking the quiz gives an overall rating, and then a detailed run down of suggestions for increasing motivation. Two quotes that are classroom ready:

Effective motivators understand that work design has a strong impact on performance. When a person finds a job inherently unsatisfying, there’s not much you can do to motivate him or her. Job design and enrichment combine to match characteristics of the job with workers’ skills and interests: The more variety, challenge and autonomy there is to a job, the more intrinsically satisfying it will be.

You have to be in a position to show or tell people everyday that you appreciate their contributions. Once or twice a year in formal review process is not enough!

So, TBoT readers, what are your best strategies for motivating students?

• Resource Centre: 100 Things to do with Books [English Online]
  This site lists short activities that students can do to respond to reading selections. Character, setting, author, and project activities are some of the categories.
  (tags: reading literature)

• Reading Round Table: Literature Circles Expand Thought | Edutopia
  Great introduction to social reading activities. Make sure to check the links at the end of the article for more resources and strategies. Stay tuned for lit circle downloads here on TBoT.
  (tags: reading)

• freesound :: home page
  This Creative Commons site lists and catalogs free sounds for download. Checkout the “Tags” links on the left to find sounds for podcasts and movies. Check out CCmixter for full songs.
  (tags: audio)
• The Best Websites For Students Exploring Jobs & Careers
  Great list of sites for students exploring careers. Also useful in a lesson about multiple intelligences.
  (tags: multipleintelligence, careers)
• Cooperative Arithmetic: How to Teach Math as a Social Activity | Edutopia
  9 minute video with 6th grade teacher Christ Opitz about establishing norms for communication and collaboration in Math activities. The page includes plenty of downloads for use in any classroom. This guy has a great teacher voice.
  (tags: classroomcommunity math)
• Creating a Safe Place: Lessons on Managing Emotions Pay Off | Edutopia
  Students sometimes need coaching on how to recognize, understand, label, express and regulate emotion. This article provides links to several programs training teachers to develop emotional intelligence in students.
  (tags: behavior multipleintelligence classroomcommunity)

• Future now: Nicholas Negroponte on technology, entertainment, design
  Garr Reynolds: “Entertainment is not necessarily a distraction, diversion, or escape. Entertainment in the best sense is about engagement, connection, and meaning as well.”
  (tags: pedagogy teacher)

Can you tell that I’m almost on spring break? I’m a little swamped right now, so the whole weekly review topic has been on my mind a lot. Updated previous post to “GTD: weekly review links“.

Updated: I completely forgot about a previous GTD/Weekly review post.  Spring break is approaching fast.

The power of the Getting Things Done lies in the trusted system philosophy: if I completely trust my system, I’ll use it all the time and my stress level will go way down. In order to keep your system seaworthy and free of leaks (and therefore, trustworthy), it’s important to review all your lists and projects on a weekly basis. Now, I’m secure enough to let you know that I don’t review my system enough. So rather than tell you how to do this, I’m going to defer to some other people who are perhaps more qualified than me to describe the ever-elusive weekly review.

Audiobook Review: David Allen’s “GTD > Weekly Review” - Lifehack.org summarizes a new resource from the top guru himself.

David Allen Company | Free Articles | Weekly Review - David Allen’s consulting company has plenty of free resources and articles, including this free download (pdf file). You have to sign in like you’re buying something, but they won’t ask for a credit card.

Mental dialogues, yak-shaving & the triumph of the ‘mini-review … - Merlin Mann slices and dices the weekly review to a bite-sized event that might be more schedule-friendly.

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | Scholastic.com
  Plenty of discussion questions to get students talking about the story and what it means.
  (tags: reading)