Over the past 3 months I’ve found myself turning more and more to my Personal Learning Network on Twitter for reading recommendations. While RSS and my Google Reader account has significantly decreased the amount of time I spend filtering through various websites in search of interesting and relevant articles, I think that adding Twitter to the mix helps me make even better use of my time. For example, I came across this tweet from @willrich45 the other morning.
Pupils to study Twitter and blogs? Twitter and blogs caught my eye like flashing lights, plus I figured an article worth a tweet from @willrich45 is most often worth the time investment.
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Hirsch prefaces his piece by pulling an Obama quote from a recent speech on education reform. Specifically, the one where the President calls for children to have the skill set to do more than just fill in bubbles on Scan-tron sheets. Hirsch then takes a minute to make a case that standardized tests aren’t all bad, but rather the U.S. educational system takes the wrong approach, indicating that children are often asked to read passages that are not “knowledge neutral” and given randomly to students with out a context.
Children are asked to read and then answer multiple-choice questions about such topics as taking a hike in the Appalachians even though they’ve never left the sidewalks of New York, nor studied the Appalachians in school.
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Last weekend my family made the 2-hour trip to Powell, Ohio, outside Columbus, to visit my in-laws, Nana and Big Jack. The drive from Akron to Columbus is about the perfect length for a family of 5 with 3 boys, a 22-month-old toddler and 8-year-old twins. It’s just long enough for either Kim or I to get a bit of work done while the other drives, but short enough to keep the kids occupied with a combo of books, DVDs and Nintendo DS.
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Last night on Twitter, Bud Hunt commented that Writing in the 21st Century by Kathleen Blake Yancey was a must read for educators. Since I’ve had that pdf on my desktop for a week or two now, I lamented back that my reason for not reading yet. My pathetic excuse back is outlined in our tweetversation below.
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