Tips by Tony

These are just a few of the articles I found interesting last week.

• School reform begins at home

  Family psychologist John Rosemond argues that class size reduction and other reforms aren’t the answer.

  The bankruptcy of the reformer’s argument, as well as his myopia, is easily exposed. One of his objectives is to reduce the student-to-teacher ratio. He maintains that smaller class size improves learning.

  Oh, really? In the 1950s, when class size was much larger than it is today, and the student/teacher ratio was larger still, children at all socioeconomic levels achieved at much higher levels than their contemporary counterparts. And many of those kids — including yours truly — came to first grade not even knowing their ABCs…

  The reason 1950s kids could be successfully taught in crowded classrooms is because they had been and were being properly disciplined in the home. They were not the center of parental attention in their homes; rather, they were expected to pay attention to their parents.

• Ban Read-Alouds? Ban the Bureaucrat!

  A teacher is told by the principal not to read aloud to her class.

  A teacher in the USA has been told by the principal not to read to her second grade class because “… there isn’t enough time in the day for them to read a story to their class for enjoyment.” In many western countries, apparently, there is such emphasis on testing, teachers are being told not to read aloud to kids. Yet reading aloud is the very best way I know to sell kids on reading, no matter what age they are. Do we want our students motivated to read? Do we want them to love literature and turn to reading for the answers in their lives? Do we want to share the the sheer joy and magic of reading?

• ptable.com – Dynamic Periodic Table Of Elements

  Short article explaining why ptable.com is such a great resource.

  On the website ptable.com, you find a feature-rich interactive periodic table of elements created in XHTML. Each element links directly to a Wikpedia page that describes it in detail, including density, melting point, appearance, occurrence and much more…

  By dragging a temperature gauge, you can test how different elements will appear at different temperatures (solid, liquid or gas).

• Blogs in Education: How & Why

  This is a slideshow that explains blogs and blogging in an easy to understand format.

• Why Technology? Because…

  Ben Grey discusses the reactions, followup articles, reactions to the followup articles, and more surrounding his original post titled “Why Technology?” If you follow all the links and read all the comments, be prepared to block out some time…Good stuff.

  Let me warn you from the outset. This post will be neither lacking in profound insights nor words. The words are my doing; the profound insights come from many of you. When I asked, “Why technology?” in my last post, I didn’t anticipate receiving such a deluge of incredible responses. And in that action alone, the question was answered.

  I hope that this post serves you as well as it has educated me. One word of advice on how to consume this content. Take your time. Bookmark it, and come back in increments if need be, but don’t rush through it. Analyze and evaluate the thoughts of the many who contributed, and then synthesize the content with your own thinking to form a response you can defend. And as always, I hope you’ll share what you come up with.

Who/What I’m Following on Twitter

Added in the last week: @cinguettare (Italy Magazine)

Related posts:

1. Monday Morning Roundup (8/24/2009)
2. Monday Morning Roundup (8/31/2009)
3. Monday Morning Roundup (5/11/2009)
4. Monday Morning Roundup (08/17/2009)
5. Monday Morning Roundup (4/20/09)
6. Monday Morning Roundup (5/18/2009)
7. Monday Morning Roundup (5/4/2009)
8. Monday Morning Roundup (06/01/2009)
9. Monday Morning Roundup (07/27/2009)
10. Monday Morning Roundup (4/27/09)