Welcome back to an exciting new school year! New staff, new students, new computers, new attitudes, new learning for everyone!

Apple Briefing Links

Springfield, Illinois projects

Apple Learning Interchange - The Apple Learning Interchange (ALI) is a social network for educators. Find a wealth of content ranging from simple lesson ideas to in-depth curriculum units for K-12 educators.
And viewing content is just the beginning. Create your free account and gain access to an environment for publishing and collaboration rich with movies, images and sounds.

Mac tips and tricks:

1. Expose' - Use F9, F10, and F11 keys to display all open windows as thumbnails, view windows of the current application or hide all windows to quickly locate a file on your desktop.

2. Grapher - free mathematical graphing program with examples and animations to try

3. Zoom in to a certain area of your screen - hold ctrl key and use 2 fingers on track pad

1-1 Classroom Management article and discussion

The new NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) for students are here! NETS for students - new and much improved!

Scaffolding

Hurricane Activity

Woolfolk (2004) defines scaffolding as: "clues, reminders, encouragement, breaking a problem down into smaller steps, providing an example, or anything that allows the student to grow in independence as a learner."

8 Characteristics of a Learning Scaffold:
1.Provides clear directions
2.Clarifies purpose
3.Keeps students on task
4.Offers assessment to clarify expectations
5.Points students to worthy sources
6.Reduces uncertainty, surprise and disappointment
7.Delivers efficiency
8.Creates momentum

Build a scaffold for your students

Ideas for Tasks

• Production Scaffolds


• Transformation Scaffolds


• Reception Scaffolds

Examples:

Webquest Search - find your subject and grade level - look at the tasks and processes (scaffolding) set up for each one

Book Burning: It's not just science fiction - lots of scaffolding provided to students in this lesson!

Look at the following and discuss the scaffolding that you see with your study team:
Art Through the Ages Webquest

Voices of the Holocaust

Mass Extinctions


When designing your lessons this year, be sure to include scaffolding for your students to help them keep on task and be successful.