3 Things from the NVHS LMC: Home Quarantine Edition

Free Stuff for Educators

Screencastify is offering an upgrade to their accounts right now. They only allow 5 minutes of recording per video for free accounts. If you want unlimited recording length and other useful features for the next year, just logon, click activate license,  use the coupon code CAST_COVID, and don’t worry about the next billing date because no credit card needed. If you are having students create videos for class, you might also be interested in being a beta tester for their Submit tool. The New York Times is offering full electronic access to the paper for all high school teachers and students through July 6^th. Send Eric an email if you want to be included on a list for our school.

 Remote Reading

You and your students can access ebooks and eAudiobooks from across the district. Directions are on our school’s LMC website. Local libraries and some websites like the Internet Archive’s Universal School Library (not accessible with a student account) and Open Library are also great places to look for downloadable books. Please ask your LMC Director if you have any questions.  

Remote Learning Resources]

Educating All Learners is a new website to share guidance and resources for supporting special education students during the COVID 19 epidemic (and beyond). ASCD has a free online only issue of Educational Leadership called A New Reality: Getting Remote Learning Right available for download. We shared a doc with a curated list of  free resources a few weeks ago. We will continue to add to and refine it over the next few weeks, so please check back.

If there is anything else you need, please send Carrie or Eric an email. We like answering questions and helping people; we even majored in those things in grad school!

Note: Past issues of this newsletter are available online if you want to explore other resources we have shared in the past.

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #13

News; In Fake News News

Poynter has a useful article on how to interpret election polling. Also, you are more susceptible to online  misinformation than you thought; if you hate the media, you are more likely to be fooled by a fake headline; and Americans on both sides of the political spectrum are likely to think that fake news is likely to be biased against their side. So you might find The Verge’s guide for how to fight lies, tricks,and chaos online useful. You also might share this article from Seventeen magazine with your students. 

Resources: Women in Science
Beyond Curie highlights the careers and accomplishments of women in STEM fields. The site includes short biographies and some downloadable posters you can feature in your classroom.. Emerging Female Scientists is a peer-reviewed, open access journal specifically for female middle and high school students. 

Recommendation: We are 204 Booklist: Internment
Sensitive and stirring, this timely, must-read novel poses to readers a powerful question: Could American democracy be destroyed by a culture of fear, racism, and hate. This book is part of this year’s We are 204 Booklist and both LMCs have several copies.

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #12

Tool to Try: Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark has been around since 2016, but it probably doesn’t get the love it should. Spark is an easy to use tool for creating simple graphics, videos, and web pages. It has a version just for students and teachers (there is a link in the SSO). This past summer, they also added a collaboration feature that lets you invite others to edit your project. Also check out Adobe’s educator resources related to Spark.

Highlighting Women’s Contributions
Time Magazine’s person of the year cover issues over the last 72 years have mostly included men. Time’s 100 Women of the Year project spotlights women who were overlooked during that time. The NY Times has an ongoing project called Overlooked that features obituaries from women who have been overlooked throughout the newspaper’s history.

We are 204 Book List: Dear Evan Hansen
A novelization of the hit musical by the same name. An emotional story about human nature and tragedy that will resonate with fans of the musical, newcomers to the story...anyone looking to be found. This book is part of this year’s We are 204 Booklist and both LMCs have several copies.

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #12

On Catlin Tucker’s blog, an AP teacher from the Chicago area talks about how she uses blended learning techniques in her AP classes.  Also, the percentage of adults who do not see a college degree as “important” has been shrinking over the last few years.

Making art helps Your brain, so make creativity a habit this year. Speaking of art, you can now download high quality versions of 100,000 Artworks from Paris museum collections for free.

A new Chrome extension called  Sir Links-a-Lot (yes, it is a reference to Sir Mix a Lot, 90’s music fans) helps you quickly change a Google document’s URL. When you are on a document (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings), just click the extension and change the URL to be a template, a shortened URL, a document you have to copy, or a PDF document. Normally, you have to do this by changing the URL by hand, but now you can just push a button and copy the new address.

3 Things from the NVHS LMC - Winter Break Edition (#11)

 Self-Improvement: Breaking Up with Bad Habits

Of course you will probably make some News Year’s Resolutions you won't keep, but that doesn't mean you weren't serious about it at the time, right? The Harvard Business Review recently published an article with some simple steps for breaking a bad habit. Make Use Of even has a few trackers you can use to keep yourself accountable.

 Brain Massage: Read More Books

If you plan to try to catch up on all those books because you finally have a few hours to read, you might want a few suggestions. At this time of year, there are a ton of best of the year lists from Amazon to the New York Times.. NPR's Book Concierge is a web app with some interesting categories. It is a good place to start. 

Podcast Goals: One to Start On

So you have been hearing about this podcast thing for a few years, but your commute is 10 minutes or you just don't have time. The great thing about podcasts is that you can download them and listen to them anywhere and there are so many to choose from. The 10 Minute Teacher Podcast is a great place for some quick professional development if you want to just dip your toe in to the podcast pool.

 P.S. If you want to catch up on the archives of our 3 Things from the NVHS LMC newsletter, check out our LMC Letter blog. 

3 Things from the NVHS LMC (Day after Conferences Edition) - #10

Interesting Articles

An article about scientists who debunk online misinformation as a side hustle is in Wired magazine. On Inc.com's website, find out about The 10 Top Skills That Will Land You High-Paying Jobs by 2020. Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook has a post about ditching annotating PDFs and hyper-annotate instead. Research on how to teach writing is slim, but this Hechinger report  article gives a brief summary of what we know. 

Hey, Google. What's New?

A roundup of some new features in Google products: Add audio files to a Slides presentation. It is working for me, hopefully it does for you too. Create new Docs, Sheets, calendar, and Google Keep notes, Sites, etc. and other things by typing .new after it (e.g. typing docs.new into the browser creates a new Google doc). Recently, Google has opened up this ability to other sites like Spotify, Medium, eBay, Canva and others. In Google Sites, you can add an image carousel (slide show)  and a collapsible text box for a cleaner and more interesting layout.

Library Fines 2.0

All 3 high schools have changed our overdue and fine policies. We used to charge 10 cents a day for overdue books up to the cost of the book. Now, once a book is overdue, students will have 30 days to return it. At the end of that time, the book will be marked as lost and a fee for the cost of the book plus a 3 dollar fine will be added to their PushCoin account. The 3 dollar fine is non-refundable, but the cost of the book is refundable if the book is returned within a year of being marked lost. Of course, we are currently looking at creative ways to help remind the students to return materials on time.  

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #9

A Few Useful American History Resources

Get some digital posters from Smithsonian's Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II exhibit, along with educator materials. The Voices of the Civil Rights Movement is a collection of videos about the civil rights movement and those who were part of it. The project is a collaboration between NBC and the Equal Justice Initiative, the latter of which has some more interesting multimedia projects. Bunk is a history site out of the University of Richmond that makes connections between current and historical events. More information is at NeimanLab.

Rethinking Our Approach to Math

A study from earlier this year explores the role of mindset and learning math. A more recent study discusses how math looks different (or not) in the brains of boys and girls. Two Mindshift articles address methods in the math classroom. Three Simple Tech Tools to Make Math Thinking Visible has a few suggestions of how to use three different tech tools to better be able to see students' thinking. How Revising Math Exams Turns Students Into Learners, Not Processors suggests a new approach for math assessments. 

We are 204: (Don't) Call Me Crazy edited by Kelly Jensen 

This book has essays, lists, comics, and illustrations 33 actors, athletes, writers and other artists about a wide range of personal experiences with mental illness. This volume is written for young adults, so the material is accessible for a range of levels.

3 Things for the NVHS LMC: Leftover Candy Edition (#8)

 Interesting Articles

The New Parental Obsession is from The Wall Street Journal and is about parents checking their kid's grades online. (Password page for Off Campus Access). A look at how teens spend time in their day and the differences between girls and boys is from the Pew Research Center. A study from Brigham Young University says that overall time spent on social media alone does not lead to anxiety and depression in teens. In other words, it's complicated.

Figuring Out Fake News

Bad News is an online game that simulates a fake news campaign. The player tries to get as many followers as possible. Research has shown that the game helps players to "inoculate" against fake news.

We are 204: We Set the Dark on Fire

Medio is a country sharply divided by economic inequality and patriarchal traditions. At the  Medio School for Girls, students are trained to become the wives of rich and powerful men. Each of these men have two wives. One runs his household and the other bears and raises his children. Two girls join the household of one of the most powerful households in the country. The girls will become spies for the resistance movement that is working to take down the rich and powerful. And they will find forbidden love.

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #7

VidReader: Create Search Transcripts of YouTube Videos

Put a URL for a YouTube video into VidReader and it will generate a searchable transcript on the fly for you. There are a number of sample videos you can try to see how it works. Click on any words in the transcript and the video will jump to that segment. You can then share the video with the transcript using a link or a number or a number of other sharing services.

Interesting Articles

On the Cult of Pedagogy blog and podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez interviews the host of the We Teach Languages podcast about how teaching world languages has evolved.  While looking for some resources for teaching about fake news, I stumbled across this 2016 NPR story about how to look out for fake news stories. It is a nice summary of a few useful techniques.. The University of Southern California Ed department has a new service called The Answer Lab, where scholars take questions and answer them with a summary of related research and a recommendation for best practice. The first two briefs are up on their website now.

Lincoln Award:  Dear Martin by Nick Stone

Justyce McAllister is an honors student, a senior headed to an Ivy League school, and only one of a few African American students in his classes. He is also a scholarship student trying to escape a rough neighborhood, He learns about the teachings of Martin Luther King from his favorite teacher and he keeps a journal where he writes letters to Dr. King to help make sense of his life. Then, his best friend is shot by an off duty cop while the two friends are out driving and Justyce’s world is turned upside down. Audio Sample of the Book

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #5

Too Busy for Time for Time Management

Everyone in the education world knows how valuable time is in their work and life. A new study confirms that people who value time over money are happier (but of course money is great too.) Of course, our students need to know how to maximize their time as well. Lisa Johnson from the Tech Chef blog has a post with resources she used to teach students about time management.

Thanks for the Books, Volume Reading Committee 

The district's Volume Reading Committee has a done something awesome. They have given all of the district LMC's a one time gift of money to purchase books to help add a bunch of new books for our collections. We will be soliciting your feedback in the near future about materials that might support your independent reading assignments.

Lincoln Award: Nyxia

A group of teenagers with troubled pasts have been selected for a mission to a faraway planet where they will help mine an amazing mineral called Nyxia. On the way there, their numbers will dwindle as they face a series of competitions to determine who will be part of the final crew. If they make it all the way, they will receive lifelong financial security for them and their families. But the competition can be deadly and the corporation sponsoring the trip has some secrets they want to keep hidden at any cost.

3 Things from the NVHS LMC #4 - Happy Birthday to Dr. Fuhrer Edition

Back to the Basics 

From Edutopia, Fundamentals of Classroom Management is a list of resources aimed at new teachers, but it looks like they have some useful information for any teacher. Also from Edutopia, an article from a few years ago suggests a simple strategy for asking better questions to students. Finally, Jennifer Gonzalez from the Cult of Pedagogy podcast recently did an episode / blog post about what to do you when you want some answers, but you get nothing but crickets in response. 

Google Drive Learns New Tricks

Google Slides and Docs have a few tricks up their virtual sleeves. Say you want to hide a slide during a presentation because you want to temporarily hide an answer. When in presentation mode, press the B key for a black screen, W for a blank white one. You can also set up automatic timings on a Slides presentation and have it loop in  kiosk mode. It might be helpful for student festival or rotation directions during group work. Just click the gear icon at the bottom of the screen when in presentation mode. In Docs, go into the Tools menu and click Word Count. You can display a live word count as you type. Great for typing up announcements or other places where you have a word or character limit.

We are 204: With the Fire on High

Emoni Santiago's life course seems pretty set in stone. She is a high school senior with a toddler to raise and she has to help her grandmother pay the bills. Emoni is such an instinctively good cook that her cooking skills seem like magic, but she thinks her own dream of being a chef will never happen. That is until her school starts a new culinary arts class. Taking the class is one thing, but she will never be able to afford the culinary two week trip to Spain to work in a real professional kitchen. And getting to know the cute new boy that keeps trying to get her attention is definitely off limits. But maybe this is her real chance for a better future for both her and her daughter. Here is the book trailer on YouTube.