100 Most Common Engish Words - A Callenge

Here is a challenge for you and your middle or high school age students.  Can you guess the 100 most common English words?  Quizicon has developed this interactive quiz that is quite a challenge. You have 5 minutes to complete the challenge.  You simply click the "start" button and type your word choices in the text box.  Words appear in the chart, if they are part of the 100!  This site keeps it simple.
It has one purpose.  In addition, you can check out scores and statistics.  That would be a good classroom conversation.

Give it a try and share it with a colleague.  I was amazed at the words that were included.  Good fun but a good learning exercise too.

Hope you check it out and, as always, leave a comment if you use the site with your students.

Twist Our Words - Creative Videos

Twist Our Words is a very creative British website that allows you to create sentences that are turned into a video.  British celebrities speak your sentence one word at a time.

 After you create your poem, sentence or group of words, you can share it with friends by email or embed it into a website or blog.  That is what I have done below.  This site keeps it simple. 





Below is my simple video.  I hope you check out Twist Our Words with your students.  This is a fun learning tool.  Pass it on if you like the site!

Teacher Tube: A Few Finds

TeacherTube offers educators access to videos and it probably is not blocked in your school like youtube.   Keep it simple searching led me to the three videos I am sharing with you today.  You can join TeacherTube at no cost and then you can eliminate the ads that play before a video begins.

If you are looking for a video to support your curriculum or your own professional development, check out TeacherTube as a resource. Enjoy my video picks for today.  Leave a comment, if you use TeacherTube or if you like what you see here.  
The Money Song



A Walk Through Ancient Egypt


School Technology - 21st Century Skills

Sharing Tech Thoughts for 2011

Happy New Year blog readers!

As we begin the new year, I wanted to share some quotes that I think have a good message for everyone who works in a school.  I hope you find inspiration in the words of these authors and other educators.  In keeping it simple, I found these quotes on http://edquotes.wikispaces.com/, http://synthesizingeducation.com, and http://www.brainyquote.com.

In 2011, keep learning and relearning, challenging yourself and your students, engaged and engaging, and understanding that as you learn and try new technologies, it will not always go the way you planned.  Nor will it be perfect.  Embrace the messiness and believe in your importance.

“The technology itself is not transformative. It’s the school, the pedagogy, that is transformative.” - Tanya Byron

"The illiterate of the 21st century won't be those who can't read & write but those who can't learn unlearn & relearn" - Alvin Toffler

“Indeed, the role I give the computer is that of a carrier of cultural 'germs' or 'seeds' whose intellectual products will not need technological support once they take root in an actively growing mind.” Seymour Papert

'How do we recapture the magic and myth of education? ... to enable teachers to believe in their importance...so teachers and the public can rediscovers the hope schools once held?'
Deal and Peterson 

From the journal of the National Association of Teachers, 1907: “Students today depend too much on ink. They don’t know how to use a knife to sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace the pencil.”

"Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination."   Daniel Bell 

"Part of the problem is when we bring in a new technology we expect it to be perfect in a way that we don't expect the world that we're familiar with to be perfect."   Esther Dyson