Links to Shakespeare sites

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/macbeth.pdf Summary and commentary, prereading, analysis and followup, extended learning options, bibliography. This document requires Adobe Reader or compatible application for access. 

Macbeth by William Shakespeare This interactive unit will help students visualize Scotland. Google Earth must be on your computer for this to work; the free version will do.

Macbeth @Web English Teacher Literature lesson plans and teaching strategies for [...]

Useful Links (weekly)

Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers – Chronicle.com ”The rise of online media has helped raise a new generation of college students who write far more, and in more-diverse forms, than their predecessors did. But the implications of the shift are hotly debated, both for the future of students’ writing and for the [...]

Shaun Tan – more award nominations

I am a Shaun Tan fan. I have been since I saw The Rabbits, the John Marsden book he illustrated.
I love all the different styles he uses in his illustrations and I greatly enjoyed listening to him speak about his latest publication, Tales from Outer Suburbia earlier this year. This book had some wonderful short stories he had [...]

Navify – Searching Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube

My colleague Tania found this tool via the Free technology for teachers blog. I had seen Nibipedia, but Navify was a new tool for me to look at. It is a mash-up of Wikipedia, Flickr, and YouTube.
We all know that many of our students use Wikipedia,which may be developing into the world’s most extensive encyclopedias, as people continue to build on the [...]

A sharing culture – CC video

I have been to a number of professional development sessions lately. The subject of engaging our students is a hot topic and has  been discussed in a number of educational forums. What I find is amazing, in all the workshops, conferences, etc. I attend, is how willing many of my colleagues are willing to share. Since being on-line, over [...]

Useful Links (weekly)

educational-origami – Starter Sheets Variety of handouts on tools, these starter sheets are resources for the classroom teacher. The intention of each sheet is to introduce a tool, technology or activity that could be easily adapted for use in the classroom. Each sheet is created to a template design and should have the following features: * [...]

Twittering in Plain English

I am getting very bored with people bagging Twitter. Many of the radio commentators constantly have snide little comments but, from these comments, it is clear that they don’t really use it well or understand the tool. I have found twitter useful especially for my professional development. I don’t go out looking for thousands of followers [...]

Passionate learning

Yesterday, in a number of professional development sessions, we thought about and discussed ways to engage students with their learning.
In the video below, one of my favourite thinkers, Sir Ken Robinson talks about harnessing natural aptitudes and passions to get the best out of their learning opportunities. This does not always sit so easily with [...]

Wordnik – more than a dictionary

Another Web 2.0 tool for those who are fascinated with words. This is a fascinating site as well and, be warned, you can become quite caught up in and forget the time. 
Wordnik offers an alternative to the more usual online dictionaries and thesaurus resources available. The site, is very new and still in beta, is built from existing sources and added to by contributors. So [...]

Copyright basics – in under 7 mins

I am still trying to work out the best way to help staff understand their responsibilities about Copyright, Fair use and Creative Commons. The digital technologies seem only to have confused many even more.

The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) created a short video explaining how copyright works. 
CCC has also made Copyright basics- the video available for free for [...]