Student Guide Corner

What are the best tools for students' Internet searches? We know our students are comfortable with technology; unfortunately, that doesn't always translate into knowing what is best for their learning and productivity. For example, when our students search Google, they often indiscriminately choose one of the first two or three sites when looking for information. Better search engines exist for academic use. Prolific teacher/blogger Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers highlights seven search engines created for student use. Check out his blog post for descriptions of each search engine. Sweet Search - a search engine for students where "every web site has been evaluated by our research experts" Kid Rex - "Safe search by kids, for kids!" (what's not to love about a site which includes a T-Rex on it's home page?) Ref Seek Fam Hoo - calls itself the "family friendly" search engine Ask Kids Wolfram Alpha - the "computationa...

I'm not sure where the practice to grade students on class participation originated. But it seems a common and accepted practice in many classrooms. For some students, it's a way to improve that 89% to an A-. Other students aren't so fortunate. Have you considered the reasons why students do not participate? It's not necessarily because they don't have an opinion or know the material. Instead, it could be due to fear of humiliation, social anxiety, need for more time to process and produce, expressive language issues, shyness. But is the "raise your hand, get called on by the teacher" the only way to participate in class discussions? Not in 2009. What are the options? In class options if you have a laptop or netbook cart, or are in a computer lab: EtherPad - synchronous collaborative word processing, the ability to use the TimeSlider tool allows students to see how the document evolved Wallwisher - synchronous collaborative "wall" creation - l...