If you teach teenagers (or maybe you have/had one at home), you know that they can be…well, forgetful. When you ask if they need something, they adamantly say no, but suddenly they remember they need to be somewhere in five minutes/they have a paper due tomorrow morning/they need money for a school trip and it is due in an hour/they’re going to be out tomorrow. Sound familiar? Well, don’t worry – you’re not the only one noticing this!

As it turns out, this forgetfulness is not just because they want to drive you (and everyone else?) nuts – there are a lot of changes going on in teenaged brains that may be causing this – and it can last into the college years. Mia MacMeekin and David Wilcox have teamed up to create an awesome infographic that takes a look at why teens forget so much, a bit of the science behind it, and some ideas on how you can help. It’s a great little guide for bringing some order and organization into your classroom filled with teenagers, but also a great reminder that they aren’t just trying to drive you up a wall (for those times when you might want to strangle them!).

The Science

• Changes occur in three areas of the brain during the teenage years – the cerebellum, the prefrontal cortex, and the limbic cortex
• These changes are referred to as ‘blossoming’ (age 11-14) and ‘pruning’ (age 14-25)
• The prefrontal cortex controls things like: alertness, attention, planning, working memory, and regulation of social behavior
• The cerebellum controls things like: balance, motor coordination, recognition of social cues
• The limbic cortex controls things like: emotion, attention, memory, and emotions

So What Happens?

• The teenage years are often known as the ‘use it or lose it’ years due to this synaptic pruning
• The changes in the brain impact memory and attention
• This brain ‘reorganization’ is complex, and adds extra strain on the teenager’s brain
• Teen brains are losing about 30,000 connections per second
• A teenager’s brain needs to reconnect with information it once found easy to locate
• The circadian shift impacts sleep and information retention

What Can You Do?

• Love, forgive, encourage
• Experiment – what works for one teen may not work for another, so try a number of avenues
• Let them take healthy risks
• Help create systems and routines
• Create order
• Be actively involved
• Teens need at least 9.5 hours of sleep per night
• Acknowledge wins, build on losses, allow natural consequences
• Minimise ‘business’
• Let them be emotional

“Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

A woman with whom I once worked seemed to talk non-stop and loudly, interrupt incessantly, gossip about whomever wasn’t in the room, constantly complain, and live quite happily in martyrdom.

It seemed nothing and no one escaped her negative spin. She was good at it. She could twist the happiest moment of someone’s life into a horrendous mistake. She seemed to enjoy it too.

At first, my judgmental mind thought her behavior to be quite inappropriate. I simply didn’t approve of it. But after weeks of working with her, the thought of spending even one more moment in her presence sent me into, well, her world.

Her negativity was infectious. More and more, I found myself thinking about her negativity, talking with others about her negativity, and complaining about her constant negativity.

For a while, though, I listened to her whenever she followed me into the lunchroom or the ladies’ room. I didn’t know what to say, or do, or even think. I was held captive.

I’d excuse myself from the one-sided chit-chat as soon as possible, wanting to someday be honest enough to kindly tell her that I choose not to listen to gossip. Instead, I chose avoidance. I avoided eye contact, and any and all contact. Whenever I saw her coming, I’d get going and make for a quick getaway. I worked hard at it, too.

And it was exhausting because whether I listened to her or not, or even managed to momentarily escape her altogether, I was still held captive by her negativity.

I interacted with her only a handful of times a month, but her negative presence lingered on in my life. And I didn’t like it. But what I didn’t like didn’t really matter—I wanted to look inside myself to come up with a way to escape, not just avoid, a way to just let go of the hold this negativity had on me.

And when I did look within, I saw that I was the one exaggerating the negative. I chose to keep negativity within me even when she wasn’t around. This negativity was mine. So, as with most unpleasant things in life, I decided to own up and step up, to take responsibility for my own negativity. Instead of blaming, avoiding, and resisting the truth, I would accept it. And, somehow, I would ease up on exaggerating the negative.

I welcomed the situation as it was, opening up to the possibilities for change within me and around her.

I knew all about the current emotional fitness trends telling us to surround ourselves with only happy, positive people and to avoid negative people—the us versus them strategy for better emotional health. I saw this as disconnecting, though. We all have times when we accentuate the positive and moments when we exaggerate the negative. We are all connected in this.

Instead of attempting to continue to disconnect, to avoid being with negativity, while just denying my own, I wanted to reconnect, with compassion and kindness toward both of us.

She and I shared in this negativity together. And once I made the connection, and saw our connection, a few simple, and maybe a little more mindful thoughts began to enter my mind, and my heart. This reconnection would be made possible through love.

And these simple little, love-induced thoughts spoke up something like this:

• Patience can sit with negativity without becoming negative, rushing off to escape, or desiring to disconnect from those who choose negativity. Patience calms me.

• And while I’m calm, I can change the way I see the situation. I can see the truth. Instead of focusing on what I don’t like, I can see positive solutions. I can deal with it.

• I can try to see the situation from the other person’s perspective. Why might this woman choose or maybe need to speak with such negativity? I can be compassionate.

• Why does what this woman chooses or needs to say cause me to feel irritated, angry, or resentful? I have allowed her words to push my negativity buttons. I can’t blame her.

• She doesn’t even know my buttons exist. She’s only concerned with her own needs. I’ve never even told her how much her negativity bothers me. I see what truly is.

• I see that we are both unhappy with our shared negativity. People who complain and gossip and sacrifice themselves for others aren’t happy. I can help to free us both.

• I will only help. I will do no harm. I have compassion for us both. I will show kindness toward both of us. I will cultivate love for us, too. I choose to reconnect.

• I will start with me and then share love with others. May I be well and happy. May our family be well and happy. May she be well and happy. I choose love.

And whenever I saw her, I greeted her with a kind smile. I sometimes listened to her stories, excusing myself whenever her words became unkind, much the same as I had done before. But I noticed the negativity no longer lingered within me. It disappeared as soon as I began choosing love again. I was freed. And I was happier. And compassion, kindness, and love had made me so.

My desire was not to speak my mind in an attempt to change hers, to change her apparent need in choosing negative words. I did hope she might free herself from negativity and liberate herself by choosing positivity instead. Our reconnection was complete, quite unlimited, too, and it gave me hope that happiness could be ours, shared through our connection.

I continue to cultivate this loving connection, being compassionate and kind whenever people, myself included, choose to speak negative words, for we all do from time to time. We are positively connected in this negativity thing, and everything else. And compassion, kindness, and love happily connect us all.

Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt

When students write a paper, it goes without saying that they must cite the sources that they use in creating it. For generations, students have created note cards to document and organize these resources and/or submitted a bibliography page with their finished work.

In the modern classroom, student research and creation has taken on a new look. Before, when students created a poster, and then separately handed in a bibliography page to the teacher, justice was done and fair credit was given for the ideas used.

However, as widespread sharing of these projects becomes more common, and the internet allows students to reach an audience far beyond the school or classroom, we need to re-evaluate this procedure and address our responsibility to share these sources – not just with the teacher or school, but with all who might consume the project.

Without readily available sources to review, the audience cannot truly evaluate the validity of the project. They are left with what might be a beautiful and elegant project (the product) without knowing the sources used to construct it (the process).

Sharing sources with an audience is how we can focus on the PROCESS of creation rather than seeing only the PRODUCT.

Sharing Sources of Student Work

1. Include citations for individual pieces of information within the products themselves. This method has the advantage of sharing the sources with those who are consuming the project. For a classroom, this further engages the class in evaluating the sources that are used and allows them to ask “is that a valid source?” or “does that source have a perspective or a bias?”

2. Have students create a traditional bibliography page in Google Drive and include a link to it on their project. This will increase the likelihood that students will explore sources and evaluate projects at a deeper level. The same could be done with Evernote or a shared document in Dropbox.

3. For traditional paper projects, science fair projects, posters, mobiles or other display work, have the students provide a shortened URL to let others find and explore their works cited as they view the product. This will also work for electronic work such as Prezis, Glogsters, Popplets, Google Presentations or online videos. Shortnened URLs can be created at tinyurl.com or by using chrome extensions such as goo.gl URL shortener.

3. In place of a Tiny URL, use a QR code to link viewers to works cited. QR codes can be created for free using QR Kaywa or QRCode Monkey. QR codes are an image file that can be easily added to online projects, and are equally effective when added to the end of videos.

In our information-rich world, accessing information is a daily activity, making it essential to credit the sources being used. This is no less true in elementary school, high school or college. The “Culture of Creation” that emerges in connected classrooms makes this even more important, and putting it at the forefront of creation will allow for a healthy and necessary evaluation of how classwork is created and the ideas used to do so.

Shawn McCusker will be addressing online research & citations during his Teaching History with Technology workshop in Chicago this June.

All of us with school-age children know it’s important to read daily.  Many schools and teachers use reading logs and rewards to encourage kids to read.  But why are those twenty minutes of daily reading so important? Read 20 minutes a day for happy, healthy minds.

We know- with busy schedules and other priorities, it’s hard to get in 20 minutes.

But why is reading so important?

20 minutes a day = 3,600 minutes in a school year = 1,800,000 words = better vocabulary = better writing = higher success and it goes on and on . . . .

Now let’s get to our hands on tips to help get those 20 minutes in:

• Keep a few books in the car for “waiting around times” or for ease of grabbing as you’re dashing off.

• Instead of reading before bedtime when kids (and parents) are tired, try reading together at a different time of day (and get a little extra “mommy time” in too!)

• Have different types of books around that fit different lengths of time you/your child may have: story/chapter book, book with CD (younger kids), a kid’s magazine, fact books/world record books.

Are you an analog teacher trying to function in a digital world? Is the professional chatter of your colleagues littered with terms like Smore, Voki, Today’s Meet, Prezi, Popplet, Thinglink, and others? If so, then you are a casualty of a digital divide that exists among the ever-growing number of educators as they attempt to keep up with the flow of resources and information. The demand is on for educators to provide more digital content that allows for the integration of technology, but where does the professional start? A great place to start would be a website aligned to Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.

Created by a Media Coordinator and an Instructional Technology Coordinator this website offers resources from the beginner to the advanced user of digital resources.

Bloom’s Digital Web Tools

Designed with the educator in mind this website looks at the array of digital tools and cross references them to the new Bloom action verbs. The tools were selected based on several criteria. First, they had to be free or at least offer a free version as a minimum package. Second, they had to work within our district’s filtering system. Third, they had to be educationally sound and not littered with inappropriate ads.

Easily navigated, this website provides the experiences associated with each Bloom’s level. Once an educator selects a tool he or she is directed to subsequent page which offers the user a more detailed description of the tool along with additional tools that match the same criteria. In some cases, pdf documents are included that provide directions, additional ideas, student/teacher examples, and additional navigational links. A toolbar on the left allows the user to select a tag such as blogging, podcasting, cartoons, etc. This tag instantly takes the user to the Bloom’s category under which the link is housed.

An added feature of this site offers the educator a twin of the web 2.0 tools aligned to Bloom’s in an iPad app version. By clicking on the Blooming Apps tag the educator is immediately directed to a brand new site that offers the same features of the main page. The apps are laid out in an easy to use format that offers resources at each level of Bloom’s along with a related tag on the left toolbar. The difference in this site is that the icon for each app, when clicked on, takes one directly to itunes for download. For more information about the app, and similar apps, one must navigate to the bottom of that section of Bloom’s and click on the link. Both sites are continuously growing and changing with new tools and apps added on a regular basis.

Click on each photo to  link back to each site!

Blooming Apps

Finally for the educator who wants to create inquiring experiences with their students beyond the first page of a Google hit, there is a dedicated website for research in the digital age. This site provides both the educator and the student with 15 or more unique search engines and a comprehensive collection of fake websites. Along with resources on how to evaluate a website, plagiarism, and copyright resources educators can use the fake websites to teach students how to critically evaluate a site for currency, reliability, accuracy, and purpose.

A couple of weeks ago, Common Sense Media released their findings from a study they conducted on children’s media use in America. This was their second survey designed to document the media environments and behaviors of kids ages 8 and under, the first of which was conducted two years ago. While this information would clearly be interesting on its own, we find it to be even more interesting to have the comparison with the data from two years ago.

How have our young children and their media usage changed over the past two years? The handy infographic below takes a look at the data from this year’s study and comparisons with the study from two years ago. Keep reading to learn more.

Growing Up Mobile

• 3/4 of children have access to mobile devices at home
• Smartphones are the most commonly used devices (63% up from 41% two years ago).
• Tablets come a close second at 40% – compared with 8% two years ago!
• The number of kids who have used mobile devices has about doubled since two years ago (38% to 72%)
• Average daily use of mobile devices has tripled (from 5 minutes to 15 minutes a day)
• The number of children under 2 who have used a mobile device has risen to 38% from 10% in 2011.
• Traditional screen time (TV) is down from two years ago, but mobile screen time is up.
• Most children using mobile devices are either playing games, using apps, or watching videos on the device.
• The average child spends 1 hr 55 minutes per day in front of a screen – and this is still dominated by TV despite the rise in mobile usage.
• More and more of this screen time is becoming DVR, on demand, and streaming.
• The ‘digital divide’ between rich and poor still exists – high income families are three times as likely to own a tablet and more than twice as likely to have high speed internet.
• 54% of higher income families use mobile devices for educational content but only 27% of lower income families do.