Powerful Learning Practice Blog

Making Writing about Fiction "Authentic"

To me, authentic literacy learning has two goals: to help students develop a passion for reading and writing, and to help them learn to implement the strategies that adult readers and writers utilize for genuine purposes. I’ve been searching for ways to do this, in a climate of high stakes testing and a commanding curriculum. Involving my kids in virtual book clubs with students in other schools is my latest discovery.

Building Web Search Skills the Fun Way – with a Google a Day

Anytime I can find something that grabs kids’ attention by the collar and pulls them in, I’m ready to learn all about it. A Google a Day is one of those things. It’s a sweet puzzle site that improves searching (and discernment) skills by asking all sorts of questions and encouraging users to get better and better at finding answers.

Meet Our Team: Lyn Hilt

Powerful Learning Practice has expanded its staff and brought some fascinating new minds (and fresh ideas) to our team. We’d like to introduce our team to you, one by one, and so we’ve come up with seven questions for each of them so you can have a little peek into what they’re thinking and who they are.

KONY 2012: What Is Just Too Much?

I talked with my students about the KONY campaign. We looked at the way the story was evolving minute-by-minute and read three newspaper articles together. What I did not do was show my students the original video. Most of my students accepted this, but a few Grade 7 boys really took me on. They felt that if their classmates lost a little sleep, it was nothing compared to what those children were experiencing.

We Always Care about Kids at Testing Time

I’m thinking more than ever about my kids, who they are as whole children, and what the real worth of the schooling they receive might be. I’m wondering why we educators, both administration and faculty, don’t send these same kind of notes home all year long. Why aren’t sleep and nutrition and stress reduction equally important the other 171 days of the school year?

Conferences, unconferences, educamps – Now what?

I’ve been thinking about conferences recently. And unconferences. And a new kind of get-together that I don’t quite have a name for. It kiind of began when Hadley said she said that she didn’t need more ideas so much as time to implement the ones she already has. Isn’t that the truth! Maybe it’s time to take a step back, temporarily, to reflect and put some ideas into action?

Hill Brown Expanded His PLN and Knowledge of Web 2.0 Tools

PLP eCourses attract participants from across the globe to learn and grow with one another. Over the next few weeks, we will feature interviews with current and past PLP eCourse participants. We’ll ask participants to share information about themselves, why they chose PLP eCourses and what they are up to professionally.

Dancing with the iGeneration

Face to face conversations are part of how human beings have interacted since the beginning of time. They will never go away even though the barrage of technology greatly expands how we communicate with one another. That said, I believe educators need to teach both ways of communication to students. We are obliged to do this because, as educators, we are preparing our students for the jobs of the future — and for lives in a digitally shifted world.