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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
Important New Resources For Teaching About The 250th Anniversary Of The American Revolution ErikaWittlieb / Pixabay
Here are new additions to The Best Resources For Helping Teach About The 250th Anniversary Of The American Revolution: The National Museum Of The American Indian has several new teaching resources. The Museum Of The American Revolution has several online exhibitions: Finding Freedom: Explore the stories of African American men and women in war-torn Virginia. When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story, 1776 – 1807 Historical Analysis: Objects Tell Stories (I’m also adding this to The Best Resources For Using “Object Lessons” In History.      A Look Back: The True Origin Story Of AFT’s New AI Training Center Will Indicate If It Is A Success Or A FlopFor the next month or so, I’ll be republishing my best posts from the last half of 2025.
During my nineteen year community organizing career, we (and most other organizing groups) typically had two types of campaigns. In one, the community issues were identified through scores, if not hundreds, of house meetings and individual meetings. Leaders of those efforts would meet with organizers to develop strategies to work on those issues. We’d start with small actions, leading to large-scale negotiations. We’d generally win, and the organization was much stronger afterwards. Though our member institutions paid dues, foundations who truly understood organizing and had a long-term vision for what was possible supported us doing this kind of work. In the other, we either ran after foundation money or the foundation money ran after us. Funders would identify their priority issue or issues, and we’d sort of figure out a way to do a “shotgun marriage” between those issues and the issues identified by our constituents. We’d carve out some time paid for by these funds to do some of the first kind of organizing, but had to spend more time on this second kind, which sometimes led to concrete wins for our leaders and members, but more often than not did not lead to stronger organizations. The American Federation of Teachers today announced they’re starting an AI training center for teachers and the real question is which one of those two examples is their origin story:
Did AFT members and leaders spend the past year recognizing that districts were dropping the ball on providing guidance to teachers, and explore ways they fill that vacuum? And, then, did they spend time inviting members to reflect on what their AI priorities might be – how to teach the ethics of AI to students? Are there some areas, like with ELLs, that AI could be helpful and others where it was not? What could be gained and lost in having AI develop lesson plans and assess student work? And, then, after identifying these issues through an extensive listening effort among their members, did AFT leadership then develop a plan for how the union could systematically experiment and offer guidance? Finally, after all that was done, did the AFT go to the big AI companies and say, “This is our plan. Do you want to give us money to implement it?” Or, did AFT just run after the money? I have a lot of respect for AFT president Randi Weingarten and don’t believe she would, but I have no inside knowledge – just what’s in The NY Times article. Certainly the Times article tells an origin story of the second way. But that definitely doesn’t mean it’s accurate. But we’ll all know the true origin story of this effort by its results, or lack of results, a year or so from now.
 Sentences Of The Week geralt / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: And coaching your child to name their emotions can strengthen those social-emotional and self-regulation skills that are integral to building positive relationships with classmates and teachers. I was really reminded of how incredible it is to watch teachers’ brains process about eleventy billion different inputs at the same time. See The Best Research On How Many Decisions A Teacher Makes Each Day Police departments across the U.S. are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist President Donald Trump’s mass immigration enforcement campaign, an investigation by The 74 reveals. Researchers found that people who used the punctuation mark [exclamation points] were viewed more positively than people who didn’t and were preferred as collaborators. I always used exclamation points when giving students written positive feedback, or sending emails. A precocious kid who is bored in a gen-ed classroom might need gifted education, but decades of data and research suggest it’s more likely that he and everyone else simply need fewer classmates, so that his teacher can give each student more individualized attention. See The Best Resources For Learning Different Perspectives About “Gifted & Talented” Programs and The Best Resources For Learning About How Class Size Does Matter A careful parsing of the data suggests that America’s top colleges are still filled largely by students from advantaged backgrounds. When students can’t be sure whether a picture of their teacher’s cat is real, we are facing something much bigger than a student using ChatGPT on a history assignment. Superintendents too often blame individual teachers for problems that stem from systemic issues. “All children belong in their homes with their families, at school with their teachers, at the park with their friends, and in the communities in which they live and are part.” “It felt like we were being occupied by the federal govt, & I started returning to reading about the Boston Massacre.” “In America, you cannot expect that the people are going to be okay with masked, unidentified people running you off the road and coming to your vehicle at gunpoint like we saw in St. Peter, Minnesota.” A speech pathologist described tearful meetings with immigrant parents fearful that signing documents to get their child special education services would draw the attention of immigration enforcement. The second warning was subtler and more disturbing: that efficiency itself would erode human dignity. This sentence comes from an article about the consequences of Artificial Intelligence, but it can also apply to many other areas, including education. But in its original formation, the Monroe doctrine was a statement of pan-American solidarity – much closer to Bad Bunny’s than Donald Trump’s. Resistance is not just braver but also smarter and more effective.
 Edward Deci, Researcher & Developer Of Many Strategies On Creating The Conditions For Intrinsic Motivation, Has Died
Edward Deci, renowned developer of Self-Determination Theory, which is the basis of most work around intrinsic motivation, has died. Much of my work in the classroom, along with my four books on student motivation and many posts, was devoted to applying his ideas to the teaching realm. He will be missed.  “Odyssey” Is An AI-Powered Video Tool That Could Be Useful To English Language Learners
I’ve previously shared how I used AI text-to-image tools with English Language Learners (see How I’m Using AI Art Generation To Teach English To Newcomers). If I was still teaching in the classroom, I could see how AI-powered text-to-video tools could be used in similar ways – especially with a tool like Odyssey. Odyssey starts off like a typical text-to-video tool – describe a scene and it creates it. However, it has a big difference, and I assume that most text-to-video tools will soon incorporate this kind of difference: as it generates the video, you are able to add additional prompts to create new scenes. In effect, you are creating an entire short film on the fly. Many ELL students would find a lesson using this kind of tool engaging, and it could be a great language learning experience. They could screen-record the video and the text they are inputting to create it, and then show it to the entire class. I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For Teaching & Learning With AI Art Generation Tools.
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