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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
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: At the summit, students will lead the charge in creating a policy detailing how they think artificial intelligence should be used in the classroom and the guardrails districts should put in place to protect kids’ privacy and ensure they’re getting the best education possible, said Jeff Riley, the executive director of Day of AI. “It’s so important that we are looking at language differences and being culturally competent when it comes to determining whether a child presents with a language disorder.” She argues that doomscrolling and passively watching videos are different from the interactive activities that many teachers use to keep kids engaged. Leaders should stop asking “How do I hold people accountable?” and start asking “What’s preventing them from choosing it?” I love when people ask how different “founding” dates change the meaning of our history. 1776? 1619? 1526? Check out THE BEST – & MOST INTERESTING – RESOURCES FOR STUDYING HISTORY The presence of a problem alone, even if there is awareness, is not enough to generate mobilization or reform. Social causes require organization, political opportunities, and compelling narratives in order to succeed. See The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change In her own life, she might prefer to learn from sleep than learn during sleep. Teachers are far more likely to rely on their own communications with and observations of their students than quizzes or test scores to determine if they had a successful school year, with standardized tests coming in a distant last. Don’t take the rejection to heart—turn it into an opportunity. Intersectionality just means that we all have multiple perspectives. California’s ranking has soared to the 13th-highest in the nation for how much it funds education per student. A great irony of this contemporary insecurity about attention is that, compared with the rest of the animal kingdom, the human attention span is really not that impressive.
     May 22nd Is “International Day for Biological Diversity” – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources Atlantios / Pixabay
May 22nd has been named The International Day for Biological Diversity by the United Nations. Started in 2006 by the U.S. Congress, Endangered Species Day is the third Friday of May. You might be interested in The Best Resources For World Biodiversity Day (& Endangered Species Day).  Inductive Teaching Has Always Been An Effective Strategy, Perhaps Even More So In The AI Era
As regular readers know, I’ve been a longtime fan of inductive teaching (see The Best Resources About Inductive Learning & Teaching). I was reminded of this when reading a post by Stephen Fitzpatrick, who writes a good SubStack on how he’s handling AI in the classroom. In the post, he’s describing the process he’s having students use to write a research essay these days, which came out of conversations he had with a few of his top students to learn from them how they were approaching it. Here’s a paragraph about one of those interviews: Her organizational system was equally revealing. She would start with a general sense of her argument, create categories for her body paragraphs, and then research into those categories – color-coding primary source evidence, leaving herself analytical notes in the margins so she wouldn’t forget why a particular passage mattered weeks later. “You kind of need to catalog your thoughts a little bit if you’re working on something more long-term,” she said. She wrote her topic sentences last, because the structure emerged from the thinking, not the other way around. When I pointed out that she seemed to be outlining and writing her paper as she researched it, she agreed. “It’s extremely iterative,” she said. That paragraph is pretty much a precise description of how essay-writing can be taught inductively. The image at the top of this post comes from one of my older pieces, An Outline For How Students Can Learn To Write Essays Inductively. Though Stephen doesn’t lay-out his whole system for having students write these days, this kind of process is clearly a part of it. I’d suggest that perhaps lots of other teachers should consider it, too. I’m adding this info to The “Best” Strategies For Creating AI-Resistant Assignments.  UCLA Unveils Free Online Multimedia High School Textbook About Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders
The UCLA Asian American Studies Center today unveiled a very impressive online textbook for high school classes on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders. It’s titled Foundations and Futures. Here is an excerpt from its description: Foundations and Futures: Asian American and Pacific Islander Multimedia Textbook celebrates the hidden histories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to provide a fuller understanding of the American experience and the contemporary world. The scapegoating of Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic was a reminder that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders remain little understood despite centuries of history as part of the United States and touched by its reaches across the Pacific. This textbook democratizes over fifty years of scholarship that flourished since the emergence of Ethnic Studies in the 1960s. Together with over 200 of the nation’s top scholars, subject experts, and curriculum developers, the textbook features dozens of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the United States, its territories, and the Pacific. It contains hundreds of images, videos, poems, archival documents, and interviews, with ready-to-use lesson plans for high school and college students and the general public. Foundations and Futures features standards-aligned high school lesson plans available to download for free, providing teachers with the tools and resources to implement textbook chapters directly into their classroom. Foundations and Futures utilizes open access technology to create a multisensory learning experience. The textbook features a variety of tools to create an engaging reader experience, enhance student comprehension, and develop digital literacy skills. It is available on any device connected to the internet (computers, tablets, phones). Digital learning tools include an embedded glossary, hyperlinked sections that enable easy navigation, information pop ups, and a large collection of interactive audio and video media elements. Foundations and Futures website also hosts a collection of accessibility features including reading rulers, color filters, reading masks, customizable text size, spacing, and font options. The website experience was built to be accessible through keyboard navigation, compatible with screen reader technologies, and features alt-text for every multimedia asset. Google Translate is embedded for instant translation. All written content is downloadable and WCAG (Website Content Accessibility Guide) compliant.
You can read more about it at this Associated Press article, UCLA online textbook gives voice to Asian American, Pacific Islander history and cultures. I’m adding this info to The Best Sites For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
 This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom geralt / Pixabay
At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM. Here are the latest:
EduGems has a nice collection of prompts that teachers can use with AI chatbots. I’m adding it to NOT NECESSARILY THE “BEST,” BUT A LIST OF AI TEACHER PREP SITES. Linguadrop will send you an article a day in the language you’re learning, at the language level you presently possess. They’ll do that for free, though premium account offers more bells and whistles. I’m adding it to The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels”
AI-generated lesson plans fall short on inspiring students and promoting critical thinking is from The Conversation. 
Word Jet seems like an interesting app for language learning – take a picture of your surroundings and it will use AI to immediately create a lesson using it as a base. AI Whiplash: Every Breakthrough Comes With a Disaster is from Teaching In The Age Of AI. Can AI keep students motivated, or does it do the opposite? is from The Conversation. Higher Ed’s Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI is from Defector.   More Recent Articles
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