In this excerpt from his new book Beyond Cut and Paste, ed-tech guru Jamie McKenzie explains why having your students turn their backs on you may be a good thing in the laptop classroom! Continue reading...

This article is going live on the first day of my last week of school for this school year. As you read this, if you're an early reader, I am packing up my colored chalk and putting away my homework charts for the summer. Continue reading...

Teachers, are you wondering how you can use Visual Thesaurus word maps to introduce new concepts to your students? Check out this excerpt from Sharon Walpole and Michael C. McKenna's Differentiated Reading Instruction for some ideas. Continue reading...

Sometimes our vocational ed (CTE) students have a difficult time reading technical literature because the heavy use of jargon gets in their way, hampering comprehension and frustrating those students who may prefer hands-on learning situations. VocabGrabber can help prevent this experience: students can "grab" a text's jargon beforehand, preview those terms, and then head back to the text with a good understanding of the key concepts they will encounter while reading. Continue reading...

Since there never seems to be enough time for in-class vocabulary instruction, this excerpt from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan, can help teachers decide which "Tier Two" words to prioritize. Continue reading...

When I was in high school, I was a major eco-head. I belonged to Greenpeace, insisted on recycling everything not nailed to the floor, and gave up eating meat, despite my family's innate fondness for... um, meat. I was probably pretty insufferable, but people put up with me for the most part. I remind myself of this phase when dealing with self-righteously insufferable kids as a teacher. Continue reading...

These sites can help your students decipher some common English idioms.

Funbrain: Paint by Idioms

UsingEnglish.com: Dictionary of English Idioms

The Idiom Connection