#SSChat

This week I watched a combines social studies and English chat.  The theme of the chat was project based learning.  There were many interesting links posted.  One I found of particular interest was how to use the presidential election in the classroom.  The link is posted below.  The link is from TeachHub.  The chat focused on how to use projects in the classroom and how it helps students understand material better.  The pursuit of one's own interests lead to deeper understanding.  Also discussed was the use of projects to better the community.

I am now following Kenna Wilson, a middle school principal.  Molly Smith is another new person I am following; she is a history teacher.  Finally, I am following is Justin Staub, a Pennsylvanian teacher.

bit.ly/SgRN2T

#Edchat

I participated in Edchat on Tuesday night.  The topic of the chat was: if the poverty gap is a major force stalling the improvement in the American education system, how do we address it?  The chat had a lot of ideas, though some seemed rather off topic.  Some suggested training teachers to be better at intervention.  Others cited that students in poverty were the ones more often put in special education and were more likely to fall behind over the summer.  These students are given lower expectations so they only rise to far.  Others were critical of standardized testing because it did not show a student's true ability (though how this relates to poverty is unclear).  Teachers wanted the government to take more action and provide more funding, though they never actually discussed the government using poverty as a stalling tactic.  Many stated that schools simply are not able to handle the problem of poverty.  Many said student in poverty need help before they even get into the public school system.  More programs like Head Start are needed.

There were many links posted, though most of them were unrelated to the topic of the chat.  One interesting article actually was about further ways to use Twitter as an educator.  This site shows the top 50 education chats and how to use them: http://bit.ly/UHl76A

I am following several people that I discovered within #Edchat.  Nikkol Bauer is the CIO of Henry County schools in Kentucky.  Emil Ahangarzadeh tweets mostly about technology and is a self-proclaimed ninja.  Steven Anderson is one of the creators of Edchat .  Mel Ridder is a high school principal.  Ron Peck is an AP history teacher and one of the creators of SSChat.