Teacher Talk: PLC on Alignment and Moderation, calculating weighted grade categories manually*?

Sometimes as teachers we take advantages of such simple technology that we tend to just have a "brain fart" and forget how to calculate the grades ourselves. One of those, "What if you didn't have a calculator moments".

Here was a great site that is excellent for empowering students to be conscientious of their own grades as well as a quick review for teachers how calculating grades without the use of excel and gradebook software.

https://sciencing.com/calculate-class-grade-7379797.html

Updated:

Personally, I like what a resource like "Markbook" by Academia produces. The reason I like this is because as an Ontario teacher we need to meet the prequesities of assessment and evaluation which is the observation, conversation and product collection (as introduced by S. Herbst as "Triangulation of Data") that reflects student's Application; Communication; Thinking and Inquiry; Knowledge and Understanding. Each of these categories need to be equally reflected through the course's assessment and evaluation in the end, (thus each with a category weight of 25%), the course is then defined as further broken down into "three parts" usually, unless the course is not an examable course (e.g. Physical Education; Civics and Careers, etc. as these courses, students will benefit from an inquiry-based project to act as the summative culminating assessment-validated by the previous course work assessments). The Course Work portion of the examable class would be "70%" and the other portions, would be the "culminating tasks", in which case the Exam would be a further "10%" and finally, the Culminating project, "20%".

LUAA-Lakehead VIewbook!

Sweet news! I'm not lost and forgotten Lakehead University graduate in China, turns out yes, there is an alumni chapter-in Shanghai or Beijing (quite quiet though), and far that's quite far from my current location-but I was asked to participate in a viewbook piece for Alumni.

Pretty cool, makes me feel really good. I guess, the years of Additional Qualifications are keeping my name fresh in some folks minds? Nonetheless, here is the original piece and the shortened piece of the article I was interviewed for.

I'll share a link or scan of the viewbook when I get around to that/get it.

Original:

"University is the place that students experience the good, the bad and the ugly of themselves. At Lakehead that experience was much more a positive experience because of outdoors lifestyle and openness of the region. I was finding that every year I would return, I would have changed in another way either being more social or athletic. It took years maybe, but leaving Lakehead I felt like I lived 5 lives, and was ready for rest of it. It is where I found myself, the most unexpected place in the world for me when I was making the decision.

I completed a college road trip with my parents, from Brantford through Orillia, Sudbury, Ste. St. Marie, all the way up to Thunder Bay. It was not so much as I choosing Lakehead, as much as it was Thunder Bay that chose me. Out of everything I had seen being from Niagara, part of me wanted to go to Brock University because it was a dream for a long time, but it didn't really offer me the chance to do what I did at Lakehead and be who I was at Lakehead."

Final Draft:

Lakehead University is where I found myself, which was the most unexpected place in the world for me when I was making the decision about my post-secondary education. I drove from Brantford with my parents to campus for a tour. That trip changed my life. When I left Lakehead I felt like I had lived 5 lives and was prepared for my next journey. Now I’ve been teaching in China for the past five years in a British Columbia curriculum accredited offshore school as a Language Arts Educator in Dalian. – Carmelo Bono (BED ’14, BA ’14)


Cheers!

Publishers, From Teachers, who are Former Students.

Publishers were once students, why can't they be our students. Could you imagine if your students were published writers before the age of 30? I think in every teacher's career, they have crossed the path of at least one student that has stricken them as nothing short of remarkable.

I am in the process of developing at home/school publishings to help students see and understand the reality of skills/self-appreciation. I came across this very interestingly convoluted website recently in my search, I need to pick through it but-I came across a pen pal piece in there. Apparently the teacher works in Iraq!? Sweet! Pen pals-this is exactly where I have already been starting.

http://www.publishingstudents.com/Online%20resources.html

CLICK-BAIT Banned Forever!

What is it about this title that captures one's attention? Could it be the unrealistic possibility that something that amazing may actually happen?

The reality is that Click-Bait will never be banned forever, in fact one could forecast that the mount out there now, is one the beginning, it is an effective tool as well as a means to which some make their living off of, there will be more. I personally forecast the internet looking like a bar street in Tokyo at 1-2am, neon lights glowing hard into the the twilight and never really turning off, just dimming as they blend with the daytime skies. It will become a point of which, even though the internet is free, it will be paid for by the amount of Ads that people need to click through to use it. technically Youtube is already following this, as well as facebook.

Click-bait though, for those who don't know, is generally something appealing or thought provoking headline that lures folks into clicking it and checking it out to build hits.

Sometimes, the click-bait is extremely harmful, and other times, it may ACTUALLY take you to something relatively interesting-never REALLY interesting but every so often I have found myself on a an article page and thinking, "hmm didn't plan on reading about "Graham the car-proof man", but its okay-interesting thought.

So, by no means in creating click-bait should you be trying to harm or violate a user's online capabilities. As a blogger, vlogger, caster, its a matter of giving an opportunity for a potential audience member to find your channel and improve the quality of their online viewing, reading or listening.

To create your own click-bait is actually kind of fun and makes it worth seeing where this skill can actually be applied in our daily lives. Creating click-bait begins with an interesting/shocking headline: "I lost 60lbs in 6 days"; "The Joker is actually based off a Real-Serial Killer"; "Your Comic Book Collection is worth Millions".

So why is it that these headlines are not just "fake news", well when you get to the article you see that,
-"I lost 60lbs in 6 days, and get extremely sick-almost died..."
-"The Joker is actually based off a Real-Serial Killer, is not true, but believed because..."
-"Your comic book collection is worth millions if it includes..."

These are the more "I'm not fake news click-bait" examples, there is also click-bait that is just plainly "fake news", and those are things like the following:
-"Canada is going to war with China"
-"The US is considering pulling out of the Middle East"
-"Michael Jackson's ghost has come back to apologize for molesting children"

These forms of "Click-Bait" are the same kinds that sme older "Newspaper Generations" may remember as "The World Weekly News" or "The Enquirer".