A Little Better

The latest version of the proposed Mathematics TEKS can be found by clicking HERE.

Check them out...they are slightly more reasonable than the last version...and a little easier to read and understand!

What the State Board of Education decides to do with these is anyone's guess...they met yesterday to discuss this latest version.  I got to watch part of their discussion via a live webcast.  It was quite interesting...they were very concerned about making sure that there was alignment between Math & Science and some board members felt like it would be wise to slow this process down a bit & give the educator committee time to reconvene and make any final changes they felt were necessary.  I am not quite sure what the final outcome of that discussion will be...I guess we will have to wait and see!  And rest assured...in the mean time we have more than enough to worry about with STAAR.

:)

Word Dynamo

Today I discovered a cool new tool thanks to a blog post over at iLearn Technology!  It's called Word Dynamo & it's a part of Dictionary.com.

With Word Dynamo you can do several different things:

• Take a 10 word "quiz" & get an estimate of how many words you know.  You choose the level to use (elementary, middle school, etc.).  Once you're done, you can do a variety of activities designed to increase your vocabulary.  Totally random words...but I bet kids would enjoy seeing their estimated vocabulary increase!
• As a teacher you can create a word list for students to use...they can take quizzes, type the word given the definition, etc.  You can select a definition from their list (not kid-friendly) or write your own definition.
• Search for lists already created by others & use those.

There are MANY ways this could be used in any subject...have FUN!

Kristen