Dedicated to relinquishing responsibility for learning to the students
Education continues to dominate the news with the release of President Barack Obama's proposed 2010 budget – "A New Era of Responsibility."
“The path to jobs and growth begins in America’s classrooms. The decisions we make about how to educate our children will shape our future for generations to come. They will determine not just whether our children have the chance to fulfill their God-given potential, or whether our workers have the chance to build a better life for their families, but whether we, as a nation, will remain in the 21st Century, the kind of global economic leader that we were in the twentieth. If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow, we must out-educate the world today.” ~ President Barack Obama
Click for Office of Management and Budget Fact Sheet Download Fy10_education
This budget comes on the heels of the recent stimulus package which devoted $115B for education. Diagram from Education Week. Click chart to enlarge.
Note: For full web version of President Barack Obama's speech to Congress Feb 24, 2009 click here.
I think Wordle.net is a great tool that helps teachers and students to analyze text. Read my post to see some ideas for how you can use Wordle to foster literacy and critical thinking in your classroom.
I used Wordle to make the "word cloud" below out of the text from President Obama's speech to Congress. I chose a setting to display the 25 most frequently used words in his speech. Glad to see that education made the top 25 of his verbal agenda!
Prezi is a great presentation software that replaces the lineal PowerPoint style with the ability to present text, videos and images in a unique zooming style. Here are samples of how I use Prezi in a variety of settings.
1. Open your online Prezi presentation and look for the Share tab (lower right in this screen shot.) Click share.
2. You will get the dialog box below. When you choose “</> Embed” tab the dialog box expands and reveal your embed settings. You may want to adjust the pixel size to fit into your blog columns. Copy and paste the html code into your blog.