This week’s MBTN features alternative teaching methods, how to use colons & semicolons, a web backpack for students and the best search engines for student research. Details after the jump.
5 Alternative Teaching Methods
Scott Allen at mental_floss presents this list of alternative educational models. While you’re probably not going to get your principal to sign off on converting your classroom to a Waldorf-style environment, you could cherry pick ideas here and there that might work for you, like the round-table discussion model used in the Harkness method. Or perhaps after reading about these methods, you’d like to work at a school that uses them. It’s also useful for parents who want to make informed decisions about what sort of school to send their children to.
Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students
You’ve prepared your students for college academically. Now you can make sure they’ve got the supplies they need. ReadWriteWeb has prepared a list of what students should stuff in their virtual backpacks, from office suites like OpenOffice and Google Docs to tools like EasyBib. For more tips on what kids should bring to school, see Instructify’s list of the top 10 school supplies for today’s students.
410 Grammar: Using Colons and Semi-Colons
My grammar teacher once told me, “If you ever feel the urge to use a semicolon, lie down for 10 minutes. It will pass.” Lots of writers confuse when to use colons and semicolons. Canada’s University of Victoria’s imparts this advice from its Language 410 course that will show you how to tell the difference.
20 of the Best Search Engines for Students
I’m totally in the tank for Google, but even a shill like me realizes you need other search options sometimes. Students in particular can benefit from using engines other than Yahoo! and the almighty Google. Education-Portal.com presents 20 search engines more suited to academic research, as well as finding useful multimedia. -BILL FERRIS
Photo credit: CarbonNYC on Flickr.
