I will be slowly, but surely moving all of the content here to my new site for short/quick shares
If you are looking for the archive of the past T3: Theriault Teacher Tweet award winners- Click Here
If you are looking for the Alternative Music (including punk and hip-hop/rap) Edmodo Badges, click on my profile here
October 22nd (wow I need to post here more often)
September 13th 2013:
This is one use for a classroom bulletin board that I can get completely behind, next-to, in front of etc…
August 2013:
This is video of one of the largest, if not the largest Harlem Shakes ever. It showcases the AMAZING spirit at Fountain Valley High School and I feel blessed to teach there every single day. This is what happens when you go ALL IN.
July 20th 2013:
On July 20th 2013 Myself, Karl, Kelly, and Shawn created, organized, and ran the world’s first all online edcamp. Over 200 teachers participated live using Google On Air Hangouts. There were teachers from ALL over the world learning from each other and it was amazing. If you are stuck in prison, or just curious, you can watch the entire four hours here:
If you want to learn more you can visit our webpage at www.edcampHOME.org
July 2013:
Over 600 people applied to the 2013 Google Teacher Academy in Chicago. I was one of the lucky 60 who were accepted. In order to be chosen you have to submit a video that is one minute or less. Here is my entrance video. We made it in two afternoons.
If you want to see what the event was like you can view the Google Teacher Academy Photos Blog.
June 18th 2013:
I can’t believe I’ve never seen this site or their YouTube broadcasts. The Edreach website is full of interesting ideas and their edreach Educast has tons of useful info.
June 9th 2013:
If you have never been to an edcamp you MUST go. They are one of the best experiences you can have as an educator. This summer Karl Lindgren-Striecher and I will be starting a brand new type of edcamp. It’s called edcampHOME instead of going to one location, a location that might be too far away, you just have to login to the website and using Google+ Hangouts we will conduct the session online. If we run out of room in a session you can just watch the session happen live on YouTube. Another feature of edcampHOME is that all of the sessions will be recorded on YouTube so you can watch them later or share them with a friend. To find out more about the edcampHOME experience visit our edcampHOME page.
To find out more about using Google+ Hangouts before the edcampHOME starts read this great blog post by Alice Keeler
May 17th 2013:
California is a strange place- there is so much diversity and yet each little pocket of that diversity seems to say “This is California” so then people glom onto these bright bits of uniqueness and hope to define us through that lens. Shallow and fake is a term that gets thrown around a lot as in that’s so “Hollywood” or even so “LA.” I love when the subject of this film says “it allows me to escape my reality and become someone else for a while” Fiction… such a dirty word sometimes made to look as if it’s wearing a prison garb made up of the word LIE. I hope you find something in this film about Superman that will help you in some way- Superman would appreciate that.
May 10th 2013:
This quote, from the movie Roadhouse, more than any other quote is responsible for anything great I do as a teacher. If you can truly believe this quote you can achieve almost anything.
I’ll get all the sleep I want when I’m dead
April 26th 2013:
One of my goals this summer is to go paperless. My favorite feature about the grading part of the LMS Canvas is that you can leave voice comments. I can combine these two goals with this link on how to leave voice comments in a Google Document from @SamPatue’s website My Paperless Classroom. This is awesome.
April 10th 2013:
The artist Matt Kish creator of Moby Dick in Pictures and the upcoming Illustrated Heart of Darkness runs two interesting websites. The first is is blog Spud 64 which documents all of his projects. It’s a great read for older students who are into art, narrative and re-imagining the world about them. He also has a Tumblr that is mostly appropriate, but occasionally has images that might be more suited for older students 17+. You can ask him a question on his Tumblr. His responses make for good reading. Here is some of his work from both of his books.
(Click the thumbnails for larger images)
March 25th 2013:
My wife shared this TED talk with me last night. It’s a great video for parents and anyone who runs a group of people like teachers, principals, student leaders etc… there are a few points of his that I think can be tweaked, but overall this is a must watch.
March 15th 2013:
This is the site I use to re-blog and publicize my students’ WordPress blogs. It’s called Re:Framed. In order to help my students publicize and promote their blogs I taught them how to create a QR code. If you click here you can see the Google Doc I used to teach them how to create a QR code and place it into a photo. If you want to see a photo set of them placing the QR codes and what they look like you can- Click here– it’s awesome.
February 26th:
A paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest has evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and came to some surprising conclusions. Read more here.
February 25th:
My friend and co-worker Sean Ziebarth @MrZiebarth is our new PD Instructional Coach on our campus. He created a website called Steal Like A Teacher to facilitate sharing instructional strategies and observations. Our campus also participates in Instructional Rounds.
February 22nd:
Some teachers moan when you tell them that BYOD is a solution waiting to happen. They bring up equity. This link takes you to a solution I thought up weeks ago the first time someone brought up equity.
February 19th:
I love following @AnneMacLachlan. She shared this great idea on her Pinterest site here. (Blind date with a book) You could do this as a Librarian or as a teacher if you have a class library.
- Heck you could do this with envelopes and famous mathematicians and scientists and say it’s a love letter from your blind date. Give each student a letter and have them write a response back to the scientist or mathematician.
- Heck this scientist actually wrote a love letter to Stem cells. Perhaps your students could write a love letter to a particular formula or science concept and then you could have them post them online in a blog or read them to the class.
- You could create a “dating” profile of famous historical figures and see which your students would pick to date and then show them the picture. You could use PPT and show the students quotes and accomplishments and weird facts from bachelor #1 #2 etc… and then have your students vote who wins and then write down why they liked that person and then do the big reveal with a large picture in the PPT.
February 17th:
This video/website BLEW MY STUDENTS minds earlier this year. It’s by the Canadian band Arcade Fire using the latest in HTML 5 programming. Try it out first for yourself and then for maximum effect find a students home address, they need to have a house or something identifiable by Google Maps. Then type in their address before the students start watching. The student who’s address it is will FLIP out, in a good way, in the middle of the video. Click here to see what I’m so excited about.
February 15th:
Amy Burvall (@historyteacherz) is about the radest history teacher EVER. Her satire videos mixing modern songs and past events and historical features are fantastic. You can either have your students watch the videos or use her videos to spur some ideas on how to create their own satires.
Here is another one I love it gets stuck in my head:
February 12th:
So there is a subway station in Bucharest where you can download eBooks in a virtual/simulated library using QR codes. This is so cool. I was thinking you could do something like this in a hallway in at your school or you could even do it with a row of athletes at your school and the QR codes take you to the sport homepage. You could even do it with pictures of various club members or club activities and put them running down a busy hallway at your school. The possibilities are endless.
February 9th:
If you are a teacher who is a comic book reader, cartoon/animation lover, or gamer you are going to love Gavin Craig’s smart takes on both genres. It’s Geek chocolate.
February 5th:
If you are looking for some different ideas regarding formative assessment click here– make sure to read the discussion below the post as well.
January 30th:
If you are creating a new blog, want to redesign your blog, or want your students to get some ideas for some cool blogs then click here.
January 25th:
Do you want to be a lazy but effective English teacher. Want the students to write, but not sure what about? Then you need to go to Luke Neff’s Writing Prompts Tumblr. Heck I’d check it out AT LEAST once a week. Here’s a sample prompt.
January 24th:
Every year before you create your classroom expectations or syllabus perhaps you should look at this blog post by Lynda Barry and sprinkle some ideas around: Complete Handout for the first day of class (PS- I love her books)
January 20th:
Anne MacLachlan (@AnneMacLachlan) runs a wonderful Blog (Teaching Texts with Tech) full of resources for teachers. Her links of the week are a must visit each week. Says who? Says me.
January 18th:
If you teach upper-level (10th grade to college) literature and are looking for study guide or “follow-along” questions for a TON of novels, plays etc… then Dr. Wheeler’s Carson-Newman College Homepage is a must visit.
January 15th:
I discovered this by talking to the awesome Villa Park librarian Greg Smith (@betteranimal) if you are an Art or English teacher or you just love books you are going to love “Re-Covered Books.”
January 14th:
This is about the coolest thing ever. I wanted to share it at EdCampLA but I didn’t have time to create a cool video. It allows you to easily weave together various videos and add music check it out Weavly.
January 11th:
It’s a little Retro, but I still use StumpleUpon to collect educational links. Here is a link to my StumbleUpon edlinks collection.
January 9th:
You probably already know about Tagxedo… but if you don’t- you can create word maps around or in a shape which is not only cool, but useful.
January 8th 2013
The effect of Twitter posts on students’ perceptions of instructor credibility
January 2nd (sorry Winter break has been busy)
Harvard Graduate School of Education Links for Educators (something cool for everyone)
December 28th:
I’ve just become aware of the RSA Animates videos. I had no clue what RSA was- if you don’t know either The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce): is an enlightenment organisation committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges. Through its ideas, research and 27,000-strong Fellowship it seeks to understand and enhance human capability so we can close the gap between today’s reality and people’s hopes for a better world.
Here is a link to some of their videos. They are quite good and deal with big topics that should interest teachers and students alike.
December 22:
I great blog post titled: 8 Essentials of Project Based Learning
December 17th:
Before you have your students brainstorm you should read the article “Never brainstorm with a Blank Slate.”
December 15th:
Here is a great blog post on 10 reasons why teachers should blog or as he says “10 things blogging has taught me.”
December 14th:
I can’t tell you how often I will tell someone about a cool assignment I do in my class and when they look at my directions for the assignment/lesson plans/handouts etc… they say “that’s it?” I don’t want steps and rules and expectations and rubrics to get in the way of creativity and greatness. Here is an article by Mathew E. May called “Want To Make Your Environment More Creative? Kill Some Rules.” that backs up some of my beliefs about how to un-structure a lesson.
December 13th:
This movie was brilliant. It’s a short film about how words work. I found it on the Film English Blog here:
So often I speak to my students about the power of words. When students think of powerful words they think of big SAT vocab words or they think of imagery/metaphor etc…
Instead I want them to think of the power of a simple and pure word. A word like light or run. This video will help.
<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/13768695″>WORDS</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/everynone”>Everynone</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>December 11th:
I found the magazine IntelligentLife.com through Stumble Upon and found this brilliant article on “The Uses of Difficulty.” It explains how difficulty cultivates and encourages creativity and gives a shout-out to the pen and paper posse. Sometimes as a teacher we ask ourselves how to make something easier or how to effectively scaffold. This makes you reconsider that.
December 8th:
A great blog post by Thomas Zook about content master and quizzes. If you have ever worried about having kids taking quizzes online or “cheating” on a quiz you should read this.
December 1st: (took a bit of a break for Thanksgiving week)
So I was reading this article on why Instagram is Revolutionary: http://makeyourideasart.com/articles/why-instagram-is-revolutionary-and-what-comes-next/
Three things to take from the article- First, it’s empowering to be able to quickly change the emotional impact of your work (the various filters) so how can we teach our students to play around with the impact of their work? Secondly, I think we all agree that student work improves if it has a tone or mood, how can you play with various levels, if there are no levels to begin with? Lastly, people love sharing their work. For everything that your students create how can we get them to look beyond the teacher as the final and most important audience. How can we place their work in front of the peers within and without the class and to the world at large?
November 24th
I couldn’t watch him for an hour every day but there are a few good nuggets for discussion in John Green’s How and Why We Read YouTube video: 7 min: might be good for HW or in class
November 21st
An amazing resource page on Infographics by Kathy Schrock;
http://www.schrockguide.net/infographics-as-an-assessment.html
Posted to Twitter by @ttoddthepeapod
November 15th-
Literary Jukebox– another amazing project by Maria Popova (it takes an excerpt from a book and pairs it with a song) I love this excerpt:
“What more could one ask of a companion? To be forever new and yet forever steady. To be strange and familiar all at once, with enough change to quicken my mind, enough steadiness to give sanctuary to my heart. The books on my shelf never asked to come together, and they would not trust or want to listen to one another; but each is a piece of a stained-glass whole without which I couldn’t make sense to myself, or to the world outside.”
November 8th:
If you are looking for a film version of Harrison Bergeron this one is pretty good. It’s twenty-six minutes long.
October 30th:
A “friend” of mine has been following this blog for a long time, but kept it hidden from me until recently because he hates giving me any competitive edge in being the best teacher. I’ve just scratched the surface of this blog
October 20th:
How freshmen are chosen at the various UC schools.
In particular how freshmen are chosen at UC Berkeley.
I wonder how many seniors have looked at a page like this? I wonder how many freshmen have?
: the readiness is all 
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