Empower Your Students - This book will teach you how to allow students to show their thinking, demonstrate their learning, and share their work with authentic audiences - to use technology in meaningful ways that prepare them for the future! Start with 20 Simple Tools - This book focuses on 20 essential tools that will help teachers to easily make student thinking visible, give every student a voice and allow them to share their work. Examples You Can Use Tomorrow - With instructions for incorporating twenty of the best Google-friendly tools, including a special bonus section on Digital Portfolios

    Ironically, I must recommend that you read her every word so that you can find out why your customers won't read very many words on your website -- and what to do about it.-- Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group"There are at least twelve billion web pages out there. Twelve billion voices talking, but saying mostly nothing. If just 1% of those pages followed Ginny's practical, clear advice, the world would be a better place. Fortunately, you can follow her advice for 100% of your own site's pages, so pick up a copy of Letting Go of the Words and start communicating effectively today."--Lou Rosenfeld, co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide WebOn the web, whether on the job or at home, we usually want to grab information and use it quickly. We go to the web to get answers to questions or to complete tasks - to gather information, reading only what we need. We are all too busy to read much on the web.This book helps you write successfully for web users. It offers strategy, process, and tactics for creating or revising content for the web. It helps you plan, organize, write, design, and test web content that will make web users come back again and again to your site.Learn how to create usable and useful content for the web from the master - Ginny Redish. Ginny has taught and mentored hundreds of writers, information designers, and content owners in the principles and secrets of creating web information that is easy to scan, easy to read, and easy to use.This practical, informative book will help anyone creating web content do it better.Features* Clearly-explained guidelines with full color illustrations and examples from actual web sites throughout the book. * Written in easy-to-read style with many befores and afters.* Specific guidelines for web-based press releases, legal notices, and other documents.* Tips on making web content accessible for people with special needs.Janice (Ginny) Redish has been helping clients and colleagues communicate clearly for more than 20 years. For the past ten years, her focus has been helping people create usable and useful web sites. She is co-author of two classic books on usability: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (with Joseph Dumas), and User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (with JoAnn Hackos), and is the recipient of many awards.

    The authors--a mental health therapist and a veteran principal--provide proven, reliable strategies to help youUnderstand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom. Build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to learn at high levels. Adopt a strengths-based approach that leads you to recalibrate how you view destructive student behaviors and to perceive what students need to break negative cycles. Head off frustration and burnout with essential self-care techniques that will help you and your students flourish.Each chapter also includes questions and exercises to encourage reflection and extension of the ideas in this book. As an educator, you face the impact of trauma in the classroom every day. Let this book be your guide to seeking solutions rather than dwelling on problems, to building relationships that allow students to grow, thrive, and--most assuredly--learn at high levels.

    While there have been attempts to establish one standard or another as the default, there is no common agreement. So beware people telling you there is one right way, they are assuming too much. As a general rule though, netiquette involves the same principles as plain old etiquette -- basic courtesy, respect and ethics. Treat people the way you would want to be treated yourself. By following the principles outlined below, the recipient of your email will be more likely to read and act, if not be favorably impressed by your message:Subject line to summarise the message. Make the Subject line summarise the body of the e-mail. Ask yourself, 'will the recipient(s) know what this e-mail is about'. For example, Instead of Subject: Exam, say Subject: Location of 1508INT Exam, 23 July 2011.Don't assume the recipient knows the background. Include enough contextual information at the beginning of the e-mail for the recipient to know what the matter is about. If in doubt, put background information in. For example, don't say can I have an extension for my assignment?, instead say I refer to the CIT3622 assignment 1 that I handed in late. I was ill and have a doctor's certificate. May I ask for an extension on the basis that I was too ill to do it on time?Keep it concise. Keep messages brief and to the point, but not so brief that it causes the problem outlined in the previous point. This includes deleting any irrelevant text when an email has been back and forth several times. No-one wants to scroll down through pages of text in order to reach the message they want to read. If the sense of the email will be lost by deleting that text, however, leave it in.Reply within 24 hours. Try to reply within 24 hours, less if possible. In fact, get in the habit of replying immediately -- it is the polite thing to do, and the recipient will appreciate a prompt reply. It also makes you look efficient. The longer you leave it to reply, the more likely you will forget or have too big a log-jam of unanswered email.Allow time for a reply. E-mail messages are not usually required to be answered immediately, though it is good practice if you do. Before sending a reminder, allow some time for a response, some times even a few days. Not everyone is online 24 hours a day.Use the BCC field when sending bulk email. If you're sending email to a whole list of people, put their email addresses in the BCC field. That way, the privacy of the recipient is respected, and spammers cannot harvest the email addresses for their dastardly purposes.

    It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

    Avoid Grammatical Minefields with this Entertaining GuideConfused about when to use "its" or "it's" or the correct spelling of "principal" and "principle"? My Grammar and I...or Should That Be me? is a refresher course for anyone who has ever been stumped by spelling confusion, dangling modifiers, split infinities, or for those who have no idea what these things even are.Clever, informative, and fun, this delightful little handbook offers practical and humorous guidance on how to avoid falling into language pitfalls.* Sentence Structure: Let's ponder the subject or object: Is it "I" or is it "me"?* Parts of Speech: "whose" or "who's"? "which" or "that"?* Punctuation: So where does that comma go, anyway?* Spelling and Confusables: There are times when the spelling "rules" confuse.* Elements of Style: You'll find there's lots more to know about grammar.* ...and for grammar know-it-alls, there are entertaining "Smart Aleck" tidbits throughout.

    By following these suggestions, which are organized around four strands - meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development - teachers will be able to design and present a balanced program for their students.Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing, and its companion text, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking, are similar in format and the kinds of topics covered, but do not need to be used together. Drawing on research and theory in applied linguistics, their focus is strongly hands-on, featuringeasily applied principles,a large number of useful teaching techniques, andguidelines for testing and monitoring,All Certificate, Diploma, Masters and Doctoral courses for teachers of English as a second or foreign language include a teaching methods component. The texts are designed for and have been field tested in such programs.

    Writing is hard work and can be difficult to wedge into a frenetic academic schedule.This revised and updated edition of Paul Silvia's popular guide provides practical, light-hearted advice to help academics overcome common barriers and become productive writers. Silvia's expert tips have been updated to apply to a wide variety of disciplines, and this edition has a new chapter devoted to grant and fellowship writing.

    Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.When we dare to lead, we don't pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don't see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don't avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.But daring leadership in a culture that's defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we're choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we're scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can't do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.Brené Brown spent the past two decades researching the emotions that give meaning to our lives. Over the past seven years, she found that leaders in organisations ranging from small entrepreneurial start-ups and family-owned businesses to non-profits, civic organisations and Fortune 50 companies, are asking the same questions:How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders? And, how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?Dare to Lead answers these questions and gives us actionable strategies and real examples from her new research-based, courage-building programme.Brené writes, ‘One of the most important findings of my career is that courage can be taught, developed and measured. Courage is a collection of four skill sets supported by twenty-eight behaviours. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work. It's why we're here.’

    Troy Hicks explores the questions of how to teach digital writing by examining author's craft, demonstrating how intentional thinking about author's craft in digital texts engages students in writing that is grounded in their digital lives. Troy draws on his experience as a teacher, professor, and National Writing Project site director to show how the heart of digital composition is strong writing, whether it results in a presentation, a paper, or a video. Throughout the book, Troy offers: in-depth guidance for helping students to compose web texts (such as blogs and wikis), presentations, audio, video, and social media mentor texts that give you a snapshot into what professionals and students are doing right now to craft digital writing suggestions for using each type of digital text to address the narrative, informational, and argument text types identified in the Common Core State Standards a wealth of student-composed web texts for each digital media covered, along with links to them on the web technology tips and connections, as well as numerous tools for creating a digital writing assignment. To preview a sample of Crafting Digital Writing click here.

    Little has changed, however, since then: over half of our children still read at a basic level and few become highly proficient. Many American children and adults are not functionally literate, with serious consequences. Poor readers are more likely to drop out of the educational system and as adults are unable to fully participate in the workforce, adequately manage their own health care, or advance their children's education. In Language at the Speed of Sight, internationally renowned cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg reveals the underexplored science of reading, which spans cognitive science, neurobiology, and linguistics. As Seidenberg shows, the disconnect between science and education is a major factor in America's chronic underachievement. How we teach reading places many children at risk of failure, discriminates against poorer kids, and discourages even those who could have become more successful readers. Children aren't taught basic print skills because educators cling to the disproved theory that good readers guess the words in texts, a strategy that encourages skimming instead of close reading. Interventions for children with reading disabilities are delayed because parents are mistakenly told their kids will catch up if they work harder. Learning to read is more difficult for children who speak a minority dialect in the home, but that is not reflected in classroom practices. By building on science's insights, we can improve how our children read, and take real steps toward solving the inequality that illiteracy breeds. Both an expert look at our relationship with the written word and a rousing call to action, Language at the Speed of Sight is essential for parents, educators, policy makers, and all others who want to understand why so many fail to read, and how to change that.

    In this new book, his first update, Perret offers readers a treasure trove of guidelines and suggestions covering a broad range of comedy writing situations, along with many all-important insights into the selling of one’s work. Perret covers all aspects of comedy writing in his uniquely knowledgeable and anecdotal fashion.

    No More "I'm Done!" demonstrates how to create a more productive, engaging, and rewarding writer's workshop. Jennifer guides teachers from creating a supportive classroom environment through establishing effective routines; shows teachers how to set up a writer's workshop; and provides an entire year of developmentally appropriate mini-lessons that build confidence and, ultimately, independence.

    It shows teachers how to create an environment in which technology can effectively enhance learning. It contains a technology integration framework that builds on research and the TIP model.

    In Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice, Taking Action, K-5 , Miller defines her actions to ensure that children are the true beneficiaries of her teaching. As Peter Johnston writes, "Through this book we have Debbie's teaching mind on loan. She engages us in the details of a teaching life from inside her mind, showing the thinking behind her teaching and the consequences of her actions." Teaching with Intention brings us into classrooms of teachers and children Miller has met over the last five years in her work as a literacy consultant. From setting up the classroom environment to the intentional use of language, from comprehension instruction to lesson design, Miller is explicit about what she does and why. At the same time, she encourages teachers to develop their own belief statements concerning teaching and learning and includes key questions to guide them in this important process.In an environment where the handing down of scripted programs and "foolproof" curricula is increasingly the norm, Teaching with Intention offers a compelling reminder that truly transformative teaching is built from the ground up, and is rebuilt every year, by every teacher, in every classroom, with every new group of students.