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Friday Links 9-13

I have missed a few weeks with a chaotic start to the year.  Today is Friday the 13th and a full moon so for all of you that are superstitious or believe the lunar cycle has significant impact on your students' behavior I wish you well as you navigate this day.  I believe that weather, light, seasons and astronomic cycles may have some impact on biologic activity, but the most important influencer of students is the teacher in the classroom.  With that out of the way here are the posts and links that caught my attention this week.  I hope some of them serve you well.

This first tweet has me reviewing some of the things I have always told teachers about their beginning of the year practices.  I have always believed that relationships are the most important part of what we do as educators, so rules without relationships is the equivalent of a dictatorship.

This tweet really got my attention.  I think this is a great idea and if you follow the thread there are many people critical of it.  Mostly because they didn't read or understand the concept.  In addition to the library, this school has established a way to reward students and promote a love of reading at the same time.  Is it a perfect idea?  No. Does it have some logistical issues to figure out if you want implement it on your own?  Absolutely, but it is a great starting point that you might be able to modify and make work in your school or district.
This next tweet is more motivational than anything.  You may be getting to the point in the year when it is easy to start to fall back into routines or old habits.  Keep taking chances and risks.  As long as the intent is to improve yourself as a teacher or improve results in your classroom go for it.  You may not succeed, but if you don't try you won't succeed either.
Moving on to blog posts, here is one for those of you teaching science.

Good Virtual Science Lab Apps for Teachers and Students

The apps we curated for you today provide students with virtual labs where they can learn more on a wide variety of scientific phenomena. Using an inquiry-based learning approach, students will get to access interactive simulations, collaborate on quizzes, explore tables of elements and solve scientific puzzles all while having fun.
We periodically read about some organization or wealthy individual infusing large sums of cash in some program or school system.  While this is great, it doesn't always have the desired effect or long term impact it should  Here is one example of that.

Mark Zuckerberg once made a $100 million investment in a major US city to help fix its schools - now the mayor says the effort 'parachuted' in and failed

In 2010, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million toward creating an education foundation in Newark, New Jersey. The goal was to help the city's struggling school system. In an interview with Business Insider, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said that the foundation did not use the money wisely.
Hopefully you found this interesting or beneficial.  Have a great weekend.


Thank you for reading The Cluttered Desk.  You can find me on Twitter @jasonbengs.  Please feel free to comment on the post and share your ideas with me.  You can also leave a response on The Cluttered Desk Flipgrid page if you would like to leave a comment on this or any other post or podcast episode by going to https://flipgrid.com/03fa4e01 If you found any value in this post, please share it with others.
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