From the Web: One Tweet CAN Change the World - The Tempered Radical

One of the things I really love about Twitter is that tweets, links and posts can get you really thinking about teaching practice. Some scoff at the idea that practice can change in 140 characters or less. Of course it can't, but 140 characters or less CAN get a reflective teacher thinking about new ways of doing things.

What can one class of students do under the guidance of an inspiring teacher? Find out here.

• One Tweet CAN Change the World - The Tempered Radical
  tags: kiva education twitter pln

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

From the Web: What's Your Learning Style?

Last week, Edutopia posted a learning styles quiz. I've always liked these kinds of quizzes because it helps me think about how I learn and can help my students think about how they learn.

When I was teaching psychology I always used a quiz similar to this when we talked about learning. Of course, the quiz was on paper and I never had students do the quiz more than once.

Now, I am thinking about using a learning styles quiz more than once in a year. Does your learning style change? Mine did. I used to be heavily linguistic, but when I took the Edutopia quiz I came out highly naturalistic. It might have to do with summer and the nice weather or it might be that my learning style preference is changing. Whatever it is, it's interesting to think about.

From the Web: Renting Textbooks

Amazon is going to be renting textbooks this coming semester. But wait, there's more! They are renting textbooks for the Kindle.

Amazon promises up to 80% savings on Kindle textbook rentals. The site also promises that your highlights and annotations will still be available after your rental expires. That part I don't really get, but that's okay.

As a relatively new Kindle owner and one who is about to embark on graduate school, I would certainly consider renting my textbooks. My main concern is that there aren't enough titles in a Kindle format to make this possible.

After a quick search in journalism, history, education and science, I finally found a textbook available for rental. Introductory Chemistry by Zumdahl has a Kindle rental price. For three months you can rent the book for $55.22. If you want to buy it, the tome will set you back $114 on a Kindle. The hardcover is $129. Of course, this particular title won't do me any good since I will work on my MA in education, not chemistry.

The rental savings are significant, but the lack of available rentals could be a problem.