Adrienne

ASCD EDge: A Professional Networking Community … that’s already happened elsewhere

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Jan 262010
 

Welcome to ASCD EDge

Get started by creating your own free profile page. You’ll also be able to network with colleagues, share photos and videos, and send updates to and receive them from other ASCD EDge members.

What ASCD EDge Members Are Discussing

2009 annual conference annual annual conference ascd author blog blogs conference education educator advocates habitat my blog banner student chapter the tips 2009 2010

via ascdedge.ascd.org

ASCD is attempting to create an online network for educational professionals. They clearly haven’t heard the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” adage. Online networks like EDge already exist in several forms — via Twitter, Facebook, and umpteenzillion Nings. What will make EDge different, other than the ASCD brand? C’mon, ASCD… keep up with the times.

Easy Green Bean Stir-Fry

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Jan 192010
 

Okay, so I am becoming quite adept at adapting recipes. Here is my latest, adapted from this recipe which apparently was reprinted from The Compassionate Cook Cookbook. (On a semi-related note, has anyone ever seen anything on the About.com website posted since 2007? seriously, why is everything so out-of-date over there?)  The original recipe called for rice wine or sherry — I substituted lemon juice and I love it! Very refreshing and tangy. However, I overcooked the beans a bit so if you do try this, I hope your beans turn out more crisp than mine!

  • 1 pound green beans, trimmed
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1 tbsp safflower oil
  • 1/4 cup vegetable broth (I used homemade, as I had some in the fridge, but you could easily substitute with a bouillon cube following package directions, or use my new favorite, Better Than Bouillon)
  • 2 tbsp tamari
  • juice of half a lemon
  • 1 1/2 tbsp of brown rice syrup* (you could also use 1 tbsp of regular sugar)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced

Preparation:

Heat the water in a wok or a large saucepan. Carefully add the beans and steam until tender but crisp, about 8 minutes. Drain and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the broth, tamari, lemon juice, and the brown rice syrup, stirring to dissolve the syrup.

Wipe the excess water from the wok or saucepan, add the oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and stir-fry for one minute. Add the beans and sauce, and cook for two minutes, stirring often.

Serve over rice or quinoa.

Serves 3-4

*in case you are wondering why I'm using brown rice syrup instead of sugar — it is an unrefined sugar, and healthier because it means your body does not metabolize it as quickly. This means your blood sugar level does not "spike" but rather it is more gradual. Other healthy, natural, and unrefined sugars are agave nectar, jaggery, molasses (widely regarded to be "the best"), and maple syrup. You will probably want to choose which sugar you use based on the flavors of the recipe you're using it in. And adjust the amount, too — some are sweeter than others. Honey can also be in this list, although it does have the same "spiking" effect as refined sugars. I'm very sorry that I don't have references for all this information — I have read so many websites and 3 different books that I cannot remember exactly how / where I found this information, only that it was repeated so many times that I obviously remember it well enough to write it here from memory!

Disinformation about Teach for America « GFBrandenburg’s Blog

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Jan 172010
 

“Your first few years are spent learning that almost everything you thought teaching was supposed to be was completely wrong. You’re overwhelmed by classroom management and discipline struggles. You have no idea how to plan a unit or an effective lesson. You don’t recognize the importance of constant quality assessment, and you sure as hell don’t have a clue as to how to go about creating one. You don’t yet know how exactly to build relationships with kids (even though you thought you did), nor do you quite realize how critically important they are to the children who are almost completely deprived of positive relationships. You don’t realize that in addition to teaching your subject matter, you desperately need to teach your kids how to read, but you don’t have a clue how to. You can’t see through the bullshit that the administration throws at you or the petty bickering that some of your colleagues may do around you. And on the day that you think your lesson actually went okay, you don’t realize that not a single one of your students will be able to demonstrate that they learned what you thought they did the next day.
…
“These are things that teachers learn over years of experience. You don’t get them in a summer training, or even in your first year of teaching. They come slowly. …

via gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com

While some of this is true, I disagree that much of this can’t be taught. Rather, I think this anecdotal evidence should fuel the fire of creating better teacher education programs. Most teacher education programs I know of in the USA are terrible compared to their counterparts in Canada, Australia, and some European countries. No teacher should be “thrown in” to teach. They should be guided, over time. Yes, some of the lessons listed here will be clarified only with experience over time. But with better teacher ed programs, I think it is more than possible to prepare teachers for much of what GFBrandenburg lists here.

[h/t to Sylvia Martinez (http://www.twitter.com/smartinez) for this blog post]

Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show | Threat Level | Wired.com

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Jan 172010
 

We have never ever, outside of the defense industry, seen commercial industrial companies come under that level of sophisticated attack,” says Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research for McAfee. “It’s totally changing the threat model.

via wired.com

This seriously sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. This attack, and the changes that are evolving out of it, will go down in internet and social media history, not to mention communications policy and international relations textbooks!

Beet this!

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Jan 162010
 

So, I’m still on my detox diet. And struggling. But that is another story.

The story I’m here to tell you today is about my new favorite vegetable: beets!

Today, I made beets, beet greens, and quinoa. Yum!! I bought organic beets with the tops (greens) still on. I chopped off the greens, scrubbed the beets, and roasted them as per this recipe (see the very bottom of the page: ROASTED ROSEMARY BEETS). But what to do with those greens? I knew they were good for something. Sure enough, I found this recipe, but it was not vegan, and it also had refined sugar in it. (FWIW: SimplyRecipes.com is quickly becoming one of my favorite recipe sites.) I adapted this tangy and tasty vegetable side dish, and and here it is:

Beet Greens

Ingredients

  • 1/2 pound beet greens and stems
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons chopped onion
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced (less if you don’t like garlic – I love it!)
  • 3-4 tablespoons of water
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons brown rice syrup (you can use honey or regular sugar too, just reduce the amount slightly if using sugar)
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • juice of 1/2 a lemon

Method

  1. Wash the greens in a sink filled with cold water. Drain greens and wash a second time. Drain greens and cut away any heavy stems. Cut leaves into bite-sized pieces. Chop stems into 1-inch pieces and separate from greens.
  2. In a large skillet heat oil on medium heat. Add onions. Cook over medium heat 3-4 minutes, then add stems only. Cook onions and stems over medium heat another 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions soften and start to brown. Stir in garlic. Cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
  3. Add water to the hot pan, stirring to loosen any particles from bottom of pan and to mix thoroughly with onions, garlic, and stems. Stir in brown rice syrup and red pepper flakes. Bring mixture to a boil.
  4. Add the beet greens and gently toss them in the onion mixture so the they are well coated. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the greens are tender.
  5. Turn off heat and stir in lemon juice.

Serves 2.

 

Spicy Indian Green Lentils

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Jan 112010
 

I have tried to cook versions of Indian dahl on more than one occasion and they usually turn out bland and blah — clearly, I have not gotten the spice combination correct. Until now! It is, hands down, the best recipe for dahl I have had! I even think it's better than some I have eaten in restaurants, if I may say so myself.

Most of this recipe was adapted from Lisa's Kitchen, but I made some adjustments after reading a recipe on a message board, and in a cookbook, Ayurvedic Healing Cuisine. I share it here not as my own, but as something compiled and recreated. The adjusted lentil recipe is vegan and gluten-free. It also uses brown rice syrup in place of refined (simple) sugar, which is healthier and better for your metabolism because it is a complex sugar.

This recipe yields a rather spicy version. As it was cooking I was a bit worried that it would be too spicy even for me (and I am very tolerant) but once the sauce mixed into the lentils it turned out to be perfect. However, if you're not big on heat, cut back the cayenne and fresh chili pepper considerably — or serve with lots of raita or yogurt. One thing – the asafetida will really stink up your kitchen. It is strong and pungent, so turn on the fans and open the window.

Spicy Indian Green Lentils

1 cup green lentils, soaked 4 hours or overnight
2 tablespoons safflower oil

½ medium onion finely chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds (yellow or black)
2 teaspoons of cumin powder
1 ½ teaspoons of sea salt
¾ teaspoon of cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon of asafetida*
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 – 2 hot red or green chilies, depending on your tolerance (I used 1 rather large jalapeno)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup of brown rice syrup (you could use brown sugar or jaggery)
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro
1/2-1 teaspoon of yellow curry powder (curry leaves could also be used)

Put soaked lentils in a medium-sized saucepan and cover with 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are very soft and tender — roughly 20-30 minutes.

In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the mustard seeds and cook until they begin to sputter and pop. Add the cumin, salt, cayenne, asafetida and turmeric, stir and immediately add the tomatoes, chili pepper, sugar, cilantro, and curry. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has a sauce-like consistency — roughly 10 minutes.

When the lentils and peas are done, mash a portion of the legumes with the back of a spoon. Add the sauce in the frying pan to the lentils, cover and continue to cook for another 5 minutes or so.

Serve with white or brown basmati rice, and some raita or yogurt on the side.

Yields 4 servings.

*Asafetida (sometimes written asefoetida) is a very pungent powdered gum resin with an oniony- garlic flavor. You can find it in Indian or health food stores, or in the spice section of your supermarket. To substitute, you may use garlic or onion powder.

How does your Twitter Garden Grow?

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Jan 072010
 

I’ve had way too much time on my hands this holiday. Three weeks in Texas at your parents’ place will do that to you! Anyway, I spent a lot of this extra time online, which is no big surprise if you know me even a teensy bit. (For the record, I also did a lot of other offline things, like go to live music shows, organize my mother’s recipe cards, play Wii, and sit in the hottub. I’m just sayin’…) And the more time I spent on Twitter this holiday, the more I felt like things were too noisy, too unfocused, and rather ADHD-ish. It was bothering me. I gradually, here and there, began unfollowing people who were tweeting weird things like 8 Follow Fridays in a row, play-by-plays of the latest college basketball game, and judgmentalish-sounding tweets about veganism and charter schools. I became irritated by the flow of re-tweets of very simple, basic educational / pedagogical concepts, originally tweeted by some Big Name Important People in Ed Tech who just happen to have 3 jillion followers because they present regularly at the latest ISTE / EDUCAUSE / IFTA / InsertAcronymHERE Conference. It’s not the idea of a re-tweet or the pedagogical concept itself is what’s bothering me, but that 3 jillion followers get so crazy about something so simple — something that I feel really should be a given, not really re-tweetworthy. Basically, I was getting Twitteritis: my Twitterstream was inflamed, throbbing, and needed attention.

After a couple of days, I realized what I really needed to do was a complete overhaul of my Twitterstream. I was gonna need to unfollow the masses.

Credits:
The Snips of Seymour Smith by bcostin

Push by margolove

Software before Curriculum?

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Nov 282009
 

From a scholarly article I'm reading (emphasis mine):

"The software was subsequently enhanced to include an open data architecture that allows users and curriculum designers to create their own data libraries."

My question: Why is software being designed BEFORE curriculum? Why is the assumption that curriculum designers will design around the software? Am I the only one who feels that there is something wrong with this?

The article:
Edelson, D.C., Gordin, D.N., & Pea, R.D. (1999). Addressing the challenges of inquiry-based learning through technology and curriculum design. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 8(3&4), 391-450.

What’s it called when… ?

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Nov 262009
 

Thanksgiving: A time when people are meant to be grateful/thankful/feeling fortunate for all that they have in their lives. By definition, it is a time when people express gratitude.

According to my conversations with American friends and Wikipedia’s article on American Thanksgiving:

  • The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is one of the country’s time-honored traditions.
  • Many Americans also traditionally watch or play football on Thanksgiving.
  • Shopping on Black Friday is also a tradition for many Americans, who hit the shops hoping to find the best deals before Christmas.

Is it just me, or do none of these events have anything to do with being grateful and spending time with family and friends? I’m not intentionally being critical or negative about American traditions, but it seems ironic to me that the biggest American secular holiday is traditionally celebrated by doing things that have nothing to do with loved ones or gratitude.

Or is it called something else? Is this irony? paradoxical? I’m an English teacher and I’m not even sure how to categorize this…

Mind you, considering that America is founded upon principles of capitalism, independence, and — let’s face it — consumerism, perhaps these events (all corporate-sponsored, to be sure) are especially appropriate for Thanksgiving.

 

 

(… has anyone ever asked the American Indians what they are thankful for? do they even celebrate Thanksgiving?)

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