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The future of continuing education is still evolving. Who knows how all the technological applications and demands on adults will change as we move further into the 21st Century. Remember where education was just 50 years ago or even 20 years ago.

The Reflective Principal: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part IV) Reflection can be a challenging endeavor. It's not something that's fostered in school - typically someone else tells you how you're doing! Principals (and instructional leaders) are often so caught up in the meeting the demands of the day, that they rarely have the luxury to muse on how things went. Self-assessment is clouded by the need to meet competing demands from multiple stakeholders. In an effort to help schools become more reflective learning environments, I've developed this "Taxonomy of Reflection" - modeled on Bloom's approach. It's posted in four installments: 1. A Taxonomy of Reflection 2. The Reflective Student 3. The Reflective Teacher 4. The Reflective Principal It's very much a work in progress, and I invite your comments and suggestions. I'm especially interested in whether you think the parallel construction to Bloom holds up through each of the three examples - student, teacher, and principal. I think we have something to learn from each perspective. 4. The Reflective Principal Each level of reflection is structured to parallel Bloom's taxonomy. (See installment 1 for more on the model) Assume that a principal (or instructional leader) looked back on an initiative (or program, decision, project, etc) they have just implemented. What sample questions might they ask themselves as they move from lower to higher order reflection? (Note: I'm not suggesting that all questions are asked after every initiative - feel free to pick a few that work for you.) Bloom's Remembering : What did I do? Principal Reflection: What role did I play in implementing this program? What role did others play? What steps did I take? Is the program now operational and being implemented? Was it completed on time? Are assessment measures in place? Bloom's Understanding: What was

Learning analytics are underused but will be one of the most important tools in our online toolbox. Once we grasp the importance of these, we will be demanding more and more intelligence on behalf of the learning analytics that we use to support elearning, apps, and all of the things our students use as part of their learning toolbox. Reports from Educause

Development of important open source middleware to allow schools and districts to meet the demands of individualized instruction. 

A show I recorded with Dawn Casey-Rowe, an overcomer who is using technology (and kickboxing too). She gives advice on transforming classrooms to demands all teachers face. She shares her thoughts about leading, learning, and embracing education technology.

We are excited to announce the release of Mindomo 5.0, a new and improved version of our flagship product. Based extensively on customer demand, Mindomo 5.0 provides exciting new features, including real-time collaboration, auto-save, versioning and many more.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers do not need less sleep than others. In fact, as they move through their teenage years, adolescents need increasing amounts of sleep - about nine hours nightly, as compared to eight hours needed by adults. Excessive sleepiness in teenagers and young adults is related to physiological changes during puberty. Yet, school starting times get earlier and earlier as students mature, despite the fact that puberty demands more sleep. This may have serious physical, mental, and social consequences for adolescents and negatively impact their academic performance.

a music site that offers a unique progressive pricing structure that lets you save money for selecting music before it gets popular.When a new song or album is added to the site it's available for free or very cheap (the site doesn't specify a maximum starting price). The price only goes up as demand for a song increases (in terms of total downloads).  The more attuned you are the cheaper your music prices will be. And even if you're late to an artist, the highest price a song can reach is 98 cents (one cent below the starting price for songs on an unnamed service run by a guy who favors mock turtlenecks). The site also rewards users for recommending new music. If you recommend a song that happens to get popular, Amie Street will credit your account as more users download the track (the amount of credit you receive increases as the song gets more popular).

Creating a lifelong learning network is essential for adults who pursue continuing education as means to advance their professional career or improve their personal life. Regardless of the reason for continuing one's education, an adult's knowledge needs to continually grow. The changing nature of today's society demands the necessity for gaining new skills, new understandings, and new intellectual orientations throughout a person's life.

"How to work with well-meaning but demanding moms and dads."

Mrs. Johnson was in great demand as a lecturer and, after John Dewey's favorable review of her school in 1915, she achieved a worldwide recognition as a leader in the Progressive Education movement.

Today's students grew up with technology and expect to use it to get information, solve problems and communicate. These are the very skills they need now and in the future. When classrooms are equipped with the right combination of technology tools, students can learn all the skills they need to prepare. This web site is your guide to digital learning, dedicated to demonstrating how the technologies available in a digital learning environment can be the catalyst for teaching and learning in an era where new skills - and the ability to change as times demand - are paramount.

We combine performance evaluation with a series mastery quizzes to lock in the essential concepts delivered by the tutorials. As an educator you'll have access to performance evaluation and mastery quiz data. You'll have an online record of each student's performance that can be downloaded for data analysis.

AWS in Education provides a set of programs that enable the worldwide academic community to easily leverage the benefits of Amazon Web Services for teaching and research. With AWS in Education, educators, academic researchers, and students can apply to obtain free usage credits to tap into the on-demand infrastructure of Amazon Web Services to teach advanced courses, tackle research endeavors and explore new projects - tasks that previously would have required expensive up-front and ongoing investments in infrastructure.

A serious look at learning spaces and how the new ways of learning demand a different perspective of learning spaces and what they look like. Very rich.

Tip from this story is that if you're getting ready to graduate and want to get a job, get a paid internship during college: ""While there have been some modest signs of improvement over the past few months, statistics show the employment situation for college graduates and other young adults remains difficult." Unemployment among youths in their early twenties has improved somewhat from a low last year, but at 14.5% remains above the average unemployment rate. While choosing an in-demand major tends to improve the odds of getting a job, the employment difficulties affect almost every field, experts said. They added that "getting an internship - particularly a paid internship" during college can be very helpful when students later begin their job search. A recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that "60% of paid interns working with for-profit companies received job offers compared with 38% of people with unpaid internships."

As more people connect via Skype, the demand for live streaming is there. I think conferences can either acknowledge this and make it possible or they will continue to see us do it ourselves, taking bandwidth. The tough thing is that sometimes licenses are tricky and presenters may not want it recorded - this information is not usually shared publicly as it should be. Great read for administrators

ALL teaching is very demanding & time consuming, but the challenges of a primary teacher and a secondary teacher very different. This tongue-in-cheek article celebrating the different cultures of primary and secondary schools, and celebrates the dif…

"Experienced teachers are aware of a repertoire of behaviour management strategies that they can draw to establish and maintain positive student behaviour. Some colleagues appear to have an aura about them that demands good behaviour, whereas others struggle the moment certain groups of students appear at the classroom door."