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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

It is finally here. Here are the details on our Flat Classroom global book club. (click the link for more) Every week for 10 weeks we will meet at an alternating time - 12 hours apart. (For the East Coast USA it is Sundays at 6 pm Eastern or Monday mornings at 6 am eastern)  Visit our Book club calendar to convert these times to your Time Zone. Subscribe to this calendar via Google calendar to keep up with events.This is Sunday evenings at 22:00GMT alternating with Monday mornings at 10:00GMT in our Blackboard Collaborate room https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0 .   The book club is free and everyone is welcome. #flatclass Book Club Meeting Times Week and Date Time Topic of Conversation Week 1: Sunday March 11 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 1 - Flattening Classrooms through Global Collaboration (p 1-17) Chapter 2 - Impact on Learning: Research in the Global Collaborative Classroom (p18-30) Week 2: Monday, March 19 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 3 - Step 1: Connection (p 31-61) Week 3: Sunday, March 25 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 4 - Step 2: Communication (p 62-96) Week 4: Monday, April 2 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 5 - Step 3: Citizenship (p 97-125) Take a break. Week 5: Sunday, April 15 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 6 - Step 4: Contribution and Collaboration (p 126-157) Week 6: Monday, April 23 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 7 - Step 5: Choice (p 158-196) Week 7: Sunday, April 29 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 8 - Step 6: Creation (p197-214) Week 8: Monday, May 7 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 9 - Step 7: Celebration (p 215-234) Week 9: Sunday, May 13 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 10 - Designing and Managing a Global Collaborative Project (p 235-267) Week 10: Monday, May 21 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 11 - Challenge-Based Professional Development (p 268-293) Chapter 12: Rock the World (p 293 - 304)  We're also inviting the educators featured in each chapter to be with us for the conversations about "th

"Back to the Drawing Board: The 5Js In the 1990s, the Austin-based educational organization, SEDL, developed a technology professional development framework called the "5Js." The five 'J's, which I will explain in further detail in this article, are: job-related just enough just in time just in case just try it."

Jure Klepic nails it in his critique of the Forbes 2013 list of Social Media influencers. If you're clueless about social media, don't make a list. Jure says "It seems that today everyone thinks they can write and preach about influence, even though they have no clue as to what influence is. In order to rank people on the ability to influence we need to understand influence, not just define it. When people just try to define influence they come away with something as useless as what is used in this post. The real definition of influence is quite simple -- influence is the power to sway. But understanding influence is far more than just knowing this definition. Understanding influence in contemporary online world means understanding contemporary notions of identity and identity construction. Identity, ideas of person and self are cultural constructs; they are ideas and values that are part of our culture. So the real question here should not be who will make the next Forbes list, but how can the author of an article about influence omit the names of so many of the brightest and best thought leaders in the field? "

Doug Johnson is a great read for his blunt, in your face honesty and his point about how technology companies are trying to differentiate is a great one. I think, however, we should extend this to schools as well. If your school is great, say why, but dissing the competition is no way to compete. If you think your school has no competition, think again. So, read this in light of the arriving and coming competition on the edulandscape and have an honest take on how you should "sell" the virtues of your school. If you can't talk about how great your school is and have to resort to how bad the other one is, prepare for a day when you'll shutter the windows and wonder how they're going to keep the bugs out of your empty building. Wake up and smell the wires burning their way into your student's computers and tablets, great teachers are just a click away and we've all got to learn how to blend and trend our courses, teaching, and to bridge our classrooms to add real value as teachers. It isn't hard as you think but if you just sit and teach like you've always taught, you're setting yourself up for some unpleasant days. You can't do everything but you can do something to improve yourself. Next practices are an important part of your best practice. Always innovate and never settle. Standards are only the beginning, you must have purpose if you're going to be a great teacher. Doug says: "But what I do know that when competitors trash each other, I tend to tune out. And I flat out hate it when I know they are lying - and I will NOT buy from a liar. A salesman recently promoted his video storage service by stating "unlike YouTube, we don't own your movies." That's just not true. (YouTube doesn't own your movies, GoogleApps doesn't own your Docs, CIPA, FERPA, etc. do not ban social media.)"

So often when we talk about schools, students, parents and teachers, we discuss things in arm-lengths type of way. We discuss how they need to have richer and more meaningful learning experiences, how we need to provide them with the opportunities to use the technological tools in authentic learning experiences. What we don't discuss is how schools need to be places of living not just of learning. They need to be places of community where children can experience life-lessons not just academic lessons. The story that follows is about one such event that took place at our school this past year.

The charts cited in this article point out that college is more important than ever, especially for women- who need a college degree to make as much as a man with just a high school diploma. For everyone, college is essential just to make "a liveable wage." read and share. Ali to your students so they can make an educated decision. And if you say your students aren't "college material" then you are saying they are destined to be poor. That is just not good enough.

JUst in my inbox - a new bookmarking site for academics. My name is Andrew Cullison. I'm an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Fredonia. I just launched a social bookmarking site for academics, and you seem like someone who might be interested in playing around with it. You can check out the site here - http://www.sympoze.com I love social bookmarking sites like Digg, but I was always disappointed with the academic content that was promoted. I thought it would be great if there were a site like Digg that only allowed academic philosophers to vote up links. That way, I would know that the philosophy content that was voted up would definitely be up my alley. So two years ago, I started that site. Just two days ago, I expanded the site to all areas of academia. We are in beta testing now, but the idea is to eventually set everything up so that grad students and professors only vote up links in their area or a variety of general interest categories. It should be a quick and easy way for academics to find out what is popular in their area with their professional peers.

Google reader - is it next?

As Google shuts down unprofitable services, this thought that they'll shut down Google Reader - my trusty and favorite RSS reader just sends chills down my spine - I use it to generate my reader lists on my blogs. I have to question that Google is not looking at the affect of what we call "penetration rate" into the services people use - if they push us to ZohoNotebook (which is what they've done) and force us to another reader, what else will we start using. Just thought Google was going in the right direction with things and now... well, they just seem to be pooping lots of parties.

This article in edutopia talks about wikis and how we use them in our classrooms. Also quoted in the article, some other good friends of mine, Stewart Mader, and Louise Maine. Of course, if I could just keep myself from using southern slang, I'd make my Mom a little happier, but it keeps on coming out! I had completely eradicated it from my speech but when I moved home, I guess I just inhaled all of this southernness and it just comes out!

Edutopia article on wikis

Love this response, bonus opportunity by Suzie Nestico. When she emailed and asked for a response and the first would get bonus - 5 replies - listen to what DID get them to respond: "I sent a message to my students via our Google Group around 8:00PM on Sunday night. This message said, "Need any more bonus? Respond to this message for two points. If you tweet it, text it, call your friends, post as you FaceBook status, and another student mentions they got word from you, you get FIVE points." Guess what? By 11:00PM on Sunday night, I gave out bonus points to over THIRTY of the ninety students. By 8:00AM today, I gave out bonus to an additional eighteen students. In just changing one thing I did, I just reached nearly half of my students. I could have said, "the first ten students to respond will get bonus," in order to foster competition. But, I tried a bit of that several weeks ago. In Heidi's words, "Competition 0, Collaboration 1." "

A quick and easy way to create a media-rich website in seconds. Just edit the text, import some images and change your colour scheme. Then just share the link. You don't even need to sign in to create a page, but these will expire in 7 days. If you want to keep and edit your page a free sign up is required. It's a great way for students to make and create online. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

The bottom line is that great teachers are some of the most dedicated and committed people you will ever meet. For them, going the extra mile is just a warm up for the marathon. Not surprisingly, great teachers are also some of the most humble people you will ever meet. They are the real difference-makers in education. Many of them do not even realize just how exceptional they really are.

Testing students over material that is NOT in the curriculum is not fair. I think that states should have a way to mark things not covered and just take the hits across the board for not having it in their curriculum instead of causing children to suffer through feeling ignorant. Common Core may be great, however, if it isn't in the curriculum it is unfair and shouldn't be done. What can we do? Do we cause children to stress out unfairly because adults can't get their act together or it takes time to change the curriculum? I don't know the answers, but the thought of a child looking at a test and knowing that some things didn't happen in the classroom and the impact of "feeling dumb" that will happen just turns my stomach, literally.  From the NEw York Times. " And they are likely to cover at least some material that has yet to make its way into the curriculum. The new tests, given to third through eighth graders, are intended to align with Common Core standards, a set of unified academic guidelines adopted by almost every state and goaded by grant money offered by the Obama administration. They set more rigorous classroom goals for American students, with a focus on critical thinking skills, abstract reasoning in math and reading comprehension."

Leo Babauta gives great advice on forming new habits. As you think about the habits that need to change in your life, read this thought provoking post. "Here's the process: Start small. What's the smallest increment you can do? Do this for at least 3 days, preferably 4-5. Get started. Starting the change each day is the most important thing. Want to run? Just get out the door. Want to meditate? Just get on the cushion. Enjoy the change. Don't look at this as a sacrifice. It's fun, it's learning, it's a challenge. Stick to the change. Notice your urge to quit. Don't act on it. Keep going. Adjust again. When the change becomes normal, make another small adjustment. This is the process of creating a new normal. It's beautiful and simple."

Miguel Guhlin is doing what many of us are doing after the last straw - Google pulling GoogleReader. He's documenting how he's going to pull his dependence upon Google. For me, my biggest decision caused by Google is that I'll be moving to Wordpress over the summer. I do think Google Sites is next although I've received several heated emails that this isn't accurate - if you look at the market share of google sites, it is far less than that of Google reader. Yes, it is something educators depend upon but you get what you pay for. I think Google would be better served to have a freemium model -- if advertising doesn't pay for it, we'll let you keep the service if you pay. I don't know how I"d move from gmail. I just don't but if I had to, I guess I could. I don't think gmail is going anywhere, but I do have my personal email boxes going into that inbox. I agree wikispaces is far superior to Google sites. It started quite a few years a go with Google Lively and it has just continued every year. Thank you Miguel for your transparency. I hope Google is listening, many of us are still HOT about Google reader going away.As great as Feedly is, it doesn't have Diigo or ifttt.com integration yet which is a problem.

I love how STEMlab teacher Kevin Jarrett shares what students are learning in his STEMlab. The lab focuses on engineering, science, technology, and math and is such a powerful learning experience. I like this format better than just "technology" lab because it integrates what you're trying to be not just a checklist of point and clicks that will be outdated. "This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft."

I tried to think of a different way of titling this post, I wasn't keen on the word 'surviving' but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that actually, you really do feel like you're surviving… Just about. I've been onto Twitter, Instagram and even scrolled through my personal Facebook a few times to discover that Teacher Training Nerves are setting in. Now, I know you've probably (definitely) heard some complete horror stories but let's begin with an open mind. Having just completed the PGCE, I totally understand why you are so nervy and that is why I've created this post… So, sit back, take a deep breath and repeat "I can do this"...

I used to be a massive advocate of using mobile phones in lessons; the ways they could be used are just endless. I had students use them to research topics; find the answers to a question we didn't know, even as voting devices. I used them just rarely enough that students didn't take it as a given and rarely tried to use their phones for uses other than I intended. I even use them to avoid printing off sheet after sheet of homework, instead having students take a picture on their phone (with the added bonus that they can't lose the sheet).