Especially for distance education students, making the syllabus available ahead of time will ensure that even students at remote locations can be ready for class.

It goes without saying: it is best when changes are made only after consultation with students.

Concept mapping requires thinking structurally about concepts, both object concepts and event concepts.

Textbooks, curricula, and our educational system itself are the products of a mechanistic past.  School knowledge is pre-determined by a centralized authority, and delivered in a linear format to a mass audience. The system is standardized, mass produced, scheduled, etc. In the classroom, the emphasis has been on teaching - it is expected that the learning will simply follow. The act of teaching, then, is seen as transfering information in a controlled sequence, a process that eliminates context 

If there is a metpaphor for learning in the natural environment it may be the network rather than the line: our neural networks 

Age of Networks,

I think the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is wrong.

In media studies we often look at the creation of print and digital advertisements. Traditionally, students learn many of the foundational principles for creating a layout through a lecture or text book reading, and then eventually create their own.

 I think it should look more like this…

And for the network folks, it's geek fun time to see if the wireless network has enough bandwidth for all those multiple choice "A, B, C, or D" answers zipping through the air

Fun times.

one year from now?

Seventy-nine percent of teachers surveyed by Education Week said they spent "a great deal" or "somewhat" of their time instructing students in test-taking skills, and 53 percent said they used state practice tests a great deal or somewhat

Test-Taking Strategies that Work

30% of classroom teachers in the U.S. work in grades or subjects covered by state standardized tests.

In North Carolina, a team of 800 teachers is working with state officials to create standardized exams for virtually every subject.

In North Carolina, a team of 800 teachers is working with state officials to create standardized exams for virtually every subject.

only 7 percent of educators see standardized tests as being essential.

With standardized tests, students often don’t get their results until months after they’ve taken them—which often ends up being after the school year is over, making them much less useful to the learning process.

Handouts and activities to teach everyday computer vocabulary (computer parts, toolbar, font, highlight, etc.). These are suited for low NRS levels or for students with little to no computer experience.

Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms is a god-send.

Less compelling (as a practicing teacher/librarian) is Gary Bitter and Jane Legacy's Using Technology in the Classroom

Don't be 404, know the tech slang

"Wireless in the 1950s meant a radio. It's very rare to talk about a radio now as a wireless, unless you're of a particular generation or trying to be ironic. The word has taken on a whole new significance."

"The whole phenomenon is very recent - the entire technology we're talking about is only 20 years old as far as the popular mind is concerned."

Our mission is to replace mathematical concepts that are difficult to understand with one or more simpler concepts that are easy to understand and hard to forget and to make all materials available free-of-charge to anyone who is interested in learning math.

Ice Breakers can be an effective way of starting a training session or team-building event.

So What's the "Ice"?

Team-Building Ice Breakers