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"Fourth and fifth grade students at Independence Elementary School in Yukon Public Schools are sharing their learning as well as excitement for library books this year in a unique, highly digital way that is not only fun, but also meets Oklahoma's new Common Core State Standards for literacy. Students are recording short, oral book reviews and posting them online using the free iPad app and webservice AudioBoo. Then students are using QR codes in the library to access and listen to each other's book reports."

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"In children's books, it can be easier to find talking pandas than characters of color. Only six percent of children's books published in 2012 featured diverse characters. Last Saturday, the first ever BookCon in New York city came under severe scrutiny for featuring all-white speakers (and one Grumpy Cat). NPR's Bilal Qureshi reported on the controversy and the resulting hashtag campaign, #WeNeedDiverseBooks. We asked around the NPR headquarters, checked out our library and compiled a list of books with authors hailing from around the world, including Korea, India and the South Dakota Sioux reservation. These books tackle themes like international adoption, bi-racial families and cultural history, to name a few. Not all of the authors are minorities, but every book features a protagonist of color that children can point to and say, "That's me!""

"We all want our kids to emulate qualities of bravery, strength, and intellect. Modeling these characteristics for our kids is ideal but books can also help to solidify the lessons we want our kids to learn. In fact, according to the 6th Edition Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report, families seek out books featuring characters who display these traits. "Characters who are 'smart, brave or strong' or 'face a challenge and overcome it' are the most popular among kids and parents," according to the report.  Here are nine books featuring characters who show strength, exhibit bravery, or are incredibly smart."

"n January I was one of the Apple Distinguished Educators who got to talk at the Apple Leadership Summit. Below you can see my presentation. For more information check http://ipadders.eu/22-ipad-alternatives-to-the-book-report/ "

For schools in Australia and many parts of the world, we are heading towards the end of another school term and year. That means report writing season. For the next few weeks, teachers across the country will be huddled in front of computer screens, writing reflections on the progress their learners have made. Mark books will be opened, assessments consulted, work samples will be reviewed. All so that in the first week of the long Summer vacation students can sit and read their report and make plans for how they will enhance their learning in the coming year.

"Cue the hand-wringing about digital distraction: Fewer children are reading books frequently for fun, according to a new report released Thursday by Scholastic, the children's book publisher. In a 2014 survey of just over 1,000 children ages 6 to 17, only 31 percent said they read a book for fun almost daily, down from 37 percent four years ago. There were some consistent patterns among the heavier readers: For the younger children - ages 6 to 11 - being read aloud to regularly and having restricted online time were correlated with frequent reading; for the older children - ages 12 to 17 - one of the largest predictors was whether they had time to read on their own during the school day."

Provides information and resources for creating book trailers (a digital book report). 

"Did you know that when reading, one's mind will wander 20 to 40 percent of the time while perusing a text, regardless of whether it is a book, blog, email, narrative, essay, or anything else? This is one of many fascinating findings reported in Dan Goleman's new book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence and it calls us to remember that students can't learn what they are not paying attention to. "

"Four years ago, I realized that I needed to take responsibility for the damage I had done to students who came into my room loving (or at least liking) school and left diminished in some ways. Those kids who loved math until my long-winded lectures about process left them confused and bitter. Those kids that loved to read until my strict book report guidelines and reading logs devoured their curiosity for great stories. I had to take responsibility for what I had done. There was no one else to blame. Just as important, I had to make sure that my future students would leave our classroom still loving school, with passionate curiosity, not afraid to try something new. How do we make children hate school so much? I now teach 5th grade, and by the time they reach me, certain subjects have already landed on their top 10 list of most dreadful things to do. Math tends to top the chart, but social studies usually is close behind, and some even hate reading (but may read many books outside of school). Most students confess a love of recess, art, music, and sometimes even science. PE is always a crowd favorite as well. But math and social studies, yikes. "

"In his new book To Sell is Human, author Daniel Pink reports that education is one of the fastest growing job categories in the country. And with this growth comes the opportunity to change the way educators envision their roles and their classrooms. Guided by findings in educational research and neuroscience, the emphasis on cognitive skills like computation and memorization is evolving to include less tangible, non-cognitive skills, like collaboration and improvisation"

"A quick count showed that over 15% of the politicians actually had iPads and nearly 70% iphones, many of which were being used to text or twitter during this time. This makes an interesting model for our students. There are many teleprompter apps available for the iPad and there are many instances where these would be beneficial for yourself, your students or your colleagues. class presentations or speeches book reports prepared monologues scripts for student videos teacher notes school assemblies staff meetings. Here are a list of 10 Teleprompter apps we have found useful. "

"Augmented reality is fun, but what makes it better than computer programs, online learning or even book reports and flashcards? To find out, we spoke to teacher-turned-techie Drew Minock, co-founder of the educational blog TwoGuysAndSomeiPads.com and a "4D Education Evangelist" for the augmented reality company Daqri. Here are his thoughts on how augmented reality can have an impact on education: "

"In his new book To Sell is Human, author Daniel Pink reports that education is one of the fastest growing job categories in the country. And with this growth comes the opportunity to change the way educators envision their roles and their classrooms. Guided by findings in educational research and neuroscience, the emphasis on cognitive skills like computation and memorization is evolving to include less tangible, non-cognitive skills, like collaboration and improvisation. Jobs in education, Pink said in a recent interview, are all about moving other people, changing their behavior, like getting kids to pay attention in class; getting teens to understand they need to look at their future and to therefore study harder. At the center of all this persuasion is selling: educators are sellers of ideas."