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"I think that "Is MY Professional Development Up-To-Date?" is the first question which you need to ask yourselves! You can ONLY give BEST and QUALITY courses when knowing about the latest knowledge in a 21st Century Education. But ===> HOW TO know this? Life Long Learning!

"The following infographic from dailygenius.com makes sense, then, in that context of being able to sketch out what might be required of a digitally-savvy and competent teacher. (You can give dailygenius a follow on twitter as well.) 7 Characteristics Of A Digitally Competent Teacher"

"Twitter is a brilliant tool to distribute information, follow ideas, and stay up to date with what's trending in whatever niche you're interested in following. In education, that could be curriculum, 21st century learning, education technology, assessment, or future learning trends like mobile learning, blended learning, and dozens of others. Twitter chats and #hashtags are exceptional ways to enable the above, allowing real-time and asynchronous discussions and other connections that can help you improve your craft as an educator."

"As a female middle school STEM teacher, leveling the playing field among my boys and my girls in both their love of science and their beliefs about their potential success as scientists has always been one of my highest priorities and one of my biggest anxiety-inducers. Now, while developing a school-wide makerspace for every preschool-through-8th-grade child in my school, I feel a great responsibility to create both a physical space and a program that is welcoming and encouraging for all students. Coming from my roots in molecular biology research and learning sciences research, I of course turned to the scientific literature as I crafted my plan (in addition to my extensive visits to existing makerspaces). Following are some of my plans followed by the research supporting each plan."

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

StoryMaker is a simple tool for creating digital stories. Using audio, pictures and text you can create storyboards, slideshows and much much more. To create your own StoryMaker file, just click on the 'Create a new StoryMaker file' button below and follow the instructions that follow. You will be asked to input some data and upload your audio file. You audio file can be anything from music to conversation and your images can be absolutely anything you want. Once you do this you are free to proceed to StoryMaker and let your imagination run wild!

"Safety note: Teachers should note that some schools may have policies against following your students on Twitter. That's okay. With tags, you don't need to follow your students and searches will only turn up tweets related to the topic you are exploring with your students. "

The following skills are assumed to help educators follow-through on their professional duties related to communicating electronically; making course documents available to students and parents; and accessing current resources.

"Often times when I talk about effective use of Google search one name always pops up in my posts this is Dr Russell, search anthropologist. I have been following his blog for sometime now and I have learned a great deal from him on how to leverage the power of Google for educational purposes. Just a couple of weeks ago, I shared here the 8 search skills Russell recommended for every 21st century student and today I am sharing this wonderful visual as a follow-up to that post. This cheat sheet features some important tips that students can use to improve their google search skills. I invite you to have a look and share with your colleagues."

"The following example is a piece of work about simplifying algebraic fractions that illustrates the value of student explanations. The task was to make a video explaining how to simplify the three fractions below, complete with full explanations. No training was given on how to do this, and no apps were recommended. This was my first attempt at asking this particular group of students to create a video. It follows that after years of simply writing down answers and them either being right or wrong, several students decided to assume that I was joking with this task and simply handed me in a copy of the answers. Job done. Or was it Wolfram Alpha's job done? Anyway, here is what a few responses to the task looked like"

"Saturday morning someone asked me why some of my tweets start with a period. I was participating in the New Teacher to Twitter (#nt2t) chat. A twitter chat is an hour long conversation on a particular topic. This means that I am replying quite a bit. When you reply to a tweet it starts the tweet with the @symbol. Twitter assumes that when you are replying that you are talking to that person and not all of your followers. A tweet that starts with the @ symbol does not go to the Twitter stream of your followers. It can still be publicly seen through the hashtag or on your profile, so it is not private, but it does not get as much exposure as a regular tweet does."

" As the first phase of bringing closure to these blog posts on literacy at the secondary level, I want to offer a tentative list of recommendations that I believe follow from all the research cited in the previous posts. I will say more about each principle in follow-up posts, as well as offering brief bibliographic and graphic-organizer resources in support of each idea. (I offer some initial thoughts on Principle #1, below)."

"If you follow my blog, you know I curate a lot of resources for teachers. This post brings together a suggested list, a curated list if you will, of 16 curation tools for teachers and students from the Shake Up Learning community. Choosing how to curate and what tools to use can be a very personal decision depending on your own needs and preferences. That's what's so great about the world wide web of tools! There is no shortage of tools. Curation is absolutely necessary in the information age! As Gayle Allen says in her book, The New Pillars of Modern Teaching, "We're assembling resources in a way that represents the ongoing story of our learning. We are the curators." Curation takes time. It can take a lot of time, and that's why I share so many curated resources on my website. Your time is valuable. Curating on your own is great. Collaboratively curating is even better. Following bloggers and feeds that deliver resources to your (virtual) door-the best!"

"I am a big fan of music in the history classroom and I have created a number of Spotify Playlists for this purpose. Often this is merely to help create a calm and purposeful working atmosphere, when a bit of Chopin or Debussy sets the tone perfectly. Occasionally it's even possible to have calming instrumental music directly related to the topic in question: for example, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, which was inspired by the composer watching British troop ships heading off to France in 1914. However, some songs are better used to stoke up some energy during lessons, whilst the very best of all are historical sources in themselves, combining musical feeling with powerful lyrical content. What follows is a list of songs I regularly use in class, organised in broadly chronological order in terms of the topics they relate to, with a brief explanation of how you could make use of them with your own students. What follows is a list of 25 principal songs, but with links to others on similar themes or by similar artists, bringing the total up to over 50. If you have any other suggestions, please contact me (@russeltarr / @activehistory on Twitter) and I'd be delighted to add them to the list (as long as it isn't "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. Which I admit is superb, but we all know this one, surely?)."

On Saturday PZ Sydney Network hosted Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church for a conversation about their new book, "The Power of Making Thinking Visible". What follows is a summary of some of the key messages from this conversation. You can watch the whole conversation above. For more learning opportunities like this visit the PZ Sydney Network or follow @pzsydnetwork on Twitter.

Geoboard app - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/geoboard-by-math-learning/id519896952?mt=8

BlastFollow enables you to follow Twitter users who share your interests en masse. This web site is a production of Triangle Information Solutions.