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"MADISON, Wis. - Over the course of 12 weeks, twice a week, the prekindergarten students learned their ABCs. Attention, breath and body, caring practice - clearly not the standard letters of the alphabet. Rather, these 4- and 5-year-olds in the Madison Metropolitan School District were part of a study assessing a new curriculum meant to promote social, emotional and academic skills, conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (CIHM) at the Waisman Center. Researchers found that kids who had participated in the curriculum earned higher marks in academic performance measures and showed greater improvements in areas that predict future success than kids who had not. The results were recently published in the journal Developmental Psychology."

"Be creative. Curious. Seek questions. Develop ideas. Play. These ideas are familiar to modern educators, as they represent a kind of polar opposite to the standardized and industrialized form learning has taken on-or is at least perceived to have taken on in the current era of accountability. It was an interesting then to see these questions lead into a broader one: Should we teach art, or teach students to think like an artist? Should we teach history, or teach students to think like an historian?"

"The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) describes close reading in light of the Common Core State Standards.  Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately.  Directing student attention on the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details.  It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. (PARCC, 2011, p.7)"

"t didn't take long for Michael Godsey, an English teacher at Morro Bay High School in California, to realize that his decision to use a public radio podcast in the classroom was a wise one. It wasn't any old podcast he was introducing to his classes. It was "Serial," the murder-mystery phenomenon produced by reporter Sarah Koenig of "This American Life," which already was transfixing a wide swath of the adult population. "Even if they weren't into it, I told them it was the most popular podcast of all time, and that was interesting," Godsey says. He needn't have worried. The podcast seized his five classrooms of 10th- and 11th-graders. "I had kids cutting other classes so they could come listen to it again," he says. "Kids who were sick, who never did their homework, were listening at home." Godsey is one of a growing number of educators who are using podcasts like "Serial" to motivate their classrooms and address education requirements set by the Common Core state standards. Improving students' listening skills is one of the essential components of the new education mandates, and using audio in the classroom can be an effective way to promote listening."

"In his new book, Raising Kids Who Read, Daniel Willingham wants to be clear: There's a big difference between teaching kids to read and teaching them to love reading. And Willingham, a parent himself, doesn't champion reading for the obvious reasons - not because research suggests that kids who read for pleasure do better in school and in life. "The standard things you'll hear about why kids should read I actually don't think are very strong arguments," he says. "Because if the goal is to become a good citizen or the goal is to make a lot of money, I can think of more direct ways to reach those goals than to read during your leisure time." Willingham wants his kids to love reading because, he says, "for me it's a family value. It's something that I love, something that I find important. I think I gain experiences I wouldn't gain any other way by virtue of being a reader. And so naturally I want my children to experience that." The professor of psychology at the University of Virginia uses his new book to map out strategies for parents and teachers hoping to kindle that same passion for reading."

" have been looking at the future of play for about 5 years and have spoken about the topic at MIT and written about it in Fast Co. Design, Parents Magazine and The Atlantic. Recently, I summed up the research into a poster for parents and teachers to help them frame the value of play in education (see below attachment). I think this excerpt from my Atlantic article said it best, "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think "with their hands" and play productively). Standardized aptitude tests will be replaced by our abilities to see (observe and imagine), sense (have empathy and intrinsic motivation), and stretch (think abstractly and systemically). We will advance our abilities to collaborate and create." The future favors the flexible. And that's another reason this poster has + signs at the top of each category - because the superpowers of play we will need for a constantly evolving world is always changing and it encourages everyone to add their own powers of play. "

"Since its introduction, Skype has gained more than a little traction in the communications space. While Google+ has added Hangouts and Facebook video chat that accomplish essentially the same thing, due to its pioneering effort, Skype has become the industry standard by being its own verb, in the same way Google has for search, and Coke has for soft drinks. It'd only be a little confusing to ask someone to "Skype," and then hope on Google+ for a Hangout. Or maybe it wouldn't. Nonetheless, Skype has a potential role in the 21st century classroom. (In fact, in August of last year we looked at 50 ways it could be used in the classroom.) To help in that regard, langwitches has created a helpful taxonomy to guide teachers on how to plan, evaluate, and execute a Skype conversation for learning. It starts off at the bottom with forced, awkward conversations, and eventually grades to the top, where authentic, free-flowing conversations occur. You can download a pdf version on her site."

" "Even young kids have gotten very adept at Minecraft, so it can be quite intimidating for teachers," said Jason Schmidt, an instructional technologist for Bennington Public Schools who will teach the four-week MinecraftEdu MOOC, in a prepared statement. "If I can help get teachers over that hump, imagine how delighted students will be to have a learning environment tailored to their interests for a change." The other, Minecraft for Educators, "is a course for teachers who are wishing to gamify their learning experiences and deliver a unique pedagogy that will engage, enthuse and keep learners coming back for more," according to information released by the company. Both MOOCs are available through the Canvas Network. Minecraft for Educators will start January 26, 2015 and run through March 9. The company has also released a Minecraft app to allow students to submit assignments to the Canvas learning management system from within the game. Using the app, students can tag what they've made in the game for their teachers to visit, upload books they've written in game directly to the speed grader or use the game's circuitry tool to complete assignments that will be automatically graded. A video demonstration of the app is available at YouTube. Other MOOCs for teachers in the suite include: Digital Literacies 1; Digital Literacies 2; Five Habits of Highly Effective Teachers; Teachers without Borders: Educating Girls; and Tinker, Make and Learn. Among the other MOOC offerings in the new suite is a course designed specifically for parents, Parenting in the Digital Age, which aims to help them address issues such as cyberbullying, digital citizenship, exposure to inappropriate content, media literacy and screentime. Taught by Andrew Swickheimer, director of technology at Noblesville Schools, the self-paced course opens September 22. "Parental involvement in K-12 education has one of the biggest impacts on a child's commitment to learning," said Jared Stein, vice pres

"As the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development points out, today's educators face a catch-22 - they must "help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets." Fortunately, teachers have a solution to this dilemma in differentiated instruction. A differentiated classroom accommodates the heterogeneity of students by tailoring instruction to each student's backgrounds, interests, skill, and readiness levels. Read on to learn more about differentiated teaching, why it works, and how to implement it in your classroom."

Online, interactive, standards-based science curriculum www.science4us.com

Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has taken steps to strictly enforce latest Radiation standards in respect of Electro Magnetic Radiations (EMR) for Mobile Towers that came into effect from 1st September 2012.

ISO is Short form of International Organization for Standard. ISO 9001:2008 require an organization to develop a quality management system that fits the product & Process requirement as well as regulatory requirement AS an ISO 9001:2008 certified company,

ISO is Short form of International Organization for Standard. ISO 9001:2008 require an organization to develop a quality management system that fits the product & Process requirement as well as regulatory requirement AS an ISO 9001:2008 certified company, iso 9000

"Nothing wrecks the experience of using a great mobile device like having poor battery life. You can have the latest, greatest iPad Air 2 or a flagship smartphone, but if your battery life struggles to keep up with your useof the device, it can quickly become frustrating and also put a dent in your productivity. iOS 8 gives us a greater ability to manage battery life on the iPad - in addition to standard best practices for improving iPad battery life (adjust brightness, keep unused services turned off etc.), we can now also see which iPad apps are using up the most battery."

"Sync Google Calendar with your iOS device CalDAV is an internet standard that's used to sync Google Calendar with your Apple iOS devices (including iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) and iCal. "

"Since creativity is individualized and it expresses itself in each person differently, it becomes difficult for educational systems entrenched in testing and standards to figure out how to unlock creativity in students. Unfortunately, there is no ideal top down solution. Creative classrooms start and end with creative teachers. Luckily, creative teachers can be cultivated. Here are three ingredients to cultivate creative teachers."

"Bloom's Taxonomy's verbs-also know as power verbs or thinking verbs-are extraordinarily powerful instructional planning tools. In fact, next to the concept of backwards-design and power standards, they are likely the most useful tool a teacher-as-learning-designer has access to. Why? They can be used for curriculum mapping, assessment design, lesson planning, personalizing and differentiating learning, and almost any other "thing" a teacher-or student-has to do."

"While more teachers are using digital games in the classroom, how they decide which games to use and why is less standardized, according to a teacher survey of 694 K-8 teachers by the Games and Learning Publishing Council called Level Up Learning: A National Survey on Teaching with Digital Games. The report finds that teachers learn about games through informal means, such as peers within the school or school district, and could benefit from more explicit training programs. By not having a more formal process, the report finds that "teachers may not be getting exposure to the broader range of pedagogical strategies, resources, and types of games that can enhance and facilitate digital game integration.""

"When presented with new material, standards, and complicated topics, we need to be focused and calm as we approach our assignments. We can use brain breaks and focused-attention practices to positively impact our emotional states and learning. They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur."