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A young man struggles against the pressure to Twitter his life away. From: "SuperNews!" An animated sketch comedy series airing on Current TV.

Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.

Studies of state-run virtual schools show, for instance, that the courses tend to draw students at the extremes of the academic spectrum—advanced, highly motivated students looking for academic acceleration, and students who are struggling in regular classrooms

Not surprisingly, the students with the best academic records in online classes tend to be in that high-ability group, according to experts in the field. But some new research also finds that online courses are beginning to score more successes with the lowest achievers­—possibly because many are high school students who see the online courses as a last chance to earn enough credits to graduate.

So imagine a teacher who finishes grading some papers, puts the children to bed, and at 9:30 p.m. logs on to an online module to learn new practices for differentiating instruction for his or her English-language-learner students. That scene is swiftly becoming a reality, as more and more teachers tune out the distractions, turn on their PCs, and log on to Web-based training programs at times that suit their own schedules.

Morphie’s GREAT WATER RIDE Adventure Meet Morphie, a raindrop who travels, magically changes shape and form (hence his name), and shows us how many things water can do as he “rides” the water cycle. Use the story of Morphie’s adventures as: • A downloadable, read-aloud poem, to make young children aware of the wonders of water in our lives • An illustrated, interactive on-line water adventure for classroom computer use Morphie’s rhyming story is a complement to science learning, and an invitation to investigate more about the properties, uses, vocabulary and responsible care of fresh water. Ways to use Morphie’s Great Water Ride Adventure as a teaching aid: • As a whole narrative, to introduce and/or sum up water concepts presented in Grade 2 science • In parts, to illustrate the many different aspects of water in our lives and in the natural environment (through science, art, language) • On a computer for children (in the classroom, or at home to read with parents) • As a theme for related cross-curricular activities, demonstrations and extensions (see below)

Applying the conceptsHow can you visualize your presentation like a comic? No, not literally perhaps — but something like the sequential flow of a comic or rough sketches in storyboard form. You can do this on a whiteboard, but one of the best analog ways is with sticky notes (Post its) on a wall on in a notebook (a technique Bert Decker, Nancy Duarte, and others have talked about before as well).

Here is a good short video reviewing the art of the storyboard as it's used in story development and production in the motion picture industry.

Storyboards are an effective, inexpensive way to develop the story. You can "board it up" on the wall and see if it works. Because ideas can be changed easily and quickly, storyboarding works. The key is to put down in your storyboards the minimum amount of information that gives a dynamic and quick read of the content (and the emotions) of the sequence.

20 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. For his next project, he's building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together.

his page serves as a navigation tool to resources for beginning teachers and those who support them.  Note:  Some resources are drawn from other states and the learning objectives may differ from those for North Carolina; however, the intent is to provide sample frameworks for adaptation to local settings.

One Laptop per Child designer Yves Behar (watch for his TEDTalk, posting tomorrow) shares exciting news about the top-to-bottom redesign of the XO laptop. He writes: With the XO (1.0), we pushed the boundaries of what a laptop could be by lowering the cost dramatically, being green (no heavy metals, lowest energy consumption ever), and a human-driven unique design approach.