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One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from? With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward. Beginning with Charles Darwin's first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines. Most exhilarating is Johnson's conclusion that with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow's great ideas.

Fantastic short video about where ideas come from which touches on what the creative thought process might look like. 

"Shaun Tan's picture books have won numerous awards and been adapted to theater and animated film. His stunning wordless graphic novel The Arrival depicts the immigrant experience with unforgettable emotional impact. Get to know this illustrator from Perth, Australia by watching our November 2007 video interview. Learn how he got his start as a children's book illustrator, how he developed his ideas for The Arrival, and what inspired his vision for the book. Tan also describes the meaning behind a few key drawings in The Arrival, and offers advice for young artists."

Some activity ideas for Shaun Tan the arrival as well as other picture story books. 

Some great ideas here for getting students to estimate. This person does it daily. These could come in handy for the 5 min warm up. 

"n the Australian Curriculum, students develop ICT capability as they learn to use ICT effectively and appropriately to access, create and communicate information and ideas, solve problems and work collaboratively in all learning areas at school, and in their lives beyond school. The capability involves students in learning to make the most of the digital technologies available to them, adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment. The Melbourne Declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008) recognises that in a digital age, and with rapid and continuing changes in the ways that people share, use, develop and communicate with ICT, young people need to be highly skilled in its use. To participate in a knowledge-based economy and to be empowered within a technologically sophisticated society now and into the future, students need the knowledge, skills and confidence to make ICT work for them at school, at home, at work and in their communities. Information and communication technologies are fast and automated, interactive and multimodal, and they support the rapid communication and representation of knowledge to many audiences and its adaptation in different contexts. They transform the ways that students think and learn and give them greater control over how, where and when they learn."

A great collection of resources, ideas and examples of schools who have transformed the way they do things through ICT. 

I consciously overplan the first few days. The worst possible first-day scenario is to arrive unprepared. Over the years, I've collected a number of first-day activity ideas - far too many to use. I've pared down the activities based on the following considerations: My first goal is to build classroom community, making all students feel comfortable and successful. My second goal is to establish routine. My third goal is to formatively assess students' current levels in all subject areas. It's never too early to begin thinking about parent night. I choose activities that accomplish at least two of the goals stated above.

Some Good ideas for getting parents involved with the class blog

Some great information and teaching ideas for the collaborative work by Shaun Tan and John Marsden

Using Shaun Tan's book the Arrival in the classroom. Free lesson plans and ideas to incorporate Shaun Tan's book "the Arrival" into your classroom.

For some students the hardest part of starting a creative writing assignment is generating an idea to write about. Here are seven good sources of writing prompts that you can share with your students.

For some students the hardest part of starting a creative writing assignment is generating an idea to write about. Here are seven good sources of writing prompts that you can share with your students.

Over the last month I've shown the picture that you see to the left during a number of presentations and workshops. I've used the picture to model using pictures to spark students' minds at the beginning of lessons on search strategies. This is a strategy that I've developed by borrowing ideas from Daniel Russell's Search ReSearch activities and Dan Meyer's strategy of using videos and pictures to prompt students to ask math questions.

Amazing blog re all things ipad could be a good place for resources, links and ideas. NewZealand based educator.

"Real World Math is a collection of free math activities for Google Earth designed for students and educators. Mathematics is much more than a set  of problems in a textbook.  In the virtual world of Google Earth, concepts and challenges can be presented in a meaningful way that portray the usefulness of the ideas."

A great info graphic with some interesting ideas on how to promote your blog.

Some great ideas here for integrating ICT to facilitate better writing and formative assessment. Any experienced English teacher knows the drill: on the dreaded due date, students bring printed copies of their essays to class, where we collect them, take them home, jot inscrutable comments in the margins, bring them back to class, return them, and then watch students promptly toss them in the recycling bin on the way out of the room. The whole cycle borders on farce. Students pretend to spend many hours writing their papers, teachers pretend to spend many hours grading them, and we all pretend like repeating this process over and over again leads to something we in education like to call "student growth."

Edublogs is built on WordPress - which was once just for blogs. But now, WordPress is used for way more than blogs and powers around 20% of the entire web! It never stops amazing us when we see all of the different ways that educators are using Edublogs and we don't get to share them all often enough. So, here's a rundown of ten of the most common, along with some examples for inspiration and ideas!

There are 20 different 'Thinking Keys' each designed to unlock different parts of the thinking process.The use of the keys helps to develop flexible problem solving and thinking habits. The thinking keys provide a flexible and dynamic way to engage students in further learning. They are a great way to do informal assessment during the unit for measuring student understanding. The students really enjoy the range of activities that the keys enable them to choose from and subsequently produce interesting and thoughtful work.