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A. Kohn: "it's not really possible to motivate anyone, except perhaps yourself. If you have enough power, sure, you can make people, including students, do things. That's what rewards (e.g., grades) and punishments (e.g., grades) are for. But you can't make them do those things well....The more you rely on coercion and extrinsic inducements, as a matter of fact, the less interest students are likely to have in whatever they were induced to do. "What a teacher can do - all a teacher can do - is work with students to create a classroom culture, a climate, a curriculum that will nourish and sustain the fundamental inclinations that everyone starts out with: to make sense of oneself and the world, to become increasingly competent at tasks that are regarded as consequential, to connect with (and express oneself to) other people. Motivation - at least intrinsic motivation -- is something to be supported, or if necessary revived. It's not something we can instill in students by acting on them in a certain way. You can tap their motivation, in other words, but you can't 'motivate them.'" Another take on the idea of motivation -- it's easier to kill than to foster. Kohn gives some good advice on how to create NON-readers, and then some ways to get around the traditional approaches to teaching and learning that dominate the field of education.

This page includes both old and new versions of Bloom, and offers a small selection of appropriate verbs to use while setting objectives. Very useful while creating lesson plans and developing curriculum. The cognitive emphasis in Bloom's taxonomy is heartening, but beware of using the pyramid in an overly rigid way. It's all too easy to get stuck on the lower levels of "knowing": remembering or factual information, while never quite getting to the higher levels of creativity. Is Bloom appropriate for language acquisition?

"For decades, education reform has been focused on curriculum, assessment, instruction, and more recently standards, and data, with these efforts only bleeding over into how students think briefly, and by chance. This means that the focus of finite teacher and school resources are not on promoting thinking and understanding, but rather what kinds of things students are going to be thinking about and how they'll prove they understand them." The cognitive emphasis in Bloom's taxonomy is heartening, but beware of using the spiral in an overly rigid way. It's all too easy to get stuck on the lower levels of "knowing": remembering or factual information, while never quite getting to the higher levels of creativity.

These apps help transform the process of sharing and demonstrating knowledge. R. Byrne: "Digital storytelling is a powerful tool in the classroom. It is engaging for students and teachers of all grade levels and can be used across the curriculum. Most of all, digital storytelling gives students a voice and a way of communicating information in an authentic manner. One of the great things about digital stories is that there are no "cookie cutter" answers."

"Get started by clicking on your desired subject area and grade level. Continue by choosing from the list of standards presented. Once you've zeroed in on the standard you want to meet, toggle the arrow to display all the apps, games, and websites that best support that standard. " The site promised to give the best digital products for your curriculum and their relationship to the Common Core.

"Reading Bear is a free service that offers narrated lessons on recognizing and pronouncing letters and words. There are also some lessons on prefixes and suffixes. Students can control the pace of each lesson to match their needs. "After each lesson on Reading Bear students can take quizzes to test their skills. The quizzes present a picture and a set of words. Students have to match the correct word to the picture that they see. Through the narrator, students receive instant feedback on each question in the quiz." I am not convinced that these topics are a good idea for K-3, but if this is in your curriculum, this site might be a good option.

Nice short article on how one teacher integrates Google tools into the curriculum.

"The purpose of this site is to take an extensive list of websites that are considered high quality, reliable, and valuable and organize them in a way that even "non-techy" teachers can utilize them. It took around 10 years to collect these resources, but new ones are found every day. All of these websites have been recommended by other teachers and educational organizations and qualify as "the best". You'll find support for all core curriculum areas. In addition, you will find lesson plans, multimedia, and primary sources to enhance your students' learning environment." by Nadine Norris, a tech specialist for elementary schools near Chicago, IL. Has a wide variety of explanatory pages: tools to use with core content areas, project-based units, rethinking Powerpoint and classroom presentations, a blog highlighting social media, and advice about using digital literacy skills and research skills on the Internet.

"Make your own WebQuest or Adapt a WebQuest with our "Short-cut WebQuest Authoring Tool" Lots of teachers would like to have specific resources for their curriculum requirements that would encourage higher order thinking in their students - WebQuests fit the bill perfectly. However, do most teachers have the time or skills to create a WebQuest using Website creation programmes like FrontPage or Dreamweaver or to work with HTML? Or to then have it uploaded and hosted with easy access for changes? The answer is that they don't have to! WebQuest Direct has created a simple to use Authoring Tool or template/proforma that allows you to create your own WebQuest or adapt an existing WebQuest to suit the needs of your students. You will only need to know how to type or copy and paste - it is that simple! You can readily come into the authoring tool make changes and press save! Your WebQuest will then be ready for your class to use!"

This is a great collection of videos made by students about real world problems. Includes curriculum kits to help other schools start similar projects.

"Safely connect, collaborate and learn using our leading protected email and blog solutions for schools and districts" Not just epals, but also project-based, collaborative learning with a variety of curriculum content.

"Resource Repository www.CALL4ALL.us is here to help you communicate more effectively between any two languages or cultures in the world. CALL and computer-mediated communication curriculum exchange page CALL4ALL Language Products Page - effective software for Language Learning CALL-IS Software Summary Best Online Collaboration Tools: MindMap by Robin Good A-Z Directory of ~3,000 Online Learning Tools!" Quite an interesting compendium, but without much organization except the alpha-sort.

A crazy huge collection of free curriculum resources, well sorted by age, theme, subject, et al., and with a search engine. These would be great for lessons in geography, history, social studies, ecology, intercultural understanding, etc. Many of the resources are activities, such as "Be an African Family" where you decide how to make the most of the rural village where you live.

An excellent video of the teacher and students using the lesson plan, this lesson from the Teaching Channel walks you through preparation for a writing assignment. It was developed through an EQuIP Peer Review Panel to ensure alignment with the Common Core standards, and was created by teachers and administrators working with the Massachusetts Dept of Elementary and Secondary Ed Model Curriculum Project. It uses a "Smart Chart" to deepen student understanding of rhetorical devices and has students collaborate in a ranking activity. Has links to a place where you can submit your own lessons for a free EQuIP panel review, and links to other related lesson plans.

"With Prowise Presenter you create lessons or presentations easily, quickly and interactively. This smart education software is 100% free for everyone. Presenter is bursting with educational content and interactive options for teachers (instruction), groups (collaborative learning) and students (tasks and assignments). For both primary and secondary education. Consider, for example: images, videos, tools, Touch Table tools and 3D models, but also ready-made curriculum strands, quizzes and mind maps." Free tool.

"Wikis are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They're often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction. Read on to see how you can put wikis to work in your classroom." Suggestions include Resource Creation, e.g., for presentations, math problems, glossary, study guides; Student Participation, e.g., for exam review, portfolios, peer editing; Group Projects, e.g., organizing ideas, tracking progjects, showing participation; Student Interaction, e.g., for collecting data, discussion of a book, creating and authoring a group story; for the Classroom, e.g., creating a FAQ, a calendar, sharing class news; Community, e.g., writing a local history or nature guide, a place for parents to see their children's work; and generally as a hub or Website, or to track progress.

"Listening Lessons Activities include multimedia, free MP3 files, vocab tasks, language notes, print page and more." English Listening Lesson Library Online with over 1,000 lessons, designated by level, and ordered by difficulty. Topics include news and scenarios, interviews, etc. K-12 Online Curriculum link.

Another school/pedagogy oriented site for video resources. Ideas for curriculum, advice, guides, videos of and by students as well as education professionals and parents. T/H R. Byrne

"Engrade unifies all of the people, tools, data, and curriculum in your schools on one user-friendly platform. " And it's free. Includes gradebook, attendance/seating chart, admin reports, access by smartphone, messaging to parents, and security.

Uses a course wiki for planning lessons and presentations. Student-teachers post a version of their lessons and then discuss in workshop, later using the wiki "comment" function. Students then revise their lessons and resubmit for evaluation by the instructor.