Rosie - check this out!

"The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills. These slides accompany the book, Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning by Renee Hobbs. You can offer a staff development program using the materials in the book, plus these slides, to introduce your colleagues to the power of the Code. Use the lessons below, which are complete with multimedia, readings, discussion questions, activities and hands-on production projects to help you teach about copyright and fair use."

"Coming up with the right question involves vigorously thinking through the problem, investigating it from various angles, turning closed questions into open-ended ones and prioritizing which are the most important questions to get at the heart of the matter. "We've been underestimating how well our kids can think." "We've been underestimating how well our kids can think." Rothstein said in a recent discussion on the talk show Forum. "We see consistently that there are three outcomes. One is that students are more engaged. Second, they take more ownership, which for teachers, this is a huge thing. And the third outcome is they learn more - we see better quality work.""

Response to Andrew Hacker's New York Times Op-Ed essay "Is Algebra Necessary?" Includes examples and links to CCSS

"Exceptions don't contradict what I'm trying to explain here, but rather prove the point that: A tool is just a tool! I can use a hammer to build a house and I can use the same hammer on a human skull. It's not the tool, but how you use it that matters."

"Often students are called upon to make presentations for class projects, and many are eager to break out of the mold of the standard PowerPoint and do something really special."

"Poet, playwright, and cultural critic T. S. Eliot was born 124 years ago today. In this passage from The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (public library), cited in the 1942 gem Anatomy of Inspiration, Eliot adds to previously explored theories of how creativity works by taking a curious look at how physical illness brings a near-mystical quality of poetry, driven by two key elements of creativity: the presence of an incubation period when unconscious processing of existing ideas takes place, and the removal of habitual inhibitions, or something John Keats has termed "negative capability"."

"I don't think you should ever miss this slide from Tom Barret. It is one of the best ones available online that provides awesome tips on how teachers can use iPad in their classrooms. "

" When you're trying to teach people how to do something new on their computers having screencast videos or annotated screen capture images can be invaluable to you and the people you're trying to help. Here are some free tools that you can use to create screen capture videos and images. "

"Does anyone have any suggestions for apps, uses, or creative ideas for iPad use in the Spanish classroom? I teach 7th grade Spanish and would love to begin implementing iPads into my classroom"

Online Discussions: Affordances & Constraints Integration Ideas Examples & Resources

"The goal is to move beyond superficial peer conferencing and commenting, to dig into feedback that helps the "author" grow and improve in whatever form they are using. Too often the feedback students provide is superficial, commenting on what they liked without explaining why, offering generic improvement ideas, or focusing on less important elements (i.e. spelling, punctuation, etc.). How do we help students provide each other meaningful, productive feedback? How do we help students internalize those conversations to become their own best critical friend? "

Great resource for student-owned learning

A list of brief tutorials (audio & video) on how to use, navigate and manage wikispaces wikis.

"research that suggests that when students assess their peers' work, they do score similarly to the grades professors would give (although others have found that peer grades are higher." Some of the problems w peer feedback...

"This past year has been one of my biggest learning spikes as a teacher since my first year in the classroom. I have been working with other teachers who are at all stages of their teaching careers and we have been focusing on innovative teaching practices within a school-based inquiry. I have embraced not being the expert, being uncomfortable with not knowing all the answers, and being unsure about how a strategy or a lesson will go. I have found myself increasingly trusting my learners. I am learning like crazy (just like my students) and trying not to burst with excitement! The key has been working with my amazing school staff, along with other dedicated teachers and mentors in our district and throughout the province. I have been collaborating with my colleagues, and I have been implementing new ways of teaching. We are doing wonderful things here in Delta and we need to encourage our colleagues to share their successes with others."