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As learning moves online and educators and learners look to use and share materials, there are issues regarding copyright and educational exemptions that both groups need to consider. What is legal to use in a classroom often is not legal to make available to the wider internet, despite an educational use or context. If you want to share something you've created as an educator - you might not be able to do so legally. Creative Commons, an international movement to create licenses that allow creators to freely share their works online, is one way of lessening the confusion. MCEETYA (the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs) and Creative Commons Australia are teaming up to help educators thread their way through the maze - so they can advise learners and model best practice. In this episode, we talk with Delia Browne, National Copyright Director for MCEETYA and Jessica Coates, Project Manager, Creative Commons Clinic, Queensland University of Technology.

We live in a time of chaos, complexity and contradiction. (Sardar, 2010 [1]) Where rapid changes and transformations through technology, politics, globalisation and the climate, conspire against normality (Friedman, 2016 [2]) These times demand a fresh approach to education, one that provides learners with the thinking dispositions they need to turn challenges into opportunities, to connect their learning to their passions and emerge from their years of formal education as self-navigating life-long learners. 

If we believe that all learning is a consequence of thinking, then we should consider what types of thinking our learners are likely to benefit from at each phase of their inquiry. This is where the Understanding Map, developed by Ritchhart, Church & Morrison offers useful guidance. By contemplating the demands of each phase of our chosen inquiry model, we can plan for how we might scaffold thinking moves which will enhance our learners' learning.

"Posted by Peter Skillen on Nov 30, 2012 in The How of 21st Century Teaching, Peter Skillen writes, How CAN we help our students be the kind of thinkers we want? Several years ago, my friend and colleague, @brendasherry, wrote a thoughtful post called "What is Deep Understanding?" She asked several excellent questions: what kind of thinkers do we want our students to be? what is deep understanding? can schools really provide the learning environment to nurture and develop it? In thinking about these questions, I would like to also ask: "How can we help novice learners become more expert learners?"

Peter Skillen explores ideas about developing deep understading in students.

In an ideal world, every time your company rolls out a new application or a major upgrade on an existing application, full-time trainers would handle the duties of educating end users. In the real world, however, help desk analysts not only provide support for these applications but are often asked to train users on them as well.

In teaching it is often the little things we do on a daily basis that have the largest cumulative effect. While the events, festivals, camps and more spectacular lessons may stand out in our memories these moments have less overall impact across the time that our students spend in our company. Getting these little details right however is a complex business that demands we bring our best to every interaction, every lesson and every opportunity we have to shape the minds and dispositions of our learners. The result is that there are no easy lessons, no easy days.

At the start of each year we arrive back from our break hopefully rested and energised. The new year brings many new opportunities including new students, new team members and new teaching programmes. We begin again the climb up the hill with a fresh group of learners arriving at our doors full of excitement who will rely on us to meet their learning needs in the year ahead. All of this means we are at risk of starting the year with a certain level of panic. There is so much to do, our students are not accustomed to our routines, we don't know each other well, there are parents to meet, assessments to be done and before we know it we are back to being busy. 

Med Kharbach argues, "Our responsibility as teachers and educators is to help them [students and learners] better leverage this medium and benefit from it educationally..." (¶2). This post covers six main points:  1- Advantages of Facebook in Education 2- Facebook Tips for Teachers 3- Ways Teachers Can Use Facebook 4- Educational Facebook applications for Students and Teachers 5- Facebook Groups for Teachers and Educators to join ...[6]- Facebook Privacy Issues and how to Work on Them (¶4, retrieved 2012.06.25

"People Learn Best and Most Deeply When: They try to answer questions or solve problems they find interesting, intriguing, important, or beautiful; They can try to answer the question or solve the problems then receive feedback and try again before anyone "grades" them on their efforts; They can work collaboratively with other learners struggling with the same problems; ..." (Best Teachers Summer Institute, June 20-22, 2012; retrieved January 27, 2012).

"[I]f the learner-centered model has proven itself to be so effective, and the high-stakes testing approach of the factory model has not, why is this model still dominant in many "leading" nations around the world? Why are so many business and government leaders in nations like the United States, Japan, Britain and Korea obsessed with test scores and international rankings? Are they not aware of the social consequences of this approach?" (¶10, 2015.03.30)

"This is the first article of a four-part series on teaching the four C's effectively to English learners: Critical thinking | Communication | Collaboration | Creativity" (deck, 2015.03.16).

The top-down, authoritarian model found in most classrooms today looks very different from the model many students experience when they learn online. The classroom's hierarchical approach, with the sage on the stage, requires, (and, ultimately demands) passivity and deference on the part of the learner. Informal, interest-driven networked learning, with its access to large stores of information and variety of opinion, on the other hand, takes a much different view of authority. It's usually peer based, largely democratic, meritocratic, often creates dissonance due to variety and demands evaluation. Knowing what we do about active learning, one would seem clearly superior to the other.

A great article on if it is a good idea to befriend your learners on social networks

An example of an AUP for learners from @dajbelshaw

Standards for the 21st-Century Learner Lesson Plan Database

Angela Pascopella reported on U.S. school district and national measures "to address surging ELL enrollment-and dropout rate[s]" (deck).

I have created this search engine to see how it works and in order for me to create my learning object where you can learn how to create your own search engine which you can download from here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20796551/A-guide-for-teachers-on-how-to-create-a-customized-search-engine

I have created this search engine to see how it works and in order for me to create my learning object where you can learn how to create your own search engine which you cna download from here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20796551/A-guide-for-teachers-on-how-to-create-a-customized-search-engine

"A video instructional series on statistics for college and high school classrooms and adult learners;" Available to watch on line