"We need teachers that are performance-driven."

we were looking for the teacher that transcended the bureaucracy that often plagues the public school system, the myriad forms of student malaise, and really got into the faces of students intellectually.

teachers that thrived on chaos, that were reflective in times of high levels of uncertainty, and that were always, regardless of popular opinion, willing to reinvent themselves for the sake of learning.

there seems to be something in the way, preventing us from what we want to do right now. 

That tile is how we assess the quality of education for the sake of accountability — namely the high-stakes government issued tests.

eportfolio platform. 

"With Web 2.0, there's a strong impetus to make connections," says University of Minnesota researcher Christine Greenhow, who studies how people learn and teach with social networking. "It's not just creating content. It's creating content to share."

And once they share their creations, kids can access one of the richest parts of this learning cycle: the exchange that follows. "While the ability to publish and to share is powerful in and of itself, most of the learning occurs in the connections and conversation that occur after we publish," argues education blogger Will Richardson (a member of The George Lucas Educational Foundation's National Advisory Council).

In this online exchange, students can learn from their peers and simultaneously practice important soft skills -- namely, how to accept feedback and to usefully critique others" work.

Researchers and policy wonks need to end the bickering and listen carefully to these young professionals eager to make change. If we don’t listen, many of them will leave teaching for other careers where they will have greater potential to grow, contribute, collaborate, and lead.

They are all e-learning 2.0 websites,which means they are open(unlike closed,transaction based systems),community fueled(unlike tutor sourced) and employ Web 2.0 technologies to execute their mission(and that’s actually a special and unique thing about this list).

We talk about what teaching and learning ought to look like, without ever really being clear about what we want an education to do. Pictures have different purposes. Their intent may be to record an event, evoke an emotion, preserve a memory, provide documentation, honor an individual, or just please the eye. A great work of art might do all of those things, but it is unrealistic to expect all art to accomplish all of them. Knowing more about the subject of the work, the mind of the artists, the goals of the person who commissioned the work, and cultural setting in which the work was produced my help us understand more about how to view a work of art. So what exactly is it that we are looking for in public education? Do we value symmetry over emphasis? Are we looking for accuracy or imagination? Should education inspire or indoctrinate? Do we want an education that gives us answers or asks us questions? There are a lot of people critiquing the “art” of educating our children. Is the picture of public education all wrong? Or is it that we don’t always know how to look, or where to stand, or what to look for once we’ve got to where we need to be? I don’t know the answers, but it seems to me that the questions are worth asking.

HOW TO CREATE A ONE-MINUTE LECTURE Professors spend a lot of time crafting hourlong lectures. The prospect of boiling them down to 60 seconds — or even five minutes — may seem daunting. David Penrose, a course designer for SunGard Higher Education who developed San Juan College's microlectures, suggests that it can be done in five steps: 1. List the key concepts you are trying to convey in the 60-minute lecture. That series of phrases will form the core of your microlecture. 2. Write a 15 to 30-second introduction and conclusion. They will provide context for your key concepts. 3. Record these three elements using a microphone and Web camera. (The college information-technology department can provide advice and facilities.) If you want to produce an audio-only lecture, no Webcam is necessary. The finished product should be 60 seconds to three minutes long. 4. Design an assignment to follow the lecture that will direct students to readings or activities that allow them to explore the key concepts. Combined with a written assignment, that should allow students to learn the material. 5. Upload the video and assignment to your course-management software.   http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Volume 55, Issue 26, Page A13