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This article focuses on the future of the 2007 law that created the Learning Community. Recent reports have failed to show a connection between the Open Enrollment policy and student performance on Nebraska Assessments. Another area that the policy fell short on, was achieving the blended socioeconomic of students that the lawmakers wanted to see. Decisions will be made about the future of the policy at the next legislative session and these reports could drive big changes to be made. 1. What is your personal opinion on the Open Enrollment policy? 2.What changes could be made to improve the policy? 3. What ideas to you have that could improve the socioeconomic diversity of our students in our city schools?

So glad someone posted this. Interesting.

This article is about the relevance of social media in today's classrooms. Facebook allows students to work collaboratively with teachers and peers, and encourages creativity and communication. Facebook can be used by teachers to post homework, create groups, communicate with parents, and to works with other teachers.

This is a great guide for schools and teachers thinking about using Facebook with students.

This article describes a teaching experience in which information and communication technologies were applied in five industrial engineering courses at the Universidad de Tarapaca in Chile. The paper compares the performance and course pass rates of the e-learning platform and portable pocket PC platform with those of the same courses teaching in traditional classroom methods. Two of the courses involving 62 students used an e- learning platform and its associated pedagogical model, while the other three, covering 110 students, employed a portable Pocket PC platform and a collaborative pedagogical model. The results show that there is no statistical evidence that technology rise the students marks, but did reveal significant improvements in course pass rates.

This is really interesting as there are many people who would agree that technology does not have a significant impact in improving grades.

This article explores uses for the iPad in a bridge school focusing solely on English language learners. The use of iPad was hugely successful and allowed students to communicate more effectively and efficiently in their second language. Apps that were used were dictionaries, translators, kindle books, and pages.

It's amazing how quickly the iPad is changing the landscape of the classroom!

This article discusses how mistakes are a teachable opportunity that many educators are missing. The writer hopes to change the shame and hiding that comes with mistakes and instead discuss them openly so that teachers and students can share what they learned as a result of their mistake. The article goes on to give advice to teachers to create a personal learning community where mistakes can be viewed as opportunities and nine things to change in your classroom with your students and how you address mistakes. 1.Do you believe that students should have the opportunity to fix mistakes on graded papers (for credit) so that they are learning from them? 2. The article believes that many creative, talented kids are being left out of gifted programs because they only include the students with the least mistakes on standardized tests. What do you think would be the best way to identify these students? 3. Do you believe that students learn from their mistakes currently?

Shannon Walker posted the above article. I forgot to sign it, since my username is different!

Thanks, Shannon. Love this article.

This article discusses how new trends in education have an influence on teacher dissatisfaction resulting sometimes in good teachers leaving the teaching profession. While new teaching techniques and software programs (trends in education) are listed as contributing to the problem experienced by the teacher at the focus of the article, the teacher herself could overcome these obstacles, but for her feeling unappreciated in the new teaching environment. The teacher in question has been teaching for 20+ years in an economically disadvantaged community and has recently received awards for her excellence in teaching. Discussion questions: 1. Is the desire in the educational field to embrace the latest technology and educational trends causing unnecessary stress on highly qualified and experienced teachers? 2. Is the story described in the article an anomaly or a symptom of a greater issue related to the need of administrators to meet test scores and other exterior goals for the school? 3. Given the countless lessons and student interactions represented by teachers of the length of service and caliber of the teacher in the article, should our schools make efforts to cultivate their experience into new instructional models, providing the teacher with a sense of contribution and the instructional system a grounding in historical relevance?

Perfect! Great summary and questions

Funding | News The federal government is awarding $121 million in grants with the aim of improving academic and career outcomes for those with disabilities, supporting technology, technical assistance, research and other programs with the aim of "promoting inclusion, equity and opportunity for all children and adults with disabilities to help ensure their economic self-sufficiency, independent living and full community participation."

Dear Teacher who is still not on Twitter, Maybe you didn't receive my previous mail. Just in case it didn't convince you, here are a few more examples of the benefits of Twitter... 1. Continuous learning with and from a global community of educators, via countless links to interesting posts and articles, tools and websites, conferences and workshops....

This article talks about how iPads and other tablets are a learning tool for students with disabilities, not just for novelty. Students who have trouble communicating verbally can use apps to talk to peers, teachers and parents. It allows them to be more like their peers and can spark new friendships if used in the right way. It can be used in all classes, including Math and Science, allowing students to be more independent than they have ever been.

This article sounds interesting. I wish I could have read the entire article.

This is a 2012 article from the Journal of Technology Education and was found on eric.ed.gov/. It is a peer reviewed study that was conducted for the purpose of identifying the research needs for technology in education. Their goal was to provide a concise list of topics that could be used to better oneself within the community.

This was interesting as they looked at technology research and the fact that more people are needed for this,