Curriculum 21

"Personalised learning means different things to different people. A lot of the debate focuses on who personalises the learning; the teacher for the learner, or the learner for themselves. Despite this polarisation, there would appear to be some agreement on what characteristics the 'learner' might have. "

Based on the ELA Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Grades 9-12, This response video combined with the original "An Open Letter to Educators" exemplifies the intent of these two standards: --Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and collaborate on a shared writing product, incorporating diverse and sometimes conflicting feedback. --Demonstrate command of technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update work in response to ongoing feedback, including fresh arguments or new information. This video exemplifies the intent of these two standards.

"If the message in this video resonates with you feel free to send it to any teachers, principals, professors, university presidents, boards of regents, boards of education, etc. you think should see it."

FORA.tv - Presentation The necessity and urgency for replanting and infusing creativity in our classrooms Latest Book: The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

"Pupils given a greater degree of freedom to surf the internet at school are less vulnerable to online dangers in the long-term, inspectors say. "Managed" online systems were more successful than "locked" ones at safeguarding pupils' safety, they said. "

"This wiki was created to easily help educators find other educators on Twitter that have the same interests as them (that teach in the same content area). Check out the list of educators on the pages linked below and add your Twitter name to the appropriate list too. "

An Open Letter to Educators by Dan Brown from YouTube posted on Curriculum21.ning.com

Mimi Ausland, a 12 year old girl from Bend, Oregon, wanted to help feed the hungry animals at her local animal shelter. "There are 10's of thousands of dogs and cats in animal shelters across the country, all needing to be fed a good meal." Say hello to freekibble.com and freekibblekat.com! Freekibble.com's primary mission is to provide good, healthy food to dogs and cats to those shelters who are working so hard to see that none of them go hungry - they need our help. In addition to providing free kibble to the Humane Society of Central Oregon, we've added 13 new shelters to the program (from Oregon to Florida!) and plan to expand the program to many more! Thanks to everyone for supporting freekibble by playing the trivia game - every piece of kibble counts!

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale. Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved. The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day.

These standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards are: * Aligned with college and work expectations; * Clear, understandable and consistent; * Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills; * Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards; * Informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and * Evidence-based.

Through Race to the Top, we are asking States to advance reforms around four specific areas: * Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy; * Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction; * Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and * Turning around our lowest-achieving schools. Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform. Race to the Top winners will help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow as they too are hard at work on reforms that can transform our schools for decades to come.

Over 100 speeches by Barack Obama. Constantly updated. Complete and full text of each speech.

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Look up words' synonyms in mind map visual representation.

Conduct poll "live" in real time using SMS text messages, twitter, or the Web and see the results instantly embedded in a PowerPoint.

Upgrading Assessments ... A group of teachers decided to upgrade/replace a final exam to embrace 21st century skills and Web 2.0 tools.

Visual Wonder Wheels (also a google app) that allow students to visually explore connectivity of topics, themes and eventually drills down to Web site for desired visual image.

This Week in Rap Current Events in Hip-Hop ... Great for all disciplines and when creating rap involves Marzano's vocabulary building/learning strategies.

David Nigadula's company Richer Picture ... Sample portfolios of students' personally selected work. Rhode Island gradulation requirement is to have K-12 personal portfolio.

why" "knowing The cultural knowings framework consists of four interconnected learning interactions: Knowing About - the acquisition through research and study of cultural facts, data, and knowledge about products, practices, and perspectives. Knowing How - the acquisition of cultural practices (behaviors, actions, skills, saying, touching, looking, standing, or other forms of "doing"). Knowing Why - the development of an understanding of fundamental cultural perspectives (perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes that underlie or permeate all aspects of culture). Knowing Oneself - the strengthening of individual identity, knowing who we are as individuals and as members of a society and cultural grouping (self-awareness and self-actualization).