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Students are more likely to succeed in a place where they feel known and cared about I realize there are people whose impulse is to sneer when talk turns to how kids feel, and who dismiss as "soft" or "faddish" anything other than old-fashioned instruction of academic skills. But even these hard-liners, when pressed, are unable to deny the relationship between feeling and thinking, between a child's comfort level and his or her capacity to learn. Here, too, there are loads of supporting data. As one group of researchers put it, "In order to promote students' academic performance in the classroom, educators should also promote their social and emotional adjustment." And yet, broadly speaking, we don't. Teachers and schools are evaluated almost exclusively on academic achievement measures (which, to make matters worse, mostly consist of standardized test scores). If we took seriously the need for kids to feel known and cared about, our discussions about the distinguishing features of a "good school" would sound very different. Likewise, our view of discipline and classroom management would be turned inside-out, seeing as how the primary goals of most such strategies are obedience and order, often with the result that kids feel less cared about -- or even bullied -- by adults.

Unit One: "Creative What?"show This unit explores the general topics of intellectual property, creative content, and creative rights. Using the backdrop of a high school's Battle of the Bands, the unit will help students define intellectual property and creative content by relating it to a common scenario they might encounter. Students will begin to recognize and internalize the importance of respecting creative rights, conduct their own research to better understand the relevance of creative content to their lives, and help clear up confusion about the rights that apply to them and their peers. Unit Two: "By Rule of Law"show Intellectual property is a valuable commodity, and thus, those who develop creative content are protected by laws in the United States and around the world. In this unit, students explore creative content copyright and learn about the rights they have as creators and the laws that exist to protect the creative process. The unit's activities encourage students to form opinions about what's right, what's wrong, and how the laws affect them as creators, consumers, and good digital citizens. Unit Three: "Calling All Digital Citizens"show Copyright and other creative rights empower the artists, musicians, and writers who produce creative works. But how does the prevalence of online media - and its ease of access - change the conversation about those rights? With social media as the backdrop, this unit explores that very question, as the students learn more with the Digital Citizenship in Schools curriculum. Students analyze the use of creative content on social media Web sites, recognize the responsibilities involved with using these media, and form their own opinions about what makes a good digital citizen. Unit Four: "Protect Your Work, Respect Your Work"show This unit explores the theme of protecting creative content through a series of experiential activities. Students learn how to protect their own creative works and how to use o

Top Eleven Things All Teachers Must Know About Technology (or: I promised Dean Groom I wouldn't write a top ten list; so this one goes up to eleven.) The Top Eleven Things All Teachers Must Know About Technology

Looking forward to the conversation. Hope i can make it. Aaron's been doing this for awhile, look forward to hearing more about how the skill has evolved as access is increased. "Join us on Tuesday, January 17th, at 3:30pm Mountain time for a visit with Aaron Sams, a science teacher at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado, as we talk about the flipped classroom - what is it, it isn't and the many forms that it can take."

Welcome to my Google Tools for Educators site. I was recently trained at Google in Boulder and was excited about the opportunity to educate others about all the wonderful Google tools available once you set up a G-mail account. I continute to learn as muc

Lesson plans and materials to help you teach about copyright and fair use in high school, university or graduate school.

"What's a cookie? How do I protect myself on the web? And most importantly: What happens if a truck runs over my laptop? For things you've always wanted to know about the web but were afraid to ask, read on"

We founded Startl to pave the way for cool new digital media learning products to move from idea to funding and into learners' hands. 

"What Brain Imaging Shows Us About Gifted Learners"

Came across this nugget of awesome today: "To link your Google Docs to your Edmodo Library : 1. Log in to your Edmodo account. 2. Select the Library option from the top navigation panel. 3. Select the Google Docs link on the left panel. 4. Select the "Connect with Google Docs" button and you will be prompted to sign in to your Google Docs account. 5. Select the "allow access" button when prompted about Edmodo permission to access your Google Docs. All your Google Docs will then sync with your Edmodo Library. This will allow you to share documents with your Edmodo groups and students can easily turn-in assignments completed via Google Docs."

Checks how current something is based on how frequently it is liked on facebook or tweeted about on twitter and how long ago the first time the link was shared.

Great stuff coming from +George Siemens in this slide deck. Paid particular attention to slide 40 "Reed's Law." I personally  and us as a team have been looking at different change models. I had not thought about the tipping point in relation to what we're doing with edmodo and getting enough users to hit that point where the sub groups have teeth and the hill from which I've been dancing alone becomes filled with other crazy hill dancer people. :) h/t +Derek Sivers 

This is an interactive multimedia site designed to get Tween girls excited about Science and reaffirm that it's cool if you already do. I spent a little time poking around the videos and games, and they wer nice, gave an overview, seemed engaging.  What I especially liked though was the Projects page, where you're given a ton of options, including submitting your own projects. Another gem on the site is the "For Teachers and "For Parents" pages. This quote especially caught my eye. "Every girl can be a SciGirl with a groundbreaking new TV show and interactive website that will transform the way tween girls look at science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). "  Here is an additional link that takes you to the site's Educational Philosophy. http://www.pbs.org/teachers/scigirls/philosophy/

Would love to look into the possible purchase of some or all of these resources to share them with our teachers. Wondering about cost and work load that would be taken on. This could be a great resource for the developers and curriculum specialists designing ELA certification trainings and courses.  Look forward to see what if anything is possible to work out.

"Safety Feel confident that your family will have fun learning about animals and discovering new worlds in a safe and monitored online environment."

The Digital Library is a database of articles about successful VoiceThread projects. Our hope is to create a resource that offers guidance and inspiration for people undertaking new projects. Please contribute a VoiceThread to help the Digital Library gro

Guiding Principles for New Teachers 1 I recently began teaching two new "methods" classes for preservice educators after a teacher-education hiatus of about a decade. While creating my syllabi, I decided to express some of the principles that I believe

"Teach Us Something" - Microlectures There have been several recent articles written about the idea of microlectures as an alternative to traditional, longer lecture formats. Short & energetic presentation styles such as Pecha Kucha and Ignite are becomin