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PROS: An important book that questions an authoritarian school culture. The book grapples with both the philosophical and the pragmatic aspects of school culture. A resonatory self-examination of teacher identity and a significant contribution to the debate about how schools and classrooms are run. A survey of a wide range of related research that challenges the status quo on the effectiveness of punishment and authoritarianism as approaches to behaviour management."

"During one of the standard visits to see family and friends recently, I came across a childhood game that had captured the imaginations of many a youngster in my generation…Scalextrics! A friend of mine had bought the classic car racing game for his five-year old son and I could not turn down the opportunity of a race…with the reasoning of showing my 11-month old daughter how it works ***cough, cough***."

"The discussion begun which participants talking about what they viewed as disruption. Most people agreed that swinging on chairs, being late and calling out were disruptive to learning (although many felt that the root causes needed to be identified and addressed), but there was genuine disagreement about pupil interaction and banter with some UKEdChatters saying this was an inappropriate distraction, while others said they enjoyed and welcome this, at least to a point."

n practical terms, any change effort that does not consider the culture into which it is introduced is unlikely to succeed. The worst-case scenario is that the change effort is resisted to such a degree that it is never truly implemented. In many cases, however, the change effort fails to produce the sort of results initially imagined despite the efforts of all involved to adopt the change. Although the new behaviours are adopted, something goes wrong, and it isn't always that the new idea itself is to be blamed. - Maybe it's culture?

In 2011 footballer Xabi Alonso gave an interview to the Guardian on his experiences as a young player moving from Spain to Liverpool.  He describes the most significant difference here. I don't think tackling is a quality," he says. "It is a recurso, something you have to resort to, not a characteristic of your game. At Liverpool I used to read the matchday programme and you'd read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They'd ask: age, heroes, strong points, etc. He'd reply: 'Shooting and tackling'. I can't get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play...

25 great ideas for getting loud classes to quiet down.

"Classroom management is a whole process. Being a teacher, you have to keep an eye on a number of factors to make your class organized, disciplined and managed. You have to deal with noisy students, disruptive students and late students."

This is a great simple Apple device app to help you reach an appropriate level of volume in your classroom. Watch the gauge rise and the background change as the volume increases. You can adjust the sensitivity for the situation/activity. The app is supported by ads, but these only appear as you start the app. Download the app at https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/too-noisy/id499844023 http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+%26+Rewards

A simple flash-basic set of traffic lights for managing the volume in your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular

Hi Martin, I was wondering how these traffic lights work? I understand the concept but how do I use them in my classroom? I looked at the link you posted and I see the stop light but after that, I became confused:( Thanks! Connie Warner

A collection of great looking printable reward certificates for both general use and subjects. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+%26+Rewards

A traffic light flash resource I made myself to control the volume the children in your class... hopefully! If you click on the link it will opening in your browser. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+&+Rewards

"if you do not aggressively deal with cheating your students will lose respect for you and what you are teaching.  Cheating will happen, and you must be prepared to deal with it. Worse yet, though, is that when a teacher sees a student cheat, it often forever taints his impression of the child. Before talking about how to deal with cheating, it might be useful to put it in a reasonable context."

Swift and draconian teaches one thing: don't get caught. They know they're not supposed to cheat and, largely, why. Although I will agree with the point regarding a lack of intrinsic value in rules for teenagers. However, there is no reason we can't try to begin developing a sense of genuine effort for ones own gain. Authentic assessment is a much more productive approach to reducing cheating behaviors. Good scaffolding and levels of feedback on research projects discourage academic dishonesty simply due to the attention the work receives. Kids cheat because they think they can get away with it. Why? Because objective assessments make it easy? Because teachers don't pay enough attention to the work? If we, as professionals, model a means of making work easier for us, how can we blame the kids for following our lead?

Keep your class motivated with this is behaviour management tool where teachers can award virtual badges for anything. Choose from a large collection of badge designs. The children can see their progress with their own personal login. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+%26+Rewards

ClassBadges is a free, online tool where teachers can award badges for student accomplishments. Through your teacher account, you can award badges customized for your classroom or school.

"Schools face the prospect of widespread strike action after ministers announced a fundamental overhaul of teachers' pay that will scrap automatic rises for tens of thousands of staff."

The January issue of the ICTmagic Show online magazine is out, full of my favourite recent finds and how you can use them in your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/%2AICTmagic+Show

"Parents who restrict their children's use of new media technologies may be acting counterproductively in the long run, particularly if they invoke afterschool homework time as the reason. Their children's scholastic achievements at college lag behind the academic performance of same-age peers, a University of Zurich study shows."