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We believe that innovations in biology should beaccessible,affordable,and open to everyone. We're building a community biology lab foramateurs, inventors, entrepreneurs,and anyone who wants toexperiment with friends.   Welcome to BioCurious

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck conducted the groundbreaking research showing that praise intended to raise young people's self-esteem can seriously backfire. When we tell children, "You're so smart," we communicate the message that they'd better not take risks or make mistakes, lest they reveal that they're not so smart after all. Dweck calls this cautious attitude the "fixed mindset," and she's found that it's associated with greater anxiety and reduced achievement. Students with a "growth mindset," on the other hand, believe that intelligence can be expanded with hard work and persistence, and they view challenges as invigorating and even fun. They're more resilient in the face of setbacks, and they do better academically. Now Dweck has designed a program, called Brainology, which aims to help students develop a growth mindset. Its website explains: "Brainology makes this happen by teaching students how the brain functions, learns, and remembers, and how it changes in a physical way when we exercise it. Brainology shows students that they are in control of their brain and its development." That's a crucial message to pass on to children, and it's not just empty words of encouragement-it's supported by cutting-edge research on neuroplasticity, which shows that the brain changes and grows when we learn new things. You, and your child, can learn to be smarter.

Survey results indicate several specific technologies as those that we should be investing in and focusing on if we want to effectively leverage technology in education.

"The assumption a lot of people make is, well, pictures don't lie - you can believe what you see," said Santiago Lyon, director of photography for the Associated Press. "But of course pictures can lie, and they do lie, and they've been manipulated for a long time." (Source)

An essay on what the SAT says about society's view of education, accomplishments, aptitude, and self-esteem. 

Lendmeyourliteracy.org is a unique online resource base for teachers and students of Literacy.A one stop website for examples of good pieces of literacy work written by children and not just models written in a text book.Teachers can use these pieces of work for moderation purposes and an aid to good teaching, inspiring children to believe…"If they can do it, I can too!"

A history of teaching/learning initiatives from a retiring teacher. "I saw countless reforms come and go; some even returned years later disguised in new education lingo. Some that were touted as "best practices" couldn't work, given Alexandria's demographics. Others were nothing but common-sense bromides hyped as revolutionary epiphanies. All of them failed to do what I believe to be key to teaching: to make students care about what they're studying and understand how it's relevant to their lives."

"The news reports say that the test scores of American students on the latest PISA test are "stagnant," "lagging," "flat," etc. The U.S. Department of Education would have us believe-yet again-that we are in an unprecedented crisis and that we must double down on the test-and-punish strategies of the past dozen years. The myth persists that once our nation led the world on international tests, but we have fallen from that exalted position in recent years." BUT....is what we're being told really the whole story? This blog post will help you see that our nation's creativity and innovation has NOTHING to do with our place nationally & internationally with test scores. So...how should that influence our approach to education?

An ABC news clip about year-round school that discusses how parents and teachers feel about children attending school year -round. The clip discusses how some believe that year-round school is not beneficial and more expensive. They each have their own view on how the extra days help or hurt the students. There is also a short newspaper article accompanying the four minute clip.

The author of this article discusses how she believes that the intersessions that school districts "rely on to remediate" are only making things worse and how students that have learning problems only continue to fall further behind.

The list is not hugely surprising. What IS surprising is how many people I encounter who believe these myths- probably just because they haven't thought them through.

There is less tolerance for educators who do not believe it is their responsibility to move their teaching out of the past. Those stuck in the past... those who are not developing their own personal learning networks... those not taking ownership for their learning... are doing a great disservice to our students and themselves.

Social media 'distracts kids from school' Parents should set strict internet times

Beautifully put.

Before we let ourselves be stampeded into another unnecessary war, let us review a few facts that seem to contradict the war propaganda. First, last week's acknowledgment that Iran has enough enriched uranium for one atom bomb does not mean Iran is building an atom bomb. To construct a nuclear device, the ton of low-enriched uranium at Natanz would have to be run through a second cascade of high-speed centrifuges to produce 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HUE). There is no evidence Iran has either created the cascade of high-speed centrifuges necessary to produce HUE or that Iran has diverted any of the low-enriched uranium from Natanz. And the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors retain full access to Natanz. And rather than accelerating production of low-enriched uranium, only 4,000 of the Natanz centrifuges are operating. Some 1,000 are idle. Why? Dr. Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the IAEA, believes this is a signal that Tehran wishes to negotiate with the United States, but without yielding any of its rights to enrich uranium and operate nuclear power plants.

As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally-our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don't know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time

At Empire High School in Vail, Ariz., students use computers provided by the school to get their lessons, do their homework and hear podcasts of their teachers' science lectures. Down the road, at Cienega High School, students who own laptops can register for "digital sections" of several English, history and science classes. And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create - and share - lessons that incorporate their own PowerPoint presentations, along with videos and research materials they find by sifting through reliable Internet sites.

I've been thinking a lot about Tapscott's comments about this particular expectation of Net Gen workers, because I believe that not only are we seeing Net Gen students in our classrooms and libraries, we are seeing Net Gen employees in our new(and sometimes in our experienced) staff as well.