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"After six years of study, more than 3,000 student surveys, nearly 40 interviews, close to 700 anonymous written responses, and numerous observations of students in classes across four disciplines, Dr. Angel Hoekstra knows a thing or two about how to use clickers in the classroom."

Richard Culatta identifies 3 major challenges with our current approach to education and suggests how a shift to personalized learning is the key to the future of education in America. To make this shift, we must close the digital divide between those who can leverage technology to reimagine learning and those who simply use technology to digitize the status quo. A teacher by training and innovator by inclination, Richard Culatta works to leverage technology to reinvent learning.

Being in this world I was happy to see our innovations being shared. When I read the comments (unfortunately closed ATM) I became aware of the largely unfavorable reactions to solutions that we are a part of. I was shocked. So many people willing to throw stones and to assign conspiratorial motivations to the "improvements" being introduced.

Scribble is a great tool for preparing web-based readings for engaging students more attentively in their inquiry. Great tool to support close reading and CCSS. Scrible is a free online tool for saving, organizing, annotating, and sharing websites for online research projects and web quests. It saves a copy of each page you annotate in your personal Scrible library, so that even if the original web pages you've made notes on go down, your saved pages and your notes still exist. You can post your work on Facebook or Twitter, and you can also share your Scrible pages with short links that you generate with the click of a button. Check it out for yourself at www.scrible.com.

"In this bulletin, we will summarize the trends, from youth sur‐ veys that have tracked bullying specifically, and also those that have tracked closely related phenomena such as school assaults, school thefts, school fighting and school hate speech."

A great infographic outlining key leadership qualities. I then added my reflections in light of school leadership.

1. OWNERSHIP is key. For this project, the students were not listening to me on why Twain was or was not a racist, they were showing me and the rest of class what they thought. They were invested in winning their argument. They knew that their work was going to determine if he was guilty or not. Although I gave the assignment, the students were in charge the rest of the way. It was their project and they wanted to do it win. When students feel they own what they are doing, they will work harder. When the audience is larger, they want to impress everyone. These are not crazy ideas, they are the results of owning the work they are doing. OWNERSHIP is a major factor in the value of PBL. 2. CREATIVITY is the another major part of the PBL and is closely linked with OWNERSHIP. Students were allowed to be creative in their work as a lawyer or witness. Witnesses needed to stay within character, but could add their own elements on the witness stand. Allowing the students to create gives them a bigger sense of OWNERSHIP. 3. Another part of the PBL is the COLLABORATION. Students were working with each other trying to decide the best plan of attack. Witnesses would meet with their lawyers and discuss how the questions they were going to ask and how they should dress. The Jury worked on group projects researching the previous public opinions on Twain and his writing. Students were sharing ideas freely with one another. I had three sections of American Lit at the time, so I had three trails running. Lawyers would help others in the other classes and trash talk the opposing lawyers as well. It was all in good fun, but the collaboration had students working hard with one another to accomplish this goal. 4. Depending on how you set up your project, CRITICAL THINKING, is also an important part of PBL. With my Twain Trail, students needed to think about both sides of the argument. Students needed to prepare their witnesses for potential cross-examination questions. They needed to

The beginning and the end of a class period are really important - and often, unused - parcels of time. This page includes excellent tips for incorporating routines that benefit students and maximize time on task.

The first of two parts of an action plan for increasing student engagement in schools.

A worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program. GLOBE's vision promotes and supports students, teachers and scientists to collaborate on inquiry-based investigations of the environment and the Earth system working in close partnership with NASA and NSF Earth System Science Projects (ESSPs) in study and research about the dynamics of Earth's environment.

Whether you're interested in keeping tabs on Arctic sea ice, finding a renewable fuel source close to your home, or monitoring corporations' carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, there's an app for that. 

From Gretchen Schroeder: What I like about WordWeb Online is its ability to do "fuzzy" spelling suggesting words close to the spelling you entered. Cross linking to related words, and if it doesn't find a word in its, more than 300,000 word database, it will search the web for definitions for you. It is also available in both an iApp and an Android app.

This blogpost takes a close look at the skills required to be prepared for the future. It discusses the importance of a skills based curriculum rather than a narrow content based one. Its inspiration is a brilliantly designed Prezi focused on Future Proofing Education. A detailed read.

Close the Math Skill Gap Starting Today with online math tutoring.

Pause your video and comeback later even if you go to a different site, close your browser or restart your computer. You'll be able to pick up watching all your paused videos from exactly where you left off.