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Most schools that have integrated laptop computers and other digital devices into learning are not following the paths necessary to maximize the use of technology in ways that will raise student achievement and help save money, a report concludes."We all know that technology does things to improve our lives, but very few schools are implementing properly," said Leslie Wilson, a co-author of the study, "The Technology Factor: Nine Keys to Student Achievement and Cost-Effectiveness," released last month. She is the chief executive officer of the Mason, Mich.-based One-to-One Institute, which advocates putting mobile-computing devices into the hands of all students.

"At times, students' viewpoints need to be treated with caution.  In Do Learners Really Know Best? urban legends about learners as 'digital natives' and 'self-educators' are exploded, whilst Kirschner et al. argue, that students do not always prefer the most effective form of instruction.  Despite this, what struck me when reading the Sutton Trust's What Makes Great Teaching was the correlation to student's voice I had done with Year 10 students on their views of effective teaching."

"Second-grade students who read aloud to dogs in an after-school program demonstrated improved attitudes about reading, according to researchers at Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction at Tufts University. Their research appears online in advance of print in the Early Childhood Education Journal. Reading skills are often associated with improved academic performance and positive attitudes about school in children. Researchers wanted to learn if animal-assisted intervention in the form of reading aloud to dogs in a classroom setting could contribute to improved skills and attitudes."

Really awesome - nearly 150 free science books!

"Here's an alphabetical list of all available free books. Note that many of the links will bring you to an external page, usually with more info about the book and the download links. Also, the links are updated as frequently as possible, however some of them might be broken. Broken links are constantly being fixed. In case you want to report a broken link, or a link that violates copyrights, use the contact form. "

Classroom teacher and technology educator shares a strategy for engaging teachers in effective professional development around technology integration. 

the hallmarks of a good online search education

"Are you an educator who has no time to surf the internet for great resources that will help you integrate technology into your daily teaching? Have you ever wished that there could be one central starting point in your search for great edtech resources? " Then T.I.E. is the site for you! Form or join a group, read a news feed, participate in an event, discuss or blog about a topic, watch or share a video, and so much more!

Under a new set of social media guidelines (pdf) issued by the New York City Department of Education, teachers are required to obtain a supervisor's approval before creating a "professional social media presence," which is broadly defined as "any form of online publication or presence that allows interactive communication, including, but not limited to, social networks, blogs,  internet websites,  internet forums, and wikis." 

Great insight into educating teachers about the use of social media within their schools so that they can help students navigate these waters as well.

"In self-paced courses, many students appeared to cram most of the homework and chapter exams into the final week of the semester. Few of them bothered to do the ungraded practice problems offered by the online publisher." First, where is the teaching? It sounds more like a case of poorly designed instruction...or a complete lack of instruction. Of course these students are not learning...they are not being taught. Also, if they are in classes which are actively taught by a teacher, then where are the formative assessments by the instructors? That teacher should know long before the final exam if the students know the material or not. A good teacher and a well developed online course would have a number of ways to determine this which do not allow for "cut and paste" or cheating. Finally, does this department test a student's memorization of material or the mastery of the concepts and and understanding of how to apply those concepts? Perhaps, there is also a need to reevaluate the assessments. Good teaching is good teaching. If a student is not learning the material, who is really to blame?

See helps to assessing how well Web resources meet accessibility guidelines. ☐  Can the application be used with only the keyboard? ☐  Do images have appropriate text descriptions? ☐  Do pages have a consistent look-and-feel? ☐  Does text have enough color contrast? ☐  Do pages includes headings and landmarks? ☐ Do form controls and widgets have labels? ☐  When styling and layout is removed, is the document understandable? ☐  Does audio content have transcripts? ☐  Do videos have captions?

I like this idea of having the students write a narrative for how the bonds form and creating a model for it.  I think it would be better if there was some type of computer program where they can create the model electronically instead of using clay.