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As building work gets underway for a new school, Gareth Nutt, head of property and regeneration at Neath Port Talbot council, describes its unusual circular design. The classrooms in this new school will be circular so all pupils feel included. The building environment is controlled with windows which automatically open when rooms get too hot. This clip was first published on BBC News Online on 15 January 2009. Please note this clip is only available in Flash.

A bold new plan to teach and test the competencies that matter most for the 21st Century-and to motivate the "net" generation to excellence The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do About It

A four slide introduction to diigo as a research tool. This does good job of explaining the concept of social bookmarking while highlighting various features of diigo. I've found that many struggle to grasp the foundation concept of social bookmarking. I think this overview will help answer basic questions for many new users. Of particular use to me as an online teacher is this slide style orientation that can be used to introduce someone to diigo as part of the account creation process. (The slides end with a sign up button.) If you're a new diigo user, this orientation will point out new features and put things in context. If you haven't yet tried Diigo, this is the way to get started.

Tuesday 5 May 2009 PM's speech on education for the new global age - Gordon Brown (UK)- Transcript of a speech given by the Prime Minister on education for the new global age 5 May 2009.

So some thoughts on how to affect change in a timely, and yet, deliberate fashion. * Know why you are changing... and know what you are giving up by making this change. Every change creates winners and losers, so be sure to think through what you gain and what you lose (thanks to Neil Postman for that framework.) which leads to... * Always ask "What is the worst consequence of your best idea?" Do it for two reasons - one, because if you can't live with that consequence, don't do what you planned, but two, because the process of thinking this through will help you (and your team) mitigate the problems and you won't be as surprised when the thing you didn't think of comes up. * Research like crazy. Who has tried what you are doing? Who has tried something close to what you're doing? Who is talking about it? Who is writing about it? Who says the idea is already crazy? There aren't many truly new ideas in education, so figure out the history of your idea and learn from who has come before you. * Get lots of opinions - Come up with a smart, sensible, honest way to explain your idea and then listen. Listen a lot. Listen to the folks who don't like the idea, and ask them why. * Be honest - Don't oversell, don't overpromise, and don't pretend that the idea is perfect. * Build consensus - If only a few people are on-board with the idea, it won't work. But consensus doesn't mean taking something from everyone and sticking it onto the original idea until what you have is the worst of committee-based decisions. It means listening for the truths in what other people are telling you and being willing to make substantive change when it makes sense. * Know when to move forward. Don't let ideas die in committee because the team gets hung up on the final 5% of an idea. * Set realistic expectations for initial success, and then set up a plan to get there. If it's a tech idea -- get the tech right. (Nothing worse than getting everyone excited about a n

So some thoughts on how to affect change in a timely, and yet, deliberate fashion. * Know why you are changing... and know what you are giving up by making this change. Every change creates winners and losers, so be sure to think through what you gain and what you lose (thanks to Neil Postman for that framework.) which leads to... * Always ask "What is the worst consequence of your best idea?" Do it for two reasons - one, because if you can't live with that consequence, don't do what you planned, but two, because the process of thinking this through will help you (and your team) mitigate the problems and you won't be as surprised when the thing you didn't think of comes up. * Research like crazy. Who has tried what you are doing? Who has tried something close to what you're doing? Who is talking about it? Who is writing about it? Who says the idea is already crazy? There aren't many truly new ideas in education, so figure out the history of your idea and learn from who has come before you. * Get lots of opinions - Come up with a smart, sensible, honest way to explain your idea and then listen. Listen a lot. Listen to the folks who don't like the idea, and ask them why. * Be honest - Don't oversell, don't overpromise, and don't pretend that the idea is perfect. * Build consensus - If only a few people are on-board with the idea, it won't work. But consensus doesn't mean taking something from everyone and sticking it onto the original idea until what you have is the worst of committee-based decisions. It means listening for the truths in what other people are telling you and being willing to make substantive change when it makes sense. * Know when to move forward. Don't let ideas die in committee because the team gets hung up on the final 5% of an idea. * Set realistic expectations for initial success, and then set up a plan to get there. If it's a tech idea -- get the tech right. (Nothing worse than getting everyone excited about a n

"the "creative thinking spiral." In this pro- cess, people imagine what they want to do, create a project based on their ideas, play with their creations, share their ideas and creations with others, and reflect on their experiences-all of which leads them to imagine new ideas and new projects. As students go through this process, over and over, they learn to develop their own ideas, try them out, test the boundaries, experiment with alternatives, get input from others, and generate new ideas based on their experiences."

2010 is already proving to be the year of big changes on the legal research front. The first significant development of 2010 is the ABA's new search engine for law reviews and journals. The second is Thomson Reuters Westlaw's anticipated release of an entirely new research platform dubbed "Cobalt."

What happens when young people start taking their cameras into places of business and filming their interactions with the desk help? What will the future be like when the news is defined by these acts? It's happening now--does education have a role to play in this?

Women's History Sources is a collaborative blog that serves as a current awareness tool for anyone who is interested in primary sources at archives, historic sites and museums, and libraries. Some of the types of sources that the blog covers: * New exhibits in archives, libraries, and museums * New digital collections (artifacts, diaries, oral histories, photos, etc.) * Featured objects/documents from other blogs and websites * "In the News" - stories that feature original documents or artifacts. * "On this Day" - digital resources that are related to an event on a specific date. * Recent books that include letters, diaries, photographs, etc. Audience 1. Archivists, Librarians, and Museum curators/personnel 2. Historians 3. College students 4. K-12 Teachers 5. General public with an interest in women's history Geographic Coverage Although the initial emphasis has been on women in United States history, the blog will become international in scope as the list of contributors grows. Contributors The blog will include archivists, historians, librarians, and museum professionals. Please contact Ken Middleton (ken.middlet@gmail.com) if you are interested in being a blog contributor.

Good news for teachers looking to collaborate with their colleagues in other parts of the world. Skype has a new free service just for educators called Skype in the classroom, "a free global community created in response to, and in consultation with, the growing number of teachers" using the tool to help students learn.

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Technology News; Innovation in K-12 Education, whitepaper

We are all time travelers... drifting through time at a steady pace, one moment at a time. In what direction are we moving through time? Or does time move through us? How many dimensions of time are there? Though slightly allegorical, three-dimensional time offers physics new parameters, accounting for conventional and exotic physical phenomena, while maintaining the conservation of energy and symmetry groups found in physical law.  I began playing with the idea that all of physics could be reduced to just interactions between spatial and temporal coordinates. I wondered if inertia and momentum might be composed strictly of temporal components. This would require extra time dimensions. Could inertia or momentum be used as indicators of multi-dimensional time? What about charge, spin, and other properties of matter? Answers to some of these questions appeared to reside in neutrino research, specifically neutrino flavor oscillation.  The universality between Thermodynamics and Temporal Mechanics can reduce the fundamental forces of nature into a single expression, a new equivalence principle, which can be used as the generator for the evolution of time. Once Quantum Mechanics is seen through the lens of three-dimensional time, the EPR paradox looses its mystique. The speed of light may be restricted to a set speed limit within each individual frame of reference, however, frames of reference can undergo periods-of-time at varying rates of the passage-of-time. If the positive side of absolute zero is a state of condensed matter, what is on the negative side of absolute zero? Uncondensed matter?  The anti-matter aspect of the Dirac equations may have been misinterpreted. The convention is to assume that "matter" is composed of "particles" distinctly different from "antimatter" composed of "antiparticles". The assumption of one time dimension locks in this interpretation of the Dirac Equations. However, the uniform production of particles and antipa

"Our mission at Channel One News is to encourage students to be informed, digital-savvy global citizens. We are a Peabody and Telly award-winning program broadcast to nearly 5 million young people across the country. Our daily broadcast and supplementary educational materials are aligned to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and designed to help students, teachers and parents interpret the news and spark important conversations."

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

"Learning over Education is a new MIT Media Lab initiative that promotes creative learning. It ties together learning related research that takes place across different research groups, develops new technologies for creative learning, and uses the Media Lab as platform for new conversations about learning."