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Free Reading Program.. Open Source

FreeReading is a free, high-quality, open-source reading program addressing literacy development for grades K-3. Leveraging the collective wisdom of researchers, teachers, reading coaches, and other education and industry professionals, FreeReading provides a high-quality, cost-effective alternative to static materials. By establishing a foundation of hundreds of research-based lessons and materials that users can download and use for free, FreeReading has created the framework for intervention programs supporting K-6 literacy. The collective wisdom within FreeReading is invaluable and can be more beneficial than any one reading program.

"Over time, we as educators have become used to listening to and reading from gurus with simple truths. So many of us feel that we are well below the expertise of these edugurus (and I don't mean to single out the examples above as being the only ones going around) so we pack into venues, feverishly copying dot points from slideshows, handing over cash to buy the book and match up the dispensed wisdom against our own learning, our own classrooms and schools to see if we are headed in the prescribed direction"

If you twitter, or would like to twitter, then participate along with us!

For the month of March, a group of educators and lifelong learners will be picking a "Tweet of the day" and ReTweeting it with a tag: #gr8t Hopefully, you will join us in doing this too! See the 'about' page for more details. There are a number of reasons why you might want to participate: * To share what you value about Twitter. * To see what others value about Twitter (just look below). * To celebrate the power and wisdom of your Personal Learning Network. * To find interesting people to follow on Twitter. * To commit to giving Twitter a try.

A significant shift continues to occur within global education markets. It is signified by the manner in which it makes sense to speak of a global education market. It is driven by neo-liberalism and the expansion of markets into all aspects of our lives and it is made possible by manipulation of the third messaging system within the educational triad of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It is a drive towards accountable, comparable and productive education systems fine-tuned to maximise the return on investment and provide industry with the workforce it desires. What must be asked is how does this trend impact students and are these the forces that should be driving change in our education systems?

"For schools that are about to deploy the iPad as their main mobile learning device, there's wisdom to be learned from others who've gone down that road. At Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera, Calif., the first year of a pilot iPad program for sixth-graders has just ended, and some clear lessons have emerged. Here are some tips to help smooth the transition."

"This year I had the opportunity to work with many educators in national and global workshops. On two of these occasions, I asked the teachers to share their wisdom by answering the question, "What I know now that I wish I had known as a first year teacher is . . . " "

It's not enough to change the status quo.

The conventional wisdom in education is that any school reform--be it curriculum, instruction, assessment, or teacher professionalism--is most likely to take hold in schools that have strong leadership. The same holds true for technology. Any educator will tell you the most successful implementation of technology programs takes place in schools where the principal sees him or herself as a technology leader. 

"These fabulous tips are brief but powerful bits of wisdom from An Ethical Island. They're boiled down into simple and easy-to-digest ideas designed to help inform classroom teachers on the go. That's pretty much every teacher I know .. These ideas are broad and simple but useful."

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/por_pt/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.htmlConferência TED (2009) de Barry Schwartz sobre a sabedoria, contra a burocracia que transtorna a vida das gentes.20 e tal minutos, com legendas em português :)Bom apetite!

Chances are that you have a variety of insights and knowledge that you'd like to impart upon your learners. So, why not take full advantage of the wisdom and life experience you've earned, by applying your personal experiences in eLearning course design. Here are a few tips that will help you use your own experiences when creating memorable and powerful eLearning courses.

"Cowbird is a library of human experience. We are a community of tens of thousands of storytellers, located all over the world. We offer free and simple storytelling tools for anyone to use, combining photos, audio, and text into heartfelt personal vignettes. We've designed Cowbird to reflect the basic truths that all human lives are interconnected, that great stories can come from anywhere, and that we can learn a lot from each other, once we make the time to listen. This is a place to slow down and go deeper - our mission is to build to world's first public library of human experience, so the knowledge and wisdom we accumulate as individuals may live on as a part of the commons, available for this and future generations to look to for guidance."

"Drawing from almost 200 scientific studies on workplace meetings, a team of psychological scientists provides recommendations for making the most out of meetings before they start, as they're happening, and after they've concluded. Their report is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Meetings are a near-ubiquitous aspect of today's professional workplace and there is abundant trade wisdom and written guidance about how meetings should be run. But, as researchers Joseph Mroz and Joseph Allen (University of Nebraska Omaha) and Dana Verhoeven and Marissa Shuffler (Clemson University) point out, very little of this guidance is informed by the available science."

A recent post by George Couros (author of The innovators Mindset) posed an interesting question about the role that culture plays in shaping the trajectory of an organisation. The traditional wisdom is that culture trumps all but George points to the role that individuals play in shaping and changing culture itself. Is culture perhaps less resilient than we are led to imagine and is it just a consequence of the individuals with the greatest influence? Or, is something else at play here?

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." ― Calvin Coolidge Growing up, I had a copy of this quote on my wall. It is one of those things that stuck with me over the years. For a long time I might not have truly appreciated its wisdom. Now as a teacher in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, its significance seems to have grown. When we can instantaneous consumers of the all of the worlds information, as we access anything and everything at the speed of light, how do we learn the value of persistence?

A powerful anecdote which speaks to the value of our current silly test-based education trajectory

When I was a kid, one of my prize possessions was a big, red Swiss Army knife. It had everything from a plastic toothpick and a spoon to a bottle opener and screwdriver. I used it for all kinds of projects, and I always had it with me just in case someone needed to pry something open or tighten something down. Today I carry a more modern multipurpose tool-the smartphone.

Too much technology?!

"This video is part seven in our Future Learning video series about technology in classrooms. Check out our first video on Khan Academy here and learn about other forward-thinking innovators like Sifteo,  Digita Tabula,  Innovations in Learning, Connexions, and Collaborize Classroom."