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I originally wrote this post in September 2012. With a new school year beginning in Australia and plans to ramp up blogging and Edmodo at our school this year, I have updated this post to use with my staff with more screenshots, new ideas and some additional references to the iPad use of these tools with dedicated apps. For those who have seen it before, you may like to revisit.

This kid shows the world how he creates a plan and predicts the number of successes vs. failures of his Rube Goldberg Machine. You will love watching his process! Great lesson on perseverance and how failure helps us learn. 

Few people enter the teaching profession because they are passionate about controlling behaviour or disciplining prospective pupils. Most become educators because they want to make a positive difference in students' lives. However, countless well-intentioned yet potentially ill-prepared teachers find themselves in situations during the school year where they feel compelled to use forms of intimidation, manipulation, bribery, yelling, scolding, or even false praise to make students behave. These archaic classroom management techniques often backfire- as they did for me early in my teaching career-and result in students losing respect for and disliking the teacher.

Earlier this year a group of teachers I work with explored the 'Eight Cultural Forces' identified by Ron Ritchhart of Harvard's Project Zero. In doing so we decided to focus on our use of the term learning instead of the word work. Our goal was to bring our language choices into the spotlight and explore how a more deliberate focus on learning might alter the culture of our classrooms. Two terms later this focus persists and it is worth reflecting on the effect that this has had.

Apple in its next release of its iOS operating system for mobile devices will introduce a new feature called 'Emojification' that aims to make this new style of communication easily accessible to all. So, what does this mean for the language arts and how might the emojification of language alter the way in which we communicate.

Good blog entry on importance of goal setting (performance vs. mastery) and effect on motivation.

Brendon Burchard talks on how "SMART" Goals are limiting. Instead, why not work on D.U.M.B. goals? A different way to view how to grow and work with an abundance vs. a deficit mentality. Question: How do SMART goals in education limit our work, vision, and enthusiasm?

The maker movement and with it maker-centered learning brings new possibilities and challenges into the classroom. It has spawned makerspaces and students are busy designing and making products. The danger with all this frenzied making is that it is very easy to miss the point, to focus on the product and not the journey.  

Comparison between our foreign war efforts vs. our foreign investment in public education.

categorization scheme based on schools in existence (vs. theoretical models) - representing particular programs within a school and not a typology for whole-school design - also taxonomy that is useful in capturing basic patterns that are emerging out of today's schools

Thoughts on why private education may be better than public

Do we give children enough time to succeed?

Discussing the similarities and differences of Edmodo and Blogging and why both are essential classroom tools

Ever since PCs first started entering corporations in the early 1980s, IT managers have had to contend with users bringing in their own gear. Some analysts call this the consumerization of IT, which still is just a new name for an old trend.