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This week I joined with teachers, students, researchers and policy writers at Melbourne University to discuss student voice. This conference was hosted by Social Education Victoria and made possible by the conference partners, The University of Melbourne, Education and Training Victoria, Foundation for Young Australians and Connect. Over three days, participants engaged in rigorous dialogue about the significance of student voice and what is required to ensure its benefits are maximised for all.

Pedagogy and curriculum that engages students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and is deemed personally relevant to the lives they live, are seen as important factors towards equality of outcome by Wrench, Hammond, McCallum and Price (2012). Their research involved designing a curriculum and pedagogy that would be highly engaging to students of low-socioeconomic status. 'The interventions involved curriculum redesigns that set meaningful, challenging learning task(s) (culminating in high quality learning products); strong connection to student life-worlds; and a performative expectation for student learning.' (Wrench et al 2012 p934)

MyVRSpot is the most innovative way to connect true Web 2.0 with curriculum content, combining elements similar to the online publishing of YouTube and the personal space of Facebook.  MyVRSpot provides students with a hosted web space (webspot) to upload their videos, audio files, and pictures, all while exploring in the District's "safe backyard."  All media is controlled and monitored before going online for others to view.  This allows for students to still become those "push button" publishers without the district having to worry about inappropriate content within a multimedia sharing environment.  With MyVRSpot, students become researchers, developers, and producers of their own webspot, giving them the sense of ownership.

Thousands of doctoral students are finding research transcription extremely useful to increase their skill sets and earning potential. Learn more!

"The History Engine is an educational tool that gives students the opportunity to learn history by doing the work-researching, writing, and publishing-of a historian. The result is an ever-growing collection of historical articles or "episodes" that paints a wide-ranging portrait of life in the United States throughout its history and that is available to scholars, teachers, and the general public in our online database." Via http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/04/history-engine-explore-stories-of.html

A growing body of academic research supports the use of project-based learning in schools as a way to engage students, cut absenteeism, boost cooperative learning skills, and improve test scores. Those benefits are enhanced when technology is used in a meaningful way in the projects.

This is a terrific list of online applications.

"Self-Directed Learning When students are motivated to create work that they share online, it ignites an independent learning cycle driven by their ideas and energized by responses from peers."

Self-Directed Learning "When students are motivated to create work that they share online, it ignites an independent learning cycle driven by their ideas and energized by responses from peers."

EduCon 2.2 is both a conversation and a conference. And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas -- from the very practical to the big dreams. 1256484170_twitter_02.png 1256484162_facebook_02.png 1256484938_delicious.png The Axioms Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.2 1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members 2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen 3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around. 4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate 5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

This traditional pedagogy results in students developing a negative attitude towards mathematics. Many develop a mathematical phobia and believe that they are not a "maths person". When confronted by challenging mathematics they retreat and have no or only poor strategies with which to approach new ideas. This all leads to a decline in the number of students pursuing mathematical learning beyond the years where it is compulsory. Fortunately there is a growing body of research that shows there is a better way. 

Great source for teaching students about research and the web.

President Obama's first address on educational reform.

"In a world of information overload, it is vital for students to not only find information but also determine its validity and appropriateness. Our information literacy material demystifies the process of finding and validating online information. These vital skills are needed as students prepare for our global economy."

The history of teaching is littered with ideas that have come and gone. In their day each was the new bright hope, set to transform what we do as teachers and how our students learn. Each new idea had its supporters and detractors and each in turn was replaced by an alternative or simply disappeared from view. Those who have experienced this ebb and flow of ideas have learned to approach the shiny and the new with caution and yet we have all encountered ideas that are so compelling it is difficult to ignore. How might we approach new ideas and innovative practices in ways that ensure our students benefit?

"EasyBib, an information literacy platform that provides citation, note taking, and research tools have created this helpful infographic on plagiarism. "Plagiarism, source attribution and critical thinking are among some of the real problems that our educators and students face. We put together this infographic to shed light on the matter, to underscore why librarians are needed more than ever, and to show what EasyBib is doing about it.""

Good infographic ! Perfect text: "Plagiarism, source attribution and critical thinking are among some of the real problems that our educators and students face" no mas 900

Welcome to Smithsonian WILD! This site is designed to showcase some of the exciting research conducted by the Smithsonian Institution and its collaborators around the world, and to highlight the incredible diversity of wildlife that exists in a range of habitats across the globe.  The use of motion-triggered 'camera traps' has become an incredibly useful tool for scientists to answer an enormous range of conservation and ecological questions. Researchers attach these unique cameras to posts or trees, often along forest trails, and when a camera's sensor registers an animal's body heat and movement, a photograph is taken. The studies highlighted here demonstrate the range of applications of this method, and how these cameras give us a glimpse into an animal world that is rarely seen by anyone. You can search the site by following the trail of interesting animals or the lure of diverse sites around the world.