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he job of teaching * Join in the discussion reddit this Comments (1) Wendy Berliner Guardian Professional, Monday 3 October 2011 18.30 BST Article history Teacher Daniel Hartley from Chulmleigh Community College, Devon. Photograph: Apex Back in the summer we decided here at GTN HQ that, with our membership rocketing, it was the right time to mark our first six months in operation with a survey to find out what members thought about teaching today. There were questions across a wide spectrum of topics and, at the end, we left a free text box for teachers to add any comments they wanted to share. It was the dying days of the summer holiday - August 25 - when it went out just after lunch. We knew the survey would take ten or 15 minutes to complete so we weren't quite expecting what happened next, but within those first few hours after its release, we realised you had started something big. By 10.30pm that night we'd had several hundred questionnaires back, which in itself was impressive with many teachers perhaps still away on holiday or back but busy preparing for the new term. The most impressive thing of all was the content of those text boxes. There was just so much of it. Some people wrote several hundred words at a time, speaking clearly from the heart and arguing cogently against the things they felt were going wrong in education. A love of teaching and vocational pleasure felt working with children and young people emerged but it was emerging from a fog caused by far less pleasant aspects of the job - disrespect from society and governments, bullying by senior management, other teachers, parents and students, despair at the parenting skills of some homes and despair with government targets and league tables that were funnelling education into an ever thinner tube feeding stuff that improved Sats and exam results rather than nourishing a lifelong love of learning. One former solicitor questioning the sense of the switch into teaching said: " M

The American Federation of Teachers' new online community Share My Lesson offers teachers free access to the resources and knowledge of their peers across the country. Featured are nearly 260,000 teaching resources, a monthly resource calendar, free games and activities mapped to the Common Core and discussion forums. Teaching resources are divided by grade, subject and rating and include activities, puzzles, games, lesson plans, posters, assessments and more. 

StudyEgg is a new tool that can be used to augment already existing educational content on the Internet by adding new learning features. With StudyEgg teachers can create quizzes based on YouTube videos like Khan Academy or any other freely available lesson/material. GradeCam enables teachers to grade assignments instantly with any document camera or webcam, no special tools needed. The data is then displayed, showing the teacher if all students understood the concepts. Tests can be created on the go to check what students have learned instead of testing them days or weeks later. GradeCam then lets users import the data easily into the gradebook service,  Always Prepped combines different educational resources and services like Khan Academy, Edmodo or Study Island and puts all the learning related data of the students into one unified dashboard. Also able to add non-educational data such as social data to the dashboard. For example, if the teacher knows that the parents of a particular student are getting divorced or that a grandparent has died, the teacher is able to add this information to the data set and can see immediately whether the performance in class might somewhat be related to the happenings in the student's personal life.

Teachers and students can use Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, games and quizzes created by educators in the Gooru community. Gooru is free (of cost and ads) and developed by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education. Search for the best multimedia resources on the web. Customize your favorite resources, collections and quizzes. Study from collections of resources created by teachers. Interact with the Gooru community of teachers and students. Practice with enhanced quizzes that provide instant feedback. Share your knowledge about topics you are passionate about.

"the Gates Foundation released a report surveying 3,100+ teachers (and 1,250+ students) on what they want from digital instructional tools. The report, entitled "Teachers Know Best: What Educators Want From Digital Instructional Tools," suggests that while many teachers support tech, only 55% of teachers reported available resources sufficient in helping students meet college- and career-ready standards. Educators also spoke to four instructional areas that lack usable digital tools..."

An updated publication designed to help training teachers on ways to optimize the use of information and communication technologies in the classroom has been launched early November 2011 by UNESCO in cooperation with the Commonwealth of Learning, Intel and Microsoft. The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.

Gooru is a new service (still carrying the Alpha label) that aims to provide teachers and students with an extensive collection of videos, interactive displays, documents, diagrams, and quizzes for learning about topics in math and science. As a Gooru member you have access to hundreds of resources according to subject areas such as chemistry, biology, ecology, algebra, calculus, and more. Within each subject area you can look for resources according to media type such as video, interactive display, slides, text, and lesson plans. When you find resources that you want to use, drag them to the resources folder within your account. Gooru also offers you the option to add resources to your folders even if you did not find them within Gooru.

Series of 42 video segments about how brain functioning can used by teachers to improve student learning. Online teacher resources and guide for teacher professional development.

"This site has been put together by a small group of teachers and teacher educators convened by the DfE's Teaching Agency and chaired by Bob Harrison. Our aim has been to curate a collection of resources for use by those training teachers to deliver the new primary computing curriculum, whether for trainees' individual use, for use in lectures and workshops or for trainees to use as resources for their own lessons when working in school."

As our students grow dependant on Internet being a primary source for their  information, it becomes of urgent necessity that we, as teachers and educators, should know how to evaluate web content and decipher credible resources from spam and irrelevant ones. Regrettably enough, some of the teachers who are using technology in their instruction still don't come to grips with  the mechanisms used to sift through internet content. There is a crude analogy to this situation . A teacher who does not evaluate the web content he shares with his students is like a person driving a car without having a driver license, he can still drive his car  but he does not know the real dangers he is putting himself to in doing so.

"A Community of Practice for teachers using edmodo. Work in Progress" This Wikispace from teachers in NSW covers About Best Practices edmodo and school safety edmodo for Student Voice Independent Schools NSW DEC Topics Parents Resource List School Directory School Policy School Subdomains Selling edmodo Teacher Stories Teacher Topics The edmodo FAQ Use Edmodo - Primary School Using Edmodo - General Using Edmodo - High School Using Edmodo - Special Needs

"September 27, 2014 Projecting your iPad on a large screen is great for demonstrations, simulations, explanations, and showing examples. There are several ways this can be done in the classroom.  VGA or HDMI Adapter Connect directly from your device to a projector's video cable. Click to find out which of the four possible adapters is the one you need. Document Camera Put your device under a camera connected to a projector. Glare may be a problem. Your audience can see your fingers.. Search Amazon for document cameras. Apple TV Connect an Apple TV to your projector and use your device's AirPlay feature to mirror the screen. Apple TV is available from Amazon.com. AirServer Install software on your projector-connected computer and use device's AirPlay feature to mirror the screen. Get AirServer at airserver.com. Annotate.net Install software on your projector-connected computer and use device's AirPlay feature to mirror the screen. Download the Annotate Mirror Client.  Mirroring360 Install software on your projector-connected computer and use device's AirPlay feature to mirror the screen. Download Mirroring360. Reflector Install software on your projector-connected computer and use device's AirPlay feature to mirror the screen. Get Reflector at reflectorapp.com. X-Mirage Install software on your projector-connected computer and use device's AirPlay feature to mirror the screen. Get X-Mirage. iTools Install software on your projector-connected computer and attach device using its USB cable and choose Live Desktop. Macs can wirelessly mirror to iTools. It's beta software with no documentation and can be buggy. English version currently not available. OS X 10.10 Yosemite Update to OS X Yosemite on your projector-connected Mac and attach device using its Lightning cable. Open QuckTime & choose iPad as the camera source.  If you don't mind keeping your iPad in one spot, then a VGA adapter (for 30-pin Dock connector or for the new Lightning

The project focuses on disseminating information, resources, and tools designed to enhance the use of an instructional decision-making model in the areas of reading, mathematics, and behavior. Web site resources address steps of RtI implementation, from conducting a campus needs assessment, developing an action plan, promoting teacher collaboration, designing differentiated intervention, to answering parents' questions.

"Every teacher is taught that back up plans are a must. Things change constantly in education and there are a variety of factors that can make plans change - computer breaks, internet goes out, file is corrupted, forgot your flash drive at home, you finish a lesson early with a class, your class has very low attendance due to a school activity or event (like AP testing, prom, etc), lesson runs long, students don't understand the material, class is interrupted by a fire drill. To deal with these issues, teachers must have back up plans ready to go and be flexible and organized. Here are some tips and resources for backup plans."

"We have devised an interactive curriculum aimed to support teachers of secondary students (approximately ages 13-17)" Google's resources to help teachers help their students to use YouTube in an appropriate and safe way.

"This is an introductory practical guide for teachers looking to use Creative Commons licensed works and share educational resources under a Creative Commons licence."

"Most of what we do is for the students. The focus of this and many other blogs and websites is about learning, and rightly so, but there are also apps that will make our jobs easier too. I am talking about that catergory of apps that are designed specifically for the classroom teacher. There are plenty and I am sure as more and more teachers gain the confidence to design their own apps, there will be more suitable one to come. Here is a list of apps that you can use to make your job easier."

"In 2009, we shared our favorite tools for teachers on Twitter, with 100 resources for managing feeds, finding followers, and tackling classroom groups on the social media site. Since then, many tools have been revamped, replaced, or simply aren't available anymore. Clearly, an update is in order, so we're proud to present a new list for 2012, featuring the very best tools available to Twittering teachers today."

The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) received a generous grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to help promote and provide deeper learning opportunities for teachers and students.  Recognizing that 11,000 teachers will participate in BIE's 3-day PBL 101 workshop in 2012, the Hewlett Foundation helped BIE expand its professional development resources and expertise online.  Now BIE can work with every school and every teacher through PBL University (PBLU).

"Teachers Without Borders advances human welfare through professional development on a global scale. "

Fascinating group of teachers who do some great work. Reading up what they are now doing in Pakistan.