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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

Interactive whiteboards (IWB) allow science and math teachers to teach multi-sensory lessons, seamlessly jumping from one type of media to another. Interactive science or math lessons can easily integrate text, sound, video, and graphics based on the tactile nature of the IWB.

This is an amazing collaborative whiteboard where multiple users can edit a multimedia board in real time. The site allows you to signup and sign in using a Google account and you can access and add your files and media on your Google Docs/Drive area making this a fabulous companion to schools using Google Apps for education. You can write by typing or you can write in 'freehand' so you can use your interactive whiteboard to write and archive the lesson to use or refer to later. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Teaching with maps (whether on the whiteboard or using a set of personal computers) makes learning much more visual, exciting and personally relevant. uLearn is the easiest way to access a range of Ordnance Survey mapping in the UK, plus stunning aerial imagery and historic maps, all in a safe educational environment. Much more than just Geography Use maps as an index, not only to study geographical locations but also alongside uLearn's enormous library of geo-referenced resources. Explore the historic, cultural and factual aspects of your chosen locations across the planet. Just select a topic, zoom in to a place of interest and the resources available will automatically light up. And uLearn's mapping tools are interactive - stitch maps together, add your own photos and videos or annotate them to highlight your teaching focus. uLearn's maps and resources can be manipulated to meet your classroom needs, whatever the curriculum area. Really simple tools for creating lessons Whether using the resources already in uLearn or uploading your own resources, uLearn allows you at the click of a button, to capture the maps and resources for your lesson, ready to use in the classroom. It's as simple as clicking the 'Save current view to playlist' button!

These are complete mini-topics that are a week's worth of activities and lesson plans on each topic for ages 4-11. This pulls together lesson plans, interactive whiteboard resources, and printables and will be helpful for teachers in a tight or who need to quickly emphasize a topic where they know students have problems.

I am convinced that the power is IN THE SOFTWARE. But not the software itself, but how it is used as a tool to present the lesson in a new way, for a different learning style, for access outside of the classroom.

Really cool searchable database of IWB resources by subject/grade/reading levels

Really cool searchable database of IWB resources by subject/grade/reading levels

Mr B's List is a directory of the best *free* educational websites, (with emphasis on interactive sites) to use with your SMART Board or other interactive whiteboard, etc. Regardless of where your classroom technology comes from I hope you can benefit from quick and easy access to valuable websites for your subject and grade level.