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"Italian psychologist Geatano Kanizsa first described this optical illusion in 1955 as a subjective or illusory contour illusion. The study of such optical illusions has led to an understanding of how the brain and eyes perceive optical information and has been used considerably by artists and designers alike. They show the power of human imagination in filling in the gaps to make implied constructions in our own minds. Kanizsa figures and similar illusions are a really useful way to encourage learners to 'say what they see' and to explain how they see it. It offers a chance for others to become aware of the different views available in a diagram and share their own thoughts without the 'danger' of being wrong; many people see different things."

For many people, knowing the correct time is vital to everyday life. If you're in an unfamiliar environment without any kind of clock, however, figuring out the time could be a matter of safety and survival. Without a clock or watch, finding the exact time may not be possible, but you can figure the approximate time using the sun, moon or stars.

They need a librarian more than ever (to figure out creative ways to find and use data). They need a library not at all. ...librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.

Stykz is the first multi-platform stick figure animation program in the world (as far as we know!), and it is COMPLETELY FREE! If you've ever used Pivot StickFigure Animator, you'll feel right at home and will appreciate the extra features that Stykz has to offer!

Caldav is what lifehacker recommends as an alternative to Google sync (which is going away January 31). I've been searching for an alternative to help our office manager figure out what to do. Lifehacker referenced this on their podcast from this week as still being currently the best way to replace Google calendar sync.

This might be a good time to talk about poverty as superstars are living on just a little. I don't know how they count this because the heating and air on their homes would exceed $1.50 a day. $1.50 a day is the global figure that defines extreme poverty. "Ben Affleck, Josh Groban, Sophia Bush and Debi Mazar are among the celebs who have committed to take the 2013 Live Below the Line challenge issue by The Global Poverty Project. They will live on $1.50 of food and drink a day (no Starbucks for him!) April 29-May 3 to raise awareness about extreme poverty."

A nice reflection on what is happening to reading with Common Core. I find the overemphasis on literary nonfiction problematic, unless, the fact that math and history are primarily nonfiction allows literature to remain 60-70% fiction, however, for those schools who just have "reading" in literature (that would be sad), this is going to have issues. This is a great read. "The CCSS mandates that by the end of high school, 70% of what students read should be informational texts -- specifically, complex and non-narrative literary nonfiction. Furthermore, students should be able to identify central ideas and articulate their development, summarize, analyze, draw inferences, identify an author's purpose, evaluate the effectiveness of rhetorical features, and figure out the meaning of words. In short, the CCSS has reclaimed a technique popular in the 1940s, close reading, or sustained interpretation of, in particular, the wording of a text."

Lately my thoughts and efforts are shifting from figuring out how to get educators familiar and comfortable enough to use technology, as just another teaching tool to how to change or facilitate a shift of a school's culture into a learning community.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is here and teachers are trying to figure out how to best integrate it into their tried-and-true lessons. They're struggling to integrate technology to best augment CCSS. They are in desperate need of classroom materials that they can trust. Like a superhero, the U.S. Library of Congress has just swooped in and unveiled an enormous new (and free!) resource that's all about the Common Core.

Evernote and Moleskin announce the new smartnotebook which is very cool. While you can already snap pictures of notes to Evernote - this notebook has small dots that adjust the page to make it square and remove distortion. It includes stickers that will tag the pages for you and add emphasis and included in the price of the notebook ($30) is a free subscription to Evernote premium for 3 months. I love evernote and while their tech support leaves a lot to be desired (it took me 6 months to figure out how to fix an installation glitch which was answered by another user on their forum after Evernote kept telling me just to use Revo uninstaller) -- it can't be beat for usefulness - that is why it is one of the few apps I am willing to pay for. I'll definitely be asking for this notebook for Christmas to try it out. Hope the price comes down a tad, though.

While perusing Larry's back posts, I came across very cool website that lets you animate with stick figures. Definitely one I'm taking back to my students over break.

Online tool for uploading, dissecting, and examining all of the separate images that make up a single animated gif. Good for reconstructing how an animated gif was created, and figure out just how many still images go into creating an animated gif.

B2 ESL learners presenting historical figures

Awesome guide to share with teachers who are trying to figure out all of the terminology.

Pakistan is pushing to educate more of its children, amidst financial woes and a struggle for more funding. Their goal: 100% enrollment. Of course, there is a great effort also to build a firewall in Pakistan much like the "great firewall of China." That said, there are many lovely educators from Pakistan who contribute and connect increasingly online and I wish this country well as well as the many countries working to increase enrollment. "As schools returned to session in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province this fall, the newly elected provincial government - with the help of the non-profit campaign Alif Ailaan - launched an enrollment drive. In its first month, the drive managed to enroll nearly 245,000 out of school children - about 65% male and 35% female - across 25 districts of the province, according to figures provided by Alif Ailaan. But considering Pakistan's education woes, where more than 25 million children between the ages of 5-16 remain out of school, it is a small step. "In order to provide schooling to all the kids, we need about Rs. 138 billion (roughly $1.2 billion) just in KP - for school infrastructure, classrooms, teachers so on and so forth," Joudat Ayaz, the province's education secretary, told me over dinner. Ayaz estimates the number of out of school children in KP between 2 to 3 million, about 20% to 30% of the school-age children in the province. "You can't do this [reaching 100% enrollment] in one go - you have to do it progressively, over six or seven years.""

Great advice from Nicholas Provenzano about failure: "What I am not saying is that teachers should leave students on their own to figure everything out and sit back and watch them fail on exams or essays. Teachers still need to guide their students and let them explore learning, but you have to let them try new things and learn through trial and error. The error part is the thing people are starting to forget. In the rush to get through content, it's easier to give students the answers instead of letting them discover them on their own through hard work.  As you work in your class this year, try to take a step back when a student fails the first time. Assure them they can come up with the right answer on their own if they try a couple of times. Offer them strategies on how to approach problems in different ways to get new outcomes. "

Just got this note from my friend Jeff Stanzler at U Michigan. This looks very cool and is a website dedicated to flipping physics, algebra, and calculus. Lots of great videos and resources. The note from Jeff to me about this site and his student: " I wanted to share the work of a former student of mine named Jon Palmer, a Physics teacher who has done some wonderfully creative work "flipping" his classroom. He's now devoting himself to making videos for free use by Physics teachers everywhere. Knowing you, I figured you might appreciate his work. Here's an intro video about his vision of the flipped classroom model. Here's a link to his you tube channel, with more goodies."

OECD Figures

You can't swing a stick in social media without hitting something on Facebook. Same goes for education. You can't talk about how technology is revolutionizing education without mentioning Facebook. It's a simple service to figure out but what about once you become a regular user? If you're a teacher, you would be well served by spending 3 minutes to read through this must-have guide. (We timed it out and it's a bit under 3 minutes. It's almost summertime, you can spare it for us!)