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Even more inspirational, here Sandy shares how she worked hard to find a place where students are treated with compassion and inclusion and how she found someone to work with her. She also built onto her house and had surgery on a thyroid tumor. I think that some people think that innovators have it easy and they'll just work when it is easier. Sandy didn't have it easy at all and look at what she's done. I find her reflections so heartwarming and hope some of you will share your stories. We should draw strength from one another.

"Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the biggest sources inspiration and innovation when it comes to cooking, design, and education. That's right, education is a prominent fixture on Pinterest now and that, of course, means that education technology plays a starring role."

Some of my students are signing up to join the Quest2matter as part of their passion projects. Here's a link to the website and the signup. If your child wants to make a difference in the world, you may want to mention this as something they want to do. Very exciting. "The Quest2Matter is a five-week, student-focused initiative that seeks to inspire students to tackle problems that break their heart. This is an unprecedented opportunity to unlock the potential of students to think entrepreneurially and innovatively and use modern tools to solve problems that break their heart. To learn more about the Quest2Matter, read this post. We are looking to recruit 225 students, and teachers to help facilitate them for our DREAM TEAM! They will be helping us launch the Quest2Matter and its parent movement, Choose2Matter. See the general information and qualifications below, followed by the specific duties of each team. At the very bottom of this post, you'll find a link to the sign-up form."

I'm interviewing Gallit Zvi from British Columbia, Canada today on Every Classroom matters (should post in about a week) about genius hour and I was intrigued by this post on her blog about how her school "looks." While some of these points have inspired questions (they can cook for their family in lieu of copying spelling sentences, for example) others have me wishing we could do the same thing (entrepreneur fair where students have a sales idea, craft a business plan and make and sell products.) It is worth a peek inside this fascinating classroom and school which uses genius hour among other things.

YEs, they are here. Smart furniture. This is the smart table. Expect to see desks and more as we begin to merge our technology with everything around us. This would make a great unit for a demo or cool interactive learning center. " SMART Table® 442i collaborative learning center. Publicly unveiled at the British Education Technology Conference in London today, the SMART Table features an engaging 360 degree, multitouch surface with a brilliant 106.68 cm (42") high-definition 1080p LCD display. The SMART Table enables up to eight students to interact simultaneously and actively collaborate to achieve shared learning goals."

Inspired by UK Parliament debate secured by @karlmccartney MP - Click here to read tweets from the debate - the #UKEdChat poll this week established that the discussion will focus on the Educational Performance of Boys.

From September, I am starting a new role. I am going to be a year group leader for year 5. This has come about relatively quickly since my return from mainstream and so I have spent some time over the summer reflecting on my practice and how I am going to develop and inspire the people I work with. One of those people is an NQT. My sister is also starting her first post as an NQT in another school. After speaking on the phone for half an hour this morning, I realised that some of the stuff that I was saying to her is probably some of the stuff that I will be saying to the NQT I will be working with...

Many schemes of professional development for teachers, as well as advanced teaching certificates, include an element of 'Action Research' (AR). In my work as a team leader of EFL tutors, I've come to see just how important AR is for teachers to continue to develop and professionalise their teaching practices. And I'm so enthusiastic about teachers doing research that I want to share some introductory thoughts with a wider audience - with you, my dear blog readers! I hope I can inspire you to start your own AR projects, and would love to hear what you get up to...

Never has the theme of wellbeing been so much in vogue! And it's really no surprise why. The presence and prevalence of the wellbeing 'movement' is growing fast among the teaching profession and beyond. As teachers, we have one of the most privileged and fulfilling roles - to nurture, engage, inspire, and motivate the children we teach. It's a profession full of dedicated, talented people who commit so much of themselves striving to make a difference, to have an impact.

One good are is student wellbeing though more can always be done. http://www.textbooksfree.org/Child%20and%20Youth%20Well-Being.htm

"This is a lovely collection of inspirational and motivating classroom posters. Download them as a PDF to print."

I love this conversation from Natasha Devon, body image expert and recovered bulimic. Please read to help get inside the mind of what we're dealing with here and the messages from media (particularly to girls) about how we "should" look, "should" behave, and "should" be so we can be happy and live good lives. So much of it is manufactured unattainable hogwash, but still many of us (including me) struggle with self esteem issues that come from the fact that we aren't the "type" of person we see in the media who is a "popular" person. Criticize as you will, but it is reality for many of us. From Natasha: "I have one hour to convey the message that inspired my business, Gossip School; just one hour to emphasise the importance of self-esteem, to give these young people the tools to recognise negative messages from the media and to convince them that it is OK to be themselves, however they look."

As I'm reading on inquiry based learning, I came across another article, I'd like to share. In this article, it discusses how inquiry-based learning projects are driven by students. This very much aligns with the questions we ask on the Flat Classroom and other projects. The one point of meaning that I'm working to understand (and finding different answers depending upon the site) is that some differentiate that students should develop the questions rather than teachers "handing them" the questions. I have a lesson plan I sent through Diigo where the instructor designed a lesson around the question "Can there be giants?" and called in inquiry based. Under this article, it may not be called true inquiry based, and yet, I'm wondering if the question is intriguing and of interest and can be used in a way to teach if it really matters where the question originates.  My class is a mix of student-created inquiries (Freshman project) and project-generated inquiries (Digiteen, Flat Classroom). Interesting. Look forward to reading and understanding more (and sharing with you.) This is another nice article on the topic. Feel free to share yours. "Inquiry-based learning" is one of many terms used to describe educational approaches that are driven more by a learner's questions than by a teacher's lessons. It is inspired by what is sometimes called a constructivist approach to education, which posits that there are many ways of constructing meaning from the building blocks of knowledge and that imparting the skills of "how to learn" is more important than any particular information being presented. Not all inquiry-based learning is constructivist, nor are all constructivist approaches inquiry-based, but the two have similarities and grow from similar philosophies.

Fantastic for inspiring the message that we all need to be questioning and considering questions we don't know the answers to as we move forward into the 21st century

Wonderopolis, a program brought to life by the National Center for Family Literacy, engages and inspires families in the pursuit of education and learning together. We help families create a new force - transforming the parent/child relationship into an engine for progress and upward mobility.

This is a lesson plan that you can use as a starting point if you choose to involve your classrooms in the movement to end slavery in the world. Could you imagine if we could leave a legacy of this one thing. Our job is to speak for the helpless and to encourage empathy and understanding for others in this generation of children. It isn't all about what you can get, but about what you can give. This booklet is out of the UK. "The antislavery movement was the first major campaign in Britain to involve ordinary citizens across all classes (as well as the slaves themselves) in the struggle to end the practice. As such it is a good example of how change can come about when people work together for a just cause. This booklet More…intends inspire and equip young people to take a stand against the continuation of slavery and injustice in the world today."

Here is Sue Basko's site about Liz. One point I want to make here is that it could be that Liz's article did in fact inspire cyberstalking against Sue. It does not, however, mean Liz is a cyberstalker. One person hating Liz also does not mean it is true. There are people who have defended me in situations against those who are unkind but I had nothing to do with it. There is a lot more here than a simple to understand interaction. Also, perhaps, it would have been easier for Sue to say that she was wrong when she got out of field and made inflammatory comments hurting those with autism (saying they were claiming it just to get money --- in a way that was insensitive, in my opinion) In all of this, as you look at the interaction there is the surface story but also the fact that with social media and thousands of bystanders watching our interactions that such convoluted scenarios will emerge.

One of a host of Etherpad inspired collaborative notepads, but with a few little extra features, like being able to make a link to a read only page. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

A nice iPod inspired maths operations game. Practise multiplication, division, subtract and addition. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

I love this site. This site provides a safe online space for children to upload their art, craft and design creations to share with the whole world. For teachers, it is a great place to find inspiration for your own class projects. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Art%2C+Craft+%26+Design

A great kickstarter project - Hope it gets funding to take off