Group items tagged

From Steve Hargadon: "I've started a new community at http://www.FutureofEducation.com to providing an opportunity for those who care about education to share their voices and ideas on charting the course of education in a networked world. It's a place for thoughtful discussion on an incredibly important topic. The site will launch officially at the end of the month with the start of a weekly interview series, but I'm inviting some participation now because of an email Carol Broos (http://www.classroom20.com/profile/beatechie) sent out. Carol is one of twelve teachers who have been invited to participate in a round table discussion concerning the direction of education the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Jan 21. She was sent the following questions, and is asking for feedback and ideas. You can respond either at the new http://www.FutureofEducation.com site or her wiki at http://education20.pbwiki.com/FrontPage. Here are the questions: 1. What is the one most important education issue you wish Secretary Duncan to focus on during his tenure and why? 2. How shall the tenets of the No Child Left Behind act be altered or invigorated? What are its positives? How can its negatives be improved? 3. How should the new administration respond to the nation's need for better prepared and more qualified teachers? 4.What should the new administration do to increase student engagement in mathematics, the sciences and the arts? 5. How should funding equity issues be addressed? There is also a discussion topic on what questions were not asked that might have been." This seems to be a great thing!

A cute video intro to personal learning environments

Loonyhiker has a MUST read post about a child who was in gifted programs and had a brain trauma and then, was treated by his teachers as being lazy because they couldn't see on the outside that any thing was different. It breaks my heart but is a story to share with people to understand the brain. Don't automatically assume a child is lazy, understand that the brain is something you cannot see and learning disabilities, ADHD, and brain issues are tough to understand.

Great thoughts from Pat (loony hiker) about a child that helps us better understand learningdisabilities.

Building a PLN has just gotten easier.

Organizations are starting to get things together to create widgets to help academicians, authors, and others to build a very powerful PLN (personal learning network) with their igoogle or netvibes. They seem to prefer Netvibes for a couple of reasons - and I maintain an account on both, although I startup on igoogle. There are Bespoke repository service widgets and repository information widgets. They even have a page to see what these widgets do (also in this post.) Every modern student (and professor and teacher) should understand how to build a PLN.

7 steps to a flat classroom is being given away free from Atomic Learning through the end of October. Let me know how you like it!

7 steps to a flat classroom, free through October 2008.

BWO Twitter: htjoshua @downingstreet what chance PM invites pupils 2write2 Mugabe on behalf of persecuted teachers who ran poll stations returning "wrong" results

In the light of post election persecution of teachers who ran poll stations returning the "wrong" results in Zimbabwe's recent elections, I have just asked our Prime Minister if he is going to invite pupils worldwide to write to Robert Mugabe expressing concern for: * teachers in fear of their lives, * pupils who miss learning, and * exams that cannot be run even. It happens the form of the question was by way of Twitter:

The educational "pack" of twitterers -- join this wiki and add yours -- this helps newcomers find twitterers grouped along a common topic. I'm exploring to find people in other areas to learn from!

This page lists many of the educational twitterers.

Well organized action list to promote change starting with "reform of the educational profession".

A recent "practice guide" from the federal National Center for >> Education Research >> distills what its panel of scholarly authors believe are seven of the >> best research-based instructional strategies teachers can use to >> improve student learning

an enormous collection of learning and education resources across the curriculum

Great tool for teachers wanting to learn how blogging and 2.0 can change practices

Site is dedicated to bringing the insights of brain science to the classroom. A laudable goal, it seems to me.

Article from "The Journal" about measuring learning and 21st Century Skills.

HS principal, Harry Grzelewski, expresses his view on 21st Century Learning and instruction.

Easy actions to engage parents in supporting and funding education technology.

Awesome online tools which students can use to learn basic technology skills.

Another PA parent opts his child out of PSSA standardized testing as a measure of civil disobedience.  Word of caution:  This can very much hurt a school's Adequate Yearly Progress and ultimately the school may suffer.  But, what if this movement spread amongst parents?  What then?  Would the government take over the school?