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This is a great site for getting your head around the common core. A free account allows you access to a lot of the features and Common Assessments. Premium accounts allow you tools to collect assessment on your iPad or mobile device. Download the MasteryConnect FREE app for your iP*d or phone and have every Common Core standard easily accessible at your finger tips.

What I've encountered most in dealing with colleagues is the fear and the notion that this is just another five to ten year fad in education. It is important first to help others understand CCSS are not a quick-fix or an answer. In some ways, CCSS take us back to what good teaching looks. Ultimately, aside from the budgetary concerns with implementation, perhaps the other greatest struggle here will be the state-level assessment of the CCSS. In order for states to get it right, there needs to adequate time devoted to determining adequate assessment, not drill-and-kill. Broad, interconnected, higher-order thinking cannot be bubbled-in. Period.

One of the most powerful, misunderstood and under-utilized tools for teaching 21st century skills, is the Creative Commons. Besides providing access to hundreds of thousands of media works that can be used to augment the creative process, the Creative Commons offers a legitimate way for students to license their own creative works, be they audio, video, text or hybrid products.

Blog about 14 tools to teach about Creative Commons

Suzie Nestico is our project manager for this semester's Flat Classroom project and is doing an incredible job. She is a history teacher and is doing work at her Pennsylvania school to align everything with common core.Here,you can see her transparency with her students about each aspect of the FlatClassroom project, what they are doing, and how those things are aligned with what they need to know. While she very humbly pointed out to me that her blog is just beginning and still a work in process with some things to iron out - it is a great example of how global collaboration, common core, and core courses can go hand in hand.

Darren Burris, a math teacher at Boston Collegiate Charter School, has a list of 186 items for Common Core Resources on his Diigo list. He's someone you'll want to follow on Diigo.

Not sure where this blog will move, but if you're aligning with common core math, Darren Burris is your man. There are so many great resources on this website.

Using a TED.com video in a Common Core aligned writing assignment as students learn about speech patterns with the purpose of driving a TED-like conference at the school.

Common Core Mapping Discussions on the curriculum21 Ning.

You can help them think deeper but it takes time and sharpening the saw. Great article. "A common occurrence in classrooms is that the teacher, when he or she sees the students struggle mightily to "think out of the box" will precipitously step in and give the students the answers, or throw the deeper learning activity out all together, thinking that the students aren't ready for it. What these students and the teachers need is to be patient, practice and build those mental muscles over time. One thing that helps teachers and students is a better understanding the nature of the advanced thinking tools."

If you don't understand social bookmarking, here is a common craft video called "Social Bookmarking in Plain English." It explains how social bookmarking works.

"The topic of Mobile and Ubiquitous is seen today as personal devices that are used for communication purposes and can be taken anywhere. Common examples of these devices are computers and cell phones. "

Lecturing individual students is a common classroom management practice-just another tool in a teacher's tool belt. But it's a colossal mistake, born of frustration, that does nothing to curb unwanted behavior beyond several minutes. The reason?

An article in last week's Education Week looks at the increasingly common practice of reading aloud to middle and high school students. In discussing the practice with Mary Ann Zehr (I'm quoted briefly in the piece) I made the point that while there is certainly nothing wrong with reading out loud to teenagers, it is symptomatic of what I call "literacy creep" - the tendency of elementary school-style instructional techniques to find their way deeper into K-12 education across all content areas.

Yet another beautiful analysis of a major problem in education today by the good people at Core Knowledge.

Commoncraft video Augmented Reality

Frequent Edutopia blogger Andrew Miller discusses his strategy for using real world math in order to make math relevant to students.

The Great Books Foundation is a nonprofit educational organization based in Chicago, IL. 

Book a Trip inventor

We believe that a child who graduates from high school without an understanding of culture, the arts, history, literature, civics, and language has in fact been left behind. So to improve education in America, we're promoting programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels that provide students with challenging, rigorous instruction in the full range of liberal arts and sciences.

Very heartening to see a growing movement advocating a knowledge-rich, intellectually rigorous curriculum for schools. They've got the funds to hire good photographers and models with nice skin, too.

An interesting video I came across about the main issues concerning fair use, copyright, and video mashups. Highlights from my transcription below: We're seeing this blossoming of amateur cultures, video remixes and creativity, and a lot of these works are circulating on the Internet. Copyright law is all about balance........