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Doug Johnson is a great read for his blunt, in your face honesty and his point about how technology companies are trying to differentiate is a great one. I think, however, we should extend this to schools as well. If your school is great, say why, but dissing the competition is no way to compete. If you think your school has no competition, think again. So, read this in light of the arriving and coming competition on the edulandscape and have an honest take on how you should "sell" the virtues of your school. If you can't talk about how great your school is and have to resort to how bad the other one is, prepare for a day when you'll shutter the windows and wonder how they're going to keep the bugs out of your empty building. Wake up and smell the wires burning their way into your student's computers and tablets, great teachers are just a click away and we've all got to learn how to blend and trend our courses, teaching, and to bridge our classrooms to add real value as teachers. It isn't hard as you think but if you just sit and teach like you've always taught, you're setting yourself up for some unpleasant days. You can't do everything but you can do something to improve yourself. Next practices are an important part of your best practice. Always innovate and never settle. Standards are only the beginning, you must have purpose if you're going to be a great teacher. Doug says: "But what I do know that when competitors trash each other, I tend to tune out. And I flat out hate it when I know they are lying - and I will NOT buy from a liar. A salesman recently promoted his video storage service by stating "unlike YouTube, we don't own your movies." That's just not true. (YouTube doesn't own your movies, GoogleApps doesn't own your Docs, CIPA, FERPA, etc. do not ban social media.)"

" Kristy Cooper's insanely rigorous mixed methods study, Eliciting Engagement in the High School Classroom: A Mixed-Methods Examination of Teaching Practices, published in the April 2014 American Educational Research Journal, does an exceptional job of showing what works. Cooper, an award-winning researcher at Michigan State University with an MA and Ed.D from Harvard, examined the impact of three well-supported strategies that teachers employ to increase student engagement. As you read each summary below, try to guess which practice had the greatest impact." Todd Finley shares the three methods and asks which has the most impact: 1) Lively teaching, 2) Academic Rigor and 3) Connective Instruction. A fantastic must-read on student engagement that you'll want to email your staff.

Here is another study for literacy people. This report from the UK talks about effective teacher training and good teaching methods but interestingly talks about early reading instruction and the debates surrounding whole language and constructivism.

Really 197 channels for learning? Well, there are many, but if you're like me, you're building a subscription list for your content areas and starting to curate (and perhaps create) some channels. Building a good YouTube stream is becoming part of curation and PLN building - so here's a great place to start.

Fred Haas' reflections are so very real when it comes to ambitious global collaborations. I had to laugh as he said about NetGenEd (last spring's project): "Without question it was a mildly harrowing but ultimately rewarding experience." The learning curve is TREMENDOUS but once you have it under your belt it is similar to your first year of teaching or boot camp for someone in the military. If you're wondering if this sort of thing is for you, take a read of Fred's very real reflections. Julie nor I NOR ANY global collaborator will ever say it is easy - if it is perhaps you're not having to be as engaged as perhaps you need to be. However, it is most rewarding!

Must read about considerations for the future directions of our schools and developing the 21st Century learner.

"Ainsworth, Prain and Tyler  (2011) in a paper in Science argue that  drawing  can play a number of  important roles in learning:, namely: Drawing to enhance engagement - surveys have shown than when students draw to explain they are more motivated to learn compared to traditional teaching of science. Drawing to learn to represent in science - the process of producing visual representations  helps learners understand how scientific representations work. Drawing to reason in science - student learn to reason like scientists as they select specific features to focus on in their drawings, aligning it with observation, measurement and/or emerging ideas Drawing as a learning strategy - if learners read a text and then draw it, the process of making their understanding visible and explicit helps them to overcome limitations in presented material, organise and integrate their knowledge and ultimately can be transformative. Drawing to communicate - discussing their drawings with their students provides teachers with windows into students' thinking as well being a way that the peers can share knowledge, discovery and understanding."

An article/ ebook on creating new learning spaces in the classroom. this one talks about the "pod room." I love the 7 spaces for learning that Ewan McIntosh wrote for us in our Choice Chapter in the Flat Classroom book - he espouses many of these same thoughts. 

Wonderful, flexible tool that I've used to take my classroom paperless.

Lot of resources and ideas about how Duke Univ integrates tech in the classroom.

Lot of resources and ideas about how Duke Univ integrates tech in the classroom.

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

Wiki with detailed explanation of how to tag articles

The updated 2006 copy of the National Reading Panel teacher's guide to give a framework for using the findings of the 200 national Reading Panel in the classroom. This is another guidebook for teachers and curriculum directors.

This is an example of how I used Diigo to create an annotated link to give feedback on a wiki on Flat Classroom. I love using Diigo for giving wiki feedback because I can mark up the page. I like ot share them through groups that are private with my students and I and the annotated link feature is one of the best ways to do this.