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Information Literacy Games: Finding Kermit This blog post features a great video of Kermit the frog singing It Ain't Easy Being Green. It follows up with an explanation of a search game that can be used with the whole class in a lab or on an individual workstation. It's part of a free series of online information literacy / information fluency games available from 21cif.com. Finding Kermit was the inspiration for one of the first Internet Search Challenges created by Dr. Carl Heine. The task is to track down a picture of Kermit ready for graduation in the least amount of time. The search game is embedded on the page so you can try it without going to the main site. Many teachers use this as a whole class lab activity. Put up a search challenge and then it's off the races! Most of these games were developed for middle and high school students. Adults find them challenging as well.

Students across the country have already started working on their IWitness Challenge project sponsored by the USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education, but there's still time for youngsters in your community to enter this free online program geared to all secondary-school students. The deadline to enter the Challenge is Dec. 2, 2013. The winning student, along with their teacher and a family member will be brought to Los Angeles to showcase their work as part of the 20th anniversary activities for the Shoah Foundation, which was founded by director Steven Spielberg in 1994 after making "Schindler's List." Tthe IWitness Challenge (iwitness.usc.edu) connects students with the past in a very personal way that spurs them to take action to improve the future. With access to many of the Shoah Foundation's 52,000 testimonies of survivors, liberators and rescuers, students experience history in a way that hits home. Instead of reading facts from textbooks, students feel the emotions and build relationships with those who lived through seemingly impossible situations. But students do more than watch the testimony. The IWitness Challenge compels them to think, to make smart choices and to create their own project and video from what they've learned. By encouraging teachers and students to create their own lesson plans, IWitness allows them to expand on practically any subject they wish to pursue. From civics, government and history to poetry, art and ethics, educators can tailor lessons appropriate for their classrooms. And by using the embedded editor, participants not only learn valuable searching and editing skills, but also how to make ethical editing decisions that ensure their finished assignments are a fair and accurate reflection of what they've seen. All work is kept safe inside the IWitness site and not accessible to the public. Using IWitness is free, but teachers or homeschool parents must register at iwitness.usc.edu.

I decided that I need to ramp up my blogging with a challenge. A challenge to myself to blog regularly and a challenge to the teachers I coach to think about different topics to blog about and to provide posts that they maybe hadn't thought about writing about on their blog.

"This is a maths resource that can be used to challenge pupils to complete a magic square, using only the numbers provided, to make sure that each row, column and diagonal all add up to the focused magic number. The resource provided challenges students to add up to 9, 12, 15 & 18, and could be used as a homework challenge, an additional classroom activity, or as a main activity within a maths lesson. Challenge pupils to work on two different methods for each magic number. This activity could be adapted with larger number, and other mathematic operations"

All students and educators participating in the challeng will have their name flown on the Exploration Flight Test-I mission as a member of the virtual crew. This mission will be unmanned and will launch in late 2014. So, kids can be a "virtual explorer." There are 4 challenges, age appropriate, to help design protective radiation protection for astronauts. We need to get students interest in space travel for a variety of reasons. This is a lovely real world project for students to join or could be a project for one of your #geniushour teams. "The goal of the Exploration Design Challenge is for students to research and design ways to protect astronauts from space radiation. NASA and Lockheed Martin are developing the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and on to an asteroid or Mars. Protecting astronauts from radiation on these distant travels is an important -- and very real -- problem that needs solving. NASA would like your help!"

Are you new to using an interactive whiteboard (IWB)? Have you used one for ages but want some other ideas? Are you using an IWB regularly but know you could use it better? Then you are invited to join The 2010 Interactive Whiteboard Challenge! The aim of the IWB Challenge: To improve the use of interactive whiteboards in classrooms everywhere by having students and teachers set challenges for each other by creating videos and screencasts of ways they use their IWB. The aim is also to connect educators and students to others who are working at improving their IWB practice.

China faces challenges in year of the rabbit: China faces challenges in year of the rabbit: Could not be reached on the Lunar New Year began on a note more edgy for China's rulers, who have been quick to..

The general population is an eclectic mix of individuals. No two people are the same, and the challenges of one person will ultimately be outweighed by the challenges of another person. For those who fall outside the 'norms' of society, the challenges of everyday life are even more profound, unable to access the daily privileges that most people take for granted...

"As teachers, one of the biggest challenges that we face in the classroom is students who give up. 'I can't do it', 'It's too hard', 'I dunno'. We spend hours planning a lesson that could stretch and challenge our students, only to find that they don't want to be stretched and challenged because it's too much like hard work. Where do we go from here? How do we make sure that we are molding our learners to be Hobnobs rather than Rich Teas?"

A challenge toolkit. If you are a gifted and talented or teacher of children who have challenges, there are 50 activities in this powerpoint that can you can adapt to any subject.

Students and teachers are taking the 4 liter challenge. Here's the curriculum and information to bring resources and instruction to children of all ages. "To make the 4 Liter Challenge an even more enriching experience, we've created a free curriculum that introduces themes of water, poverty and human rights to any 7-12th grade classroom. The 4L Curriculum is multidisciplinary and designed to align with national standards. It's built on an innovative "See, Judge, Act" model and will greatly enhance your students' 4L Challenge."

The Reflective Principal: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part IV) Reflection can be a challenging endeavor. It's not something that's fostered in school - typically someone else tells you how you're doing! Principals (and instructional leaders) are often so caught up in the meeting the demands of the day, that they rarely have the luxury to muse on how things went. Self-assessment is clouded by the need to meet competing demands from multiple stakeholders. In an effort to help schools become more reflective learning environments, I've developed this "Taxonomy of Reflection" - modeled on Bloom's approach. It's posted in four installments: 1. A Taxonomy of Reflection 2. The Reflective Student 3. The Reflective Teacher 4. The Reflective Principal It's very much a work in progress, and I invite your comments and suggestions. I'm especially interested in whether you think the parallel construction to Bloom holds up through each of the three examples - student, teacher, and principal. I think we have something to learn from each perspective. 4. The Reflective Principal Each level of reflection is structured to parallel Bloom's taxonomy. (See installment 1 for more on the model) Assume that a principal (or instructional leader) looked back on an initiative (or program, decision, project, etc) they have just implemented. What sample questions might they ask themselves as they move from lower to higher order reflection? (Note: I'm not suggesting that all questions are asked after every initiative - feel free to pick a few that work for you.) Bloom's Remembering : What did I do? Principal Reflection: What role did I play in implementing this program? What role did others play? What steps did I take? Is the program now operational and being implemented? Was it completed on time? Are assessment measures in place? Bloom's Understanding: What was

"In his new book, Professor Keith Taber reassures practicing and training science teachers, as he explores a range of issues faced by secondary school educators and discusses strategies for teaching the nature of scientific knowledge, making practical work effective and challenging young scientists. Throughout the academic prose, Professor Taber reflects on the nature of scientific knowledge in science education encouraging creating narratives, challenging misconceptions, and exploring principles of constructive teaching. The book continues with exploring specific challenges, such as teaching electrical circuits to lower secondary school students, along with a chapter dedicated to supporting gifted students who excel at the subjects."

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

The student blogging challenge starts next week. Here's the page to register your class. Remember, you can choose which challenges to participate in. It's a great way to build an authentic audience for your students!

painful reading with the example of Java - but the point remains that all learning objects should be managed and designed with the purpose of being able to use them in the future in ways that are dynamic and reusable. This means de-coupling them and ensuring they are made of distinct pedagogical units.

As far as my work as a teacher and teacher trainer is concerned, I believe in challenging students and having high expectations of everyone in the classroom. This is coupled with appropriate support and guidance, which is then differentiated to meet pupils' and students' needs. To support my learners I provide relevant and specific praise and feedback, engaging and interesting tasks and activities, sound guidelines and instructions, solid question and answer sessions and clear, practical examples or modelling.

2) Alfie Kohn "In fact, there isn't even a positive correlation between, on the one hand, having younger children do some homework (vs. none), or more (vs. less), and, on the other hand, any measure of achievement. If we're making 12-year-olds, much less five-year-olds, do homework, it's either because we're misinformed about what the evidence says or because we think kids ought to have to do homework despite what the evidence says." Homework: An Unnecessary Evil? ... Findings from New Research 3) Tyler Cowen believed education can create potentially valuable workers by helping them improve their value by using smart machines and that these two are stronger complements than ever. Students may not be able to calculate like computers but we can teach students to be better readers of character and emotion and to be the best interpreters of the masses of information provided by the behavioral sciences and big data. Not all students need to do programming but they need to easily make the most of technology. He sees educators as motivators and online managers rather than as a professor. From Average is Over, 2013 by Tyler Cower Could a majority on workers hurt by Geekability add to A. Greenspan's fear of unrest?

I find this fascinating. Here is a Twitter hashtag for end of period exams - they have challenges and share ideas and thoughts. 

Sue Waters' favorite activities from the student blogging challenges. Here are some ideas to get you started.

If you want to take the NASA Challenge - they are scheduling a webcast that will explain more about the challenge and how to do the radiation activity on October 18th, 2013 starting at 3:00 pm CT. This is the channel where it can be seen, so mark your calendars now and plan to see it.