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So if I were to make the post title into a statement it would be: Rather than a Digital Native/Digital Immigrant dichotomy, students have a wide spectrum of digital competence positively correlating to their digital exposure.

Excellent post, and much needed discussion on digital competencies!

Debating global issues is an important part of global competency. Here are some important and sometimes controversial issues like Child soldiers, nuclear weapons, child labor, Aids, poverty. Some very nice frameworks to use as we are ending the school year. After you finish your year end tests, you should consider some global competency lessons in your classroom to help students be aware of the world and also develop critical thinking skills. This is a great place to start.

Many students are not globally competent. This includes geography, current issues, and how to connect globally and is all what flattening the classroom is about. It is essential that your students connect with the world. This infographic is one to share with your school board and parents, both of whom are often reticent to connect students because of fear. They are asking the wrong questions. Not, "what are we keeping out" but "who are we bringing in?" Where are we connecting? It is time to flatten the classroom. (See flatclassroombook.com for more info.)

resource bank for key competencies 

account training becomes an added advantage if you do not wish to hire your personal accountant to manage your accounts. Accounting involves a lot of activities like book-keeping, preparing balance sheet, maintaining tax records and payroll and so on. There is no way you can avoid these tasks. Every functional organisation has to stick to these activities for the smooth functioning of the firm. Many organisations in the past have suffered from enormous losses only because their employees did not have the required accounting training and thus were unable to handle the accounting services and important financial documents and statements. For overall success, any firm should have a firm grip over the company's accounts and financial position. You can do a lot of things to ensure you are always informed about your company's financial position. First and foremost, you can ask experienced professionals from your company to undergo accounting training courses. By brushing up their knowledge through accounting training courses, these professionals will be in a better position to handle the accounting of the firm. Another option you have is to outsource the task to outside professionals who are competent enough to handle the accounting job. Apart from this, you can also hire accounting firms who can assure you transparency in all the dealings apart from impeccable services. By outsourcing your work to an outside firm, you can save a lot of time of your firm which can be utilised for other management tasks. However, you have to be ready to shell out a bomb to avail of these services and hence it is always a good thing to have your company's own professionals well versed in this task. Once your company professionals go through competent accounting training courses at a reputed accounting training centre, they can be ready to handle different tasks like preparing sales tax reports, creating monthly or mid-monthly reports, calculating reports with perfect sales figure,

The NZ Key Competencies - What this means for teachers and for schools

Welcome to Tutpup, where you can compete in fun, educational games against other kids from all over the World!

Learner guides are supplied as colour printed and wire bound booklets. Each learner guide is illustrated in colour and details procedures in a step-by-step format to provide the dental assistant with the skills and knowledge to competently and safely assist during oral health care procedures, to maintain high standards of infection control and to assist with practice administration.

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.)"

"Whilst unpacking the idea of Conscious Competence and Skillset, Toolset, Mindset with teachers, we came to realise many of them were having difficulty applying these concepts to their own learning, beyond a superficial level (assumption one - not all teachers are reflective learners). We found this quite provocative and decided to create a visual on our Leadership Provocation Wall."

For those working with elementary students integrating global competency, these 428 lesson plans and activities are great ways to cover geography and the cultural literacy that is needed by today's students. 

If you want plants to grow add rain, sunshine and warmth. The same works with children. A warm, caring environment where students and teachers have positive relationships, where they feel safe and have supports to help them succeed improves test scores. This is no surprise to good teachers. Those who put inordinate stress on teachers in ways that causes stress and harshness are likely hurting test scores and having the opposite effect, if one is to interpret this. Take a read and take action - on my blog I and many commenters have been discussing getting along with colleagues and having warm relationships with students. It isn't fluff but rather, is the stuff that test scores are made of. "It's the million-dollar question or, given the size of the California education budget, the $50-billion-dollar question: What makes extraordinarily successful schools different from other schools? The answer: school climate, according to a new study from WestEd, a San Francisco-based research agency. In recent years, the concept of school climate has gained increasing currency in education reform circles and the California Department of Education has received federal grants to evaluate school climate in 170 schools, as well as Safe and Supportive Schools grants to fund programs that enhance school climate. As defined by the WestEd study, a positive school climate includes caring relationships between teachers and students, physical and emotional safety, and academic and emotional supports that help students succeed. The goal of a positive school climate is "a sense of belonging, competence and autonomy" for both students and staff, the report said."

You can now edit files in your dropbox from a web browser. If you 're at work and need to edit the files, Textdrop might be for you. It does cost 20.99 per year to sign up for this but for some of you who don't have access to dropbox at work, this might help you. This is also a model for what we may see Dropbox do itself, as cloud syncing and cloud editing move closer together in all apps that want to compete in the space.

Ben Rimes teaches you how to Screen Record your iPad. He's also competing for a competition and would appreciate your "liking" his video. It is helpful if you're looking to screenrecord your ipad.

online spelling game for learning and competing.  uk site, so good for nz spelling.

"Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America."

New Search Engine from ex google engineers plans to compete with Google - Called "Cuil" - this article outlines the story.

Ribbon Hero is a game for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel 2007 and 2010, designed to help you boost your Office skills and knowledge. Play games (aka "challenges"), score points, and compete with your friends while improving your productivity with Office