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The Virtual Courseware Project produces interactive, online simulations for the life science laboratory or for earth science field studies. The activities are designed to enhance an existing curriculum and include online assessments. They can be used by students ranging from middle school, high school, or college classrooms.

Says that disengagement or lack of intellectual flow is bad, and that 21st century tools can be used to help. Post based on assumption that lack of flow (anxiety, apathy, boredom) is caused by limited curriculum.

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.

Great presentation on how to use RAFT for writing across the curriculum

These games were created in PowerPoint.  Download the templates and modify the games to fit your curriculum needs.

Debate resources for those who work with debate.

Excellent efolio of work from Joy J in the 10th grade Introduction to Computer Science course. You can see an overview of the types of things done in this course and how Flat Classroom and NetGenEd were integrated into the curriculum as well as some videos. Joy is an excellent student and this portfolio with exception of a few tiny omissions is near perfect.

There's a lot of misinformation out there about legal rights and responsibilities in the digital era. This is especially disconcerting when it comes to information being shared with youth. Kids and teens are bombarded with messages from a myriad of sources that using new technology is high-risk behavior. Downloading music is compared to stealing a bicycle - even though many downloads are lawful. Making videos using short clips from other sources is treated as probably illegal - even though many such videos are also lawful.

EFF's curriculum on teaching copyright.

Lesson Ideas and Literacy Curriculum from PBS. Site resources are also available in Spanish.

"aroundtheworldwith80schools * Join this WikiJoin this Wiki * Recent ChangesRecent Changes * Manage WikiManage Wiki 1. Home 2. After Skype Calls 3. Curriculum Integration 4. During Skype Calls 5. Journey Around the World 6. Obectives & Standards 7. Preparing Skype Calls 8. Signing-Up 9. Skype Rituals 10. Technical Know How 11. Time Zones 12. Your 2BJourney 13. Your ASMadrid Journey 14. Your Journey edit navigation * home * pagesubmenu o Details and Tags o Print o PDF o Backlinks o Source o Delete o Rename o Redirect o Permissions o Lock * discussion (8) * history * notify me Details last edit Nov 6, 2009 3:14 pm by langwitches langwitches - 11 revisions hide details Tags * none * Type a tag name. Press comma or enter to add another. Cancel Protected I am Technology Integration Facilitator and 21st Century Learning Specialist from Jacksonvill e, Florida/ USA . I am taking on the challenge to connect my students and teachers with at least 80 schools in different countries and continents. We want to circle the globe. Will you connect with us via Skype to complete the challenge? All it takes is a 5-10 minute Skype call. Interested? Sign up for the project to be added to a growing list of over 200 interested teachers from around the world. around-world3.jpg"

From the creators of 2 Million Minutes.  Trailer for their documentary about the Finnish school system.

New Web 2.0 social networking site established by a young lady to connect students with professors and TAs to provide curriculum support. 

Cool (not free though) website with some really nifty gizmos.

I think we're going to see more companies that have valid, standards based games like this one for elementary science and math. This isn't free but you can have a free trial and try the games free for 5 minutes. I think that games are going to be part of what we do and smart textbook companies would behoove themselves to embed games as part of the curriculum for each chapter. I wish my school could do something like this, another thing to look at.

Great information shared by Bob  Sprankle on why you should use Scratch with kids. If you work with elementary curriculum or teach in an elementary STEM or computer lab read this. "THIS is the true intent of Scratch. Mitch Resnick made Scratch with his team at MIT. The team is (purposefully) called "The Lifelong Kindergarten Group" because in kindergarten we are allowed (or used to be allowed) to try things out, build things and knock them down, make a mess, experiment, fool around with tools, CREATE! Resnick says that we should be allowed to be working like that ALL the time -for our entire lives-because that is HOW WE LEARN BEST. It is the natural way the brain operates."

Here is a beginner guide for Scratch. This is a great set of resources to help you get started with computer game production in Scratch. This was developed to cover the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, Experience, and Outcome for Game Production. This is a fascinating way to start. I hope others will share their resources in the comments. I want to use Scratch in my classroom.

Here is an interesting point as I research inquiry based learning and move to look in a database that is largely built from overseas. Many places called "inquiry" "enquiry" so in this set of lessons across the curriculum, I have to search using the term "enquiry" to turn up what have been tagged as "inquiry based" lesson plans. There are many nuances like that as you start looking at best practices across the world to remember. Eventually, hopefully, language searches will translate between common languages (like English) to help us bridge best practices. If you're looking into inquiry-based learning (or equiry-based depending upon where you're from) - this is a database of lesson plans from Kindergarten up in different categories.

Julie and I spent some time with Silvia Tolisano talking about global collaboration, telling the story of how the flat classroom started and why we kept it going and the reason for the book. Also we snuck into the things shared in the book that we hope will help those involved in global education make it scalable and consistent. Probably the most fun was our discussion near the end about how Silvia and I "met" online and how we covered ISTE2006 from afar on our computers (pre twitter.) it was a fun talk.

I try not to bookmark blogs, but this is so well-written, I couldn't resist. Why is there no word for accountability in the Finish language? Why are we, in education, focusing on data and not the child?

My favorite part was of course: "For those who claim we need accountability in its current form, I encourage them to look to Finland who don't even have a word in their language for accountability, so they use responsibility - the difference being much more than simple semantics." :-D