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Please tell parents that even losing an hour of sleep will impair their children. "The performance gap caused by an hour's difference in sleep was bigger than the normal gap between a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader. Which is another way of saying that a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader. "A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development," Sadeh explains."

"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

Two studies were released in an attempt to "quantify the benefits of mobile technology in education and the infrastructure needed..." In these students students had tablets and Internet access at home and at school. Of course, I'm not sure that it is tablet computers that give benefits, Internet access, cloud computing, or a combination, but I'm sure these studies will be touted by many far and wide. Of course, remember if they had strapped the tablets to the kid''s back and hadn't used them - they would have had lower scores. All improvement is all in how technology is being USED to teach. "The studies put Android tablets in the hands of students and their teachers in two schools - eighth-graders at Stone Middle School in Fairfax County Public Schools and fifth-graders at Falconer Elementary School in Chicago Public Schools - and provided wireless access to the students both in school and away from school. (The devices were HTC Evo tablets.) Researchers then followed the students' activities over the course of a year, with the aim of evaluating "how access to these devices for communication with teachers and classmates increases comfort with technology, extends the learning day, and allows students to develop digital citizenship skills within a safe and secure learning environment.""

"I've always valued problem-solving, decision-making, and higher critical thinking skills in my classes. I know that 7th graders are a bit wobbly in their emerging abstract thinking skills, but I also know that a little scaffolding and creative empowerment helps those new skills flourish! Learning how to learn and learning how to think are two of my top goals for each of my students." I love this quote from Amy Dean about what she wants for her 7th grade students. Amy has a very nice blog, reflecting pools.

Amy Dean's philosophy for her 7th graders.

Cell phones and what the japanese government is doing about it.

Japanese government becoming "involved" in the overuse of cell phones by japanese teenagers. This program emphasizes cell phone addiction. 1/3 of japanese 6th graders and cell phones and 2/3rds of 9th graders have them. Interestingly, one panel wants to take texting off the phones? How about using texting iN school? How about letting them define words on it instead of using a dictionary? How about letting them use it in the classroom? Seems kind of like damming up the Mississippi - it may work for a while, but eventually, the dam is going to break. Yes, this is something to talk about and discuss... internet and cell phone addiction is a real issue with many kids I talk to reporting that they literally sleep with it under their pillow. However, just getting rid of texting, I don't think that is a good idea. As with anything in human history, every tool may be used for good or bad.

Common Sense Media has launched a new version of its free digital citizenship curriculum, Digital Literacy and Citizenship in a Connected Culture. The new version adds student, teacher, and parent resources, including comprehensive lessons on cyber bullying, for fourth and fifth graders.

Lots of talk in technology circles about 6th grader Thomas Suarez an iphone programmer.His best selling app is Bustin Jieber a Justin Beiber "Whack a Mole." He shares how he learned how to program an app. How he taught himself the iPhone Software Development kit.  He started an "app club" at school where any kid at school can come and learn how to design an app. He is part of an ipad pilot program. The students are asking teachers to help them design apps for education and the money is going into local education foundation. 

The course planning wiki for the digiteen action project from my ninth graders for the middle school. They've done a nice job of planning and sharing the materials. I like their google presentation which has evolved significantly over the last three weeks.

The digital citizenship course planning wiki made by my ninth graders to teach the middle school about digital citizenship.

Fascinating article from a teacher thriving in the standardized testing environment. Fascinating. "Last year, working with the same cohort of students (by then fifth graders), I tried to find more learning opportunities that focused on data. We used math websites like TenMarks that enable students to learn about their own learning even as they practice new skills. We analyzed information graphics and dove into ways of presenting numerical information. We explored how numbers shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. And much of their enthusiasm and curiosity for these tasks came out of their interest in numbers from standardized testing. I've thus come to believe there's a role for standardized testing within education. As a limited portion of a multiple measure evaluation system, it helps teachers understand how well we've taught over the course of a year. It also helps students understand how much they mastered over that year and makes them agents in their own learning."

Testing students over material that is NOT in the curriculum is not fair. I think that states should have a way to mark things not covered and just take the hits across the board for not having it in their curriculum instead of causing children to suffer through feeling ignorant. Common Core may be great, however, if it isn't in the curriculum it is unfair and shouldn't be done. What can we do? Do we cause children to stress out unfairly because adults can't get their act together or it takes time to change the curriculum? I don't know the answers, but the thought of a child looking at a test and knowing that some things didn't happen in the classroom and the impact of "feeling dumb" that will happen just turns my stomach, literally.  From the NEw York Times. " And they are likely to cover at least some material that has yet to make its way into the curriculum. The new tests, given to third through eighth graders, are intended to align with Common Core standards, a set of unified academic guidelines adopted by almost every state and goaded by grant money offered by the Obama administration. They set more rigorous classroom goals for American students, with a focus on critical thinking skills, abstract reasoning in math and reading comprehension."

Practice rounding whole numbers to the thousands. This quiz was difficult for fourth graders. Students needed to have scratch paper / mini-whiteboard on hand to work out the problems.

I love this lesson plan which includes algebra, ratios, angles, and stastics that most 9th and 10th graders I know could compute. This could be a very fund summary activity. Look at this PDF and powerpoint and create your own. If you do, please share it with me in the comments or email it to me, I'd like to share what you do.

Paula has collected resources for helping students with irregular English verbs. I'm struggling with helping my fourth grader learn them and have a whole week to get ready for the test and will be using these sites, review games, and activities! Thank you Paula!

Glad to share something with you after all the things you've shared with me.

Lesson plan to help you cover human slavery. This is hard topic but you cannot blame those who did nothing about slavery in the Civil War if you turn a blind eye to the unpleasantries of our world. This is from the New York Times and I am going to use it with my 9th graders on Monday.

Will you help Silvia Tolisano's students by letting them know what screencasts you want them to record? Thank you for taking a moment. This is a great project she's doing for these 6th graders. She does such a wonderful job of helping students develop an authentic audience.

Tinkering works. Read Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager's book "Invent to Learn" which talks about tinkering and how to use Maker Spaces to promote it to learn more. Great points from Lifehacker: "Research in the science of learning shows that hands-on building projects help young people conceptualize ideas and understand issues in greater depth. In an experiment described in the International Journal of Engineering Education in 2009, for example, one group of eighth-graders was taught about water resources in the traditional way: classroom lectures, handouts and worksheets. Meanwhile, a group of their classmates explored the same subject by designing and constructing a water purification device. The students in the second group learned the material better: they knew more about the importance of clean drinking water and how it is produced, and they engaged in deeper and more complex thinking in response to open-ended questions on water resources and water quality... it involves a loose process of trying things out, seeing what happens, reflecting and evaluating, and trying again."

Here's a vimeo about how Mrs.Yollis Mystery skypes with her third graders including responsibilities of each person during the call.This can be used with Google Hangouts. Thank you Sylvia Martinez for sharing and putting this helpful video together.

Wow, I love Joli Barker 's "Fearless writing and the 3D augmented reality worlds that students are using along with their writing. This is completely AWESOME! If you're teaching elementary kids to write, you've got to read what Joli is doing with these third graders

The Kids' Science Challenge is a nationwide competition for 3rd to 6th graders to submit experiments and problems for REAL scientists and engineers to solve. Play science games, watch videos, and enter to win awesome prizes and trips!