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This article is regarding the Chinese Language and Chinese Culture. The Chinese language combines the culture of one of the oldest civilizations with the simplicity and beautiful strokes of character symbols. And the history of Chinese Language. And also focus on different way to learn Chinese Language. I hope you enjoy.

You can accomplish what you need to do this year. Maybe you should plan your year differently. Here are my 10 secrets that I use to be more productive and get more done posted over on the Edutopia blog. Hope it helps.

And there goes another year. Where does the time go? New Years bring new hope, new beginnings, new intentions, but when you are a teacher, you quickly realise that the same stuff happens over and over again, with the same daily challenges presenting…

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.

This might be good for introducing programming without needing to touch a computer. I've students who aren't initially engaged by jumping into programming with a computer even with something like Scratch. Maybe this is a way to get them in the correct mindset first. When I first found this, I hoped there might be program cards that required using loops or variables but from looking at the game rule book that does not appear to be the case.  It appears that movement is the only command types, which can result in automatic laser firing or bumping another robot. Still seems like a good game though.

"For most children, school holidays are a chance to grow together as a family and time to take a break from classes (although we hope that learning continues!). But not all children look forward to school holidays. School may be their sanctuary from conflict and abuse from home or elsewhere. The most important, and often the most difficult step to safeguard vulnerable children is identifying that they are vulnerable in the first place, as the truth is often hidden very well. Safeguarding training is a yearly mandatory course in many parts of the UK, but are teachers confident at spotting issues and stepping in when needed?"

"There are many components that make teaching stressful, such as teaching for tests and hoping the pupils will perform well, marking and giving meaningful feedback quickly. Also, there are 'Pinch points' in the year where lots seem to come at once! Even when confronted with a group of students, when you get one of those classes where none of them cares or see the point no matter how hard you try to convince them otherwise. Ultimately, teaching is a massively important role in society, so there's a lot riding on the profession which equates to a lot of pressure/stress. It's just fortunate that most of the time the wins outweigh the rest."

"Fads in education come and go, with many settings being full of optimism, hope, and trying to instil a positive mindset among their pupils. Yet, all these positive, happy signals sometimes fall short of providing individuals the skills to think more critically within the world they engage in. Many people believe that thinking negatively is a bad thing, and do not consider it as a positive force for good. Expecting things to go wrong can be a great force for good, and with grades and expectations in schools set very high, what happens when things don't go to plan? People are completely stuffed. If exams scores do not reach expected levels, then deciding on a college, university, or vocational options can throw individuals off-course, but having considered the negative outcome options can provide a backup plan of which they still have some control."

"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

So excited to announce the Every Classroom Matters online radio show (podcast) http://bit.ly/XAozCY If you go to the site on your ipad or iphone, you can click "itunes" and it will add the show to your podcast feed or you can play it. The first show I talked to Dr. Lee Graham, a cofounder of #diffimooc about MOOCs and how colleges can actually make money giving away teaching for free. What does this model look like? It was a great conversation and I"ll be sharing more about it. Please listen and let me know what you think and if you have a suggestion for a new show, follow the link. Thanks!

Struggles about teaching. Many are struggling with helping others get into the profession because of what teachers are experiencing now. Charity Preston shares her heart but also some encouraging stories for teachers. 

My students are working on an awareness and social action campaign with the students from Reading, Ohio (teacher: Brian Page.) They are celebrating May DAy in a new way -- asking everyone to buy jewelry made by those rescued from human slavery and to wear it on that day. May Day: May all slaves be free one day but until then we will speak on their behalf. They have a blog, a Facebook page and more. Would you consider creating awareness next Monday and celebrate with them on May1st? We're looking for some more classrooms to join their voices to our blog at hopeforslaves.com a website we set up this week.

"Historypin is a like a digital time machine that allows people to view and share their personal history in a totally new way.  It uses Google Maps and Street View technology and hopes to become the largest user-generated archive of the world's historical images and stories.  Historypin asks the public to dig out, upload and pin their own old photos, as well as the stories behind them, onto the Historypin map. Uniquely, Historypin lets you layer old images onto modern Street View scenes, giving a series of peaks into the past."

interesting site where you can "pin" a photo and tell the story

Keep up with Classroom 2.0 LIve conversations. I actually have this as part of my Google Calendar so I can keep up with it. This week: "This Saturday, Mar. 21st, Peggy George, Kim Caise, and Lorna Costantini will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE web meeting. Classroom 2.0 "LIVE" meetings are an opportunity to gather with other members of the community in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing, and sometimes even video. (Special thanks to our sponsor, Elluminate, for providing the service that allows us to do this!) A Google Calendar of shows is available at http://live.classroom20.com/calendar.html. The topic this Saturday is: "Podcasting". Our special guest will be Kevin Honeycutt, founder of the "Podstock" Ning. Our Newbie Question of the Week will be: "What is a podcast and how can I use it to support my teaching?" We hope you'll join us to share your ideas and questions. Links for more information can be found at http://live.classroom20.com. We strive to make our shows beginner-friendly and if you've never participated in a live web meeting don't be afraid to come and take a peek at the show's format. We love newbies to join us and 'dip their toes in' the conversations until you feel comfortable enough to "jump in the conversations with both feet"! We want to encourage "experienced Web 2.0 users" to join us by contributing and extending the conversation by sharing real-life examples and tips/suggestions. Date: Sat., Mar. 21, 2009 Time: 9:00am PST/10:00am MST/11:00am CST/12:00pm EST Other time zones link and a link to the actual meeting room can be found at http://live.classroom20.com/. Location: Elluminate https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.97A21EB084879D9442B4EDF2437E3D"

Great resources and free PD. This calendar lists all types of activities and webinars for you in one place.

the classroom 2.0 calendar, for people (like me!) who have a busy teaching schedule, thereby (haha) getting days/time zones confused :O)

Today's Meet gives you an isolated room where you can see only what you need to see, and your audience doesn't need to learn any new tools like hash tags to keep everything together.

create a backchannel for your class. someday i hope to actually have computers for my students and i'll be able to use this!

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.

This is a very honest, open discussion between educators about why diigo or delicious -- I think the fact we can have this conversation within diigo at all says a lot for the usefulness of the tool. Diigo is an emerging tool for social bookmarking and collective intelligence.

This%20is%20an%20annotated%20discussion%20of%20our%20discussion%20here%20on%20Diigo.%20%20Look%20how%20deep%20the%20conversation%20can%20go%20now!%20%20WE%20can%20analyze%20ourselves%20and%20extract%20meaning.