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7,000 photos of school lunches are being passed around the Internet. Be aware that your school might be next as this is a hot topic (and has been for years.) Before you know it, you might find that your school has a pic. My school is blessed with amazing lunchroom staff who work hard to serve up great meals. In fact, for their Thanksgiving meal, there are people in town who come to the school to eat it is so good. It is hard with the money they have to make the meals, but we can do better. Delicious lunches are one way to make everyone's day brighter and school to be a place people want to go.

Web only property for PBS Kids Fizzy's Lunch Lab is a vibrant, fun and kid-friendly media property featuring original characters and funny stories that entertain and educate families about the importance of good nutrition, a balanced diet, and physical activity. Join Professor Fizzy and friends in the super-charged Lunch Lab Test Kitchen, as they prepare healthy snacks, investigate the difference between good and bad food, and learn what happens once the food you eat goes into your body.

Great article on US news about initiatives in the US that have started but of special interest is the request that students and educators tweet. The biggest issues I've had with the town hall meetings is that most of them are in the middle of the day when everyone is teaching. On Thursday at 3 pm there is a chat about rural education. It is nice that they're having these meetings but if they REALLY want teachers to participate it will be when teachers are able to focus on the conversation. You can't have teachers teaching and Tweeting. It doesn't work. If you see me tweet during the day, most of the tweets are scheduled or I'm on break or lunch break. "February has been a busy month for K-12 education. On February 1, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan kicked it off by announcing that all U.S. schools should transition to digital textbooks within the next five years. On the 9th, President Obama waived 10 states from No Child Left Behind. And last week, the president proposed a 2013 budget that includes a $1.7 funding increase for education." Although these federal policy decisions may not seem directly connected to day-to-day classroom activities, the Department of Education is using Twitter to encourage teachers, administrators, parents, and students to play a more active role.

Superintentendent of Quitman County Schools, Allen Fort, nails it with this article about being a superintendent of a rural school in Georgia. When budgets get cut by the state, rural schools hurt the most because their falling tax revenue means they get cut on both ends. Many rural schools are struggling and it is a shame what is happening in many of them. He talks about one of the biggest problems in rural schools which is a problem for all of us in an increasing way: "A rural school in way too many students' lives does play the role of in loco parentis. In these buildings, the teachers, janitors, secretaries, lunch room workers, paraprofessionals, and bus drivers help them gain knowledge and understanding of the value of an education, acquire social skills and aspire to succeed, and in many, many cases they do." You should take the time to read this past Sunday's AJC to get an understanding of the state of education in Georgia for indeed many other states have similar issues. I thought the whole piece done by the AJC had many different viewpoints - it was a great read.

Must read letter over at Edweek from a mom of one child who died at Sandy Hook and one who survived... if you want to be affirmed and remember why you teach, this is the post you should share with everyone. "Your courage will support students who are left out and overlooked, like the isolated young man who killed my daughter. At some point he was a young, impressionable student, often sitting all alone at school. You will have kids facing long odds for whom your smile, your encouraging word, and your willingness to go the extra mile will provide the comfort and security they need to try again tomorrow. When you Google "hero," there should be a picture of a principal, a school lunch worker, a custodian, a reading specialist, a teacher, or a bus monitor. Real heroes don't wear capes. They work in America's schools. "When I asked my son's teacher why she returned, she responded, 'Because they are my kids.' " Being courageous requires faith. It took faith to go back to work at Sandy Hook after the shooting. Nobody had the answers or knew what would come tomorrow, but they just kept going. Every opportunity you have to create welcoming environments in our schools where parents and students feel connected counts."

While not everyone community is as forward thinking as Kalamazoo, Michigan (which gives every child in that community a free college education at a public university of their choice in Michigan), helping children from low income families apply for college is imperative. I love this article because it gives practical advice and discusses the issues as well as some creative approaches. I think that the least communities could do is fund college application fees for low income students... helping kids go to college is a start, but a very important one. From this AP Article from NBC Latino... "Yet, nationally, about half of high school graduates from families making below $18,300 enrolled in college in 2012 compared to about 80 percent of those whose families earned above $90,500, according to the College Board. In Washington, where Duarte lives, only 30 percent of high school graduates go to college - a lower percentage than the number who drop out of high school, despite the city having the highest level of college attainment in the nation, according to the College Board. Nearly all the students at Roosevelt qualify for free or reduced lunches. To help create a college-going culture, a bulletin board near the school's front doors features the names of seniors and the colleges they were accepted to. College acceptances are announced over the intercom."

super hyper type spider recommended by @fsinfo on Twitter for typing. "Hungry lizards with words on their backs are after Berry the hairy spider! Save Berry from these colorful, wacky creatures by typing words quickly as they appear on their backs and help her from becoming someone's lunch! Type in the letters or words you see on the lizard's backs as soon as they appear on the screen to clear them away. Some words will be harder than others so type really fast to win! Each round will end when the spider reaches the top of the tree. "

"It was lunchtime but I didn't mind. Neither did my German teacher. I ran upstairs and entered her room. She was free - success! I pulled out my listening exam script: a set of learned responses to verbal questions that could come up in my GCSE exam. I'm sure she was hungry and I'm sure she wanted lunch. I didn't think about that when I was 16 years old. I probably should have."

"In the first of a series of 5 webinars, Martin Burrett (@ICTMagic) showcased innovative ways that school leaders and teachers can eliminate the bulk of e-mails out of their school lives. Using online, collaborative communication tools, teachers and school leaders can easily send messages to each other, with fantastic tools that allow users to 'turn off notifications', or turning on 'snooze mode'. Such features help in that messages only arrive when the user specifies, therefore eliminating the need to deal with e-mails when they arrive at a time when individuals should be resting."

"Engaging a bunch of teenagers after lunch on a Friday afternoon is no mean feat. Only the most seasoned and patient of teachers can pull it off, with a great deal of patience, stamina and effort. Well, not necessarily. There are strategies and ideas that can keep the most demotivated students learning when they don't necessarily realise, and fortunately, Jon Tait has compiled a collection of 100 ideas that can keep secondary pupils engaged in their learning, in any subject, in any school."

"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

Language learners resources for elementary students. 

Barnes and Noble's response to the Kindle: The Nook. It uses the Android operating system (Google's mobile OS) and can install 3rd party Android Apps. It also has an MP3 player but does not have built in text to speech (so no UDL here) - If you use the free wifi at Barnes and Noble you can read any ebook for free - otherwise it is something that you need to buy.