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"iMat (Independent Mat) for encouraging independence when planning an investigation."

So what's wrong? In short, the common thread I see throughout all the failures is quite simply a lack of empathy. There is no authentic encounter with students, or what Martin Buber called "a genuine meeting." When we use all the right methods, and we still fail, it is most likely because we are encountering our students as objects and not as the rich and complex individuals that they are. When we do not bring our authentic selves to the classroom and open up to an authentic encounter with our students and the topic at hand we fail, regardless of the methods we choose.

This site provides writing stimulus and advice for young writers. It explores a range of methods and thinking activities to help develop writing ideas. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English

Looks like Mayor Bloomberg needs to watch the Dan Pink ted talk I shared here a couple of days a go. The higher the stakes and the more complex the problem, the worse effect a large monetary incentive has. Be ready for New York cheating scandals. That is a lot of pressure and will also incent teachers to find students that will do better. It also will put the method that they will use to rate people "highly effective" in the spotlight. This is sure to cause some resentment in the ranks. The easy solution is to throw money at it, but they don't realize that it is also the wrong solution if you look at the research on motivation.

"The old-fashioned practice of rating instructors by watching them teach is tricky, labor-intensive, potentially costly and subjective - but perhaps the best way to help them improve, according to a study released Friday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation... "And the observers, typically the school principal, frequently don't know what to look for anyway. "The best way to evaluate teachers, while also helping them improve, is to use several measures - including data-based methods that rely on students' standardized test scores, along with an updated teacher observation system, the report found.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method for creating elastic conductors made of carbon nanotubes, which will contribute to large-scale production of the material for use in a new generation of elastic electronic devices.

"Physics Astrophysics (astro-ph new, recent, find) includes: Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics; Earth and Planetary Astrophysics; Galaxy Astrophysics; High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Condensed Matter (cond-mat new, recent, find) includes: Disordered Systems and Neural Networks; Materials Science; Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics; Other Condensed Matter; Quantum Gases; Soft Condensed Matter; Statistical Mechanics; Strongly Correlated Electrons; Superconductivity General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc new, recent, find) High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex new, recent, find) High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat new, recent, find) High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph new, recent, find) High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th new, recent, find) Mathematical Physics (math-ph new, recent, find) Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex new, recent, find) Nuclear Theory (nucl-th new, recent, find) Physics (physics new, recent, find) includes: Accelerator Physics; Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics; Atomic Physics; Atomic and Molecular Clusters; Biological Physics; Chemical Physics; Classical Physics; Computational Physics; Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability; Fluid Dynamics; General Physics; Geophysics; History and Philosophy of Physics; Instrumentation and Detectors; Medical Physics; Optics; Physics Education; Physics and Society; Plasma Physics; Popular Physics; Space Physics Quantum Physics (quant-ph new, recent, find)"

"Dr. Robert Lindberg, President and Executive Director of the National Institute of Aerospace, envisions a new way to introduce Engineering into the K-12 curriculum by exploring the distinctions between Science and Engineering; between the Natural World and the Designed World; and between the Scientific Method and the Engineering Design Process."

There is a move to have blind evaluation of student arts portfolios in Tennessee as a means of evaluating teachers. Arne Duncan endorsed the view of using this method of teacher evaluation. As a computer science teacher, I'd love this view and in fact, my school does evaluate me by the results of my students. While not all students have perfect work, you can see the rigor in what my classroom is doing with the efolios they build at the end of the year.

This September 17, Wolfram Alpha has a Virtual Learning Education Conference. I suggest that math teachers everywhere should take advantage of this free conference. They have 2 tracks - one where you learn how to use their technologies in the classroom and the other is emerging methods of using it in STEM education. All of this is online and free.

How to use Google Hangouts in the Classroom. Now that you can segment participation and let certain groups of students and educators participate in Google Plus, this is becoming a popular method of connecting classrooms. I'm setting up Google Hangouts on Air to record and send to the class YouTube channel to share conversations with guests and let those students who missed the day join in. I am also going to use these recordings as part of flipped classroom modules as I learn about using Sophia for flipping my classroom.

If you want students to draft work in Google Docs, you have to teach them about the Research pane. It lets you search for the appropriate license (click the down arrow) and set the citation method. You can insert photos, search Google Scholar and a dictionary, your own files, and even the web. When you mouse over the item, you have the option to cite the source or insert a link. Very cool and handy for writers. This is an older feature that hasn't gotten the press it deserves in classrooms. If you have Google Apps for education this is a BIG DEAL because it simplifies finding pictures and does many other things that online citation generators do all within Google Docs.

Guidance counselors and principals should read this article - not to share and tout as a defense of bullying for there is no defending meanness ever - not among adults and definitely not among children. However, it is time to de-escalate the frantic misreporting and hysteria that some are causing on the topic of bullying and suicide. Suicide is horrible and often the person who commits suicide is bullied -- here's a quote from the article that I thought was telling. This would be worth discussing with those who can maturely see the balance that is called for here and again, not to use it to excuse atrocious behavior. "Reporters are often reacting to other misinformed authorities.  For example, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd explained to reporters that he arrested two girls (one 12, the other 14) in Sedwick's death, after seeing a callous social media post from one of the girls, "We can't leave her out there, who else is she going to torment? Who else is she going to harass? Who is the next person she verbally and mentally abuses and attacks?" While it's a great quote, it implies that this girl has the ability, through random meanness, to inspire others to commit suicide. "Everything we know about unsafe reporting is being done here - describing the method(s), the simplistic explanation (bullying = suicide), the narrative that bullies are the villains and the girl that died, the victim," Wylie Tene, the public relations manager for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, wrote in an email to me. "She (the victim) is almost portrayed as a hero. Her smiling pictures are now juxtaposed with the two girls' mug shots. Her parents are portrayed as doing everything right, and the other girls parents did everything wrong and are part of the problem. This may be all true, and it also may be more complicated.""

Documented methods that the implementation of blended learning has improved the traditional school system. The Clayton Cristensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation shares twelve of these case studies.

Guidance Counselor Alert: "The YES Competition was established in 2003 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the College Board to inspire talented high school students to apply epidemiological methods to the investigation of public health issues and, ultimately, encourage the brightest young minds to enter the field of public health. The Young Epidemiology Scholars (YES) Competition, the nation's leading public health competition for high school students, has opened the application process for its 2010-11 Competition. The online registration, guidelines and a new YES project guide are now available online at www.collegeboard.com/yes. The deadline for entries is 9 AM EST, February 1, 2011." I do wish that they would have multimedia as a part of this competition as some of the best competitions out there engage this medium. However, this is something that those going into health should look into.

Integrating the science process skills within your teaching does not require drastic changes. It simply involves making the process of science more explicit in lessons, investigations, and activities you are already using in your curriculum. The science process skills are the methods used for helping our students understand how we know what we know about the world in which they live. This often means going beyond a science textbook and supplementing the core-content within textbooks. It also means using your course content as a means for exposing students to the real process of science.

How to choose good passwords\nOn this page:\n * What not to do when choosing a password\n * The best method for choosing passwords.\n...

The use of web based technology is growing by leaps and bounds every day. These online tools are the new set of keys for opening your students' minds. The vast resources on the Internet are making the use traditional methods of teaching and learning obsolete in countless ways.

The top 10 tips for pursuing lifelong learning focus on ways you can continue education through informal learning experiences, as opposed to attending formal class settings. Why this approach? Enrolling in formal continuing education courses and classes is difficult at times, considering life's tugs and pulls by everyday commitments. These obligations are why informal learning methods offer a viable option for continuing your education.