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I'll be spending time to AJ Juliani, Steve Mogg and Rosie Esposito from Wissahikon school district. Here's a copy of their Graduation project required to graduate from their school. I think all schools should have graduation projects. There is information and manuals if you want to look into this for yourself. I saw this in Evansvlle High school as well. This can be part of your genius work. "As part of graduation from Wissahickon High School, every senior is required to complete a graduation project.  The projects include research, writing and an oral presentation to assure that students are able to apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluation information and communicate significant knowledge and understanding.  This is culminating project in one or more areas of concentrated study under the guidance and direction of the high school faculty. "

Extending the school day may not have the benefits that some claim, especially since we're just giving kids more same-old same-old instruction time. This article from the Washington Post is worth a read. "But the extended day approach being implemented in many schools as a result of the department's push to increase instructional time  falls short.  It largely ignores the deep body of research on what makes effective expanded learning.   Instead, too many schools are merely adding another hour or so of regular class time onto the school day.  Not surprisingly, two very recent studies suggest we might not accomplish much with this approach to improving schools. "

I'm a huge fan of the American School of Bombay and visionary Shabbi Luthra - this article on Edutopia captures so much about this amazing school that uses laptops at a very young age in ways that empower students to learn, create, and share. Shabbi is passionate about bringing the best to her school but also shares expects that what is brought and discussed there will be used. Such a great school - it is well worth attending ASB Un-Plugged when they host it just to see what they are doing. It is hard to find a better school anywhere in the world.

Avery Give Back to Schools program, an online voting contest that will reward the top 5 vote-getting schools with $10,000 in Avery school supplies, $1,000 in Bonus Box Tops for Education and an additional $1,000 in gift cards for teachers to purchase additional school supplies. The next 25 vote-getting schools would win $500 in Bonus Box Tops for Education. The contest ends September 16.

"I love school libraries! Well you would, I hear you say, you're a librarian. My love of school libraries is not about being able to work in a room in a school with a lot of books, or my ability to sit and read books all day (I wish) or even being able to play with the bleepy scanny thing (that is one of the many names for the book issue scanner). Nor is it my love for school libraries based on sorting out photocopier jams, or peeling the plastic from yet another laminator jam, or being called the library lady, shelf sorter or any other name that teachers or students can think of when what they are looking for is the librarian. Joking aside my love of school libraries is their ability to support and create literate, independent learners and this is why teachers should love them too."

The metaphors of education systems speak volumes about what each system ultimately achieves. Ask any student to compare education or school to something completely different, and you'll likely get a list that looks like this: "School is a prison," "School is hell," "School is a babysitter," or "School is a machine." Sadly, many schools are run quite like this last example-students enter the machine, are shuffled through a number of arbitrary gears, are forcefully bent to fit those gears, move according to bells, and leave the machine knowing they'll be back the next day to repeat the process until they become the desired product of the machine.

Hundreds of articles, expert interviews, research, and resources highlighting success stories in K-12 education. Short videos provide case studies in technology integration, project-based learning, emotional intelligence, teacher preparation, assessment and more." /> metatext/html; charset=utf-8

"School officials focused exclusively on bullying prevention efforts might want to consider the findings of a new study showing the highly damaging effects of multiple forms of victimisation on school climate. The study, published in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, measured the impact of polyvictimisation - exposure to multiple forms of victimisation - on school climate at the middle and high school levels. Results show that bullying, cyberbullying and harassment were significantly associated with decreases in perceptions of school safety, connection, and equity."

Train your students in CPR. This is a great thing to share with your health classes. The curriculum is here for you. "The easy-to-use CPR in Schools Training Kit is designed just for schools.  It contains everything needed to train 10 students at once in CPR.  Repeat the process to train a class, a grade - or even an entire school! The CPR in Schools Training Kit is portable, allowing for convenient movement from classroom to classroom and easy storage. One CPR in Schools Training Kit can train hundreds of students!"

This from my email: "This is Natasha Dantzig for the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference. I'm writing to let you know that organizers of the TED Prize have announced an open challenge in support of author and philanthropist Dave Eggers and his 2008 TED Prize wish to collect 1,000 stories of private citizens engaged in their local public schools. Each year, three individuals are granted the TED Prize, which provides winners with a wish to change the world, $100,000 in seed money, and the support of the TED community in making the wish come true. As an extension of Eggers initial wish, the open challenge asks individuals to design and implement new projects for local public school students. The three winning entries will receive a pass to the sold out TED2009 Conference to be held in Long Beach, California on February 4-7, 2009. " Good luck with sharing. I find it interesting that the projects that are emerging between public and private schools and crossing the lines and boundaries between us (which is what we should be doing) could only be submitted by a public school person and then, may not be considered because it can only be for public school students. In some ways, the writing of the proposal itself is limiting because it doesn't see the vision of what is truly happening in education.

Can you design a school to promote healthy eating? There are things every cafeteria can do (read to the end.) This is a big problem and something we need to address. Every school should have a fruit basket near the checkout. It is a no brainer, but do we? "Just walk into the cafeteria and you can see this is no ordinary elementary school. "One of the most striking differences is the openness of the eating space," said pediatrician Dr. Matthew Trowbridge, who also consulted on the project. Students can look into the area where the food is prepared, and they can look outside to a planned school garden, where vegetables will soon be planted."

Great article by Larry Cuban on the Washington Post that you should forward to principals. "Yet studies of principal behavior in schools makes clear that spending time in classrooms to observe, monitor, and evaluate classroom lessons do not necessarily lead to better teaching or higher student achievement on standardized tests. Where there is a correlation between principals' influence on teachers and student performance, it occurs when principals create and sustain an academic ethos in the school, organize instruction across the school, and align school lessons to district standards and standardized test items. There is hardly any positive association between principals walking in and out of classrooms a half-dozen times a day and conferring briefly with teaches about those five-minute visits.The reality of daily principal actions conflicts with the theory."

Doug Johnson is a great read for his blunt, in your face honesty and his point about how technology companies are trying to differentiate is a great one. I think, however, we should extend this to schools as well. If your school is great, say why, but dissing the competition is no way to compete. If you think your school has no competition, think again. So, read this in light of the arriving and coming competition on the edulandscape and have an honest take on how you should "sell" the virtues of your school. If you can't talk about how great your school is and have to resort to how bad the other one is, prepare for a day when you'll shutter the windows and wonder how they're going to keep the bugs out of your empty building. Wake up and smell the wires burning their way into your student's computers and tablets, great teachers are just a click away and we've all got to learn how to blend and trend our courses, teaching, and to bridge our classrooms to add real value as teachers. It isn't hard as you think but if you just sit and teach like you've always taught, you're setting yourself up for some unpleasant days. You can't do everything but you can do something to improve yourself. Next practices are an important part of your best practice. Always innovate and never settle. Standards are only the beginning, you must have purpose if you're going to be a great teacher. Doug says: "But what I do know that when competitors trash each other, I tend to tune out. And I flat out hate it when I know they are lying - and I will NOT buy from a liar. A salesman recently promoted his video storage service by stating "unlike YouTube, we don't own your movies." That's just not true. (YouTube doesn't own your movies, GoogleApps doesn't own your Docs, CIPA, FERPA, etc. do not ban social media.)"

The foundation illustrates a model that classifies schools as "traditional," "transitional," or "transformational." Chaltain says traditional schools "assume the student bears the primary responsibility for learning," while transitionals school put the responsibility on the teacher-the direction of  "just about every recently proposed accountability policy in the U.S.,"he says. A transformational school shares the responsibility "via a learning team that includes, and extends beyond, teacher and student."

So often when we talk about schools, students, parents and teachers, we discuss things in arm-lengths type of way. We discuss how they need to have richer and more meaningful learning experiences, how we need to provide them with the opportunities to use the technological tools in authentic learning experiences. What we don't discuss is how schools need to be places of living not just of learning. They need to be places of community where children can experience life-lessons not just academic lessons. The story that follows is about one such event that took place at our school this past year.

I think that every school should have a safety week. Discuss the accidents and safety precautions that kids can use to protect themselves. While some schools celebrate "child safety week" in June - this is a great topic when school gets out for the summer or to be run in summer preschools or camps. It is also something that could be scheduled during the month that students return to school. Children should be empowered to protect themselves. Here are some age appropriate ways this is done by schools now.

This NPR article on the school situation in Philadelphia is heart wrenching. Poverty impacts everyone, especially children. For those who have never seen it, it is hard to understand. I remember in Mumbai, seeing kids with a tiny notebook and pencil down to the nub that had been used the whole school year - kids were erasing unimportant things (if they still had an eraser) to add more to their notebooks. Yes, there are many places that desperately need school supplies and help and Philadelphia is one of the many cities who are really struggling. Take time to read/listen and understand and set up this holiday season to help. ""Clothing, books, all of the school supplies, backpacks," Kantor says. "And you see some kids that are really suffering. Some kids don't ever have a dime. They have one pencil, they have a spiral book, and they don't have any of the supplies." Other teachers say they've had to bring in cleaning supplies - even toilet paper. But lots of nonmaterial things gnaw at Kantor: She says some parents, many of them single moms, seem overwhelmed and disengaged. Kantor says she knows they're stressed out and tries to reach out by phone, but is too often left discouraged."

Share this article with your principal and superintendent - not to pressure them but as many start seeing the wisdom that wise leaders tweet, you'll want to help them along. Principals no longer question the wisdom of writing for the school newsletter - this is just a newsletter but in shorter form and much more personal. It is something you can do. "Great schools (online, blended, and traditional) act as nurturing centers that foster creative development and high-quality art, math, and science skills; and school is the medium to advance human development and better society. The internet took our society into hyper speed and successful schools will quickly follow."