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From Steve Hargadon: "I've started a new community at http://www.FutureofEducation.com to providing an opportunity for those who care about education to share their voices and ideas on charting the course of education in a networked world. It's a place for thoughtful discussion on an incredibly important topic. The site will launch officially at the end of the month with the start of a weekly interview series, but I'm inviting some participation now because of an email Carol Broos (http://www.classroom20.com/profile/beatechie) sent out. Carol is one of twelve teachers who have been invited to participate in a round table discussion concerning the direction of education the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Jan 21. She was sent the following questions, and is asking for feedback and ideas. You can respond either at the new http://www.FutureofEducation.com site or her wiki at http://education20.pbwiki.com/FrontPage. Here are the questions: 1. What is the one most important education issue you wish Secretary Duncan to focus on during his tenure and why? 2. How shall the tenets of the No Child Left Behind act be altered or invigorated? What are its positives? How can its negatives be improved? 3. How should the new administration respond to the nation's need for better prepared and more qualified teachers? 4.What should the new administration do to increase student engagement in mathematics, the sciences and the arts? 5. How should funding equity issues be addressed? There is also a discussion topic on what questions were not asked that might have been." This seems to be a great thing!

If you are looking for basic physics information, stay on this site. It's not just physics for kids, it's for everyone. We have information on motion, heat and thermodynamics, electricity & magnetism, light, and modern physics topics. If you're still not sure what to click, try our site map that lists all of the topics on the site. If you surf and get lost in all of the information, use the search function on the side of the pages.

In this online tool, students can learn about and write diamante poems, which are diamond-shaped poems that use nouns, adjectives, and gerunds to describe either one central topic or two opposing topics (for example, night/day or winter/spring). Examples of both kinds of diamante poems can be viewed online or printed out. Because diamante poems follow a specific format that uses nouns on the first and last lines, adjectives on the second and fourth lines, and gerunds in the third and fifth lines, this tool has numerous word-study applications. The tool provides definitions of the different parts of speech students use in composing the poems, reinforcing the connection between word study and writing. It also includes prompts to write and revise poems, thus reinforcing elements of the writing process. Students can print their finished diamante poems.

Whyzz is a website designed for the parents of three to eight year old children that are going through the "why" phase. Whyzz gives clear simple answers to the "why"questions like "why is the sky blue?" that children ask frequently. Parents can access the information on the site in two ways. The most direct way to find something on Whyzz is to type a "why" question in the "tell me" search bar at the top of every page. You can also browse the through topics in ten different categories. Click on a topic and you'll find a list of commonly asked "why" questions and their answers.

The Encyclopedia of Educational Technology (EET) is a collection of short multimedia articles on a variety of topics related to the fields of instructional design and education and training. The primary audiences for the EET are students and novice to intermediate practitioners in these fields, who need a brief overview as a starting point to further research on specific topics. Authors are graduate students, professors, and others who contribute voluntarily. Articles are short and use multimedia to enrich learning rather than merely decorate the pages.

Pick a topic and comprehensive searches are done about the topic.

"An online maths resource where you choose a topic than choose the old one out from the three options. Topic include angles, odds and evens, fractions, primes, shapes and more."

You can get the 12 games of Christmas teaching pack for free for a single user or your whole school. Download it now and keep it to use it every year. The sample teaching pack gives you ideas for how to use the 12 games of Christmas. IF you use the games, you'll want to get this for the lesson plans.

I LOVE this one! Makes it very easy for kids to read what other countries are saying about your topic. Love the mashup with the map. Track this now also avialable for twitter and flickr and even YouTube.

Enter your search term and this site searches for articles about that topic from around the world, putting push pins on the global map to show you. Click the pins to see articles. EXCELLENT!

This New York Times article on the Open Content Alliance is an essential article for librarians and media specialists to read. It is also important for those following the fight for information and control of that information. In this case, the Open Content Alliance wants to make books that they scan available to any search engine while Microsoft and google are aggressively approaching libraries for exclusive access to their content. (which could be rescanned by another later, possibly.) Librarians and media specialists should understand this... when will people approach schools to scan annuals or student produced works? Maybe that is a while off, but for now, be aware that it is probably inevitable.

An overview of the Open Content Alliance versus Google and Microsoft battling to take control of the content housed in libraries.

A complete listing of ways to counter climate skeptics for a wide variety of arguments. Very detailed. Organized by topic.

A point by point list of topics climate skeptics often bring up w/ information to counter their arguments. Very thorough.

Interactive case studies on wireless, social networking, digital footprint, cyberbullying, misinformation, fair use, privacy, music downloading. Includes classroom and home versions as well as teacher guides. All but one topic (Wireless) is available in Spanish as well.

Interactive case studies on wireless, social networking, digital footprint, cyberbullying, misinformation, fair use, privacy, music downloading. Includes classroom and home versions as well as teacher guides. All but one topic (Wireless) is available in Spanish as well.

Lumifi - Enlighten your Research Lumifi is a new way to find, analyze, organize and share information on any topic, from any source (including your own documents). Let lumifi read for you, highlight terms relevant to your interest, and discover information you might have missed.

umifi - Enlighten your Research Lumifi is a new way to find, analyze, organize and share information on any topic, from any source (including your own documents). Let lumifi read for you, highlight terms relevant to your interest, and discover information you might have missed.

Build an Online Debate Community for Your Classroom! Host debates and assign effective homework. Students evaluate, analyze, and synthesize topics on a deeper level through intellectual interaction with their peers.

Build an Online Debate Community for Your Classroom! Host debates and assign effective homework. Students evaluate, analyze, and synthesize topics on a deeper level through intellectual interaction with their peers. I learned of this product at either NECC 09, or the Sloan Consortium Meeting in San Francisco. I was impressed with the ideas underlying an online system that promotes the great critical thinking tools of debate. Just got a trial account. Hope to delve deeper soon. Early adopters can probably get the free 90 / 10 seat deal I was offered. This is a startup and I was impressed by the young thinkers behind this idea.

Great series on various electrical components. Suitable for probably 5th grade & up. Informative & much better than any other vids on the topic that I've seen.

Great series on various electrical components. Suitable for probably 5th grade & up. Informative & much better than any other vids on the topic that I've seen.

This site offers videos on a range of PSHE, citizenship, RE, the environment and other topics. It's a great set of resources for introducing difficult subjects to your class. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

This is a fabulous video site where students from MIT teach science for Primary and Secondary children. View videos on a range of topics including engineering, biology, physics, astronomy and more. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

This is a great site for creating all sorts of online cloze text of missing words and sentence ordering activities. It's great for sentence and grammar work, as well as using text about topics from across the curriculum. Register for free to create text activities to share and embed. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular

"On April 16th, PBS is going to air the first televised TED event, dubbed TED Talks Education. It'll be filmed a bit before the airing on April 4th in New York City. The first three speakers include Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone, Bill Gates, and Sir Ken Robinson. TED says there will be more speakers (including "dynamic teachers, speakers, and performers") announced soon. The topic of discussion? Curbing the high school dropout crisis."