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"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

"I have always believed that reading has a significant impact on our understanding and appreciation of the world. As both a life-long passionate reader and an experienced English Language Arts teacher, I have witnessed first-hand the impact that reading has on the ability of learners in terms of comprehension, grammar, empathy, confidence, vocabulary and expression. This has however, only ever been phenomenological through informal observations in the classroom, and in an effort to incorporate sustained silent reading (SSR) as a regular, valid and essential practice, I have embarked upon this research in order to determine the impacts that daily reading has on middle-school learners, not only in terms of English Language Arts, but also across the curriculum."

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND CLASSROOM MATERIALS TO SUPPORT THE STUDY OF WORLD HISTORY Bridging World History is organized into 26 thematic units along a chronological thread. Materials include videos, an audio glossary and a thematically-organized interactive. There are so many more ways to study history than looking at simply military, nation-state analysis. This site  addresses other tools historians use to investigate world history, such as the frameworks of geography and chronology. A geographical area can be used to explore commonalities across political borders to discover the effect of trade, disease, and migration. Included in this unit are readings, resources, maps, audio clips, a video to watch, as well as a transcript of the video. Pertinent questions and activities are also provided. There are so many more ways to study history than looking at simply military, nation-state analysis. This site  addresses other tools historians use to investigate world history, such as the frameworks of geography and chronology. A geographical area can be used to explore commonalities across political borders to discover the effect of trade, disease, and migration. Included in this unit are readings, resources, maps, audio clips, a video to watch, as well as a transcript of the video. Pertinent questions and activities are also provided.

"Many people know the benefits of reading, as whole new worlds, opportunities and adventures can open up to help enhance knowledge of the world around us, but getting some young people to read quality can be like extracting teeth!"

"Ahmed ElAmin Published Jul 20, 2011 at 9:18 am (Updated Jul 20, 2011 at 8:01 am) Belgians have invented Smurfs, make some of the best beer in the world, and know how to fry a potato chip. However, one must say the country's leading newspapers scored an own goal when they took Google to court last year for listing their content in the search engine's news section and won on copyright. I guess they didn't look at how people arrive at a typical online newspaper site, which derives up to 50 percent or more of their visitors from Google. In addition to taking the group of papers out of its news section, Google also stopped indexing them in its search engine. Now the newspapers are complaining that they are being discriminated against unfairly! (...) Google has big power and the danger is how the company wields it in pursuit of profit. It brings traffic to websites, but the company that claims to "do no evil" can also taketh away ostracising those for good and bad reasons. The company is also stepping up its aggregation news service by trying to attract more volume through the "gamification" of Google News. Google is following a trend among news sites to bring readers in. With their consent, readers will be rewarded with "news badges" based on their reading habits. Badges of varying levels will be given out depending on the amount and types of articles you read. About 500 badges are available to suit a wide range of topics. Google News indexes about 50,000 sources. Keep reading and get those badges! Maybe."

By now, you probably know that the iPod is for more than just music. It can be a great device for catching up on your reading, too. Whether you're downloading audio books or study guides, the iPod makes a handy and compact reader on the go, and you can make the most of it with the resources we've collected here.

use your ipod for storing notes, RSS, reading notes, etc

Article by Wil Richardson on Collaboration

Fascinating article about upcoming data to be collected on international ICT use in education. So many challenges.

Remember one thing as you look at these scores - not all students are tested in many countries and in many countries only the brightest go to school. In my opinion, these tests have some serious flaws. For example, I don't play cricket - my scores would be low -- I don't know that I'm so upset about that. While math, science, and reading are important -- standards vary greatly between countries -- so unless we're going to prep for PISA scores. Also on another note -- comparing "Shanghai to nations makes me wonder - I'm sure there are certain cities in the US that would do very well on such a test. Anyway, I want to look deeper, but I think before we rattle cages and get too upset, the report should be looked at deeply but not only the report - but the test. I remember getting upset that my kindergartener scored in the 60th percentile on "environment" only to see that he missed that a judge was supposed to be a guy in a grey wig (who does that) and couldn't identify a subway turnstile (we live in a town of 5,000). Since that time, I always want to see the test. Lots of people will be talking about this so look at it and be prepared to answer questions. This is the post from Aljazeera so you can see what other countries are saying about the report. "Asian countries have topped the rnakings in a global education report which evaluates the knowledge and skills of 15 and 16-year-olds around the world. The report by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), published on Tuesday, shows that children from Asian nations continue to outshine their western counterparts in maths, science and reading. The city of Shanghai topped the table in the three-yearly reported which tested more than 510,000 students in 65 countries. Children in Shanghai were, on average, the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling ahead of the majority of nations tested."

This book continues to be discussed heavily in education. I love Elena Aguilar's poignant discussion of the book on her blog at Edutopia. Wow. Elena writes: "About a year ago, I read Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. I wanted to tell everyone about this book right away, but I also wanted to let what I'd learned sink in. I wanted to sit alone with my new self-awareness, process my experience, and absorb the revelations I'd had -- all in true introverted fashion. See, as I'd read Cain's book, my predominant thoughts were, "She's describing me! I'm an introvert! And there's nothing wrong with that!" The margins of my copy are littered with stars, exclamation points, and scribbles that, as I look back, reflect my profound relief and gained understandings." This would be a great book for education book clubs to consider. Just make sure you take time to let everyone share and reflect and include even the introverts in the conversation - though they may say less, they may actually have more to say than we truly understand.

Symbaloo can be used as a startpage, your personal desktop for the internet. What can I do with Symbaloo? With Symbaloo, you can now create your own desktop on internet, including your favorite websites and sources. The advantage is that you can navigate easily to the most important websites, without remembering the links. Just try to click on one of the coloured blocks. You will see that it is possible to search from the centerbox in useful websites, such as Google or Youtube. More options… Much more is possible with Symbaloo. Listening to the radio, reading the news or reading to your new mail quickly… If you click on an empty grey field, you will enter a new world of blocks! The best fun is to find out all of the features yourself, and explore Symbaloo step by step.

eg EDUCATION RESOURCES, SEARCH ENGINES, COOL LINKS FOR KIDS,TECHNOLOGY LINKS, READING RESOURCES, ALL ABOUT WRITING, SCIENCE LINKS, MATH LINKS FOR EVERYONE, SOCIAL STUDIES LINKS GEOGRAPHY & PLACES IN THE WORLD, CELEBRATIONS BY THE MONTH,Links 4 SCHOOL LEADERS & SUPERVISORS, JUST FOR PARENTS

eg EDUCATION RESOURCES, SEARCH ENGINES, COOL LINKS FOR KIDS,TECHNOLOGY LINKS, READING RESOURCES, ALL ABOUT WRITING, SCIENCE LINKS, MATH LINKS FOR EVERYONE, SOCIAL STUDIES LINKS GEOGRAPHY & PLACES IN THE WORLD, CELEBRATIONS BY THE MONTH,Links 4 SCHOOL LEADERS & SUPERVISORS, JUST FOR PARENTS

Laura Fleming is using Makerspace in her classroom. She's at New Milford HIgh School -- a place led by one of the best principals in the business, Eric Sheninger (his new book is awesome - out in January). Laura is using Mozilla's Web Literacy Standard and her Makerspace which includes robotics, stop motion animation and "Molecular gastronomy" and more. Wow. I'm fascinated. Take a look. "Setting up a Makerspace has been a priority of mine from the moment I started here at New Milford High School, and it's already well on its way to being achieved. Having a school principal who provides the perfect mix of encouragement and autonomy has, of course, been a great help, but it has also been very much a team effort: the school's tech team and custodians have been very supportive and cooperative, along with a diverse variety of students interested in 'making' experiences. At the heart of the vision for my Makerspace is to develop the space and to provide resources and opportunities that will aid in promoting web literacy.  These components encompass Mozilla's Web Literacy Standard.  The standard is make up of three key elements:  exploring, building and connecting and focuses on reading, writing and participating on the web.   "

our world is now open to the eyes of our students. Technology makes it possible to with a couple of clicks able to read about poverty, TB, or AIDS which is faster access to print resources than we have ever had. It also allows us to make it more powerful through images or video. It even allows us to find great organizations that our kids can help support like XDRTB.org. More importantly we need our kids to learn how to use the tools around them to act as change agents to make their world a better place.

I can say without hesitation that all my traditional educational experiences combined, everything from grade school to grad school, have not taught me as much about learning and being a learner as blogging has. My ability to easily consume other people's ideas, share my own in return, and communicate with other educators around the world has led me to dozens of smart, passionate teachers from whom I learn every day. It's also led me to technologies and techniques that leverage this newfound network in ways that look nothing like what's happening in traditional classrooms.

The "Rare Book Room" site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world. Over the last decade, a company called "Octavo" digitally photographed some of the world 's great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).