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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.

Create video based quizzes with this useful site and share them online with your class. Search for YouTube videos within the site and crop the section you what to use. Then enter your questions and multiple correct & wrong choices to build the quiz. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

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.""

don't get me wrong. i love my twitter pln. but sometimes there are threads i could do without - like the recent soccer world cup conversations that went on for...a long time. or the constant "i checked in at ...on foursquare!" posts that i couldn't care less about. declutter will hide whatever keywords you choose, using a bookmarklet, so your stream can focus on what's important to you. sorry if that sounds like an advert, but i've been waiting for a tool like this!

Op Ed Piece in LA times on change.

Op Ed Piece in LA times is representative of the call for innovation in schools. As with all change - you can be part of it or it can be imparted to you. Which would you rather have? The imperative to innovate is here -- and those who don't act will ultimately be the ones who lose. Unfortunately, kids aren't getting any younger -- older people will just hurt their career in a life that is already one of educational excellence -- children will never reach their potential. It is important - we cannot waste time where children are at stake. We don't waste time when it comes to our own and the travesty is that many don't see anything wrong with wasting the time of another parent's child.

No mention here of the teachers persecuted merely for running the election stations that may return the same "wrong" result in a presidential runoff, nor of the pupils who will not sit exams because their teachers are in fear of their lives.

Great points from Stephanie Sandifer on cheating - when she talked about how she cheats every day by using a copy of something from a coworker - I may have already linked to this but it is so powerful, I came back to it! Here were my thoughts for Stephanie: "I love how you say that you're "cheating every day." Certainly LEARNING is important, but to me, learning how to find answers and solve problems is the MOST important skill. Some teachers and I were discussing how some kids have book knowledge but fumble at doing science experiments! The practical knowledge eludes many that are good memorizers and what is a good education. To me, rote memorization precludes many from "feeling" educated (because of their poor grades) and makes many think they ARE educated (because of their great grades) when in fact we are indeed testing the wrong thing! Great points here!"

we all should now be cognizant of the critical importance of innovation across all spectrums of our society -- this includes teaching and learning. We need change agents, we need out-of-the-box thinkers, we need creative minds. We need to foster a generation of risk takers and I believe we, as educators, need to be weaving risk-taking into our pedagogy to model it to our students. Risk-taking is teaching creativity.

An article in last week's Education Week looks at the increasingly common practice of reading aloud to middle and high school students. In discussing the practice with Mary Ann Zehr (I'm quoted briefly in the piece) I made the point that while there is certainly nothing wrong with reading out loud to teenagers, it is symptomatic of what I call "literacy creep" - the tendency of elementary school-style instructional techniques to find their way deeper into K-12 education across all content areas.

Yet another beautiful analysis of a major problem in education today by the good people at Core Knowledge.

Now THIS is a VERY cool idea. Send someone a link. They click the link and open an app that allows them to record their screen. When they finish they click stop and it gets uploaded to the web and an email is sent to you with a link to a playback page. Watch it there or download it. Now folks can show you exactly what they're doing "wrong."

Shared by Sue Sheffer in another group.

If you're up for it pure fun! w Downes and Siemens. Zaidkleran has a few tips before you jump, but i say beginners mind best in no right or wrongs just get wet...

If your school doesn't have the health department to come in and brief your teachers - you are not only risking health but also something like this. The city of New York is being sued with a wrongful death suit for not addressing H1N1 in their school more proactively. Call your health department and get a 20 minute session on it - it should be free and you'll be responsibility. Do it because it is the right thing and not because you'll be sued (although that is a risk.)

Instructions for resetting the PMU NOt PRAM in Powerbooks when Apple Firmware update goes wrong: Zapping the PRAM will not bring back your Bluetooth. You have to reset the PMU.(Power Management Unit) Mac OS X PowerBook G4 (12-inch), PowerBook G4 (12-inch DVI), PowerBook G4 (15-inch FW 800), PowerBook G4 (17-inch) and PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.33GHz) 1. If the computer is on, turn it off. 2. Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-power on the keyboard. Do not press the fn (Function) key while using this combination of keystrokes. 3. Wait 5 seconds. 4. Press the power button to restart the computer.

Something has been happening lately in education, and the implications are a bit unsettling. People are beginning to ask a cogent question, but I fear it's being framed for the wrong reason. I'm hearing more and more important decision makers asking, "Why are we using technology?"

Critics of wikis as research sources often point to the potential for students to stumble across inaccurate content as a fatal flaw that make wikis almost worthless. "How can we promote wikis in our classrooms," the argument goes, "if you can't trust what's posted there? I don't want my students exposed to learning tools that are just plain wrong!" Teachers using wikis successfully in their classrooms, however, embrace inaccurate content posted on classroom wikis as a teachable moment because they know that succeeding as consumers of information in the 21st Century requires students to develop a healthy skepticism of any content posted online. In a world where content is constantly changing and publishing is easy for anyone, researchers simply cannot assume that digital sources-wikis, blogs, websites, online videos-are accurate and up-to-date. Wikis give teachers built in opportunities to teach lessons about the reliability of online content to students. Errors-which are inevitable in student projects-can be spotlighted and corrected, and students can be introduced to strategies for identifying content worth trusting.