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I'm not partisan. There are some things that Aaron Maurer says in this post that make a lot of sense. "What bothers me is this "punish the whole system method" employed in the education world. I agree that teachers need to be held accountable. However, I know that state test scores do not show what I teach. What happens in schools is that we never address the specific issues at hand. If a teacher is not doing their job, then call them out. Tell them, show them how they are messing up, and then give them a plan to improve. Help them with necessary skills. If they choose not to improve or they simply don't improve, then you let them go. No more of this keeping teachers for 30 years and for 30 years they have been bad. That affects too many children that need good quality teachers. Hold us accountable like we should be holding our students accountable."

From September, I am starting a new role. I am going to be a year group leader for year 5. This has come about relatively quickly since my return from mainstream and so I have spent some time over the summer reflecting on my practice and how I am going to develop and inspire the people I work with. One of those people is an NQT. My sister is also starting her first post as an NQT in another school. After speaking on the phone for half an hour this morning, I realised that some of the stuff that I was saying to her is probably some of the stuff that I will be saying to the NQT I will be working with...

A new study found that speech difficulties are linked with difficulties in learning to read when children first start school, but these effects are no longer apparent at 8 years of age. Researchers confirmed that early language impairment that co-occurs with speech difficulties predicts poor literacy skills at both 5½ and 8 years of age. Having a family history of dyslexia had a small but significant effect on literacy at both ages, above and beyond the effects of speech and language...

"Detailed and engaging video about how the surface of the Earth has changed over its billions of years long history."

Debating global issues is an important part of global competency. Here are some important and sometimes controversial issues like Child soldiers, nuclear weapons, child labor, Aids, poverty. Some very nice frameworks to use as we are ending the school year. After you finish your year end tests, you should consider some global competency lessons in your classroom to help students be aware of the world and also develop critical thinking skills. This is a great place to start.

Finland is an innovator in education and now they're doing it again. Schools need a facelift. If you're building a new school - rethink school. I'd look at the designs. Also, Ewan McIntosh wrote a great "7 spaces of schools" that is in the "Choice" chapter for those of you have bought my book Flattening Classroom, Engaging Minds - he talked about this on a boat in South Africa with me 2 years a go and is an expert to follow in the area of school design. "Finnish students consistently have placed among the top countries on the Program for International Student Assessment, which gauges 15-year-old students' ability to understand and transfer concepts in reading, mathematics, and science. For example, in the most recent mathematics assessment, in 2009, Finnish students scored 54 points higher than their American peers on a scale of zero to 1,000. Pasi Sahlberg, the director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland's education ministry, attributes the nation's academic achievement to a three-fold approach: quality of the academic curriculum, equity in educational access, "and the third one is the environment. How the environment and design of the school is supporting students' learning. When we combine these three things we can say something about the overall goodness of the school system."

Parents Day is July 28th. Here are 15 ways to incorporate parents into your classroom with some great ideas. You start off the school year trying to establish a positive, encouraging relationship with parents. It is one of the most important things you do. You each have a role with children. Plan NOW how you are going to relate to and encourage parents in your classroom this year - here are some ideas.

As you think about next year, it is great to plan deep projects with historical meaning. As I was looking up things that happened 100 years a go in 1912, one jumped out at me. The Titanic Sunk on April 11, 1912. There are a ton of resources already available on this topic but it would make for an interesting project of some sort as the fascination with the event doesn't seem to have waned much.

I'm speaking Monday at 4 pm as part of Blackboard Collaborate's distinguished lecture series. It is a free webinar and this is the link to go to to register. This is what and how I teach my students online and prepare them to present online. Every student is required to present online twice a year in my computer science class and once a year in my 9th grade computer fundamentals. IT is just as important as face to face presenting and in some ways could be more important as it could potentially have more reach for my students.

Want to keep your brain young, exercise your body! This is a great story of a basketball team of older grandmothers who don't know how to lose. The women love it and they don't look like grandmothers. Why do we just have athletic leagues for the young? Perhaps athletic leagues are the fountain of youth...and the liquid of longer life is sweat. "But when Wright studied very active seniors, she found exercise seemed to be protective.' These MRI images show how fat can infiltrate the muscles of a sedentary senior. Compare that a MRI from a 74-year-old tri-athelete, which looks very similar to one from a 40-year-old. "We are not destined to go from lean flank steak in our 40s," said Wright. "if you think visually of what our muscles look like, to flabby rump roast. We do not have to become that way if we interject exercise throughout a lifetime. It's an important 'if.' Regular, consistent and challenging exercise is key. The Tigerettes work out strenuously, four to five times a week.

I uploaded my "Freshman Project" to the @Tesconnect website. This is a very large network of teachers that I'm using now as it links with English speaking classrooms outside the US. This is the assignment that begins the year long project in my class as students design their own project. This is based upon the senior project I first saw this summer in Evansville, Indiana. Yes, you need to join TES to download the resource. I am promoting this site as part of some work I'm doing for them (as I disclosed two weeks a go) but it is a great site and I like the work they are doing very much! So join in, share, and download.

A friend went to Rome for Chinese New Year and I remember seeing this amazing site Years ago. Great one to show for art teachers

OK. I think this will be great news for many schools who are still clinging to Windows XP. Microsoft will keep supplying anti-malware updates to Windows XP until april 15, 2014. The March 2013 date caused an outcry among many and we've been working hard to update all the XP machines with extra RAM so they could go to Windows 7. But with the machines working so well on XP many of us wonder why we should dispose of machines that work so well especially in cash crunched times. Take your time - you've got a little longer although for us in the US if they'd go through June 2015 it means we can get 2 more school years out of XP machines. In a sign of the times, it can make all the difference between some kids using technology and some not.

These heartbreaking words from a teacher in the UK. As the world tries to improve education by the numbers, the world has forgotten kids aren't numbers. They are precious, individual and unique and deserve education systems that celebrate and encourage that. OK, teachers, it is time to man the media - you are the media now! Are you fed up yet? It might not be you right now, but if you don't speak, it will be, wherever you teach, such stories impact us all and the profession we care for so much. "As a teacher, I vowed that I would work hard to nurture my students, to make each and every student feel valued and for them to know that they have a voice, and a place in the world. However the last two years have made me feel like that insecure 14-year-old again: I have lost my confidence because of the overly-rigid current education system. We are constantly being told we are not good enough and that we are not doing enough: enough intervention, enough rigorous marking, enough sustained and rapid progress. What excited me the most about becoming a teacher was discovering the hidden talents and sparks of genius in my students. However, it breaks my heart to say this, but I feel that I no longer have time, nor am I encouraged to make these discoveries. We are so caught up with data and so many progress checks that we don't give our students the time to shine. I wonder what would happen if the greats of the world like Einstein, Gaudi, Picasso and Martin Luther King were to attend school in 2013, would they be able to cultivate their talents and thrive?"

If you want to understand why STEM jobs are such a big deal, then this NPR interview really helps us understand why so many people are talking about STEM even though it makes up only 7% of the jobs. Read (and share) this NPR interview or download it for a listen as you travel. "That is, a technical education now allows you to do anything. And anything, for most workers, means having a job that's fairly focused as a STEM worker, but then moving on to management or into a regulatory roll or into a government job. So STEM has become the place where you go if you want to have a lot of alternatives 10 years down the road."

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 looks like a great contest. (Plus you can win the kind of computer I have on my desk and it is awesome.) Here's information from the sponsor of this essay contest. I also suggest you get photos and take videos and you can share on your own school website or blog. "The Legacy Project's 14th annual essay contest changes lives and communities as it connects generations and gives students a powerful purpose for writing - listening to and learning from a life . Students learn about real life from real people, and often end up making unexpected friendships along the way. Here's one amazing example of a past winning essay: http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/winners12.html#tulsa Here's a closer look at the educational value of the contest and 21st Century learning skills, with quotes from students and teachers across the country: http://www.legacyproject.org/contests/ltalhowenter.html To enter the Listen to a Life Contest, students 8-18 years interview a grandparent or grandfriend 50 years or older about the older person's hopes and goals through their life, how they achieved their goals and overcame obstacles, or key life experiences. The young person then writes a 300-word essay based on the interview. The Grand Prize is a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer, along with 10 Legacy Awards of a keepsake timepiece from Expressions of Time. The contest runs to March 28, 2014. Students and teachers can find out more about the Listen to a Life Essay Contest, including complete contest rules, at www.legacyproject.org. This national contest is run by the Legacy Project, a big-picture learning project, and the nonprofit Generations United in Washington, DC.

Absenteeism is a topic we need to discuss! "While research shows that attendance is one of three key predictors of high-school graduation as early as sixth grade, 7.5 million students nationwide miss an entire month of school annually. In New York City, the nation's largest school district, 20 percent of students miss a month each year. Until as recently as five years ago, attendance was not even accurately recorded in cities as large as Washington, D.C."

If you've integrated sliderocket (now becoming ClearSlide) into Google apps for edu, you'll no longer have Google integration or free accounts past the end of the year. Sliderocket was acquired by clear slide. "Thank you to everyone who has inquired about SlideRocket's free educational initiative through Google Apps. As the integration of SlideRocket into ClearSlide has progressed, it has become apparent that a shift in our approach toward educational accounts is necessary and appropriate. Specifically, due to both technical and practical reasons, we will no longer be integrating with Google Apps or offering free educational accounts beyond the end of the year."

This looks like a very cool English game that uses all kinds of shows to teach. Thinking that ESL teachers will want to test this one out. Mau Butler send me this message about this new site: Hello Vicki, I've been an ESL teacher for 20 years, in several countries, and a reader of your coolcatteacher blog for a while. Congratulations. You do excellent work. :) For the past 3 years, I've been building a very innovative approach to teaching and learning English, which is now ready to use. Considering your work, I thought you'd be interested in trying it out. It's called Tripppin and I strongly recommend you see it for yourself on www.tripppin.com but this is us in a nutshell: "Tripppin is an English practice platform, which blends offline and online learning experiences into a game, a music channel, cooking shows, animation, entertaining videos shot around the world, and excellent support for English teachers everywhere." Hope you can have a look :) Thank you.