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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."

As you talk about the Olympics beware of putting too much emphasis on gifts. Many people are gifted but few are willing to pay the price of persistence and seeking of wise counsel to get where they are. It is a great time to look at habits and examine our own. Are we Olympic in our pursuits of our own dreams or are we happy to sit in our chair eating popcorn complaining about how we never get a lucky break. 

As you talk about Classroom Rules, you might want to use this hilarious Sesame Street Parody - "Share it, Maybe" - a parody of "Call Me Maybe" -- just so funny. (All they need is a baseball team in the back.) 

(Hat tip to Larry Ferlazzo for this gem) - put your pictures and house into the video and have a customized video created where Santa visits your house. Talk about a great way to excite the kids! So cool.

Dr. James  Beeghley (Jim as most of us know him) has a presentation on Wednesday at K12 online about how history and social studies should be taught using technology. He talks about early photography and a lot of other very cool thoughts that will certainly challenge the thinking and teaching of history teachers.

A website recognized by the Australian Education association and american Library association. As you look for activities to improve thinking - this website has puzzles, and activities that are bound to have you thinking and talking. There's also a kids corner. If you like game based learning, there are some great tools here. "A gym dedicated to the wellness of the mind."

The location of the podcast for the short Flat Learning Action talks we're now having with the Flat Classroom project students and leaders.

Remember the old feltboards we used to use? Now, we have one for your Interactive whiteboard. Talk about the different words as you pull them into the tree. You could decorate the tree and have it on your board during your class party!

There are quite a few activities on this website around Hanukkah including a powerpoint presentation about Holidays around the world. It is a great time to talk about the holidays of many different faiths.

Looks like Mayor Bloomberg needs to watch the Dan Pink ted talk I shared here a couple of days a go. The higher the stakes and the more complex the problem, the worse effect a large monetary incentive has. Be ready for New York cheating scandals. That is a lot of pressure and will also incent teachers to find students that will do better. It also will put the method that they will use to rate people "highly effective" in the spotlight. This is sure to cause some resentment in the ranks. The easy solution is to throw money at it, but they don't realize that it is also the wrong solution if you look at the research on motivation.

This Huffington Post article summarizing findings from a recent Brookings Institute study showing that parental income and education are more highly linked to a child's preschool success than anything else. It also presents the naysayers making for a balanced overview of this report that has lots of people talking.

TED is a truly amazing website and organisation which promotes ideas through video talks by world class inspirational speakers. Each time I watch a TED video I feel uplifted and ready for action. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

Lots of talk in technology circles about 6th grader Thomas Suarez an iphone programmer.His best selling app is Bustin Jieber a Justin Beiber "Whack a Mole." He shares how he learned how to program an app. How he taught himself the iPhone Software Development kit.  He started an "app club" at school where any kid at school can come and learn how to design an app. He is part of an ipad pilot program. The students are asking teachers to help them design apps for education and the money is going into local education foundation. 

I've used this site before but as we were talking on my FAcebook page the other day about how to start class, teacher, Donna Browne left this message, "Donna Browne Instead of writing the class agenda on the board, I simply send it as a message to Wifitti. It is easy to do when you are the creator of the screen. I send a message for things I would mention anyway, like upcoming due dates, school events, changes in schedule. The Wifitti screen is projected onto a screen and catches kids eye's as they walk in the door. Since Wifitti only flashes one message at a time, they continue paying attention to see what will pop up next. See one of the screens at http://wiffiti.com/screens/timeline/81606"  Cool idea.

Since I've been exploring the @TESConnect site as part of the work I'm doing highlighting the best resources of TES that apply to US teachers, I've been drawn to some of the World War 2 footage from the site. This video is Children in World War 2 and I think it is especially helpful to pull video footage from other countries when talking about wars, etc. to gain multiple perspectives. What about drilling down to look at other wars as well?

Here is the list of Winners and losers from Jane Hart's list. Some new entries: Google+ (debuting the highest at 26), Ted Talks (at 30), and for math teachers - Geogebra.

This is an issue we should be studying, talking about, and weighing in on. With the blocking that this proposes, say that you claim fair use, that may not matter - you may be blocked for using copyrighted material, period... no matter whether you have fair use claims or not., the way I understand it. Looking for some more good information on SOPA. Please share. "SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it's going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem"