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Cyberbully and other internet safety topic Educational video tapes for kids

Make it an exciting new school year for your kids!

This is news for all of us to be aware of. (From the ASCD Brief) Will the public allow this to stand? Will this finally bring this whole issue of high stakes tests to a climax? Will the Gov stand firm and say that the kids just aren't ready to graduate? We've not heard that last of this, for sure.

The story of 5600 kids who won't graduate in Florida this year.

A great way to get started with technology is to join in an exciting project. this project by Susan Silverman was designed using the principles of Universal Design for Learning. I've heard her present and she is a pro. (Along with my friend Jennifer Wagner.)

Susan Silverman creates excellent projects for global collaboration among elementary students.

Great video When I Grow Up which was released and than revised by a PA teacher. Resembles the Machine is US/ing us in creation but focuses on what we should be doing as educators to be sure kids are prepared

Good video to use to sress the importance of developing 21stC_skills in preparing kids for the future

Although this lecture by the futurists from Info Savvy Group is dated 2006 it is an essential and clearcut distillation of current issues for teachers of youth in the classroom. The Info Savvy website-CommittedSardine has plenty other free resources, I located this elsewhere as you can see. http://www.committedsardine.com/handouts.cfm

Great website for those who want to teach about food production and farming.

Website to teach you about how the food got to you! This is a really neat website for elementary teachers who discuss food production. There is a resource for teachers as well. As a farm girl, it is great to see a site that discusses the importance of farming. This is so important for kids to understand. We garden at our school and it is great!

Health teachers will love this site for kids. If you have a rainy day and have access to some computers, this would be a great place for activities. As we emphasize health, we should seek out engaging content in this area. This site is free. Love it. "The multi-award winning program is focused on teaching the basics of cardiovascular health, including anatomy, nutrition, and exercise, by offering comprehensive curriculum materials to teachers and a site just for elementary school children to explore. The curriculum was developed as part of our mission to educate the public in a collaborative effort with medical professionals and certified teachers.  Project Heart is completely free to use and free of advertisements. It is also fully translated into Spanish. 

Use the buttons on the left to play this interactive whiteboard set of tools for some of the best things you can find for interactive whiteboards. This list was made by Theresa Allen and you should share it with all your teachers who use IWB's. GREAT games and tools. Thanks, Theresa.

No, the government isn't CREATING a WIFI network (the Washington Post didn't really look at this), however, this article on Gizmodo does share what is happening at the FCC that could help many, especially those in rural areas, be part of the world's new digital landscape. As we work to put devices in our student's hands, this sort of development could make a big difference for kids and can further spur online and blended learning initiatives as digital divides are further bridged. Applause? Can we have it next week? "Let's get one thing straight: the government is not creating its own "super WiFi network", but its plans will indeed make awesome new WiFi networks possible. Technically, what the FCC is actually trying to do is increase the amount of open spectrum that is available for WiFi networks of all sorts-and for other "unlicensed" uses. This is a very good idea."

I've downloaded this free book with 50 ideas to "meet" your new students. If you don't feel you started well last year or are looking for ideas, this is a book with lots of ideas. Targeted to younger classes but you could get some ideas for older kids.

I'm officially clueless and haven't even seen one of the nominations for Best Picture. Here's the full list of Oscar Nominations for those of you (like me) who need to get a little pop culture into your life. These are the things many of our kids talk about so they become important to me. Nominees for best Picture: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, and the Wolf of Wall Street. Many of these are a bit dark (understatement) and thus may not be something I choose to watch, but we can at least be familiar with the themes and what they are.

If you have older kids and want to Mystery Skype - I'd like to start setting some up - tweet me through this Skype profile or via Twitter. I have students at a variety of times -- 5 classes. ;-) Join in and find others!!!! This is for you. Set a goal of how many mystery skype's you'd like to do in your classes. I'd like to do once a month eventually but for now, if I can just get for each class, I'm going to take it from there.

Pakistan is pushing to educate more of its children, amidst financial woes and a struggle for more funding. Their goal: 100% enrollment. Of course, there is a great effort also to build a firewall in Pakistan much like the "great firewall of China." That said, there are many lovely educators from Pakistan who contribute and connect increasingly online and I wish this country well as well as the many countries working to increase enrollment. "As schools returned to session in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province this fall, the newly elected provincial government - with the help of the non-profit campaign Alif Ailaan - launched an enrollment drive. In its first month, the drive managed to enroll nearly 245,000 out of school children - about 65% male and 35% female - across 25 districts of the province, according to figures provided by Alif Ailaan. But considering Pakistan's education woes, where more than 25 million children between the ages of 5-16 remain out of school, it is a small step. "In order to provide schooling to all the kids, we need about Rs. 138 billion (roughly $1.2 billion) just in KP - for school infrastructure, classrooms, teachers so on and so forth," Joudat Ayaz, the province's education secretary, told me over dinner. Ayaz estimates the number of out of school children in KP between 2 to 3 million, about 20% to 30% of the school-age children in the province. "You can't do this [reaching 100% enrollment] in one go - you have to do it progressively, over six or seven years.""

While not everyone community is as forward thinking as Kalamazoo, Michigan (which gives every child in that community a free college education at a public university of their choice in Michigan), helping children from low income families apply for college is imperative. I love this article because it gives practical advice and discusses the issues as well as some creative approaches. I think that the least communities could do is fund college application fees for low income students... helping kids go to college is a start, but a very important one. From this AP Article from NBC Latino... "Yet, nationally, about half of high school graduates from families making below $18,300 enrolled in college in 2012 compared to about 80 percent of those whose families earned above $90,500, according to the College Board. In Washington, where Duarte lives, only 30 percent of high school graduates go to college - a lower percentage than the number who drop out of high school, despite the city having the highest level of college attainment in the nation, according to the College Board. Nearly all the students at Roosevelt qualify for free or reduced lunches. To help create a college-going culture, a bulletin board near the school's front doors features the names of seniors and the colleges they were accepted to. College acceptances are announced over the intercom."