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Markdown is a simple way to format text and is being used in many notetaking and to-do apps. I'm learning about markdown and came across this excellent article so you could learn more too.

If you want plants to grow add rain, sunshine and warmth. The same works with children. A warm, caring environment where students and teachers have positive relationships, where they feel safe and have supports to help them succeed improves test scores. This is no surprise to good teachers. Those who put inordinate stress on teachers in ways that causes stress and harshness are likely hurting test scores and having the opposite effect, if one is to interpret this. Take a read and take action - on my blog I and many commenters have been discussing getting along with colleagues and having warm relationships with students. It isn't fluff but rather, is the stuff that test scores are made of. "It's the million-dollar question or, given the size of the California education budget, the $50-billion-dollar question: What makes extraordinarily successful schools different from other schools? The answer: school climate, according to a new study from WestEd, a San Francisco-based research agency. In recent years, the concept of school climate has gained increasing currency in education reform circles and the California Department of Education has received federal grants to evaluate school climate in 170 schools, as well as Safe and Supportive Schools grants to fund programs that enhance school climate. As defined by the WestEd study, a positive school climate includes caring relationships between teachers and students, physical and emotional safety, and academic and emotional supports that help students succeed. The goal of a positive school climate is "a sense of belonging, competence and autonomy" for both students and staff, the report said."

While most teachers will not understand what this means, an API is something that lets other websites interact with a main website. OpenEd has released an API to allow others to interact with their resources and find things based on standards or keywords. What this means is that OpenEd is going to be a very useful tool for all of education in the future because of this technological tool. It also means that if you're developing for a state or for an organization that provides educational resources, you should tap into this for a huge repository of almost a quarter of a million standards aligned resources that your teachers can search. This is great news.

I'm a huge fan of the American School of Bombay and visionary Shabbi Luthra - this article on Edutopia captures so much about this amazing school that uses laptops at a very young age in ways that empower students to learn, create, and share. Shabbi is passionate about bringing the best to her school but also shares expects that what is brought and discussed there will be used. Such a great school - it is well worth attending ASB Un-Plugged when they host it just to see what they are doing. It is hard to find a better school anywhere in the world.

Education is an issue around the world as demonstrated in this video from New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell. They have problems with "reneged deals with Federal and State governments." Education is in flux the world over, lest any one group of educators feel they are being singled out. This is largely caused by the information age. While the industrial age changed how people worked, the information age is fundamentally changing how people learn and those organizations that can adapt and progress will remain. Some towns suffered the loss of factories but kept their schools. What happens when the schools close? Integrate technology, blend learning, or the tightening finances world wide will make it hard for you to thrive in an education landscape increasingly mixed with education technology.

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."

The Taboo show talks about things that are hard to discuss. The most recent show talks about how to teach with a broken heart. I know I've been broken hearted enough to quit at least twice in my short 12 year career and most teachers I know have been there. This is an important topic with lots of great discussion from one teacher who is there and some who've been there. If this is you, take a listen and I hope this helps. "Even the best teachers feel disillusioned about teaching at times. However, some are brokenhearted and dispirited about what teaching has become, yet continue teaching because they have limited alternatives. is there a solution? Follow:@blairteach, @JessedHagopian @coolcatteacher, @bamradionetwork"

This NPR article on the school situation in Philadelphia is heart wrenching. Poverty impacts everyone, especially children. For those who have never seen it, it is hard to understand. I remember in Mumbai, seeing kids with a tiny notebook and pencil down to the nub that had been used the whole school year - kids were erasing unimportant things (if they still had an eraser) to add more to their notebooks. Yes, there are many places that desperately need school supplies and help and Philadelphia is one of the many cities who are really struggling. Take time to read/listen and understand and set up this holiday season to help. ""Clothing, books, all of the school supplies, backpacks," Kantor says. "And you see some kids that are really suffering. Some kids don't ever have a dime. They have one pencil, they have a spiral book, and they don't have any of the supplies." Other teachers say they've had to bring in cleaning supplies - even toilet paper. But lots of nonmaterial things gnaw at Kantor: She says some parents, many of them single moms, seem overwhelmed and disengaged. Kantor says she knows they're stressed out and tries to reach out by phone, but is too often left discouraged."

Another software visualization tool. This one is from IBM. The URL is an odd one so you'll have to bookmark this. This is free and is listed as an "experiment". It looks like many educators are gravitating to the site as I've found some nice infographics for literature here as well. On the homepage you can scroll through some of the ideas. There are also some nice articles about how to create effective visualizations on this site that will give you ideas if you are using infographics in the classroom.

CO14 is happening this weekend and so many great people are presenting. It runs from February 7-9 and is free. My session is sharing how writing has been reinvented as I share the 9 tools that have changed how we teach forever (a sneak preview of my book coming out in May.) If you teach writing, work with curriculum or teach, feel free to join in. The session is at 8 am EST on Saturday morning, February 8. Anyone can join. Lots of amazing presenters are speaking so check it out.

Another alternative is to not use the term "MOOC" and call it a Cas". (another hat tip to Stephen Downes for this article). I'm not sure that changing the name really will change what is a movement to learn online. Yes, it needs to be verifiable and so many things need to happen, but sometimes I find it odd how higher ed flees from anything that sounds trendy. Why not just Make Moocs better. Anyway, realize that higher ed has woken up and realized something significant is happening, how they will respond is yet to be seen. Says the author: "The thing formerly known as a MOOC will now be called a CaS.   CaS:  Course at Scale."

This is an interesting article from the Guardian's teacher network about running an independent newspaper using a Grammar school as a case study. I thought this quote is telling: "The key to the success of the newspaper is to establish a trust relationship with the students involved so that they know the boundaries of their independence and know where their responsibilities lie. The editorial team is appointed and led by the editor in chief, a student selected by an interview with me and the outgoing editor."

A new website that is easy to align to standards (and share information with other teachers) with your students as you give "exit tickets" but also other activities during class. I like how easy it is to share your questions with other teachers. I'm still testing and learning this system but am impressed that this is an alternative for student response systems that some may want to test as well. For those who do data driven decision making, this is a must test.

Train your students in CPR. This is a great thing to share with your health classes. The curriculum is here for you. "The easy-to-use CPR in Schools Training Kit is designed just for schools.  It contains everything needed to train 10 students at once in CPR.  Repeat the process to train a class, a grade - or even an entire school! The CPR in Schools Training Kit is portable, allowing for convenient movement from classroom to classroom and easy storage. One CPR in Schools Training Kit can train hundreds of students!"

If you'd really like to get into the Luminosity program, here is the application form to get into it. Here's info from the press release. This is a cool app that is supposed to improve many parts of cognition. I have it on my list to try and it is very interesting to me. Here's the link and some info: "Preliminary results from the Spring 2012 semester found that students who trained with Lumosity improved more on a battery of online cognitive assessments than students who did not train. Additionally, effects were dose-dependent; engaging in more Lumosity training led to greater improvements on the assessments. Insights from the 2012-13 LEAP academic year on the effects of cognitive training on students' real-world academic outcomes are forthcoming. Educators are increasingly interested in enhancing their students' cognitive and behavioral factors. More than 75 percent of all teachers who applied for the Fall 2013 LEAP semester believe training with Lumosity will promote: cognitive enhancement, increased ability to pay attention, improved self-confidence, and improved general attitude toward learning."

Ransomware is a new kind of malware. The worst Ransomware to hit in some time is the Crypto virus. This virus encrypts your hard drive and you have to send them a $300 certificate (untraceable) so they'll give you the encryption key to decrypt your drive and get your data back. In an interesting twist, the US government disabled the servers running this ransomware scan and now all of the people with the virus have no hope of getting their decryption keys. This is another reason you should be very careful NOT to open suspicious attachments even from legitimate sounding sources. (Many of these messages appeared to be from Fedex and UPS.) The greatest internet filter ever created is the human brain. Educate teachers and others - not through fear but through a skeptical empowerment that always thinks before it clicks and especially before it downloads.

Nice start for rubrics for 2.0 projects

Educational Origami is a blog, and a wiki, about the integration of ICT into the classroom, this is one of the largest challenges that I feel we as teachers face. Its about 21st Century Learning and 21st Century Teaching. Marc Prensky coined the now popular and famous phrase "Digital natives and digital immigrants" in his two papers on digital Children. We the teachers are the immigrants and our students are the natives, brought up in a world where there has always been computers and the internet, where information is always instant and varied. Our teaching and their learning must reflect this.

Educational Origami is a blog , and a wiki, about 21st Century Learning and 21st Century Teaching.

The primary purpose of blog is to facilitate interaction between a teacher and his or her students. This is possible because a blog is a dynamic tool which can be easily updated or transformed as necessary to meet the needs of a science or math class. The integration of blog technology in a class requires an investment of time. Because of this commitment, additional evidence is needed to support the integration this technology in a science or math class curriculum.

Like everything else on the Internet, trying to find images is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Without the right tools for finding science and math images on the web it is often an impossible, or at least mind-numbing, task. What is needed are search engines which make the job easier. This is where the tips and tricks provided below help this seemingly impossible task by using the top search Web 2.0 search engines and tools available today. These are valuable resources for both you and your students when trying to find just the right image for lesson or project involving digital media.

English is not the object of study in my classes. It is the MEANS to access a bunch of knowledge. It is the tool that will allow me and my students to access lots of information, to get to know new cultures, different ways of thinking, different points of views; that will allow us to reflect on important issues, defend our opinions and why not, also get to know each other more. That's what education is all about after all: developing CRITICAL THINKING and SOCIAL SKILLS.