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Important and well written

Leo Babauta gives great advice on forming new habits. As you think about the habits that need to change in your life, read this thought provoking post. "Here's the process: Start small. What's the smallest increment you can do? Do this for at least 3 days, preferably 4-5. Get started. Starting the change each day is the most important thing. Want to run? Just get out the door. Want to meditate? Just get on the cushion. Enjoy the change. Don't look at this as a sacrifice. It's fun, it's learning, it's a challenge. Stick to the change. Notice your urge to quit. Don't act on it. Keep going. Adjust again. When the change becomes normal, make another small adjustment. This is the process of creating a new normal. It's beautiful and simple."

There are many nations (like Finland) who have national standards but local flexibility. This technologist writes an article supporting Common Core while saying that many don't understand what they contain. Honestly, I see another person who hasn't read some of them. My biggest issue is - who controls the standards and how can they be revised in the future.In a country showing a poor ability to keep politicians from writing standards, by centralizing they become easy target to the whims and sways of the pendulum of politics in the US. That said, I think national standards are likely inevitable.I just hope they put enough different people onto Common Core that group think doesn't send us in a very bad direction. If we have national standards and make it there, they become very important to our future as a country.

This app is by Techsmith, makers of camtasia. Right now it is free. You can import PDFS and use screenshots. Powerful tool that is free. 

This app does one thing well - you quick draw and record. It saves it to your camera roll and then you take it from there (can upload to dropbox, etc.) "The app records your voice as you draw to create quick presentations. Doodlecast Pro saves videos to the camera roll making it easy to import them into popular video editors or presentation tools such as iMovie, Keynote, or iBooks Author. Perfect for teachers, students, business"

I think those who think that we will not need keyboards are missing a few important points. Here's the issue - I can type faster than I can talk. Also, in the classroom - 20 kids talking to their computers it would be chaos and a mess. Typing, however, has a speed benefit and doesn't require a "cone of silence" as a everyone talking to their glasses would. I think keyboarding will remain part of the productive equipment of most of us - until our devices can read our brain waves. For those who type less than 30 words a minute and work in a quiet office, this is likely to be true. Meanwhile, this is a great read about what will happen in our homes, at least.

As more and more students interact digitally-with content, one another, and various communities-the concept of digital citizenship becomes increasingly important. Which begs the question: what is digital citizenship?

The online institutions in the UK offer unlimited facilities to the students to make their learning easy.If you are planning to do management degree from UK universities, then before enrolling you should know the importance of a management degree.

Doug Johnson is a great read for his blunt, in your face honesty and his point about how technology companies are trying to differentiate is a great one. I think, however, we should extend this to schools as well. If your school is great, say why, but dissing the competition is no way to compete. If you think your school has no competition, think again. So, read this in light of the arriving and coming competition on the edulandscape and have an honest take on how you should "sell" the virtues of your school. If you can't talk about how great your school is and have to resort to how bad the other one is, prepare for a day when you'll shutter the windows and wonder how they're going to keep the bugs out of your empty building. Wake up and smell the wires burning their way into your student's computers and tablets, great teachers are just a click away and we've all got to learn how to blend and trend our courses, teaching, and to bridge our classrooms to add real value as teachers. It isn't hard as you think but if you just sit and teach like you've always taught, you're setting yourself up for some unpleasant days. You can't do everything but you can do something to improve yourself. Next practices are an important part of your best practice. Always innovate and never settle. Standards are only the beginning, you must have purpose if you're going to be a great teacher. Doug says: "But what I do know that when competitors trash each other, I tend to tune out. And I flat out hate it when I know they are lying - and I will NOT buy from a liar. A salesman recently promoted his video storage service by stating "unlike YouTube, we don't own your movies." That's just not true. (YouTube doesn't own your movies, GoogleApps doesn't own your Docs, CIPA, FERPA, etc. do not ban social media.)"

The Flat Classroom conference is coming up March 7-10. We have an option for receiving credit (if you're international) and also for full participation. Virtual participants are an important part of our face to face conference as we seek to create experiences that flatten the conference as we collaborate in a problem-based environment. You'll have a team and work with them to create a project that can be brought to the world based upon principles that WORK. Click on this link to learn more about how you can participate in the conference remotely FOR FREE. ;-) We want you.

HOw to borrow Kindle books from your local library. It often requires setup of overdrive here in the US. This is an important skills for modern students, particularly if they have a tablet device, they should know how to check out books from their local library. Don't show them how to use the card catalog, set them up on overdrive and show them how to use it.

Here's a sample form allowing students to use Dropbox and Evernote and Edublog services from a teacher in Canada. NOte that this includes disclosure that the site is hosted outside the country, something important for international relationships as typically websites are governed by their host country.

Here's a google apps consent form for another district. It also references the Network Access Agreement (We call ours an AUP - or acceptable use form) which is an important practice that ensures students know they must use the network in accordance with guidelines already given.

The recent Kindle updates over the past few months have quite a few teachers. In particular, if you have a textbook on Kindle, you can collate notes by color, which is a major enhancement.  This article does a nice job of summarizing the features important to educators. "The update also brings some changes that should be especially helpful for students and teachers, like the ability to highlight long passages that span multiple pages. In addition, the Notebook feature for textbooks has new filtering options, which should help you more quickly and easily find all your notes, bookmarks, and highlights by colour"

As I read this article on leading up, I'm curious if this is encouraged in schools. Leading up is when a person exerts influence on leaders one or two levels above him or her. We need teachers who can lead up. Is it encouraged? I'm not so sure.

This four part video series about the "Invisible children" is an excellent model for how you can share what you're doing. The design on this page is fantastic as well. This organization creaed #kony2012 as their 10th film. They understand social media mobilization. This is an important cause and also the example of how the story wouldn't be told if it weren't for good storytellers. We are first and foremost a "social media, storytelling organization" - they think it is fundamentally untrue that you cannot relate to someone halfway around the world.

As much as possible my wife and I try  and engage our children in as many different activities as we can; whether it be rock pooling on South Wales beaches in the rain, feeding the animals at a local farm or watching the fantastic Balloon display at Bristol Balloon Fiesta...

Many schemes of professional development for teachers, as well as advanced teaching certificates, include an element of 'Action Research' (AR). In my work as a team leader of EFL tutors, I've come to see just how important AR is for teachers to continue to develop and professionalise their teaching practices. And I'm so enthusiastic about teachers doing research that I want to share some introductory thoughts with a wider audience - with you, my dear blog readers! I hope I can inspire you to start your own AR projects, and would love to hear what you get up to...