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NOTE: The linked article is NSFW - it has a word of profanity where the author quotes Good Will Hunting. But the points are right. Some teachers worry they will be outdated or not needed with the online education movement. This article has some great points that I agree with. I do think online learning is part of our future but perhaps not the savior some make it out to be. "The online education utopians ignore the fact that free learning has existed for decades in the form of the public library and despite that availability, every kid within bicycling distance to his local branch didn't turn into a self taught entrepreneur. Suggesting that online courses are the cure-all for our educational needs is like saying all you have to do to teach kids in the ghetto is give away textbooks on the corner. Recent studies have shown there is a significant gap between the completion rates of online students compared to classroom based students. When you consider that online learning is often promoted as a cost effective solution for at-risk learners who don't have the financial resources for face-to-face instruction, it becomes clear that the online movement is offering a product that makes it easier to drop out to students who are already more prone to quitting in the first place."

Twitter is going to "rate" your tweets in the hopes of giving you and developers better content. Again, those late to the game may have trouble being heard, but I'd like to think there is always a way to be valuable. Never assume that because everyone is following someone that they have something worth saying - decide who YOU want to follow and that is enough. Of course, when this happens, expect the usual uproar of those who are valued and not valued, as for me, I hope I can resist the urge to start comparing in sharing and just try to stay helpful. From Mashable..."The value judgements will be assigned to the public metadata of tweeters' posts, and used by Twitter's streaming API to help developers more selectively curate massive amounts of status updates. Designations of "none," "low" and "medium" will most likely debut on Feb. 20, according to a post by developer advocate Arne Roomann-Kurrik on the Twitter developers' blog. A "high" value option will be rolled out sometime after the initial batch."

Free textbooks in a variety of topics on CK-12. This is promoted as "learning made simple." Do students know how to find and download alternate sources of information? Can they find and search for the topics they are currently studying? This is a valuable way to compare and research topics.

"Adolescents are more likely than adults to take online risks, regardless of the gamble involved, according to new research by the University of Plymouth. The study, led by Claire White from the School of Psychology, was carried out to explore the psychological mechanisms underpinning why teenagers are more likely to take risks online when compared to young adults."

A friend of mine passed this lesson plan on to me with this note to Literature teachers: "Sick of Jacobean literature meaning Shakespeare? Check out this resource on Christopher Marlowe's Faust. " I think that this is a very good point and is the type of lesson that AP literature would use in the US. There is a reading guide, powerpoint, and it also incorporates John Milton's Paradise Lost as a comparative text.

Compare numbers with this great football themed more/less than game with 3 levels of difficulty. Play full screen at http://www.fuelthebrain.com/Game/swfs/soccer.swf http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Over 150 lessons about the Olympics. This is a great way to welcome the school year in the northern hemisphere as so many will be engrossed in the Olympics. Peruse these lesson plans from venn diagrams comparing the modern olympics to the ancient olympics to conversation questions or history lessons.

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.

A well made flash version of the TV show 'Deal or No Deal' with lot of maths possibilities, such as comparing large numbers, place value or probability. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

This survey shows that iPad with the $199 price tag is a 'serious" contender for the ipad. I had someone ask me about Kindle fire vs. iPad. Definitely people are comparing it. Personally, I think it is going to take an OS update the droid system because every time I've used a droid anything the touch hasn't been responsive, but that update is coming.

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."

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."

Projectqted is a new presentation builder that has won many awards including SXSWi as 2012 Best Educational resource. It is a new tool that you should try if you're using online presentations and compare to prezi. ""Projeqt lets you create what you could call interactive slideshows... I might describe it as a more sophisticated Prezi that's easier to create and less confusing to watch." -Larry Ferlazzo's websites of the day"

Here's a roundup of the APIs to mine Twitter data: Trstrank: The PageRank-esque algorithm we covered previouslyWordbag: A list of "most common words" for a user with a twist. Universally-common words are essentially filtered out because InfoChimps compares a user's word choice to all of Twitter.Influence: Gets the number of replies in and out for the user, along wiht the number of tweets and the age of the account. Analysis of influence is up to you.Conversation: Provides a summary of public interactions between two users. Results are a list of tweets in which the first user replied to the second.

"You can use gl·am to... * Easily shorten URLs * Store an infinit amount of URLs into one single short URL with our Link Groups * Make a personalized homepage for yourself. Example: http://gl.am/wO21E * Take notes when comparing items. Example: http://gl.am/qRUy4 * Create a step-by-step tutorial for other users. Example: http://gl.am/YhPOI * Build website collections. Example: http://gl.am/jt2Ec * and much much much more."

The purpose of this article is to establish a reasonable level of understanding that there are underlying mental health factors that could possibly cause young people to become either perpetrators or victims of cyber bullying and unwanted sexual solicitation. This is a more constructive view for the purpose of prevention, compared to one that seeks only, to blame technology.

Featured Post Scholastic's The First Thanksgiving What it is: Scholastic has amazing resources all year long but the interactive on The First Thanksgiving is topnotch!  Students learn about how the Pilgrims reached America, and what daily life was before the First Thanksgiving.  Students can take a tour of the Mayflower, take the virtual journey to America, compare and contrast modern life with when the Pilgrims lived (housing, clothes, food, chores, school, games), and the Thanksgiving feast.  There is a great slideshow and play a webquest feature where kids can learn more about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag and the famous harvest feast.  The site includes audio for every page and activity.  This is great for younger students. How to integrate Scholastic's The First Thanksgiving into the classroom: The First Thanksgiving is a collection of great activities for students to learn about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims.  Students can use this site independently as young as first grade because of the audio features on The First Thanksgiving.  The site can be used as a center activity that a few students can explore together, independently in the computer lab setting, or as a whole class with a projector or interactive whiteboard.  The webquest at the end of the activity checks for student understanding with a quiz.  Increase students participation further with some The First Thanksgiving bonus features and extras.  Print out a Thanksgiving Readers theater, door signs, a fact hunt, a vocabulary quiz, and some letters from historical figures.  There are also research and historical fiction journals that students can continue learning with.  These range from a Plymoth Colony research starter to Our America: Colonial period. Tips: Check out Scholastic's Teaching resources for The First Thanksgiving as well as the literature connections that are available. Leave a comment and share how you are using The First Thanksgiving  in your classroom. Read More

The difference between advertised fast foods and what they really look like when bought. Photoshoot conducted by a professional, and images of actual food purchased are compared to the idealized version from advertisements. Great study for marketing and photography students.

Wow! That's an amazing representation of what I've always noticed, but never captured on film. This site would be a great addition to a unit on advertising and persuasion. I did such a unit in the past with really terrific results; see http://teachwithpicturebooks.blogspot.com/2010/05/as-seen-on-tv-media-messages-unmasked.html for some ideas I incorporated.

That's exactly what I was thinking too Keith; using the site in a lesson, or unit, about advertising, and how manipulative it can be. There's another site with images here, although it doesn't have any of the contemplative thoughts of the original bookmark (http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm).

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers do not need less sleep than others. In fact, as they move through their teenage years, adolescents need increasing amounts of sleep - about nine hours nightly, as compared to eight hours needed by adults. Excessive sleepiness in teenagers and young adults is related to physiological changes during puberty. Yet, school starting times get earlier and earlier as students mature, despite the fact that puberty demands more sleep. This may have serious physical, mental, and social consequences for adolescents and negatively impact their academic performance.