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"So, what's a leader and the school to do? How do we create "checks" to serve as guideposts toward success?  One potential way may be a novel idea in education.  Use teachers and educators that have experienced success in building instructional capacity to be "scouts" for other teachers and schools that are building capacity in a meaningful way.  What I mean by 'scouts' is that these individuals would be charged with working next to teachers and school leaders to develop and refine instructional capacity, but when "it" shows itself in the form of meaningful and intentional classroom instruction or PLCs that really improve student performance, the 'scouts' chronicle this story.  The 'scouts' dual responsibility is to not only share in the building of the capacity, but to also spread the good news when it's been accomplished. In doing so, the profession of teaching and learning, can begin to articulate and share in these guideposts toward meaningful capacity.  What's missing in this dynamic are the 'scouts' that are embedded in several classrooms, schools and districts simultaneously and use this experience to improve the work simultaneously.  What's crucial about this approach is that it isn't 'helicoptered in' and is never something done 'to' teachers.  The work of the 'scout' is to find, develop, and refine great teaching and learning and use this as a way to scale up the work so that more and more students can have access to highly effective teaching and learning. " This article, specifically this annotated section, really spoke to me and made me think about what the two main initiatives of our department - Henrico 21 and Reflective Friends, should look like. It shouldn't be something that is "helicoptered in" or "done to teachers," but instead should be about developing, refining, promoting, and sharing good teaching.

"Mark talked about the idea of using Evidence-Based Arguments as a starting point. Every historical investigation needs to begin with a great question. Then they asked kids to do research and create videos. But what they got was disappointing. What they got was basically text with pictures, a script with a background. It wasn't a story, it wasn't engaging, and it often didn't really answer the question.  They begin to realize that they needed to learn more about how to create high-quality documentaries, how to use images and video to actually tell a story. And eventually they came up with a Four Step Process that students work through to create high-quality documentaries:" 4 Step Process for creating HST videos. I don't necessarily agree with the author's thought that tech should not be introduced until step #4, as tech can enhance 1-3 just as well. The teacher just needs to model good behavior and help students develop structures for the work in these phases for it to be successful.

"This could be an interesting tool for creative writing prompts and/or vocabulary work. Here are a couple thoughts on how you could use Endless Interestingness in the classroom: Challenge the students to find a "string" of 5-10 photos in a row and connect those images by writing a creative story that incorporates the subjects, themes, moods, etc. of those photos. Provide the students with a vocabulary word. Have the students go to the website and choose one photo that best represents that word. Students could explain and justify their choice to the rest of the class. A Padlet wall would be a great tool for this assignment, so that all students could quickly share their work and view their classmates' ideas."

Put the internet to work for you. This is the service Tom discussed this morning that might help you route actions in the background.

Pretty direct match to what we're working towards in k12.

"Does the fact that people have helped you, make you feel less accomplished? Does it mean you didn't work as hard on the project, didn't write the book, didn't start the business, or finish the marathon?" To me, this is a testament to the importance of collaboration (collaboration between students, yes…but also collaboration as a staff). The best way to achieve greatness is to share and build off of what others have done before us.

"The strategy that has worked best for me over the years has been to create a non-threatening atmosphere in which teachers can experiment and explore without repercussions as they become more familiar with technology tools. The key is to cultivate a climate of discovery and experimentation as opposed to one of judgement and unattainable standards. After all, we don't expect our students to be perfect the first time around. We encourage them to experiment and take risks. If everything had to be perfect right away, we'd never get anything done!" Interesting post to share with teachers

"My hope is that I'm providing a starting point, not an end point, with each post. I never know for sure if what sparks my own curiosity will kindle a similar fire with readers, but if it does, I want readers to be able to pursue the subject beyond the confines of my short posts and tweets. The history-pics accounts give no impression of even knowing this web of legitimate, varied historical content exists. Given their huge follower counts, this is a missed opportunity-for their readers, and for the historians and archivists who would thrill to larger audiences for their work." This is why I love "The Vault," and why anyone interested in history should explore its contents every once in a while. I've found great starting points for lessons here. And thinking about it, I know there's a lesson somewhere in this article too. I just don't know exactly what it is yet.

How Wikipedia works. Could be useful for classroom research assignments.

This article answers a question I have had since 10th grade English - "Is it possible to make Jane Eyre interesting?" I watched the Hamlet video and was thoroughly entertained. I could see these videos being used in 8th grade and high school English classes, especially if you edited one or two short segments (he says a** and b****, but other curse words are bleeped out within the video). These clips could be really useful when discussing the topic of "audience." As a culmination to a unit/lesson on audience, I could see students making their own version of "Thug Notes" or "rewriting" a book to some extent and adapt the work for a specific culture/group of people.

By viewing the page source here, you can now make multiple variable webpage generators. They might be useful for things like this which is a for refining project based questions or you could use as elements in a writing prompt. I have another one that randomizes images as well that works slightly differently.

This framework helps was created to help drive instructional practice. Specifically, collaborative group work, writing to learn, literacy groups, questioning, scaffolding, and classroom talk.

"Flows of Reading takes this process to the next level. We have created a rich environment designed to encourage close critical engagement not only with Moby-Dick but a range of other texts, including the children's picture book, Flotsam; Harry Potter; Hunger Games; and Lord of the Rings. We want to demonstrate that the book's approach can be applied to many different kinds of texts and may revitalize how we teach a diversity of forms of human expression.  We look at many different adaptions and remixes of Moby-Dick from the films featuring Gregory Peck and Patrick Stewart as Ahab to MC Lar's music video, "Ahab" and Pitts-Wiley's Moby-Dick: Then and Now stage production to works that evoke Moby-Dick less directly, including Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Battlestar Galacitca's "Scar." "

This seems like a fun and interesting way to discuss/learn several different math topics. Here's a sample lesson plan that popped into my head when I saw this post: 1. Show to students a GoogleMap/GoogleEarth image similar to the one on the website, but more meaningful to you/them. For example, several different grocery stores around your house. 2. Ask the students, "Which one should I go to?" Have the students justify their answers using the image and mathematical topics that they have learned up to this point. 3. With appropriate questioning you could work in several mathematical topics here (I know I'm missing others as well…) a. Overlay a grid on the GoogleMaps and have the students give each of the locations points on an x,y axis. Use this information to determine distance. Have a conversation if this is the best way to determine which location is easiest to access. When students start to bring up the fact that even though some points are technically closer, but could be slower to get to, bring in… b. Rates, ratios, etc. Discuss how fast you could possibly travel on each route according to number of stop signs, streetlights, speed limit etc. Have students use this information to calculate the appropriate answer.

A great source for colorize historical photos and a really interesting example of people doing hard work out of interest and passion. Portions unsafe.

My children are feral but I'm working on taking them to the next level. I do wonder if it's less about wilderness per se and more about real experiences. You could probably do many things in the city/suburbs that would engage kids in a similar way.

I agree. "We foster and reward a narrow set of skills."

This could be a structure/concept that we could use as a word exploration/association possibility. There are a lot of possibilities and Alan Levine has been working on creating a generic WP theme for this.

Worth thinking about how this works and the benefits of the structure.

How can a game help students develop mathematical habits of mind? "Then we talked about the game for a bit, and discussed the "habits of mind" they had employed to figure out the game - noticing and wondering, guessing and checking, persevering, struggling productively, learning from mistakes without worrying about making mistakes (since they knew the only way they were going to make progress was to make mistakes and learn from them), and working together. We talked about how these skills are as important as any content they learn in their school classes, and how they can use those skills to make progress on math problems they're not sure how to solve. In fact, much of the math programming we did the rest of the year employed huge doses of Noticing and Wondering and generating ideas about math situations, or scenarios (a math problem with no stated question). Anecdotal reports suggest that by the end of the year, most of the students felt pretty confident that they could generate ideas about most math situations we handed them. Big win!"

"Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) is a system developed at UCLA for coordinating and evaluating peer reviews of student work. In CPR, students review one another's assignments in an anonymous system, providing feedback to other students while also learning how to recognize strengths and weaknesses of their own efforts. Peer review might hold particular promise for MOOCs and other high-enrollment courses that struggle with assessment and feedback, though the benefits of peer review can apply to any community of learners, large or small. "