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Ping, in our last meeting you brought this to our attention. My stepdaughter is moving from Kazakhstan (KZ) to live with us in Iowa. She is a native Russian language speaker and has studied English. KZ has a K11 system. I hoped that she would be able to attend the 12th grade here in Iowa. This summer I discovered that if a student graduated from a foreign high school they are not entitled to FAPE. She graduated from the KZ system this past spring at 17 years old. Now that we know about these online K12 courses we have a new avenue of opportunity to help her prepare for college.

article discussing different ways in which twitter can be used in the classroom

Sarah, Thank you for sharing this article. Twitter exploded last year in my district, especially at the high school, as a form of communication for everyone. The middle school, where I am primilary at, is slowly catching on. However, I LOVE Twitter as a professional resource. I think it is like a social bookmarker. I can share the websites, and then go back when I have time to explore them more. I agree this can be used in my library to be an effective communication tool for both students and staff. I believe this resource can be used for both students and staff, but they have different purposes. As a professional, using hashtags can be very benefical to find information. It can also be a great way to network, using the Twitter Chats that go on all around the United States and the world. Students can use this to communicate. For example, the students wanted to have a blue out in honor of a student who has cancer at the football game last night. They asked the opposing team to join them in wearing blue to honor a young man who is fighting for his life. They did, and they donated an additional $425 because they found that information on Twitter! I am not aware of other resources that do that same thing. I believe Twitter is unique with their limit of 140 characters and the strong hashtag movement they begun all throughout the internet world.

Emma, are you in Clinton? I heard about the "blue out"! I like to use Twitter for mainly professional use, but that varies from anywhere between retweeting professional articles to reminding the study body to buy their yearbooks. I try to throw in some personal stuff every now and again just to show that their teacher is an actual human, too. :)

This article provides 50 links to websites, articles, organizations, learning resources, teaching resources, references, and communities and blogs.

Katie, this is an awesome list of resources! I think so often that teachers neglect ELL learners, especially if they aren't ELL teachers. I was just talking with one of my TESOL friends this last weekend and we both agreed that classroom teachers need to be more accommodating to their ELL students.

YAY TESOL. I love seeing other teachers post about TESOL because every teacher is going to encounter ELL students in their teaching career. This is a great list of resources! I have used many of them and know that having them all in one place is extremely helpful. Since this is my future, I would definitely use this website to keep track of resources. It is for teacher use. Most ELL students would have difficulties navigating through these resources and understanding why they would be useful until a teacher helped them understand why. There are many lists on the internet for ESL help, but most have a lot of dead links. From what I looked at, this list looked very helpful!

a list of 100 lesser-known tricks to help with everything Google

I agree, Megan! Emma, happy to hear you are moving to Google Apps for Education. I made the switch my first year of teaching and haven't looked back! Google has so much to offer, and for free usually, that the possibilities seem endless. It has totally revolutionized how I thought I'd be teaching!

Google has so many hidden tricks that nobody knows about! Being aware of these can help you use Google to the most of its ability. I would definitely use this since I want to use Google in my classroom. I have found out how wonderful Google is, and I didn't know some of these tips! This is for teacher use for obvious reasons. There are many lists of things out there, but this is a less known topic so there probably aren't too many.

interesting article about "problem-based learning" and why it is important for kids to struggle when learning

Sarah I think this article is well written, and a lot of parents need to read this, long with teachers. I am not sure when our society switched over to make everyone a winner. Making everyone a winner is not reality, and as a teacher that is so frustrating. I think about the scientiests who have made dramatic breakthroughs in their careers, and I would love to know how many times they failed? I am sure it was more times than they have found success, but that makes the success that much better! I do agree that this article is going to be benefical for future classrooms. I take it into this: Students might not find the "right book" on the very first try, and that is ok. If they can't read it because it is too challaning, that is ok. They can try again. I think this is an article that both teachers and students need to read because teachers need to let students fail more and students need to know that it is OK to fail! Life is full of failures...but the failure does not define you, how you handle the failure does! As far as the last question, am I aware of any other resources similar, this question does not really apply. The article focuses on the concept of failure and challanging projects and that is ok so that students know how to respond the next time.

great point about "When did everyone become winners?" Students need to struggle sometimes in order to fully understand the assignment, the concept, etc. It drives me crazy when a kid doesn't get something so they just want me to spoonfeed it to them.

brief explanation for how to create and use dice blocks in class when app-smashing. This would be nice for those kids who want you to just tell them what to do rather than feel like they have too many choices.

good ideas for high-interest, engaging lesson activities

These strategies are great suggestions. I especially like the idea of four corners. I feel like I could use it when I have students do current technology articles. I also like tea party, that would be a great way to introduce a careers research assignment, giving each student a basic definition of a career in the field and having the "tea party" before they choose their topic. I feel that this is geared towards teachers looking to improve their classroom and shift more toward a learner-centered room. As the blog states, it is also a great resource for teachers who have especially active students.

I was pleasantly surprised by this article! When I first clicked on it I expected it to be elementary based like so many engagement articles are. But then I realized it was for secondary so good for me! The main thing I pulled out of this article was the idea for crowd sourcing. It seems like a simple concept but I had never thought of it before. I think this is a great resource for teachers and I plan on using the crowd sourcing technique on Tuesday!