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"My Interesting Ways to Use series has been really successful. I measure their success in how useful they are to teachers and other educators in helping with professional development. I say "My" in the loosest sense of ownership really, as with all of the presentations they belong to us all. I just kickstart them and point them off in the right direction."

"Student blogging is not a project, but a process. We are continuously striving to refine, improve and re-evaluate. As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can't stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). I am trying to filter and funnel quality blogs in education, their grade level and areas of interest to them as I come across them, so they can build a quality RSS Reader. BUT.. we need their help in having a basic understanding of blogs, its pedagogical uses, as a platform of a new writing genre (digital writing) and how our blogfolios fit into your curriculum and the BIG PICTURE of LEARNING. The blogfolios are not a platform to use only for a particular subject, but should give evidence of learning for each student. "

"48 Great Ways Homeschoolers are Using Pinterest Pinterest has proven itself to be a valuable tool for so many people: photographers, designers, craft artists, wedding planners, moms, and more. It's a great place to discover interesting ideas, organize your thoughts, and pin down resources that otherwise might get lost in the shuffle. Homeschooling parents make up another group that benefits greatly from Pinterest, as they share unit studies, school room inspiration, and fun classroom project ideas. Read on to learn more about how homeschoolers are finding value in Pinterest, and some of the interesting ways they're putting the site to work in the home classroom."

Video parodies are used to make teacher training interesting A Texas district is producing videos parodying well-known commercials to make teacher training more interesting and to send messages to students. The videos have been so effective that there are plans to produce more. "We've been doing these videos since 2006. This way of delivering a message has more appeal," said a district administrator. The Dallas Morning News (9/8) http://www.youtube.com/user/MesquiteISD#play/all

For the past month, I've been babbling about interesting web sites for kids and teachers at Vocalo.org (http://vocalo.org/), Chicago's first user-generated content radio station. It's an initiative of our local NPR affiliate and it broadcasts on the internet and at 89.5 if you're in the Chicago/Northern Indiana area. The station is a really interesting concept and I think a sign of the ways things will go with radio. Anyway, I thought I'd share 5 of my favorites from this series with you today. Enjoy!

THis is interesting, links to all kinds of periodic tables, kinda interesting

In April of 2011, the USD No. 448 Board of Education, based upon a recommendation supported by the administration and staff, voted to approve iPads for all staff and all students in grades 4, 9, 10, 11, and 12 beginning in August 2011. We have been "pioneers" in the iPad one to one arena. The journey has been challenging, interesting, frustrating, enlightening, but most of all rewarding. Our staff has done an incredible job of embracing change and integrating iPads into our curriculum. They are providing an extremely important service to other educators--being a model school. What I have observed is that because this is such a new concept, other educators are much more inclined to get excited about the concept if they are able to see it in action. Thank you USD No. 448 staff members for providing a working model for other educators.

In April of 2011, the USD No. 448 Board of Education, based upon a recommendation supported by the administration and staff, voted to approve iPads for all staff and all students in grades 4, 9, 10, 11, and 12 beginning in August 2011. We have been "pioneers" in the iPad one to one arena. The journey has been challenging, interesting, frustrating, enlightening, but most of all rewarding. Our staff has done an incredible job of embracing change and integrating iPads into our curriculum. They are providing an extremely important service to other educators--being a model school. What I have observed is that because this is such a new concept, other educators are much more inclined to get excited about the concept if they are able to see it in action. Thank you USD No. 448 staff members for providing a working model for other educators.

"Forty Interesting Ways* to use Wordle in the Classroom *and tips"

Interesting editable open source textbooks

Videos made by students and teachers in order to inspire and provoke interest 

Interesting infographic courtesy of turnitin regarding different methods of plagiarism. 

" « Ken Burns - Telling stories and manipulating your kids Tip of the Week - The End of the Scavenger Hunt June 1, 2012 by glennw I've written about Mary Madden before. Mary is the amazing Education and Outreach Director at the Kansas State Historical Society. And she and her tiny staff do incredibly big things. Mary recently shared with me a book that looks very interesting. Titled Teaching History with Museums: Strategies for K-12 Social Studies: Strategies for K-12 Social Studies, it provides an introduction"

"I was introduced to educational blogging in 2008. A twenty minute tutorial by a Department of Education staff member was enough to ignite my interest and, four years on, blogging is something that really works in my classroom."

"Making presentations is a skill every 21st century teacher should master. Students show more engagement and interest when including presentations in a lesson. As you probably know getting students attention in this 21st century classroom is one of the challenging and daunting tasks ever. So why not draw on the potential of including presentations in our classrooms to give life to our lessons and make them more engaging."

"What are Interactive YouTube Videos? YouTube has a feature called Annotations which allows you to create links from one video to multiple others. You can use this feature to create a sort of interactive navigation path through a series of videos. The whole process allows for a lot of interesting possibilities; such as interactive games, story telling, training sequences, or product overviews. Creating an interactive video series in YouTube is actually pretty simple. You need to break the process into the key parts:"

"The debates about schools and social media are a subject of great public and policy interests. In reality, the debate has been shaped by one key fact: the almost universal decision by school administrators to block social media. Because social media is such a big part of many students social lives, cultural identities, and informal learning networks schools actually find themselves grappling with social media everyday but often from a defensive posture-reacting to student disputes that play out over social media or policing rather than engaging student's social media behaviors."

"When it comes to using web resources with our students, time plays a decisive role.It is next to impossible for a busy teacher restricted by curriculum constraints, day to day lesson preparations, assignment corrections, to mention but a few of his chores, to effectively search the web and find the adequate resources to share with his/ her students. Most people just do not have the time to learn all these technologies and some educators pick just one or two websites of interest and start exploring them."

"It's hard to find a field that hasn't been radically changed by technology, and education is no exception. Few classrooms these days operate without digital tools, gadgets, or applications that have made it easier for teachers to track student progress and tailor lessons to student needs and interests."

"Yesterday I had the privilege to meet a group of people, mainly mothers of young children with neuro-developmental delays who were helping their children communicate with iPads. I was inspired by their interest and by the innovative ways they were using their iPads."