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"The American school year has been largely unchanged for decades, despite evolutions in culture, demographics, technology, and a wide range of other social and economic factors. In our increasingly global economy, this is starting to become a disadvantage, especially as students in many school districts are struggling to meet national standards and are simply unable to keep up with their international counterparts, many of whom spend many more hours in the classroom than they do. While there is no one magic solution to reforming schools, many districts around the nation have sought to level the playing field by adding more time to the school day or school year to more closely match those of other nations. While some changes have been more successful than others, what is clear is that the school year that worked for students decades ago simply isn't practical for today's students. Read on to find out some of the biggest reasons many are moving to extend or rearrange the school year for American students."

"12 Reasons to Get Your School District Tweeting This Summer"

Twitter Resources for Teachers You've heard the buzz on the Twitter phenomenon. Everybody seems to be hooked by this micro blogging service. It's been a catalyst for marketing in multinational companies, personal branding for entrepreneurs, and a simple advertising tool for the small businesses. Professionals from the education sphere seem to be catching up to the trends of technolgoy. Whether you're innovating teaching strategies for the university or looking for education jobs online, Twitter is one versatile venue where both teachers and students converse meaningfully. Don't take our word for it, here are some expert guides and tips on how to use this magnificent social networking site to your learning advantage. Articles on Twitter In Education 1. Teaching Twitter to the Teachers - To use twitter effectively, you need a reason to start with. 2. Twitter Tweets for Higher Education - Doing a little online searching (emphasis on the little), the author of this blog has found the following items related to Twitter and education. 3. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education - Blog By Carol - Based on a list by Chris Brogan - 50 ideas for using Twitter in Business. 4. Using Twitter as an Education Tool - Are you using Twitter yet? If not, you may want to read how other educators are using Twitter as an education tool. 5. Twitter Transforms Teaching - Twitter's now tapped as a teaching and learning tool with opportunities to motivate students and advance achievement. 6. Teaching with Twitter - Steve Wheeler's 10 top uses of Twitter for education. 7. Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education - 18 people Lon S. Cohen (writer and social media strategist. He is @obilon on Twitter) following for a real time education. 8. Educational Tool: Twitter - 'Twitter in the Classroom' techniques by Christine Morris. 9. Twenty-Five Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom - Excellent presentation by Creative Commons 10. N

Can You Find the Mystery Class Sites? In this global game of hide-and-seek, students search to uncover the secret locations of ten "mystery" sites hiding around the Earth. To guide the investigation, they track changes in day length at the mystery sites and at their hometown, and use other "clues" along the way. As they take this inspiring journey, students unlock the essential questions behind the reasons for seasons and the dramatic changes in day length that result. Mystery Class starts in early February but you can get ready now.

Can You Find the Mystery Class Sites? In this global game of hide-and-seek, students search to uncover the secret locations of ten "mystery" sites hiding around the Earth. To guide the investigation, they track changes in day length at the mystery sites and at their hometown, and use other "clues" along the way. As they take this inspiring journey, students unlock the essential questions behind the reasons for seasons and the dramatic changes in day length that result. Mystery Class starts in early February but you can get ready now.

have created in class using iBA. I'd like to share them with you for several reasons: 1. To enrich the resources and samples available 2. We're open to your feedback in order to improve the quality of these products The one I'm sharing here with you was part of a Language Arts PBL in which students had to write a sequel to Lois Lowry's novel, the Giver. This was our first attempt to use iBA in the... Losing to Win Read a sample or download Losing to Win by Barbara Hernandez with iBooks.

"Quality teaching instructs us that reflection and evaluation is vital in the development of ourselves as teachers. Photo courtesy of Loco Steve As teachers we reflect on our students daily - "Why did Nathan do this?" "Why did Sarah do that?. We also evaluate our own teaching and lessons - "That was a disastrous lesson" "Why did I use that manipulative?""

"Study Shows Students Are Ditching Their PCs For iPads This Year | Cult of Mac " Replacing your PC with an iPad for school makes sense for a lot of reasons, and it will save you money on textbooks over the longrun. Even though PC manufacturers like Dell refuse to believe the Post-PC Revolution is already here, and that people want tablets more than desktops, evidence is already showing that students and schools are buying iPads instead of PCs.

A few reasons on why choosing Python to teach programing instead of other languages such as C#, Java, etc.

"Create an eBook from online content The world of educational resources and materials is shifting away from print stuff towards digital stuff. One of the reasons for this shift is the ease of creating and sharing digital stuff. ePUBS and tablets and apps like iBooks are merging into a mini-Perfect Storm event that supports and encourages the use of digital content. As social studies teachers, we need to take advantage of these sorts of tools. And I just ran across an incredibly easy to use online tool called Readlists that lets you create an ePUB book from resources that you find on the web. Imagine being able to create a digital book that has a variety of articles, data, and multimedia. Readlists is the latest project of the Arc90 people - the same people who created Readability."

A growing chorus of voices argue that the internet is making us dumber. Web-connected laptops, smartphones and videogame consoles have all been cast as distracting brain mushers. But there's reason to believe some of the newest devices might not erode our minds. In fact, some scientists think they could even make us smarter. Could the cleaner and more modern interfaces that we see on iPads, iPhones and Android smartphones better suit the way our minds were meant to work?

"The first "wiki," or user-edited Web page, was made in 1995 to improve communication between computer programmers. With more than 3 million articles, Wikipedia, the user-edited encyclopedia, is the world's most widely used wiki. And because a Wikipedia entry comes up for almost any Google search, students will inevitably encounter the site during their research. For this reason, it's important to teach students about using Wikipedia effectively and avoiding its pitfalls. "

Presenters in our 2009 conference are following a new set of procedures to DIRECTLY upload their files to both DotSub and Blip.tv, where their videos are converted / transcoded into Flash versions (on both sites) and into m4v (iPod compatible video) and mp3 (audio only) formats on Blip. Use of these two websites as the exclusive sources for presentations this year may pose more accessibility issues for teachers at schools where content filters block most or all video sharing sites like these. For that reason, organizers have created an accessibility survey we invite you to take and share your experiences this year accessing K-12 Online Conference materials both at work and at home.

"Connected to an exciting new world of hot and lively current information, students make meaning and develop insight while the teacher shows them how to navigate and reason through the labyrinth of new sources. The front of the room disappears as 5-8 networked computers support investigations, explorations and excursions."