One of the differences between a happy and an unhappy organization is how well its structures and processes match its objectives. You can call this 'coherence' - a coherent organization is one which is organized and managed in a way that embraces its objectives, rather than just not getting in the way.

Remember the old Monty Hall program Let's Make a Deal? In that game show, you could win the prize behind one of three doors. If you started by choosing door 1, should you have changed your mind and selected door 2, if Monty showed you what's behind door 3 (Tierney, 2008)? What has this to do with research? Well ... people are convinced what they know is the right thing and forge ahead with decisions based on their rationalizations, no matter what research indicates. In education, such decisions--especially technology purchasing decisions--can have profound consequences.

As we enter the main stretch of a historic presidential campaign in America, there is much that he can teach the two candidates. I've always thought of what you are about to read as Madiba's Rules (Madiba, his clan name, is what everyone close to him calls him), and they are cobbled together from our conversations old and new and from observing him up close and from afar. They are mostly practical. Many of them stem directly from his personal experience. All of them are calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place.

...it's time for a shift away from teaching to the test and a shift towards challenging kids and seriously raising the bar. In classrooms where we must accommodate a very heterogeneous group of kids, there is nothing better than a computer and some interesting science equipment to let the high-flyers, well, fly high. There aren't actually many better tools than some well-thought-out software and hands-on tools to reach the kids who are struggling. Computers should be much more than Wikipedia access points and word processors.

Heading into the wild blue yonder of a new school year, we know that some things are inevitable. There will be more to do than last year, and less time to get it done. But what further developments lay ahead? Let's take a look at the predictions for the future of public education. Use the table of contents to the right to navigate your way through our 2008 predictions. Please tell us in the comments field at the end of every article, poll, and video what you think.

Being in IT and computing I'm fundamentally in the business of change. Instigators of change are essentially trying to make things better, smarter, faster, more productive etc. However, it is more than apparent that the majority of people in the world hate change. But why is that? The instigator of change usually has all those who benefit from the old way of doing things as his enemies and he has only lukewarm supporters from those that will benefit from his new way of doing things. Seems like change is a big risk will only a small reward. So why the big imbalance?

There is probably no segment of activity in the world attracting as much attention at present as that of knowledge management. Yet as I entered this arena of activity I quickly found there didn't seem to be a wealth of sources that seemed to make sense in terms of defining what knowledge actually was, and how was it differentiated from data, information, and wisdom. What follows is the current level of understanding I have been able to piece together regarding data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. I figured to understand one of them I had to understand all of them.

Integrity is both a part of who you are and what you do. It is about being true to your values, no matter what. And if those values are admired by others, you have the makings of a great leader, particularly in times of change. We often have two sets of values: normal values and stress values. In most situations, with normal values at the fore, we follow social rules of consideration and trustworthiness. But when pressured, our underlying stress values come to the fore. For many people these are more about personal survival and any thought of putting others first goes out of the window. Where that stress line is where we flip varies greatly between people. Some get selfish at the slightest discomfort, whilst others resist the temptation for a while longer. Integrity means pushing this barrier much further out, even to the point of self-sacrifice.

This profile tool will help you to compare your current instructional practices with a set of indicators for engaged learning and high-performance technology. For each category, there is a description of the indicators and examples that fall along a continuum. There are three examples for each indicator. Select the example that best describes your current practice, even though it may not represent your instructional goals. You may select only one example for each indicator.

If you use business intelligence products, pivot tables or queries, you'll find Tableau a breakthrough for quickly answering deep questions. Customers are working 5 to 20 times faster using Tableau. Use Tableau Desktop as a stand-alone application. Or if you can't keep the secret to yourself, use it with Tableau Server for a complete web-based analytics and dashboard solution for your company.

What is a Data Warehouse? A data warehouse is a storage and analysis application that allows schools to collect and store student and school data from a number of sources and from multiple years. A data warehouse application allows data to be viewed in a multidimensional manner through numerous filters, slices and attributes. A data warehouse is intended to be an analytical system to view and compare current data with longitudinal data, to identify trends and to help develop educational improvements. A data warehouse does not replace a student information system or finance/HR application.  Rather, a data warehouse brings together key data elements from numerous systems, including assessment results and demographic data, to allow for in-depth analysis and data-driven decision making.

As your partner in your quest for sustainable high performance, TetraData offers specific solutions to fit the needs of any school system. We do our homework -- striving to know how far your district has come and where it wants to go. With that knowledge we create a package of products and services -- your roadmap that will take your school system to the next level and beyond.

Just5Clicks works with K-12 school districts to capture, manage and communicate information.We specialize in all aspects of district operations with emphasis on student achievement. Our goal is to provide simple and easy to use applications that contain timely and relevant information for teachers, principals and district staff.

School districts create acceptable-use policies (AUPs) to define what is--and is not--acceptable behavior when using their computer resources. But at a time when computers and internet access are seen as increasingly important tools for instruction, many school leaders are struggling with how best to enforce these policies in the event that students transgress them.

A new web site sponsored by McGraw-Hill Education's Urban Advisory Resource offers advice on improving schools from superintendents and other education leaders across the country in an easily accessible format.

An attorney for a high school student who brought a free speech lawsuit against her school district last year said he now plans to file a libel lawsuit against the principal.

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

It's time to recognize that conventional management ideas are broken - and start thinking of something better.

First Things First, a framework for school reform, has one goal: to help students at all academic levels gain the skills to succeed in post-secondary education and good jobs. In the process, FTF helps districts and schools meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind. FTF districts and schools commit to: * Strengthening relationships among students and adults. * Improving engagement, alignment and rigor of teaching and learning in every classroom, every day. * Allocating all resources - budget, staff, time and space - to achieve the first two goals. Our partners achieve these changes using three strategies: * Small learning communities. * The Family Advocate System. * Instructional improvement.

Fortune asked the top ten companies to share their best practices for developing leaders in a global economy.