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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

My Sound FX is your source for a whole heap of professionally recorded and edited, studio quality, free sound effects arranged under a number of categories. These mp3 files may be used, without restriction, for both private and commercial use and load directly into Audacity and Garage Band. They claim to be adding new effects on a daily basis so please be sure to check back often. You can even let them know if you can't find what you are looking for please and they will do their best to add it to the collection.

free sound effects which are available for download. Here's 55 websites for free sound effects download.

SoundBible.com offers free sound clips for download in either wav or mp3 format. They offer free and royalty free sound effects and clips for video editors, movie scores, game designers, and weekend sound warriors.

Another good source of free sounds and music for multimedia projects. It hosts hundreds of sounds and music that you can download, reuse, and remix for free.

A post from Alma Harris, Yong Zhao and Michelle Jones on the importance of developing contextual solutions. A reminder why things like IOI Process and the Modern Learning Canvas are so important as they offer a method for developing unique solutions.

Disney Haunted House - play this when you want them to stay in bed

A tool to create animations. You can animate the characters, change the background, movement, sound effects and emotions; you can add speech bubbles, interactive elements and music to your animation as well. You can resize things, delete, and move or change their places. Children can create their animated books that talk or they can write their own screenplays and turn them into animation.