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This unavoidable and irreducible complexity means that schools are challenging place to study, to understand and to manage change within. Even for the teacher who spends everyday inside the school there is so much going on that unguided observations and the plans based upon them come with no guarantee of success. - We need a lens and a lever to manage this complexity. -  Such a lens is offered by the 'cultural forces'.

Perhaps you've attended some high brow conference that produces 10 bullet points on "How to Change Education"- and not much happens. Maybe you work an at institution that restricts you from using a certain technology or forces you to use another. And while the image of a revolutionary edupunk is charming, most of us are not ready to burn down our organizations- we believe in their purpose. Despair not! There is something out there- an approach of creatively side stepping what limits us, to exploiting what we are forced to use in new ways, to sneak innovations in the back window that don't rock the house.

"A Fight To End Cyber Bullying! - Facebook & Shakespeare Join Forces!"

"In the course of the next 10 years, a new generation-Generation C-will emerge. Born after 1990, these "digital natives," just now beginning to attend university and enter the work- force, will transform the world as we know it. Their interests will help drive massive change in how people around the world socialize, work, and live their passions-and in the information and communication technologies they use to do so."

"In the course of the next 10 years, a new generation-Generation C-will emerge. Born after 1990, these "digital natives," just now beginning to attend university and enter the work- force, will transform the world as we know it. Their interests will help drive massive change in how people around the world socialize, work, and live their passions-and in the information and communication technologies they use to do so."

teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards. Underlying these transformations are a number of forces eager to privatize schools, substitute vocational training for education and reduce teaching and learning to reductive modes of testing and evaluation.

"In the search for revenue lost to the burgeoning ebook market, HarperCollins has found some deeeeep pockets from which to grab that cash: The public library."

Forcing libraries to rebuy ebooks after 26 loans because that is how fast a paperback wears out? Crikey, what about an eBook version of one chisseled out of a marble slab?

At the heart of mathematics are a set of connected thinking dispositions. The mathematician uses these dispositions as the cognitive tools of their trade. While the traditional imagining of mathematics might be all about the accurate application of well-rehearsed algorithms and processes, in the real world of mathematics, it is all about the thinking. As we consider what our students need from their mathematical education, we should not overlook the importance of these dispositions. 

We are the stories that we tell and it is the stories we share which unite us. This was the seed of an idea planted by a day with author, artist, musician and story teller Boori Pryor. Understanding the power that our stories have allows us to better value their role in our lives, to see them as more than recounts of the past or imaginings of the future. Stories should be viewed as the powerful agents that they are with the force to shape who we are as much as we shape them.

Earlier this year a group of teachers I work with explored the 'Eight Cultural Forces' identified by Ron Ritchhart of Harvard's Project Zero. In doing so we decided to focus on our use of the term learning instead of the word work. Our goal was to bring our language choices into the spotlight and explore how a more deliberate focus on learning might alter the culture of our classrooms. Two terms later this focus persists and it is worth reflecting on the effect that this has had.

A useful post that give a lot of good advice about how to get the best from your Google searches. Google has become very good at understanding and providing relevant results for many popular queries, so there are a lot of people getting into bad habits and lazy with their searches and simply taking the auto-selected results. As teachers we should be teaching our students to explore more deeply and critically appraise all their results before coming to any conclusions or using the information. Students need to learn to use Google search modifiers. These manual commands can be used in any search queries and will allow you force Google to bring you the results you want.

"The flipped classroom allows the class to dig a little deeper into active learning. It's a big misconception that the flipped classroom is about making videos and placing them online, sure that's one part of it. It's an important part of the puzzle as its forces you to focus on the explicit content you would like students to know. Making a 5 - 8 minute lesson isn't easy, but it certainly makes you consider what your learning objectives are . The real power of the flipped classroom is what happens the next day in class. The flipped classroom opens up opportunities. My main goal is to go deeper and have students participate in a richer active learning experience where I become more of a coach to guide their learning. The classes become much more collaborative in nature where students are solving complex problems with an emphasis on higher order and critical thinking skills."

The final report of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG), which was a government-appointed task force asked to look into how to online child safety issues.

ony Robbins discusses the "invisible forces" that motivate everyone's actions -- and high-fives Al Gore in the front row.

THE communications regulator has been forced to change its internal processes after the address of a prohibited anti-abortion web page in its top-secret blacklist was widely distributed on the internet. The move comes after the Australian Communications and Media Authority threatened a fine of up to $11,000 a day against a web host for displaying the banned web page link. The host supplies services to popular internet community website Whirlpool.

"The 2020 Forecast is a tool for thinking about, preparing for, and shaping the future. It outlines key forces of change that will shape the landscape of learning over the next decade. The forecast does not predict what will happen, but rather serves as a guide to the as-yet-unwritten future. It is designed to help you see connections among things that once seemed unrelated and to help you consider the changes and challenges that you are facing today within the context of wider patterns of change. Ultimately, the 2020 Forecast aims to provoke your own thinking about what role you want to play in creating the future of learning."

SCAMPER is an acronym for another of those interesting thinking tools used to spark creative approaches to a situation or problem. It is a checklist designed to force one to think about and look at things in different ways. This post is interesting because of the visual approach that the author takes to Substituting, Combining, Adapting, Modifying or magnifying, Purposing, Eliminating or Reverse/rearranging.

"We live in an era where the answer to almost any fact-based question is no further than a Google search away, but Scientific American highlights a study suggesting subjects forced to get something wrong before being told the answer learn it better."

Three legends can be seen as variations on one central theme, namely, that it is the learner who knows best and that she or he should be the controlling force in her or his learning. Digital natives, learning styles and learners as self-educators are all discussed.

Knowledge is power - but how do you plug into new ideas when organisational budgets are flipping the switch on PD?  There is a wealth of opportunities that won't cost the earth or force you to travel it to be found online - and there's more to explore than MOOCs and webinars. 

Human Body Study Jams are from Scholastic. There are six human body Study Jams; skeletal system, nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, muscular system, and circulatory system. Study Jams are slideshows and animations that provide a short overview of various topics in maths and science. Some of the other sections in science include Plants, Animals, Ecosystem, Landforms, rocks and minerals, Weather and climate, Solar System, Matter, Force and motion, Energy, light and sound and Scientific enquiry. They offer photographs and some text with background music. There is a short test that viewers can take after watching the slides. These are like study cards. They may be a good starting point or could be used as a revision guide