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NAIDOC celebrations are held around Australia in July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This project suggests some ways you can celebrate NAIDOC in the school environment.

"On this day of great celebrations worldwide, we also invite to celebrate the impressive wealth of knowledge, information and beauty that today, like every year on this day, becomes freely available to humankind. Every year on New Year's Day, in fact, due to the expiration of copyright protection terms on works produced by authors who died several decades earlier, thousands of works enter the public domain - that is, their content is no longer owned or controlled by anyone, but it rather becomes a common treasure, available for anyone to freely use for any purpose."

Interesting website that lists what copyright works enter the public domain each year. Leon Trotsky has just been added to the list.

" The nominees for the annual Teens' Top Ten have been announced today in honor of Celebrate Teen Literature Day by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Nominations are posted every year on Celebrate Teen Literature Day during National Library Week. This year, the nominee list features 28 titles that were published between Jan. 1, 2012 and Dec. 31, 2012. The nominees can be found below on the Teens' Top Ten website www.ala.org/teenstopten and on the new teen friendly Teens' Top Ten website http://www.ala.org/yalsa/reads4teens.

A New York Times article that offers some ideas for celebrating Banned Books Week with students and anyone lse who believes in having "the freedom to read."

This issue celebrates and ranks the 100 best campaigns of the 20th century. It also celebrates and ranks the 100 most influential people in the businesses we cover.

9 easy-to-use web 2.0 sites to publish, share and celebrate student work.

Global and Australian local issues - public interest journalism without ads or subscriptions. No celebrity stories, no spin, funded philanthropically.

Post by US teacher (@tedrosececi) "Here are 10 ideas I have gathered this summer to kick parent communication up to the next level so that never again will they have to ask, "What'd you do at school today?" and hear the annoying, "nothing." Instead, parents will have already experienced the wonderful things that have been happening in their child's world and dinner table discussions will turn into celebrations and extensions of the learning happening at school."

edna calendar for schools

"The calendar provides a list of events and celebration days with each date linked to event information, making it easier for you to plan classroom activities. The calendar includes month-by-month 'Be a Detective' activities to encourage students to identify how the people are protecting forests and the environment. Use it in the classroom with your students. "

The United Nations have declared 2011 the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.

"Calendars can be a great classroom resource and inspiration for research. The Australian Schools Calendar on edna and this one from New Zealand both alert teachers and students to special days that can be "observed" in the classroom. Student activities can be as simple as working out how old the person whose birthday is marked on the calendar "is", or looking for websites that are celebrating the day, the month or the year. Many of those sites have an educational focus and special activities for students."

Raises some interesting and strategies about how to use Google Calendar in the classroom with students.

"Organised by the Melbourne School of Engineering, The Amazing Spaghetti Machine Contest is being launched in 2011 as part of the School's 150th anniversary celebrations. The contest will be an annual competition for schools students in year 10 in which knowledge and skills in maths, science, engineering, and project management are put to the test in the creation of a 'spaghetti machine' - the Italian term for an overly complex machine or device that is used to perform a relatively simple task."

Interesting technology competition in Australia, Students will enjoy building these strange machines.

Wonderful Robert Sabuda's webpage has a dedicated subsection packed with pop-up designs you can print and create yourself, including animals, celebrations and a whole series of Star Wars designs! For each pop-up design there's a template to download and print, followed by detailed photo tutorials taking you through the process step by step.

Teaching is by nature a high energy profession that demands a lot and while their is much to celebrate there is arena danger of burnout. Taking some time to relax and de-stress is important as is noticing the signs that you are reaching your limit. For all teachers understanding that a break and a change of schedule benefits not just you but your students too can be the catalyst for granting yourself permission for a genuine break.

Ajay Devgn is the modern Bollywood celebrity to come out in backing of ban on Pakistani artists work...

Our collective ability to learn and by doing so, adapt to changing circumstances through the acquisition of new skills and dispositions is what Edward de Bono refers to as EBNE; Essential But Not Enough. - What then might education need as it develops a response to times of rapid change?

EduTech in Sydney has been a remarkable experience. A grand celebration of education and an energising gathering of educators ready to share stories and make connections. Despite the rainy weather some 8000 educators came together in the inspiring new International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour and left two days later with hers full of new ideas and wonderings of what might be the future of education. With many ideas still bubbling away here is a brief list of the key take-aways.

This year is the fiftieth birthday of Harvard's Project Zero, a research project designed to explore the nature of thinking and learning and from this suggest pedagogies which align with what we know about the mind. For its birthday celebration Project Zero shared insights from its five decades of research with presentations from Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Shari Tasman, Steve Seidel and Daniel Wilson. The presentations revealed the changing nature of the work of Project Zero from its early days and focus on arts education to its current position as a research organisation with broad interests across education but with a focus on thinking, understanding and the workings of the mind.

If you are interested in building a classroom culture where thinking is noticed, named and celebrated, there are three books which make essential reading. They provide clear evidence for why teachers should focus their efforts on encouraging and normalising thinking and offer research-backed strategies to support this. The books are the result of ongoing research by Harvard's Project Zero and their lead author Ron Ritchhart.