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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

From the Teachers pay teachers site. "A visually appealing PowerPoint covering Roman History from the First Triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey through the death of Mark Antony and rise of Octavian. Each slide includes images and graphics that hold students' attention and keep them focused on the lesson. Topics covered include the rise of Julius Caesar, Pompey and the Senate's plan to bring him home, his crossing of the Rubicon, the civil war, his relationship with Cleopatra, his assassination, and much more. It concludes with an open-ended exit ticket that has students thinking critically about the things they learned. "

This teacher's kids want to use pop music they love for a project.  Their teacher wants them to do so legally and with respect, so he's trying to contact the artist directly.  To get her attention (the artist is Taylor Swift), he's asking all his Twitter PLN to re-tweet his open letter to Taylor Swift to her Twitter account, so her mentions column will be filled with the RT of his letter.  If you Tweet, please copy and paste this into Twitter:RT @thenerdyteacher An Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - http://bit.ly/gV6uaH

Equipped with an easy file manager and a photo application, icloud lets Marcus organize photos and share slideshows with his friends and relatives. His favorite icloud application is Photos for organizing and sharing photos with his family and friends.

Emmanuel was a baby born in a war zone. His is physically disabled. Here he sings 'Imagine' on the x-factor. It is very humbling and provides an example of responding to conflict for students - both from the point of view of emmanuel, his mother, the audience and the judges. This performance provides a good discussion starter, Tissues may be required.

This great post explains how Russ Goerend uses his iPad and Evernote to keep records for his student's reading including voice and written records.

Alan November condenses a number of his ideas and those that come up in his interviews and presentations available from this website. There are also a number of suggestions on how students can contribute to their learning community.

Alan November condenses a number of his ideas and those that come up in his interviews and presentations available from this website.

The presentations on this site were originally inspired by Tom Barrett's 'Interesting Ways' presentations. These Google Docs presentations were created by Tom, with lots of contributions from the fantastic teachers who read his blog and are part of his Twitter network. Mark Warner decided to try something similar, based upon 'Amazing Ways to Inspire Writing'. He was really pleased with the response, in terms of contributions from others, and positive comments about the idea and thought that it was worth making a site to host the presentations, rather than relying on people to remember long and complicated Google Docs addresses. Tom, Doug Belshaw and Joe Rowing have also kindly given their permission for their 'Interesting Ways' presentations to be embedded here for others to see. If you have any amazing ideas to add to the presentations on the site, or you can suggest a new topic, please get in touch, via email or Twitter.

I feel like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. The difference is the mantra. His was affirming his belief in spooks, mine is fighting my dread of winter: "I do believe winter can be fun. I do believe winter can be fun. I do, I do, I do!" Because truth be told, I don't think it's a whole lot of fun. This is because I'd prefer being in a tank dress over a down coat any day of the week. But, my current reality is that I live where it's cold half of the year. And I am a fun girl. So I've got to find a way to make it work.

The Art of Influence is a must-read for anyone desiring the wisdom to influence others, We might wonder at an acclaimed and professional speaker the orator the Obama like gifted at speech, imagine what influence he's got over his audience. He does not take a dramatic or theatrical approach, but offers a delivery appropriate to the format Listeners who enjoy attending electoral campaigns and congress men alike are only left with one choice "YES WE CAN" and before soon he is winning a Noble peace price. We all in our domains of interest will desire the same type of solid and engaging motivational hypnotic glamour as that used by this protagonist in portraying the interactions between his influence and success- we wonder

The success of his story of the Holocaust in graphic form has followed him since its publication. His latest book, 'MetaMaus,' deconstructs the original work.

Writer Dan Harmon sets out the elements he considers are needed for a satisfying story. He uses them to map out nearly most of his stories. They are simple and the list is a useful tip for other aspiring writers.

It is almost precisely eighteen years since Donald Rumsfeld uttered his now well-regarded commentary on the danger of "unknown unknowns". At the time his remarks brought more confusion than clarity and reinforced for many a belief that politicians use words to conceal the truth. Somehow though, Donald's words from 2002 seem to fit the world of today, and the challenges confronting educators all too well.

He is 16, an Australian living in London and recently scored $US250,000 in investment from a billionaire for a technology that could change the way we read emails, news articles or any other text on our computers.

"CAMPBELL Walsh was sick of waiting for his NAPLAN test results. ''I wanted to know how I'd done. It had already been about four months and I still hadn't got the results,'' says the year 5 student from Aitken Creek Primary in the outer Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn. "

From the Educational Technology & Mobile Learning blog "Enokson has created for us a kind of road map containing all the major critical thinking skills we need to know about. He put these skills into an image that you can download from Flicker. Here his image has been turned it into an infographic-like embeddable HTML code to use on your website or blog. Check the code below if you want to embed it on your blog but please if you are to use this link anywhere else online make sure to pay credit to Enokson.

The Head and leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, called suicidal fighters of the group to "transform the nights of believers in days".

Alastair Cook has indicated the forthcoming Test series with India can be his last as England captain.

Lewis Hamilton warned Nico Rosberg he was "hunting" a fourth world title when describing his gorgeous triumph in Sunday's