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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

"Blended Learning" is often used to define learning solutions that include parts of the content, or experiences, being delivered in different ways. Each may use different instructional methods more appropriate to each lesson or module of content. Whilst everyone seems to have their own view of what a blended solution looks like, most will agree that 21st century "courses" will contain lessons/modules that vary in their media selection, and mode of delivery." "Blended learning is not new. Long before the internet, and computer-based training, innovative teachers and designers of instruction have blended a variety of media, and methods, to present learners with a blended learning experience. However, today's use of the term speaks more to our history of migrating completely from the classroom to CBT, and learning from that experience. And finding a place where we all realize there will always be a place for ILT, and CBT, and all micro forms of learning in-between."

According to recent research findings, e-learning has reached the point in the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector where it has tipped over into the mainstream with 50% of employers and 51% of Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) saying they use some online learning activities with learners. 90% of trainees say they want it. Yet for the past four surveys, practitioners are rapidly losing confidence in the ability of e-learning to improve learning outcomes for students. What's going on?

Cram, A., Hedberg, J., Lumkin, K. & Eade, J. (2010). Learning through Design and Construction in Multi-User Virtual Environments: Opportunities, Challenges and an Emerging Project. In Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific 2010 (pp. 1185-1194). AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/34325.

"The interest in game-based learning has accelerated considerably in recent years, driven by clear successes in military and industrial training as well as by emerging research into the cognitive benefits of game play." - 2010 Horizon Report: K12 Edition Using gaming as a vehicle for learning is a very powerful idea and one that is under-utilized. This wiki is an attempt to create a comprehensive resource about gaming that we can all learn from - all contributions welcome!"

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 April 2004 the CIPD embarked on a important new research project Helping people learn which considered how we can move from a strategy based on the delivery of training to one based on support for learning

This slideshare from upsidelearning.com is a really challenging introduction to the world of mobile learning. Though the focus is on higher ed and training the sentiments are applicable to all levels of education and is well worth a look.

Pre-service and in-service teacher and employee digital literacy evaluation tool. Educational Testing Services' iCriticalThinking (TM) Certification program is endorsed by the Global Digital Literacy Council and aligned with standards from the US's Association of Colleges and Research Libraries. "The core of the iCritical Thinking™ certification program is an outcomes-based examination that can  be incorporated into pre-service training and in-service development programs and used by administrators and education officials for consideration in teacher evaluation,training, placement, and advancement."

There is little interest in understanding the pedagogical foundation of higher education as a deeply civic and political project that provides the conditions for individual autonomy and takes liberation and the practice of freedom as a collective goal

reducing our aims just to types of skills risks boring everyone to death with short lived, tool specific training which doesn't address the social and political context of people's lives or their reasons for engaging with technology.

Sometimes, it seems everyone who ever went to school is an expert on education and has a plan to make it better. Actual teaching experience, years of professional learning and formal training are all easily swept aside. The result is an ongoing dialog around what schools should do, what teachers need to do more of or less of and how the academic success of the nation is linked to strategy x or y.

An updated publication designed to help training teachers on ways to optimize the use of information and communication technologies in the classroom has been launched early November 2011 by UNESCO in cooperation with the Commonwealth of Learning, Intel and Microsoft. The ICT Competency Framework for Teachers aims at helping countries to develop comprehensive national teacher ICT competency policies and standards, and should be seen as an important component of an overall ICT in Education Master Plan.

Stacks of great resources for Business Management, Psychology, Team Building

"CORE Education is a not-for-profit educational research and development based organisation with an international reputation for support and promotion of the use of new technologies for learning across all education and training sectors. CORE Education is devoted to improving education, and therefore ensures it is not only at the forefront of educational matters, but leading them."