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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

Professor MacFarlane discusses many issues which ring true to me. In particular: - lack of vision for what education could be like with new technology (around 4 min mark) - the web2.0 and technology revolution is great for the 15% of people who have a good life anyway because of their suituation and culture (5:30) - others don't benefit from the access to the technology - they need help (6:00) - no change in classroom over last 20 years with computers and in danger of no change in next 20 years (7:30) - instruction vs. construction (8:30) - expect learning to change with introduction of technology (10:30) - but hasn't really done so - student self-directed learning is separate from school work i.e. at home and not related to school (14:30) - much of what kids do on computers at home is trivial (16:00) - the ones that do have good experiences are the same 15% (16:30) - kids that are missing out have a computer at home probably but no access to the community that enables them to have these experiences (17:10) - doing something by themselves does not really benefit them - it is being part of a community that had benefit for learning - what are we dong for these people? (19:10) - talking about missing pedagogical model for how to teach (22:00) - teachers are expected to use technology to provide innovative learning but no model against which to do so, some don't use it at all, some use it inappropriately - there maybe some individual examples but not overall (23:00) - schools bad at connecting with their communities in a learning sense (26:00) - talks about chinese online writing community and how they comment, collaborate (34:00) - community (47:30) - communitites aren't formed when people are brought together in schools etc. - need to have a common problem or interest (48:30) - Plant's definition? - in education the problem is because assessment is done individually (49:00) - so forming groups and sharing ideas is not attractive for students - worried about not getti

Post about some College professors who created and delivered a 3 credit-hour online course with no programmers using free Google Apps technologies - and kept control of the copyright. This includes 12 steps they took.

"President of the Australian Academy of Science Professor Suzanne Cory addresses the National Press Club on issues facing science in Australia and the Academy's policy platform for the 2013 federal election."

Openness proponents contend that distance education often isolates students behind password-protected gates. By unlatching those barriers, professors like Mr. Couros are inventing a way of learning online that feels less like a digital copy of face-to-face classes and more like the open, social, connected Web of blogs, wikis, and Twitter. It can expose students to a far broader network than they would encounter discussing their lessons with a small group of graduate students.

key points (see also my bookmark to the BLC '07 keynote by Professor McFarlane) - technology is not helping learning (1:30) - american high schools are counterproductive to success in knowledge society (Bill Gates) (2:30) - have a model where kids produce their own digital representation of how they see the world (4:00) - make learning deeper rather than try to cover a lot of content but shallow learning (5:00) - one suggestion is teaching people to be able to recognise an evidence-based argument and not be susceptible to incorrect information (6:00) - model for assessment based on this sort of change to curriculum (7:30) - meaningful coursework - mainly in school - not allowing homework to restrict their self learning - treat school like work in a way with emphasis on quality not quantity (10:00) - need to connect with parents who see school as different than their schooling and unsure about its benefits (11:00) - access to technology (12:00) - benefit based on having the access first bit also that their environment but also their culture at home helps them benefit - top 15% (from BLC keynote) are getting most benefit from access and their culture - but these normally high achievers can't see school as relevant to them based on what they experience at home and are failing at school (13:30) - community knowledge and learning capacity building in technology (14:00) - "digital challenge" program in Bristol (14:40) - community mentors that learn something then teach to others in the community - giving more people access and that means they can have choices on what they can do

Millions of students, teachers, and professors use eInstruction® technology in 400,000 K-12 classrooms and more than 1,000 higher-education institutions around the world. Available in 40 languages, eInstruction technology is enhancing education in more than 90 countries worldwide. eInstruction® is headquartered in Denton, Texas, with offices in Columbia, Maryland, Scottsdale, Arizona, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Paris, France.

"Scratch is often cited as one of the best introductory languages for teaching kids - or anyone, really - to code. So it's no surprise that a Rutgers University honors class called "Programming for the Masses" would utilize Scratch as part of its goal of making programming a more accessible, everyday skill. What is unique - and if I may say so, pretty fun - is the direction that a research project, an outgrowth of the class, has taken since. The project is called Scratchable Devices, and with it, computer science Professor Michael Littman and some of his students are working to make it easy for anyone to program their household devices by using Scratch."

"Transforming Assessment is an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Fellowship project looking at the use of e-assessment within web 2.0 and virtual world online learning environments in Higher Education. Enquires relating to this project: Professor Geoffrey Crisp, University of Adelaide. Technical enquires relating to this channel: Dr Mathew Hillier, University of Adelaide. "

On March 16th, 2011 Sir Ken Robinson presented a talk to the Learning Without Frontiers community followed by an audience discussion where he was joined by Mick Waters, Curriculum Foundation and Keri Facer, Professor of Education, MMU. Here are the edited highlights of that talk:

" While lecturing tends to be the easiest form of instruction, studies show that students absorb the least amount of information that way. Interactive teaching methods are an effective way to connect with a generation of students used to consistent stimulation-and education professor Kevin Yee has some advice for how teachers can make their lessons more interactive." eSchoolNews

An interesting article looking at how a university professor approaches teaching and her beliefs on the power of collaboration combined with technology.

Texting and Tweeting good for literacy? Follow the professor with the research...

"Great teachers know that learning doesn't stop as soon as you graduate from college. Teachers learn from their experience, from their colleagues, from their students, and any number of other resources. If you are a teacher looking for ways to expand your knowledge base, here are 100 free lectures you can watch to help facilitate some of that learning." This great collection of some of the best recent lectures has been selected by Heidi Taylor. It contains sections on Creative Learning Environments, Technology, Information for New Teachers, Information for All Teachers, Teaching Specific Subjects, Special Needs, Arts, PE & Health and Lectures From Influential Professors. This is the perfect site for a rainy afternoon.

A University of Toronto professor who got students to grade their peers' work has seen the practice blocked by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

ollege leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked"-by which he means, sans machines. More than any thing else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather using it as a creative tool.

These two powerful questions framed a recent webinar presented by Professor David Perkins of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. Answering these questions and helping teachers find meaningful and contextually relevant answers to these questions has been a focus of Perkins' work, especially in recent times. His book "Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World" introduced us to the notion of lifeworthy learning or that which is "likely to matter in the lives our learners are likely to live". This is a powerful notion and one that has the potential to change not only what we teach but also how we go about teaching what we do.

I've been rereading parts of Understanding by Design and Preparing Instructional Objectives over the past few weeks. Not really trying to "master" the content (since I've been using it for a few years), but to see if I can glean some insight on how to bring it to the students I'll have in class in a few weeks.