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SoundBible.com offers free sound clips for download in either wav or mp3 format. They offer free and royalty free sound effects and clips for video editors, movie scores, game designers, and weekend sound warriors.

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.

In teaching it is often the little things we do on a daily basis that have the largest cumulative effect. While the events, festivals, camps and more spectacular lessons may stand out in our memories these moments have less overall impact across the time that our students spend in our company. Getting these little details right however is a complex business that demands we bring our best to every interaction, every lesson and every opportunity we have to shape the minds and dispositions of our learners. The result is that there are no easy lessons, no easy days.

Behind the rhetoric and politics, education is about the outcomes it achieves for its learners. More than being about the nuances of technology, learning space design, curriculum structures and pedagogical practices schools should have effective answers to questions that focus on what they hope to achieve for their learners. How we answer this question should then dictate the measures we utilise to achieve these goals and it is to these ends that we must apply our efforts.

Increasingly we aim to teach dispositions but some care in the use of the term is required as it is easily oversimplified. While teaching for dispositions is encouraged it will have little effect if it means doing little other than engaging with the terminology. If we are to encourage the expansion of the desired dispositions, we must be sure to adequately unpack them and understand the implications in store for our culture of learning. 

"Project-Based Learning (PBL) naturally lends itself to differentiated instruction. By design, it is student-centered, student-driven and gives space for teachers to meet the needs of students in a variety of ways. PBL can allow for effective differentiation in assessment as well as daily management and instruction. PBL experts will tell you this, but I often hear teachers ask for real examples, specifics to help them contextualize what it "looks like" in the classroom. In fact, the inspiration for this blog came specifically from requests on Twitter! We all need to try out specific ideas and strategies to get our brains working in a different context. Here are some specific differentiation strategies to use during a PBL project. "

TeachTec is a Microsoft Partners in Learning resource that helps educators find relevant and effective ways to use technology to inspire teaching and engage students. Together we have consolidated the latest and most popular teacher and student resources that Microsoft provides to all schools, districts and education organizations around the world.

I great re-print from 1972, where Alan Kay describes, even draws what is effectively a tablet or eBook, and argues for it's technological and pedagogical value in schools. Amazingly he priced this at $500, which was quite a sum back then, and almost exactly the price of netbooks and tablets today.

As more teachers and students adopt new technologies, including Evernote, they're looking for useful resources to help them along the way. We're excited to introduce them to Evernote for Schools, our new microsite devoted to helping those in the education community use Evernote more effectively.

On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future.  If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future. It is important to note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. More information at the end of this post.

A very simple but effective version

A simple and effective infographic explaining Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. A useful guide for teachers and students

"This free DEECD sponsored course runs throughout Terms 3 to 4 and provides teachers in Victorian State Schools with a flexible, teacher-led professional development program showcasing how teachers from around the state add value to teaching and learning through effective and seamless use of ICT in the classroom."

"Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves knowing how digital information is different from print information; having the skills to use specialized tools for finding digital information; and developing the dispositions needed in the digital information environment. As teachers and librarians develop these skills and teach them to students, students will become better equipped to achieve their information needs."

Teachers won't be redundant in the new technology rich learning economy, but they will need to adapt as conditions change, becoming guides and mentors rather than instructors. summary via Judy O'Connell

"The use of the internet by younger children, from 0 to 8 years, may have both benefits and risks. Research into how the Internet is used by young children and the effects on children's development is relatively uncommon compared to research about older learners. However, more and more young children are using the Internet yet so little is understood about the impact on their growth and development."