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"Failure has been a trending topic on Education Unbound recently, particularly in regards to the disconnect between educational objectives and game-based learning (GBL). The basic problem is that games depend on players failing multiple times as the primary means of learning how to overcome obstacles. Education, in contrast, is predicated on the notion that failure is bad - for the student, the teacher, and the system as a whole. Until this difference of opinion can be overcome, there is little possibility that GBL can ever become the dominant mode of education in America."

edWeb.net is a highly-acclaimed professional social and learning network that has become a vibrant online community for exceptional educators, decision-makers, and influencers who are on the leading edge of innovation in education. edWeb members are teachers, faculty, administrators, and librarians at K12 and post-secondary institutions. edWeb is a place where educators who are looking for ways to improve teaching and learning can gather and share information and ideas with peers and thought leaders in the industry. Any educator can use edWeb for free to create a personal learning network or professional learning community to make it easier to collaborate, share ideas, and move forward faster with new ideas and initiatives, particularly those than leverage technology to accelerate improvement.

"This film introduces the story of connected learning, the outcome of a six-year research effort supported by the MacArthur Foundation into how learning, education, and schooling could be reimagined for a networked world. The film asks: 'Might the information age have presented us with the opportunity for a fundamental reimagining of the way we educate our children?' 'How might education come to life if children were to possess a burning need to know?' 'Might we each have a part to play?' 'Might this digital age hold the possibility of bringing us closer together?'"

"Innovative thinker John Seely Brown, known for his ideas for merging digital culture and education, shares lessons educators can learn from surfers, gamers, and artists on how passion and competitive hunger can drive intrinsic motivation."

PISA. It found that the most successful students are those who feel real "ownership" of their education. In all the best performing school systems, said Schleicher, "students feel they personally can make a difference in their own outcomes and that education will make a difference for their future."

"Find and use activities crafted by educators using documents from the National Archives. Turn your students into historians with primary-source based activities that develop historical thinking skills. Activities are ready to use in your classroom. Or alter an existing activity to fit your unique needs. Exchange primary source documents and modify activity instructions. Log in to borrow from an even larger selection from fellow educators."

Education hash tags for Twitter listed on Novemberlearning.com

RT @DrTonyWagner: "@HuffPostEdu: 5 habits of innovative educators http://t.co/d6f4yV5U0M" Some worthwhile advice #sbisdea

A Summer Workshop for Educators on Using Historical Documents in the Classroom  --one week workshop in Waltham July 21-25

"Personalized learning requires teachers to become co-learners and release their iron grip on the learning process. It requires districts to trust principals, principals to trust teachers, and teachers to trust students. It requires a great deal of conversation about what real learning is and why it matters. engaged-students2This student-driven approach to learning allows kids to explore what matters to them, to build things that don't work and to figure out why. It requires them to form opinions and justify them based on solid evidence. And it requires adults who care and can speak carefully and honestly into the lives of kids. All learning should be formative. "

This is a unit designed by the NYC Dept. of Education and includes the study of the novel "With Every Drop of Blood."

"The various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy are well known to teachers, students, and the rest of the education world at this point. You need to slowly ascend the pyramid in order to effectively reach your goal(s). That's great. But what happens when you try to apply other time-tested methodologies to the famous taxonomy? This happens. The visual guide you see below is from Flickr via Kris McElroy's Pinterest board (she shares a lot of fabulous resources so check 'em out!). It details the many critical thinking skills and related questions that you should use."

Constitution Day lesson plans for K-12 teachers from the Center for Civic Education. These lessons are available for free and many are downloadable as pdfs.

Resources of books for both educators and students pertaining to westward expansion

Pocahontas webquest

Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

Charlotte Forten, an educated young African American woman from a prosperous Philadelphia family, joined the project in 1862, moving to the island of St. Helena, where she served for two years as a teacher of former slaves. While there, she kept a detailed account of her experiences, which she sent to her friend, the activist and poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Deeming her observations worthy of wider attention, he passed them along to The Atlantic's editor, James T. Fields, who published them in two installments in 1864.

In the fall of 1865, Sidney Andrews, a northern-Illinois-based journalist, set out to take stock of the post-war South, traveling extensively in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia-attending state constitutional conventions and speaking with people from a variety of backgrounds. His scathing assessment gave ammunition to those advocating a more aggressive Northern hand in Reconstruction: he wrote disparagingly of a widespread lack of education and culture, an undemocratic caste system, festering racial tensions, and entrenched anti-Union sentiment.  His reports were published in The Atlantic and elsewhere, and the topic proved to be of such interest to Northern readers that some of his writings were gathered in an 1866 book, The South Since the War.  In the congressional elections that year, advocates of much harsher policies toward the South swept to power, and for the following decade-known as the years of "Radical Reconstruction"-the South would be subjected to firm rules imposed by Congress.

"Whatever you do the first year will be a trainwreck (compared to the nice and tidy sit-and-get PD). So from the beginning, everyone should be aware that it's all a work in progress-just like the profession itself. Perhaps the greatest potential here is in the chance to personalize professional development for teachers. The above ideas are too vague to be considered an exact guide, but an "exact guide" really isn't possible without ending up with something as top-heavy and standardized as the process it seeks to replace-or at least supplement. Instead focus on the big ideas-personalizing educator training through self-directed and social media-based professional development."