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I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenge we face as educators when well-intentioned learners make incorrect, inscrutable, thoughtless, or otherwise off-the-mark comments. It's a crucial moment in teaching: how do you respond to an unhelpful remark in a way that 1) dignifies the attempt while 2) making sure that no one leaves thinking that the remark is true or useful? Summer is a great time to think about the challenge of developing new routines and habits in class, and this is a vital issue that gets precious little attention in training and staff development. Here is a famous Saturday Night Live skit, with Jerry Seinfeld as a HS history teacher, that painfully demonstrates the challenge and a less than exemplary response. Don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that we are always correct in our judgment about participant remarks. Sometimes a seemingly dumb comment turns out to be quite insightful. Nor am I talking about merely inchoate or poorly-worded contributions. That is a separate teaching challenge: how to unpack or invite others to unpack a potentially-useful but poorly articulated idea. No, I am talking about those comments that are just clunkers in some way; seemingly dead-end offerings that tempt us to drop our jaws or make some snarky remark back. My favorite example of the challenge and how to meet it comes from watching my old mentor Ted Sizer in action in front of 360 educators in Louisville 25 years ago. We had travelled as the staff of the Coalition of Essential Schools from Providence to Louisville to pitch the emerging Coalition reform effort locally. Ted gave a rousing speech about the need to transform the American high school. After a long round of applause, Ted took questions. The first questioner asked, and I quote: "Mr Sizer, what do you think about these girls and their skimpy halter tops in school?" (You have to also imagine the voice: very good-ol'-boy). Without missing a beat or making a face, Ted said "Deco

"Established Goals (ISTE NETS Standards) 2. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students: a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. 4. Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students: b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project. 5. Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students: d. exhibit leadership for digital citizenship. 6. Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students: b. select and use applications effectively and productively. d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies. Enduring Understandings: Students will understand that: Responsible digital citizens demonstrated shared characteristics, habits and attitudes. We can work together to teach others what we have learned. We can use web 2.0 tools to collaborate and communicate with a global audience. Essential Questions: What are the characteristics, habits and attitudes of a responsible digital citizen? How can we work together to teach others about responsible digital citizenship? How can we collaborate and communicate with others online? Assessment Evidence GRASPS Task Goal: Your goal is to produce a multimedia handbook about basic technology tools and digital citizenship for ISB

"All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten * Mitchel Resnick MIT Media Lab Cambridge, MA 02139 USA +1 617 253 9783 mres@media.mit.edu ABSTRACT This paper argues that the "kindergarten approach to learning" - characterized by a spiraling cycle of Imagine, Create, Play, Share, Reflect, and back to Imagine - is ideally suited to the needs of the 21 st century, helping learners develop the creative-thinking skills that are critical to success and satisfaction in today's society. The paper discusses strategies for designing new technologies that encourage and support kindergarten-style learning, building on the success of traditional kindergarten materials and activities, but extending to learners of all ages, helping them continue to develop as creative thinkers. "

"The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills. These slides accompany the book, Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning by Renee Hobbs. You can offer a staff development program using the materials in the book, plus these slides, to introduce your colleagues to the power of the Code. Use the lessons below, which are complete with multimedia, readings, discussion questions, activities and hands-on production projects to help you teach about copyright and fair use."

"Coauthors Harada and Yoshina authored the first text that focused on learning assessment in a school library context. In this revised and expanded version of "Assessing for Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners," they continue to shed light on the issue of school librarians helping students to assess for learning. The book begins with a brief discussion of national reform efforts and the importance of assessment for effective learning within this context. The balance of the book provides numerous strategies and tools for involving students as well as library media specialists in assessment activities, emphasizing the importance of students assessing for their own learning. It also provides specific examples of how assessment can be incorporated into various library-related learning activities. All chapters in this second edition have been updated with additional information, and three new chapters on assessing for critical thinking, dispositions, and tech-related learning have been added."

""The reality is that to survive in a fast-changing world you need to be creative," says Gerard J. Puccio, chairman of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College, which has the nation's oldest creative studies program, having offered courses in it since 1967. "That is why you are seeing more attention to creativity at universities," he says. "The marketplace is demanding it." Critical thinking has long been regarded as the essential skill for success, but it's not enough, says Dr. Puccio. Creativity moves beyond mere synthesis and evaluation and is, he says, "the higher order skill." This has not been a sudden development. Nearly 20 years ago "creating" replaced "evaluation" at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy of learning objectives. In 2010 "creativity" was the factor most crucial for success found in an I.B.M. survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries."

If kids can access information from sources other than school, and if school is no longer the only place where information lives, what, then happens to the role of this institution? "Our whole reason for showing up for school has changed, but infrastructure has stayed behind," said Diana Laufenberg, who taught history at the progressive public school Science Leadership Academy for many years.

We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.

By Thom Markham As Common Core State Standards are incorporated from school to school across the country, educators are discussing their value. It may seem that educators are arguing over whether the CCSS will roll out as a substitute No Child Left Behind curriculum or as an innovative guide to encourage inquiry rather than rote learning.

Real-world problem solving: She decided that she would use geographic information systems software to find out how the Washington, D.C., metro affects development. An opportunity that required analysis of lots of data.

This seems right up the Early Adopters alley. It appeaars the fundamental concepts of this course are what Dan Pink would classify as "High Concept". The score regarding the astounding volume of what has been written, staff developed, and high dollar conferenced over the past two decades regarding technology integration seems to be a solid D. We focus our time, talent, and treasure on hardware, connectivity, applications, and platforms and mostly loose sight of THE question: To what end? What I see in my experience is still very much a knowledge acquisition based, "covering the curriculum" approach. I see it in my own practice even as I claim rebellion from it! Why? Pressure from every aspect of the edu-enterprise: from high stakes testing to pedagogy by bus schedule, to campus administration initiatives. No matter the innovative gift wrap, the message is the same: Cover the material and pass the test! Streamlining efforts in terms of curriculum don't streamline anything - they just rearrange chairs on the same size deck. "Every Second Counts" but we aren't going to change a single thing. Do not even consider the shape, size or capacity of the Edu-Plate, just keep piling new initiatives on top of the old and wonder why increases in nutritional value are static....Perhaps this course might allow us to take a real hard look at practice to get to the point, the end, the goal of creating critical thinking deep learners.I hope you'll join me!