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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

"This past year has been one of my biggest learning spikes as a teacher since my first year in the classroom. I have been working with other teachers who are at all stages of their teaching careers and we have been focusing on innovative teaching practices within a school-based inquiry. I have embraced not being the expert, being uncomfortable with not knowing all the answers, and being unsure about how a strategy or a lesson will go. I have found myself increasingly trusting my learners. I am learning like crazy (just like my students) and trying not to burst with excitement! The key has been working with my amazing school staff, along with other dedicated teachers and mentors in our district and throughout the province. I have been collaborating with my colleagues, and I have been implementing new ways of teaching. We are doing wonderful things here in Delta and we need to encourage our colleagues to share their successes with others."

Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) uses properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. TwHP has created a variety of products and activities that help teachers bring historic places into the classroom.

"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."

"It is a different time for teaching and learning. The unfortunate reality is that much of what we do in schools and in our own teaching practice is still grounded in thinking that has ruled the day for more than a century. " So what can we be sure of? Well, we can be sure that abundance brings a host of opportunities for learning, and we can be sure that if we are going to make sense of those opportunities in ways that benefit our students, we're going to have to unlearn and relearn much of our own practice. In short, it has to start with a willingness to reflect on what the larger changes mean in our own learning.

""So often we ask people to do things that are outside their realm of possibility," Lemov said. That's a disservice to the learner because it gives the impression that the difficult task is insurmountable when in fact it was thrust on the person too quickly" - This makes me think about the times that we don't break down the learning for kids - particularly when we create project/problem based learning without thinking of scaffolding the learning...

"Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Schema is the background knowledge and experience readers bring to the text. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and are thus able to use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials. By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Accessing prior knowledge and experiences is a good starting place when teaching strategies because every student has experiences, knowledge, opinions, and emotions that they can draw upon. "

"In their book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today's education system is seriously flawed -- it focuses on teaching rather than learning. "Why should children -- or adults -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can?" the authors ask in the following excerpt from the book. "Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?" "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught." -- Oscar Wilde"

"The new building blocks for learning in a complex world This important resource introduces a framework for 21st Century learning that maps out the skills needed to survive and thrive in a complex and connected world. 21st Century content includes the basic core subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic-but also emphasizes global awareness, financial/economic literacy, and health issues. The skills fall into three categories: learning and innovations skills; digital literacy skills; and life and career skills. This book is filled with vignettes, international examples, and classroom samples that help illustrate the framework and provide an exciting view of twenty-first century teaching and learning. Explores the three main categories of 21st Century Skills: learning and innovations skills; digital literacy skills; and life and career skills Addresses timely issues such as the rapid advance of technology and increased economic competition Based on a framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) The book contains a DVD with video clips of classroom teaching. For more information on the book visit www.21stcenturyskillsbook.com."

"e should be teaching kids not to install malware, rather than locking down machines so that it's physically impossible. We should be teaching kids to stay safe on-line rather than filtering their internet. Google and Facebook give kids money if they manage to find and exploit security vulnerabilities in their systems. In schools we exclude kids for attempting to hack our systems. Is that right?"

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.

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.

"In cooperative learning, students work together, think together and plan together using a variety of group structures designed along an instructional path. This dynamic learning model breaks with the dusty forms of frontal teaching that often create classrooms of "lonesome togetherness" -- students who may sit together but live worlds apart. Cooperative learning creates what Daniel Goleman calls "cognitive empathy," a mind-to-mind sense of how another person's thinking works. The better we understand others, the better we know them -- pointing toward (among other virtues) greater trust, appreciation and generosity. "

"Differentiation and personalized learning is lost in the pre-created curricula and assembly line experience of most distance courses and MOOCs" "The subject matter (and the learners' needs) should drive instructional strategies, not technology" "I'd argue that relationships are motivating. Seeing the passion good instructors bring to a classroom live and in person is motivating. " "My experience, and fear, is that online classes are too rigid, too much like a factory, and less responsive to individual students' learning."

Insightful.

Students doing their own research! Students teaching each other! Shelley Wright now focuses on helping her students learn to learn. She models her journey and helps them develop their own skills. Reminds me of our work together!

"Does anyone have any suggestions for apps, uses, or creative ideas for iPad use in the Spanish classroom? I teach 7th grade Spanish and would love to begin implementing iPads into my classroom"

"The learning model that supports artists and inventors, scientists and musicians is a powerful framework that can support the work of readers and writers in our classrooms. When you hear the word workshop, what do you think about? What space do you envision? What tools would you expect to be surrounded with? How do you see the time being used? How would that image change when you put the word "reading" in front of it? The day to day routine of Reader's and Writers Workshop can be broken down to a number of activities, which can be arranged according to your own time table and students. Lessons will vary, depending on your grade, your class needs, but the workshop structure remains the same across grade and content areas."

" When you're trying to teach people how to do something new on their computers having screencast videos or annotated screen capture images can be invaluable to you and the people you're trying to help. Here are some free tools that you can use to create screen capture videos and images. "

Here's the answer to my screencasting conundrum! While trying to create screencasts of some of my most "popular" (a.k.a. retaught) lessons, I kept running into various issues with Jing ( one of my favorite "freebies"). This blog has not only one suggestion, but several! Woohoo!

"Get the complete lesson plan for this video at http://flocabulary.com/fivethings Flocabulary teaches about the 5 elements of the short story in this song. That's plot, character, conflict, theme and setting."