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"Global SchoolNet's mission is to support 21st century learning and improve academic performance through content driven collaboration. We engage teachers and K-12 students in meaningful project learning exchanges worldwide to develop science, math, literacy and communication skills, foster teamwork, civic responsibility and collaboration, encourage workforce preparedness and create multi-cultural understanding.  "

"For readers who heretofore have been spared exposure to this little concatenation of capital letters, or who have, quite understandably, misconstrued its meaning, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, supposedly the major food groups of a comprehensive science education."

Twurdy uses text analysis software to "read" each page before it is displayed in the results. Then Twurdy gives each page a readability level. Twurdy then shows the readability level of the page along with a color coded system to help users determine how easy the page will be to understand.

Welcome to the official website on the International Year of Youth. Here you will find information on events planned throughout the year, as well as suggestions on how to get involved and participate. On 18 December 2009, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution A/RES/64/134 proclaiming the year commencing on 12 August 2010 as the International Year of Youth: Dialogue and Mutual Understanding. The Year will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the first International Youth Year in 1985 on the theme Participation, Development and Peace. The resolution A/RES/64/134 is available in all United Nations Official Languages: English | Français | Español | Русский | عربي | 汉语

"The UN General Assembly has proclaimed 2010 the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures and has designated UNESCO to play a leading role in the celebration of the Year - capitalizing on the Organization's invaluable experience of over 60 years to advance "the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples".\n\n

how bringing babies into schools can help students develop empathy... and lessen bullying and aggression.... 

great little story of how a school teacher added to the world's knowledge of humpback whales thanks to her own ongoing passion and inquiry into whales AND the benefit of Flickr, where she could examine other people's photographs of whales

"Oxford's renowned biologist Richard Dawkins puts the history of life on earth in perspective, using simply a piano. This short video is a great jumping off point for this brilliant lecture Dawkins gave back in 1991. It's called "Waking Up in the Universe, Growing Up in the Universe," and the 57-minute video pulls you deeper into some big questions. What's the origin of life? Where do we fall in the scheme of life on planet Earth? What's our role in the larger universe? And how lucky are we to have the brains and tools to understand the awesome wonders that surround us? "

"This is a world in which public is the new default. Thought leader Michael Schrage (2010) notes that "the traditional two-page résumé has been turned into a 'personal productivity portal' that empowers prospective employers to quite literally interact with their candidate's work." The rules for building your personal brand are changing at light speed. It's not enough to suggest that we have those admirable skills of creativity, initiative, and entrepreneurship; now we have to show them in action online. In short, our résumé is becoming a Google search result, one that we build with the help of others and that requires our participation. Most students are beginning to face this reality without much assistance from the schools charged with preparing them for the world beyond school. That has to change. We need to help students understand more than just the safety and ethics of participating online; we also have to give them opportunities throughout the curriculum to find and follow their passions and publish meaningful, quality work for real global audiences to interact with." Article by Will RIchardson

"The 11th graders in Mrs. Olson's class said the backchannel had widened their appreciation of one another. "Everybody is heard in our class," said Leah Postman, 17. Janae Smith, also 17, said, "It's made me see my peers as more intelligent, seeing their thought process and begin to understand them on a deeper level." "

Clever series of graphics showing cultural differences. I used this in a PYP workshop on intercultural understanding. 

Using Blooms Taxonomy in education is a highly effective way to scaffold learning for the students. With the recent popularity and pervasive nature of iOS devices in school districts it is essential for educators to understand how to implement Blooms in the classroom using the apps that are available.  While this list is by no means fully comprehensive, it will assist educators in getting started when implementing iOS devices in the classroom. This site will change almost daily as it will be updated with new and exciting apps! 

"Welcome to the AAAS Project 2061 Science Assessment Website The assessment items on this website are the result of more than a decade of research and development by Project 2061, a long-term science education reform initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Here you will find free access to more than 600 items. The items: Are appropriate for middle and early high school students. Test student understanding in the earth, life, physical sciences, and the nature of science. Test for common misconceptions as well as correct ideas. This website also includes: Data on how well U.S. students are doing in science and where they are having difficulties, broken out by gender, English language learner status, and whether the students are in middle school or high school. "My Item Bank," a feature that allows you to select, save, and print items and answer keys. Intended primarily for teachers, these assessment items and resources will also be useful to education researchers, test developers, and anyone who is interested in the performance of middle and high school students in science."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Project 2061 (an imitative to improve science, math and technology literacy) -- "A new Web site is taking aim at this challenge, providing educators with quick lists of scientific statements broken down by subject matter, highlighting concepts that tend to be misunderstood by students.... The site (which is accessible after free registration) also provides teachers with some 600 multiple choice questions for tests that could help pinpoint conceptual sticking points. Multiple-choice tests have drawn criticism for being too reductive, and DeBoer acknowledges that "too often test questions are not linked explicitly to the ideas and skills that the students are expected to learn." So to figure out just what kids know-or think they know-researchers involved in the seven-year-long project tested more than 150,000 students in some 1,000 classrooms and conducted interviews with many of them to try to figure out how well the questions were getting at the underlying understandings."

This is a 10-15 hr online course that introduces essential concepts of understanding data, organizing and displaying it using Fusion Tables. This would be good for students who are undertaking survey research or other data collection activities. 

Digital Citizenship isn't an expression often heard outside of school. The ways in which it's discussed in main stream media are quite different from how it's discussed in schools. Most often the popular press shares sensational negative stories how kids use the internet and their phones to hurt each other. We have to have open and honest conversations about how things can and have gone wrong and what we can do to make things better in the aftermath of things like cyber bullying, online harassment, or sexting. That said, it's a far more powerful message to talk to kids and parents about how engendering empathy helps us understand each other so we choose not to hurt each other. It's also important to share stories and ideas how our modern mobile technologies empower us to effect positive change in the world around us in ways that weren't possible 10 or 15 years ago. We have to move beyond stranger danger and scare tactics. Sharing frightening stories (often overstated) does nothing to model positive outcomes or move the conversation to discussions of how to deal with something gone wrong. Kids need more models of empathy and empowerment. Parents do too.