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This article speaks about the importance of challenging the students growth in life. This article shows that changing the identity of the student and pushing the students in a way that they never were pushed will carry much more weight then just regular classroom instruction. This collaborative method pushed the students ingenuity and brain power in much more then the basic course. This article also shows that a student who takes control of his or her own learning will establish a much deeper connection that can be used to have a better understanding of the foundations of learning.

With more and more emphasis being placed on a deeper understanding of material from the College Board with the changes to the SAT and any AP updates, we need to develop ways for our 21st century students to make these connections. Never mind that we want them to succeed regardless of College Board, anyway . . .

Many educators are looking for more outside the box methods to learning and understanding. Many teachers have tried implementing more technology inside the classroom or tried to create a more blended classroom. This article shows another method of instruction that brings higher order of thinking and that is using games to differentiate instruction. Our students have been playing games since they were no more than 2 years old. Why not implement a learning method that they are already accustomed to. This has transformed classroom learning into a more interactive learning style that has shown great success. The articles talks about the importance of moving your lessons to the students strengths so why not lean them towards what they know best? Using games for higher learning is no different then a classroom review. It is no different then a quiz. The only difference is that it is more interactive and it is electronic. This style of high order thinking or critical thinking creates a learning environment that is geared to challenge the students in a way that they want to be challenged.

This article explains that critical thinking skills are needed everywhere in life - not just in the classroom. As teachers, we need to help our students realize that just because information exists, doesn't mean that it's correct. Using web tools can help students do this by having them take information and present it in a different form, or by having them create their own presentation based on correct information gathered.

I agree with you that students need to question what they read and be able to see through the writers agenda. I think that is why I worry about the websites that students are getting their information. As teachers we need to help students'analyse and question each source they use before they accept what the web articles have posted. I also need to align my curriculum with standards that include critical thinking. It will be the next step in my journey from guidance counselor to teacher.

Eleventh-grade English teacher, Lee Ann Spillane, describes how she uses Wordle to explore and analyze text patterns used by F. Scott Fitzgerald. How frequently does a word appear in the text? Students sit in table groups, with one computer per table. Using Google Books, students do a simple word search, creating a digital concordance.

This article discusses the success of setting up class blogs involving high school juniors. The author points out that 'students value an authentic audience for their writing'. A great starting read for any teacher that has had thoughts about working with blogs in their classroom.

This news article begins by pointing out that "online digital technology has empowered users in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago." Social media sites, for example, allow the average user to persuade and influence others on a global scale. The author argues that with this power comes the responsibility to apply a media literacy framework that will ensure that we are not perpetuating harmful media messages and ideas. The framework developed in 1987 by the Center for Media Literacy is still relevant in today's media landscape, and its five key concepts should serve as guidelines for all those currently engaged in online social networking.

This blog explains about the key concepts in social media and by reading this blog you understand Key Concepts explained further in this article. List of 5 key Concepts: All Media Messages Are "Constructed",Media Messages Shape Our Perceptions of Reality, Different Audience, Different Understanding of the Same Message,Media Messages Have Commercial Implications and Media Messages Embed Points of View

This article spells out the five key concepts of media literacy (created in 1987) in order to gain a critical understanding of social media. Now that we are creators and not just consumers of media we need to think more about what we are putting out there and the influence that has.

School district implements common planning time and allows teachers to collaborate using a wike for lesson plans and web links to enhance classroom teaching.

Thank you for sharing that example of the wiki and teacher sharing. I may discuss this to be a possible option for a professional day for my own dept members as we look to design our own text.

This article talks about how using social networking tools with current events allows students to see multiple perspectives.

This article is looking at how schools can involve parents in schools better. It asks schools to think about how welcoming their school really is to parents.

Parent participation is sooo important to student success. When the parents are involved, students tend to be motivated and engaged. It is our job as educators to keep the parents connected. They have to feel welcomed to participate.

I thought this was an interesting posts. Some books I might have guessed topic-wise. Other topics surprised me a little. I enjoyed the post

Sara Ring's poll provokes thinking about how assessment methods might be evolving to include information literacy. Interesting posts follow the poll results, which at the time I retrieved this URL showed Yes ahead of No. The most votes went to Maybe.

I think the choices in the poll are interesting--Yes, No or Maybe. I thought the distribution of answers would be a little different. About 50% maybe seemed to be a lot. This article made me think a lot about what I would do.

An interesting article about persevering when implementing group work into your classroom. A good reminder that the teacher and students can struggle with collaboration and that at times adjustments must be made.

A good article that describes many of the potential pitfalls with PBL's. I personally try to use them as a tool in class. It made me think about how to use Web 2.0 tools with PBL's in the future. Andrew's last point was a great reminder as well.

This article discusses the importance of differentiation and especially the need for students to "redo" their assignments until they get them correct. By allowing students to "redo" they are improving their higher level thinking skills. Good and short article with practical reminders.

I love this article! Great reminders for all of us as educators to simply differentiate learning for our students. -vary the length or quantity of the assignment. -extend or curtail the duration of the assignment. -change the language of the assignment. -scaffold the learning activity from hard to medium to easy. -compact the activity and teach only what they don't know. -give them learning activities that let them perform the same learning objective with multiple mediums like summarizing a story they have read through narrative, drama, song, poetry, art, or design They also discussed the ability to redo assessments and I agree with this but somewhere in my teaching experience this has been engrained in my head only once. But I realize the feeling of success this allows a student.

In this blog, Ben Johnson reiterates the misconceptions in education about all students getting concepts in education at the same time. He goes on to discuss the importance of true differentiation in the classroom and that it is not creating an imbalance among students but a way for all students to succeed. He emphasizes the things teachers already do in the classroom to help students succeed and ends with a suggestion to allow students to redo their work in all areas (not just English and history).

This is actually a video including ideas from film director George Lucas. The main point of the video is that teaching "communication" in the future should involve much more than just teaching writing but should involve all the ways that students can express their ideas.

In this article, Larry Ferlazzo discusses the need to keep students motivated - even at the end of a school year - and the ways in which to do so. The article also mentions ways in which to keep teacher energy at its best. At least for me, this article is very timely (7 student days remaining). I think it's also very important for communication. If we forget our purpose in teaching (even in the last few days of school), we can also forget about motivation from our students. All of these things truly work hand in hand.

Describes how a teacher with little technology experience used an interactive White Board to communicate and inspire her science class in a new way.

A great article about how it is actually quite easy to use many of the web 2.0 tools to collect and analyze quickly, the current media and create connections between it and your classroom, or at least ideas to which you teach. This teacher did a great job of doing what so many of us try to do everyday. Finding current events and relating it to our classroom. But by having more feeds connected to one site, she was able to quickly narrow her search to whatever it was that she was teaching at the time. She also made it a point to observe the news feeds with her students and ask them to try to make the connections. If there was a story that made sense or got them intrigued and interested, they researched and read it together. A great way to teach young students how to filter the information that they are being exposed to, and to seek out credible references to initial questions and information.

Article reports on #140edu conference on benefits of tweets and many educational uses of tweeting including collaboration.

This article tackles the biggest concern about using social media in the classroom: privacy. The article points out that Google+ is not a cure all for the privacy and security issues presented by Facebook. A good article for educators considering using social media in their classrooms.