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Met Any Good Authors Lately? Classroom author visits can happen via Skype (here's a list of those who do it for free) Classroom author visits can happen via Skype (here's a list of those who do this for free)

Wouldn't it be great to invite authors into your classroom or library to video chat with students before, during, and/or after you've read their books? We are growing a list of authors who want to make that connection with you. See the alphabetical list in the scrolling author box on the left. Read on to find out just how easy it is!

"Learn more about this film and download the free companion poster here: http://fablevisionlearning.com/blog/2... Peter H. Reynolds, creativity advocate and best-selling author and illustrator, and co-founder of FableVision Learning, has created a new animated short called The Testing Camera - a whimsical poke at high-stakes, standardized testing and a reminder that real assessment is as easy, and - at the same time - as challenging as getting to really know the gifts and talents of every child. "We've gone through a very test-centric decade which, in my opinion, has consumed a lot of time, energy, and resources," Reynolds shares. "Many teachers have had to adhere to new mandates and measures that require a 'teach to the test' approach. Public schools redirected funding for art, music, theater, libraries, field trips, and more. It's a discouraging picture for those trying to reach all children in creative, engaging ways." Reynolds, who is known for his books encouraging creativity, The Dot, Ish, Sky Color and The North Star among many others, penned this whimsical and poignant story about a young girl named Daisy who, dismayed at her art class being canceled, nervously faces her turn with the "Testing Camera." This huge apparatus snaps at her with a few blinding flashes of light. Weeks later, her father's reaction to the test results surprises Daisy in a most wonderful way. "This is my gift to educators to remind them to follow their instincts and remember why they got into teaching in the first place: to see the potential in every child, to nurture those emerging gifts and talents, and to change lives," Reynolds shared. The film was produced by FableVision, the transmedia studio in Boston founded by Peter and his twin brother, Paul Reynolds, author of Going Places and the Sydney & Simon series. The Testing Camera was directed by John Lechner with music by Tony Lechner, and animated by a team of young animators interning at Fable

"This is a list of iPhone and iPod touch apps for education and special education. Each app in the list includes a one sentence description by the author. The app descriptions were based on App Store descriptions and personal trials. The author did not personally trial every app. Promo codes were provided for iPrompts and My Friend Isabelle. The app descriptions provide some information regarding iPhone and iPod touch compatibility. To adequately determine device compatibility, carefully read the app's description and requirements on the App Store. "

"Over the past few years I have read a fair collection of winners, a fair collection of losers and far too many mediocre education technology books. The aim here is to share the ones that have been so highly recommended they are considered must reads. Each of these has been a recommendation from someone within my PLN and so comes from very good authority and credibility. And of course, to continue learning from this PLN please do add your own suggestions and must-reads in the comments below."

About the author

SlimeKids features an extensive collection of book trailers organized by year and by grade level as well as numerous language arts-related games in such categories as spelling, typing, vocabulary and grammar. Additionally, the website showcases an array of exceptional literacy-related resources such as author and book review websites as well as superb learning tools including reference works and search engines.

Finding free quality images is a tedious task - mainly due to copyright issues, attribution requirements, or simply lack of quality. This inspired us to create Pixabay - a repository for outstanding public domain images. You can freely use any image from this website in digital and printed format, for personal and commercial use, without attribution requirement to the original author.

"Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you're into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here."

Online self-publishing services have given users the tools they need to create, publish and promote their work. These sites allow authors to bypass the process of finding an agent and pitching to publishing houses, a venture that can take months, if not years. Here are six great sites that will help you publish your work, guaranteeing you a published book that can be sold via different outlets, such as Amazon.

Are you looking for ways to incorporate digital media into your teaching? PBS Teachers is introducing a series of FREE monthly webinars featuring leading education technology experts, authors, or producers of PBS programs who will share ideas on using digital media to engage students in rich learning experiences.

Teaching English with Technology is dedicated to helping English & Language Arts teachers incorporate technology effectively into their classrooms and is presented by EdTechTeacher. EdTechTeacher and TEWT are led by Tom Daccord and Justin Reich, academic technology trainers, speakers, and authors. Explore TEWT.org and find inquiry-based lessons, activities, and projects. Learn about new and emerging technologies such as blogs, podcasts, wikis, and online social networks, and explore innnovative ways of integrating them into the curriculum!

* Free Online Literature with more than 2000 Classic Texts * Literature Book Notes, Author Biographies, Book Summaries and Reference Books * Read Classic Fiction, Drama, Poetry, Short Stories and Contemporary Articles and Interviews * Study Guides to the most read books and Help for Teachers * Research our Reference Books, Dictionaries, Quotations, Classic Non-fiction, Biographies and Religious Texts * Buy the books personally read and recommended by Bibliomania

"And welcome to the Wikispace where you can share and enjoy stories written by and for teachers and learners of French, German and Spanish. At the last count, we had 51 Storybird creations, contributed by 13 different authors in 3 different languages."

"Chris Dede, a professor of learning technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a leading authority on online teacher professional development. For 16 years, beginning in the early 1990s, Dede taught a course at HGSE called "Learning Media That Bridge Distance and Time." The rapid changes in interactive technology during that period brought the potential of online teacher learning into sharp focus for Dede. "I saw it as an important way of scaling up quality instructional practice, and an important lever for education reform, but also I saw that it wasn't going far very fast," he explains. Dede's investigations into online professional development led him to gather a group of researchers, distance-learning experts, and professional development providers at a conference at Harvard in 2005, and subsequently to publish, as editor, Online Professional Development for Teachers: Emerging Models and Methods (2006). The book, which explores the strengths and tensions of online teacher training, has become a key resource in the field."

"Formative assessment is increasingly seen as underpinning effective teaching and learning. In this programme, Paul Black and Chris Harrison, authors of the influential pamphlet Working Inside the Black Box, outline what they see as the key features of formative assessment. They focus on effective questioning, peer and self-assessment, feedback and marking. At Lord Williams School in Oxfordshire, maths teacher Karen Vear and science teacher Jon Ryder helped Paul and Chris with their initial research."

This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you're looking for.

You can find just about anyone on Twitter, and leaders are no exception. Whether you're looking for motivational speakers, authors, social media experts, or politicians, you can find quite a few interesting personalities. Read on to learn about 100 leaders on Twitter that you can learn from.

Evaluating web pages skillfully requires you to do two things at once: 1. Train your eye and your fingers to employ a series of techniques that help you quickly find what you need to know about web pages; 2. Train your mind to think critically, even suspiciously, by asking a series of questions that will help you decide how much a web page is to be trusted. This page is organized to combine the two techniques into a process that begins with looking at your search results from a search engine or other source, follows through by investigating the content of page, and extends beyond the page to what others may say about the page or its author(s).

Gnooks is a self-adapting community system based on the gnod engine. Discover new writers you will like, travel the map. of literature and discuss your favorite books and authors.