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"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."

"The most powerful and ample resource for change in education is teachers' own expertise. Yet, teachers are regularly overstepped when it comes to leading school improvement. In the United States, less than one-fourth of teachers feel that they have great influence over school decisions and policies in seven different areas, as noted in the National Center for Educational Statistics' Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) database for 2003-04 reported by the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) in Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad."

"Online professional development (PD) fits today's fast changing K-12 educational environment where demands on teachers and re-certification require teachers to continually learn new and challenging content and pedagogy. Online professional development has the benefit of supporting teachers in their daily practice and connecting them with a network of like-minded professionals so that they can learn and share with each other."

Although YouTube has been blocked from many/most schools, for obvious reasons and not so obvious ones. YouTube does provide great resources and content for teachers and students. View the list of the Top 100 Videos for Teachers. This list is provided by SmartTeaching.org, a leading online resource for current teachers, and aspiring education students and student teachers.

"The new school year is here for many teachers. For those who haven't started school yet, the new school year will be here soon. If you've set the goal of trying something new in your classroom this year (shouldn't that always be one of our goals), here are eleven techy things teachers should try this year."

Why should I upgrade to Teacher 2.0? To this I have five major answers: 1) Because most of your students are upgraded 2) Because the curriculum asks you to 3) Because it will help you 4) Because you are supposed to prepare for and educate the future. How can you do that if you work in the past? 5) Because everything else does If these five answers won't convince you I regret to say that you are hopelessly living in the past still being a Teacher 1.0. But there is hope!

Are you looking for ways to incorporate digital media into your teaching? PBS Teachers offers a series of FREE monthly webinars featuring leading education technology experts and PBS producers sharing resources and strategies to help teachers use digital media to engage students in rich learning experiences.

"Instructional strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives. Five categories of instructional strategies and explanation of these five categories can be found within this site. Instructional methods are used by teachers to create learning environments and to specify the nature of the activity in which the teacher and learner will be involved during the lesson. While particular methods are often associated with certain strategies, some methods may by found within a variety of strategies. A sampling of instructional methods with accompanying explanations are presented in this website."

In this day of high-stakes testing and frequent complaints from teachers that they "don't have time to use technology" in the classroom, this wiki seeks to bridge the gap to help teachers see that technology doesn't have to be an add-on that distracts them from focusing on the curriculum. Rather than accepting an either/or mentality, we can begin to connect technology to the accepted "best practices" that our districts expect to see in our classrooms. Readers and contributors will learn and share information about specific Web 2.0 tools that can be used by teachers, and strategies that can be used with those tools that align with and support research-based effective instructional methods. Reference will be made to specific instructional strategies and a variety of examples will be shared covering all content areas from K-12 to college/university levels. This wiki is an information resource as well as an interactive space where readers can add their own insights and strategies.

Learn it in 5 is a powerful library of how-to videos, produced by technology teachers, for the purpose of helping teachers and students create classroom strategies for today's 21st century's digital classroom. These step-by-step how-to videos walk teachers through Web 2.0 technology, demonstrating how to use Web 2.0 applications like blogs, social networks, podcasts, interactive videos, wikis, slidesharing and much more. Read more: http://www.learnitin5.com/#ixzz0xW08i1dV

"Education technology has many supporters in its movement to alter traditional teaching methods. This list of the top 50 education technology blogs includes writers, technicians and social media experts…but they all are teachers. The "movers" are teachers who facilitate learning among other teachers and in the classroom, the "shakers" teach new philosophies and innovations, and the folks "on the ground" offer news, tools and methods of using those tools in the classroom. This list is divided into those three categories, and each link within those categories is listed alphabetically. The links lead straight to the recently updated blogs, and the descriptions supply information about that blogger's achievements, including careers and jobs."

The Instructional Coaching Scale is designed to help  instructional coaches and professional developers measure the impact of their coaching on the teachers with whom they interact.  It is not intended to measure teacher implementation, but rather the effects that an instructional coach or some other person working in a close 1:1 capacity with teachers whose job it is to facilitate change in instructional practice.  

"The issues surrounding copyright have never been more visible. But the classroom presents its own copyright-related challenges, for students and teachers alike. How is an educator to know what the rules are? How do those rules apply in the classroom? And how can we make sure that students know the rules as well? To help educators answer these questions, the Copyright Alliance has established the Copyright Alliance Education Foundation. Working with Young Minds Inspired, the Foundation has developed a comprehensive program for teachers. Additionally, we have compiled a library of free curricula that helps teachers of all grades and subject areas incorporate copyright into existing lesson plans."

Mentoring can accelerate the development of new teachers' instructional practice. Mentors need comprehensive and ongoing professional development to be effective. These conversation tips provide insight into the broader curriculum of mentor professional development offered by the New Teacher Center at University of California, Santa Cruz, a content contributor to PBS TeacherLine.

The Internet provides tons of free tools and resources for teachers to use in their classroom. This handbook is for new teahers and/or teachers who are wanting to integrate technology in their classroom. The tools are both to use with students and use professionally.

A great list of techie type teachers to follow on Twitter. One click follows them all!

The most dreaded word in school reading for students: book reports. Teachers assign them, viewing them as a necessary component of assessing reading comprehension. Book reports can be a contributing factor to 'readicide'. "Read-i-cide n: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools." http://stenhouse.com/html/readicide.htm. So, how can we as teachers continue to monitor our students understanding of reading material without killing the love of reading? Enter technology. Technology can help bring some excitement and creativity to the traditional book report while still displaying students understanding of reading.

"Becoming accustomed as a coach to not having your own classroom or your own students was probably challenging. I am sure, however, you quickly engaged in conversations with your colleagues about offering to demonstrate or co-teach some lessons to those teachers willing to share their students with you. Although alien at first, I'll bet it was very rewarding to work with students again and feel that great "high" that a teacher feels when the lesson worked well. "

NBC Learn is the education arm of NBC News. We are making the global resources of NBC News and the historic film and video archive available to teachers, students, schools and universities. NBC News Archives on Demand (K-12 and Higher Ed) unleashes the power of the NBC News archives and makes thousands of video clips available to teachers, students, schools, colleges and universities. What's Your iCue? is the video trivia challenge that blends learning and gaming. Original video content from NBC Learn is engaging, innovative, and makes learning fun!

"About Our Motivation: Challenges and opportunities, created by our global society, invite teachers, administrators, and students to rethink the way they teach, lead, and learn. The rise of social networking, the ease with which information is shared, and the growth of our global economy are just a few factors that have made it obvious that the 21st century is a much different world than the 20th century. And yet, when we take a good, hard look at the culture within our schools, do we see that much has changed from yesterday to today? We may see more technology used in the classroom and maybe more discussions on the "content vs. skills" debate in the faculty rooms. But underneath it all, have things really changed? Have we successfully forged a culture where life-long learning, personal growth, and collaboration are valued and practiced among all members of the school community? In Richard DuFour's article "Why Look Elsewhere?: Improving Schools from Within," he states that "it is context-the beliefs, expectations, behaviors and norms that constitute the culture of a given school-that plays the largest role in deciding whether a professional development program will make a difference in that school." If a school's goal is to improve student achievement, and a school considers learning to be the crux of its community, then effective professional development-where teachers and administrators themselves become learners-is the bridge to achieving that goal."