Free Microsoft curriculum encourages students to be good 'digital citizens'

"Students interact with music, movies, software, and other digital content every day—but many don’t fully understand the rules surrounding the appropriate use of these materials, or why this should even matter. To help teach students about intellectual property rights and encourage them to become good “digitalcitizens,” software giant Microsoft Corp. has unveiled a free curriculum that offers cross-curricular classroom activities aligned with national standards."

http://digitalcitizenshiped.com/

WI Schools Ban Facebook, IM Fraternizing Between Staff, Students

A student calling her teacher to check in about a field trip? Not a problem. The two friending one another on Facebook is another story. Per new policy, the School District of Elmbrook in Brookfield, WI, has banned all chatter between Elmbrook staff and students on instant messaging or social networking applications not sponsored by the district. The policy, approved by the school board on February 10, stipulated a range of “practices considered irresponsible,” including personal communication between staff and students via social networking and IM. more » » »

Code of silence: students who alert teachers of student behavious

Students who feel connected to their peers and teachers are more inclined to alert a teacher or principal if they hear a fellow student “wants to do something dangerous,” according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association. http://adjix.com/4wx9

Bullying among young children

Bullying Among Young Children - A Guide for Parents - PDF


Bullying Among Young Children - A Guide for Teachers and Carers - PDF


The guides provide useful advice to parents, teachers and other carers on recognising changes in moods and behaviours that are associated with bullying. They also provide strategies to help children who bully and those who are bullied.

Quote for the day

"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."
-- Marilyn vos Savant

Resources for teachers

Teachnology - providing free and easy to use resources for teachers dedicated to improving the education of today's generation of students.

FREE access to 28,500 lesson plans, Teaching tips and themes, 7,500 free printable worksheets, games and donload, read-to-use rubrics, reviews sites, printable genertors and webquests.

Teachnology

AASL Releases 'Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action'

For those of you wondering how the American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) new learning standards are being incorporated into school library programs, the wait is over.

AASL has just released Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in Action, which takes an in-depth look at Standards for the 21st-Century Learner and examines how the skills in it relate to each other.

Accompanied by colorful pages and graphics, the publication provides benchmarks along with examples that show how to put the learning standards into action at different grade levels.

A glossary is also provided to define key concepts found throughout the book.

more » » »

John Butler - fun page

http://www.johnbutlerart.com/pages/fun.asp

Children's illustrator and writer John Butler provides two interactive stories for very young children: Whose nose and toes? and Whose baby am I? Children move the mouse to find the matching animal. The simple easy to read text is displayed alongside.

Disrupting the educational status quo

[Via Durff's blog]

"How do we move to a student centric system?" asked Michael Horn : http://maestro.sevenstaracademy.org/aventacontent/Video/2009-01-14%2016.03%20Coming%20Changes%20in%20Education_%20Implications%20for%20Christian%20School%20Leaders.wmv

A Vision of Students today - a Michael Wesch update

What went wrong?


How did institutions designed for learning become so widely hated by people who love learning?


The video seemed to represent what so many were already feeling, and it became the focal point for many theories. While some simply blamed the problems on the students themselves, others recognized a broader pattern. Most blamed technology, though for very different reasons. Some simply suggested that new technologies are too distracting and superficial and that they should be banned from the classroom. Others suggested that students are now “wired” differently. Created in the image of these technologies, luddites imagine students to be distracted and superficial while techno-optimists see a new generation of hyper-thinkers bored with old school ways.

LBJ & Gene Simmons of Kiss? (Ten Teachers Who Made a Mark in Another Field)

Everyone is concerned about the number of teachers leaving the profession. These ten individuals left teaching and went on to achieve greatness in their chosen fields. For some, you might think it possible that they would have done still more good remaining in the classroom. For others (#1, #9) most would agree that it’s just as well that students learned from someone else.

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Video - The Road to Meaning

The process of reading is very like that of driving a car. As readers, it is our charge to "navigate" our way to meaning as we enter nonfiction texts and tasks. For students the, road to meaning in informational text is one paved with challenge and complexity. This presentation explores what great "drivers" need to do before, during, and after reading to successfully arrive at their final destination...UNDERSTANDING THE BIG IDEA!

Quotation for the week

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

Abraham Flexner

More quotations about education and teaching ...

Graphic Novels Come Out From Under the Desk at Fordham University

On January 31st, FordhamUniversity’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) hosted Graphica in Education: Graphic Novels come out from under the Desk, a conference to discuss a pedagogical approach to the use of graphic novels and graphica in K-12 classrooms.

...more

Impatience with Bad Teaching

I am sick to death of all the people who come here and say they’re going to make this school better but nothing happens. It’s a disgrace.”

That’s what a young woman said to me the other day as I sat with her in her art class.

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Lincoln - resources

In this bicentennial year for Abraham Lincoln, we have a chance to examine the man, his life and his place in history.

Share the resources, the activities and lesson plans with children and students and encourage them to evaluate Lincoln.

Visit the booklist and let the kids learn about who Lincoln was, his ideas, his influences and his life. There is values education here as well as history lessons, and research skills development.

The Digital Library for Earth System Education

The Digital Library for Earth System Education Provides Individualized Reports for Teachers on the Effectiveness of Educational Resources in Their Own Classrooms

Abstract

We have developed and tested a system in which teachers and their students who have used an educational resource in the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) both submit on-line reviews of that resource using DLESE's Community Review System.

We aggregate the students' reviews and generate an individualized report for the instructor on how his or her own students view the resource. The report for science teachers is formatted to show how well, on several dimensions, the resource worked.

The report for science education professors is formatted to highlight how well students reflect on their own learning processes and identify what makes an educational resource effective.

Read the whole article