Education is ...

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

More quotes related to education and teaching

Education 2.0: The next evolution of school software has arrived

Emergence of open technologies and open-source alternatives makes customizing school software a reality

By Corey Murray, Senior Editor, eSchool News


Aiming to customize their solutions to meet the individual needs of teachers and students, a growing number of school systems are ushering in a new breed of school software that relies on open technologies--whether it's open-source software on their servers and desktops, or so-called Web 2.0 services available free of charge online.

Economics and advancements in technology are fueling this latest trend in school software, proponents of the movement say--but it's also about customization, and the desire to employ a variety of solutions as users see fit.

Read the whole article

An Author in Every Classroom

By Nick Glass

This article highlights specific ways you can replicate these personal connections to authors and illustrators by optimizing a variety of multimedia and online technologies. I will review specific types of virtual author programs, give examples you can freely experience, share how you can use them in your school, and guide you toward bringing an author into every classroom.

-->http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=12208

Learning to use technology - videos of real experiences

Here is a site of free teacher videos of teachers teaching and learning to use technology. These are National Board Certified teachers, and all of the resources are free.

ITunes.http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/deli/nav2.shtml

Principals beg for more preschools

PRIMARY school principals will campaign for more preschools before the state election in March, following a survey that shows a clear disadvantage for children who skip early childhood learning.

The Primary Principals' Association surveyed public schools and will press Labor to match the Coalition commitment to build more preschools and provide fee relief for families. NSW has the lowest preschool attendance in the country and highest fees - about $30 a day.

Read on ...

Books for Boys

There is a challenge sometimes in getting boys to read. I have always admired the teachers who generated a love of reading in my boys. If you are looking for the sorts of books to recommend to boys, especially reluctant readers, check out the book list I have collected.

Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers and the Public

In the current climate, when it is in vogue to select non-educators to administer school systems, it is vital that teachers have a voice. School reform cannot possibly succeed when teachers—who are on the frontlines of implementation—are left out of the decision-making process. If there is no “buy-in,” if teachers do not willingly concur with the orders handed down from on high, then reform cannot succeed. If administrators operate by stealth and confrontation, then their plans for reform will founder. They cannot improve what happens in the classroom by humiliating and bossing around the teachers who are in daily contact with the children. Only in an atmosphere of mutual respect can administrators and teachers produce the kind of partnership that will benefit students. And administrators cannot achieve this collaborative atmosphere unless they are willing to talk with and listen to the leaders chosen by teachers to represent them.

Read the whole article

Six trends for 2007 and the 21st century

Via Stephen Downes and ZD Net

eSchoolNews editor Gregg Downey offers six prognostications for the coming year. He has listed

Web 2.0.

Cloud computing

Service-oriented architecture

The gathering SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)

Telepresence ...

The sixth is

21st-century learning

An organization called the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has developed a program designed to help educators prepare their students for the future. According to the Partnership, students need the following skills. The job of educators in the 21st century is to deliver them:

• Information and communication skills;
• Thinking and problem-solving skills;
• Interpersonal and self-direction skills;
• Global awareness;
• Financial, economic, and business skills; and
• Civic literacy.

Website update

I updated the website for teachers last night.

These are the pages updated.

Polar Regions
Behaviour Management
Maths
Books in sign
Science
Animals
Fiction activities
Computers & ICTs
Thinking skills
Books for teaching similes
Anorexia - booklist
Countries

and I have also updated the Quotations about Teaching and Education

and the Just for Fun pages

Social-networking sites confound schools

At least half of school systems in a recent poll do not have policies to address students' use of MySpace, Facebook, and other such sites

More than three years after social-networking web sites such as MySpace and Facebook first began cropping up online, school leaders still struggle with how to set policies regarding the use of such sites both inside and outside of school--and many school systems lack these policies altogether, according to a recent survey. Read on ...

Schools mull new Microsoft technologies

Office 2007, Windows Vista promise greater security and ease of use--but upgrading will require significant planning and training

Software giant Microsoft Corp. will begin licensing two major new releases, Office 2007 and Windows Vista, to schools and businesses at the end of this month.

The programs include a host of new features aimed at boosting security and improving their ease of use--but upgrading will require significant planning and training on the part of schools.

Read on ...

Lockie Leonard Read-alikes

Do you have students clamouring for "books lke Lockie Leonard"?

Try this list of Lockie leonard Read-alikes.

Tag: children's books

'Second Life' develops education following

Virtual world being used by some educators and youth groups for teaching, socialization
By Justin Appel, Assistant Editor


Second Life, an enormously popular program that immerses participants in an online virtual world of their own making, is being used by a growing number of educators and youth organizations as a vehicle for instruction.

November 10, 2006—An online virtual world that has become one of the web's most popular activities is also becoming an increasingly popular venue for teaching and socialization among educators and youth organizations.

Read on ...

Tag: Second Life

Momentum builds on e-books

Texas schools the latest to switch from textbooks to electronic versions

Momentum appears to be growing on the use of eBooks in K-12 education:

More and more school districts are replacing traditional textbooks with electronic versions that can be accessed through a school server or downloaded onto student laptops--and a few school systems have opted to eliminate textbooks altogether.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6707

Atomic Learning releases free blogging workshop

desk - businessThe new blogging workshop with over 100 tutorials is perfect for learners of all abilities. The workshop engages learners, explaining the difference between various kinds of blogs, introducing them to some hosting solutions, and showing them how to setup their own blog using Blogger™.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/partners/showrelease.cfm?ReleaseID=1490

Tag: blogging

Educators slow to wise up to the gender problem

Last month, Melissa Roderick, a University of Chicago professor and leading authority on school reform, arrived at a startling conclusion: The traditional measurements of the nation's progress in improving education, which use race and income as markers, are flawed.

Why? Because boys and girls coming from the same race, families, incomes, neighborhoods and schools are turning out very differently. The girls are doing better.

Nearly half of all boys graduate from Chicago Public Schools with less than a 2.0 average, compared with a fourth of the girls. Only 8% of the system's African-American boys have a 3.0 average - a key indicator of the ability to complete college - compared with 18% of the girls.

The numbers are jarring, which explains Roderick's revelation that Chicago schools won't improve without strategies that focus on boys' achievement - the same kinds of strategies used so successfully to boost math and science skills among girls.

Read on ...

Weightless teachers carry thrills home to students

The moment he became weightless, Mike Hickey of South High School in Cleveland, Ohio, completely forgot about the science experiment he was to conduct."
After the first bounce, I said nuts to the experiments," an exhilarated Hickey said after returning from his 90-minute flight aboard G-Force One, an aircraft specially designed to simulate the zero gravity of space by making controlled free-fall descents.

Hickey and 38 other teachers took part over the weekend in the last of five "Weightless Flights of Discovery" sponsored by Northrop Grumman Corp. and Zero Gravity Corporation of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

They giggled, somersaulted, gulped floating blobs of water and pushed each other around the padded cabin of the modified Boeing 727.

"Any tiny movement shot you across the plane," said Tracy Cindric of Lincoln High School in Gahanna, Ohio.

"It was very chaotic."

The teachers, representing 28 schools in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Arizona, Louisiana and Washington, D.C., are now expected to take their experience, their photographs and above all their enthusiasm back to the classroom and inspire the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers.

Read on ...

Nine Ways to Recognize a "Learning Classroom"

Test scores are not the only way to tell if a your classroom offers a rich learning environment for your students.

In fact, test scores are possibly one of the poorest ways to gauge how learning is progressing, and these test scores darken your classroom door too late in the school year to do much about learning that's gone awry, anyway.

Here are authentic indicators of instruction that is going right in your classroom:

>>> more

Tags: teachers, learning

Wikipedia:School and University Projects

Useful page on Wikipedia that provides advice, examples and templates to assist in the use of Wikipedia in the classroom. "An advantage of this over regular homework is that the student is dealing with a real world situation, which is not only more educative but also makes it more interesting ("the world gets to see my work"), probably resulting in increased dedication. Besides, it will give the students a chance to collaborate on course notes and papers, and their effort will remain online for reference, instead of being discarded and forgotten as is usual with paper course-work."

Via Education-India

From Stephen Downes

Quotable

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

This is the quote that opened the latest Library News for Teachers.

Tags: Education, quotations