Website provides "real world" Algebra challenges via scenarios in fashion design, video game design, and music production. http://goo.gl/aU1T4

GA charter schools were less successful than traditional schools in meeting last year's federal progress targets. goo.gl/mTFJw

Stand up for better meetings! Research found standing meetings 30% shorter with about the same quality of decisions. http://goo.gl/IdNmm

Teaching is creative and complex, not simple and algorithmic, so tying teacher pay to student performance won't help. http://goo.gl/H9xc9

New twist on word clouds for social studies: artist exhibits State of the Union addresses as Snellen eye exam charts. http://goo.gl/xbH37

Substitute "classroom" for business and "students" for employees - an awesome summary of how to engage learners. http://goo.gl/ExQHN

SuperTeacherTools website has free technology tools for games and classroom management. Flash based but easy to use. goo.gl/ibLQc.

Montessori students thrive via hands-on, flexible, collaborative learning. Where is Montessori voice in school reform? http://goo.gl/U4gBW

Use game elements to break an experience into smaller chunks with feedback to spark creativity and build perseverance. http://goo.gl/FjSie

Providing timely positive feedback to students builds trust and helps move them forward in their learning more quickly. http://goo.gl/XwwR7

Google getting too muddied? DuckDuckGo is a search engine that filters junk, adds topic summaries, & emphasizes privacy. http://goo.gl/LgEL

Teachers, please consider posting "Responsibilities" to empower and elevate rather than "Rules" focusing on obedience. http://goo.gl/DTR6W

Large study found no evidence teaching parts-of-speech, phrases, clauses, etc. helped kids improve quality of writing: http://goo.gl/oaIGz

Braveheart

William Wallace was an awesome leader who forever etched his legacy into the character of a nation. If you need proof of this fact, consider that in 1861, 556 years after Wallace’s death, over 100,000 people gathered to honor him at the presentation ceremony for a national monument honoring his memory. Try testing other leaders you admire against that measure.

I would guess a select few command that level of adoration, respect, and admiration centuries after their passing. Many people would argue that leaders like William Wallace are born, not made since some people are just naturally charismatic and others seem predisposed to annoy. But I believe the people we refer to as charismatic owe this status as much to hard work and their ability to communicate as to any other quality. Communicating a genuine care and consistent commitment to others in an enthusiastic manner is the key. Join this skill with the ability to truly listen, to seek to understand the needs and wants of others, and you are on your way to becoming the next William Wallace. Honestly, these traits are not just the product of genetics; they can be acquired and enhanced with practice.

William Wallace took it to the next level, however. He was intelligent enough to prepare thoroughly so that he put himself in position to make good strategic decisions. He lead by example, at the front lines, and never asked his men to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. But most of all, he articulated a clear vision of purpose that his followers could relate to: he was a dynamic catalyst of freedom for his people. William Wallace was not an official leader during his life, but his actions as de facto leader stand as a testament that if our intentions are pure and we work hard to communicate, listen, genuinely care about others, be thoroughly prepared, gain knowledge about our field, lead by example, and have a clear purpose, we too can impact the world for centuries.

Website helps you create arcade style review games for students. Has tools like name picker & plagiarism detector. http://goo.gl/euym

Writing by hand activates a larger portion of the brain’s thinking, language, and “working memory” regions than typing. http://goo.gl/ZyFWA

Freakonomics podcast connects the thrill of customizing Pandora Radio to NYC experiments with mixed-modality learning. http://goo.gl/i0DIo

Smart, challenging hobbies can improve your work. It helps to count the pleasure you derive from the effort as income. http://goo.gl/UXAR5

Evernote (http://goo.gl/lujXf) now integrated with image annotation app Skitch. Draw on, add text to, or crop images.http://goo.gl/rBd9L

How to balance open-ended and teacher-guided inquiry cycles from science to get kids to notice and explore punctuation. http://goo.gl/trakR

Middle grades persuasive writing tip: use rhythmic anaphora and common terms so least knowledgeable person can relate.http://goo.gl/DOokY

Student readers, like builders, need a foundation and a blueprint to be successful. Here are 12 ways to scaffold texts. http://goo.gl/S9RmL

A kaleidoscopic mind is agile, flexible, self-aware, & tuned to connections that rigid minds miss. How is this taught? http://goo.gl/I0n7K

If creativity is as important as literacy (http://goo.gl/1sxSn), how do we teach divergent thinking & self-reflection? http://goo.gl/MDJ97

Top experts partner with coaches (http://goo.gl/c8Mr2) to move from conscious competence to unconscious competence. http://goo.gl/iM2iv

Lesson plan for 6-8: students explore riddle poems, determine techniques, write as class, individually. ReadWriteThink. http://goo.gl/df7xm

An annotated list of 10 meaningful, mostly old-skool rap songs appropriate for classrooms or carpools. Rakim to Lupe. http://goo.gl/a6tzx

Creative activity where students draw, script, and record audio linked by QR codes. Hope to adapt for Literacy Night.http://goo.gl/w39oW

Professional music made completely with iPad! Short video shows which apps were used, how they were recorded. Wow! http://goo.gl/DjFf2

Using Edmodo with teachers in January to create a microblogging network for our First Days of School book study group. http://goo.gl/Vf6e3

Dewey: the opportunities of intellectual culture have been multiplied so book work lacks the force it used to possess.http://goo.gl/TCjhN

Stress is the only means by which we can expand capacity. Our real enemy is the absence of intermittent renewal. http://goo.gl/OIiwX

The ability to read uncluttered web pages is going mainstream via AdBlock, RSS Readers, Flipboard, Instapaper, etc. http://goo.gl/bb9MN

SlideShark - sync PowerPoints to iPad, preserving animations, fonts, graphics and colors. Has worked well for me. Free. http://goo.gl/HdvKF

School Improvement Network has released mobile apps that allow viewing of PD 360 videos on mobile devices. iTunes link: http://goo.gl/2WzKQ

Formative assessment is not a tool or event, but a variety of strategies for acting on the data to improve learning.http://goo.gl/CdEtA

Real world math activity dealing with the NBA standoff from the "Math in the News" folks. Focuses on operating income. http://goo.gl/U9fKP

Great list: 100 iPad Apps Perfect For Middle School. Some choices were obvious, but many I had not yet discovered. http://goo.gl/ZhaHC

Building this into an educator workshop... Why Angry Birds is successful: a cognitive teardown of the experience... http://goo.gl/MIZ5V

Howdy! I use this site to link to resources and articles that interest me as an educator. Feel free to share and comment. Thanks!