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"Of Particular Interest" Archives

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT 101
Education World has put it all in one place—a decade's worth of tips and advice about classroom management. The content is all written in Education World's user-friendly and engaging style, and there's plenty of it. New and veteran teachers alike can learn something from "King of Classroom Management" Fred Jones or from Dr. Ken Shore, the "Classroom Problem Solver." You'll also find tips for establishing classroom rules, managing student behavior, providing rewards for students (or not), dealing with homework, and much more in the nearly 100 featured articles.

MIDDLE LEVEL LEADERSHIP BLOG
Middle View, the new leadership blog at the NASSP website, is both relaxed and substantive—a winning combination in our view. The multi-author blog is being spearheaded by Patti Kinney, a former national principal of the year, who now leads the Association's Center for Middle Level Leadership. You'll also find regular contributions by Michael Waiksnis, an assistant principal in Rock Hill, SC, whose recent post on "Sustained Staff Development" is well worth your time. The new blog will really take off when readers begin to add their own insights to the "knowledge base." Just click on Comments at the bottom of any blog post and give this worthwhile endeavor a boost. Teachers, too — principals need to hear your voices!

MIDDLE SCHOOL PODCASTS & VOICETHREADS
Somewhere (and we've sworn not to say where), a team of sixth graders is "blurbing" about international affairs in a widely followed blog called – yep – The Blurb. They've had more than 35,000 visitors from 136 countries read and comment on their site. The precocious youngsters recently added podcasting to the mix. Click on the link above and scroll down to the Sept. 18 entry to listen to their thoughts about the impact of Big Oil on the daily life of Nigerians. The kids do this with help from their teacher, Bam Bam Bigelow, who has also instigated a VoiceThread project under the "nom de web" Darth Tater. We recently highlighted the free VoiceThread service as a potential teaching tool. Here's the proof. M. Tater describes it as "a Group Audio Blog, which allows users to carry on a conversation (audio and text) with a picture as a central focal point." Check out these two "live" projects now engaging sixth graders in Taterville, USA: Denmark and Southern Europe.

ADULT MENTORS THAT MATTER
Considering an adult mentoring program for your school? The always wonderful "What Kids Can Do" website is sharing contents from a new book, Pass It On: Interviews by Youth with Mentors That Matter, in which students describe the mentors who have been important to them and others. Visitors can review a list of the mentors and download a sample file of the photo narratives. You can also download complete collections from the four cities involved in the project (Chicago, Providence, San Francisco, and Tampa).

LEARN MATH OR DIE TRYING
We keep hearing about video games that will engage, excite and teach all at the same time, but we've come across few examples so far—especially in mathematics. Now we're hearing about "Dimenxian," an algebra game of sufficient quality to earn the MacWorld 2006 Editor's Choice Award. The link above leads to a rather shameless promotional article for this game and others produced by the Tabula Digita educational gaming company, so reader beware. Also know that it's a "shooter" game with the tagline "Learn Math or Die Trying." But then there's the quote from Georgia middle grades math teacher Wendy Hall, "This reaches more kids than anything else I've ever done." For a more neutral perspective, see MacWorld's review. And you can try this and other math games out at the company's website. (There's also a PC version.)

MIDDLE SCHOOL COMICS
Our friends at Stenhouse Publishing called attention to this great project in a recent newsletter. The idea is for kids to create an "autobiographical comic strip"—tapping into a trend in comic art that emphasizes real-world narrative and personal reflection. You might call it a "graphic personal essay." This page at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Spiral website provides how-to descriptions, worksheets, student samples (including five from middle school), and more. It could be a powerful way to bond your classroom community around students' stories and creativity. Stenhouse suggests displaying the student works at open house or parent night. (We were pleased to see tips on moving comics from paper to the Web!) You can find more ideas about integrating art into the classroom by browsing the Other Projects menu.

INTEGRATE SCIENCE & CURRENT EVENTS
Following in the wake of their Middle School Portal, the folks at the National Science Digital Library have a new service for science teachers that will make it easy to blend current events into the regular curriculum. It's a blog with the unwieldy but definitive name, "Connecting News to National Science Education Standards." Kim Lightle, who directs the NSDL work at Ohio State University, writes that "every Thursday, project staff will link a current news article to related teaching resources that connect specific content standards to the event. Articles may be appropriate for students to read directly, or they may serve as background knowledge for teachers and inspiration for subsequent instructional activities." The articles will aim at a grades 5-8 audience and will include links to lessons, reference articles, and definitions. Sample the content.

BOOK REVIEWS FOR MIDDLE GRADES EDUCATORS
This link leads to an archive where you'll find teacher book reviews of Building Literacy in Social Studies and Exemplary Practices for Secondary Math Teachers, Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom, Ignite Student Intellect and Imagination in Language Arts, Launching a Successful Advisory Program, Eyewitness to the Past, and Stephanie Harvey's updated classic, Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement.

CELEBRATE STUDENT STRENGTHS
Mel Levine is a pediatrician, an internationally known author, and the co-founder of the nonprofit institute All Kinds of Minds, where he and his colleagues work to expand our understanding of differences in learning. In this chat with EL editor Marge Scherer, Levine begins with this observation: "If we want to prepare kids for adulthood, one of the most important things we can do is to celebrate their strengths, those assets with which they're going to find meaning in life and be able to make contributions."

NINE TIPS FOR NEW TEACHERS
Canadian Elona Hartjes has been teaching students with behavior problems and learning disabilities for over 20 years. In a recent posting at her blog Teachers at Risk," she shares "Nine things my students have taught me about classroom management and teaching." New teachers can glean worthwhile insights and veterans can add comments from their own experience. (Just click at the end of the entry.) Hartjes begins with this statement: "I've learned that students need me to be a teacher and not their friend." ALSO, for some advice from principals, see this Education World article.

TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS TECH
If you're interested in learning more about practical applications of technology in your daily classroom work, and you'd prefer to learn from other teachers, you really need to visit this website community. Although it's called EdTechTalk (visions of IT geeks dance in our heads), the site brings together a wide range of teachers across grade levels and content areas who are interested in discussing and learning about the uses of digital engagement tools. The hosts include Lee Baber, a Virginia middle school educator. The site offers several live webcasts each week -- or you can download archives of the shows, read transcripts, and participate in follow-up text forums and blogs. If you're ready to make the leap into 21st Century learning, this is a good place to land. Be sure to check out "Personal Learning Space," a safe blogging and networking environment for students in grades 5-8.

TEACHING TO THE TOP
"All Means All," a free article in the latest issue of NMSA's Middle Ground magazine, continues a recent trend we've noticed in education publications: bringing more attention to the needs of gifted and advanced learners in the era of No Child Left Behind. Author Susan Rakow writes: "Meeting the needs of all learners means all, including those who learn rapidly or are inherently curious about the world, eating up everything we offer -- books, history, geometry proofs, science experiments. Some of these students make themselves known immediately. Others, especially during their middle school years, prefer to hide their talents, their academic interest and enthusiasm, and their abilities." Rakow is also the author of a new book from NMSA, Teaching to the Top. Here's a review.

HOW TO TEST FOR PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS?
Researchers for the National Assessment of Educational Progress have been exploring the possible use of computers and "technology-rich environments" to measure students' problem-solving abilities "that cannot be easily measured by conventional paper-and-pencil means." A new report shares their findings, which are based on a national sample of more than 2,000 eighth-grade students who participated in the study and used computers to solve problems in physical science. Find out more at this NAEP webpage.

MR. KASH GOES HOLLYWOOD
Actually, middle grades history teacher Jeff Kash already works in Tinsel Town — but now he's "gone Hollywood" with his own personalized web domain, where his terrific collection of history and social studies resources has been relocated. Jeff, who teaches at North Hollywood's Madison Middle School, has been serving up his free resources on the Web since the 1990s, and many thousands of teacher and student visitors enjoy his monthly "holidays and events" feature. This month he includes resources about September 11th, including "9/11 as History" lesson plans. If you haven't visited Jeff lately, check out his new webdigs at mrkash-dot-com.

THE EDUCATION OF MS. GROVES
The Education of Ms. Groves, a four-part documentary, follows a sixth-grade schoolteacher as she struggles to gain respect from her new students in Atlanta's public school system. The film series aired on the Sundance Channel. Listen to this interview with Monica on NPR's "Tell Me More" show (new teachers - don't miss this!). Here are several clips from the documentary.

SOMETHING FOR ALL TEACHERS
The TeachersFirst website has been around for nearly a decade, from the early days of simple websites, where we jumped from page to page, to today's content management systems that make it easier and more satisfying to explore a web domain. On this count, you'll love TeachersFirst, which has a simple but elegant navigation bar at the top of the homepage that will lead you wherever you want to go. The content? You might start with the Question of the Week archives, definite evidence that this site lives up to its "by teachers, for teachers" slogan. You'll find a very user-friendly resources database (under "Classroom") with a mix of web resources and lesson ideas which you can explore by content, grade level, popularity, keyword, and more. There's also a Professional area with sections like "From the Trenches." For novice teachers, there's a good "Newbies" section, with a link at the bottom to a long list of resources. See, for example, "Middle School Do's and Don'ts." Free membership brings extra advantages. Be sure to visit the "About" page for a nice overview of the site's features and services.

DIGITAL PLACE-BASED STORYTELLING
Here's a high-student-engagement project being promoted by long-time MiddleWeb friend and teacher-innovator Brenda Dyck, also the author of a popular technology integration column for NMSA's Middle Ground magazine. Brenda's idea is to use the latest Web 2.0 digital mapping tools to help students create a "place-based" storytelling artifact that can be shared with other students in the school and across the globe. The student identifies a place that has meaning for them, locates it on a web-based map, adds place markers, and writes short "memory narratives" for each marker. Students can add photos, too. Brenda is encouraging everyone to send her links to completed projects so they can be indexed on the "Map a Story" site. Contact her for more information at: dyckba/at/shaw.ca Brenda has created an example from her own childhood so you can quickly see how it works. (09/07)

RETHINKING BULLETIN BOARDS
We'll admit we didn't expect much fresh insight from of a teacher conversation about the venerable classroom bulletin board. Au contraire! This discussion among members of the Teacher Leaders Network has surprising twists and turns and may have you rethinking your own approach to wallspace. How much is enough? How often should bulletin boards and wall objects be changed? Should they always be interactive? Who should do the work? Is there a danger in over-stimulation? And, most of all, how does any of this connect to teaching and learning? (Be sure to click on the link that downloads the entire conversation. Lots of great ideas buried in it.)

SCHOOL STARTER: "IF EVERYONE CARED"
Middle grades teacher John Chase — a great innovator in the use of music and sound in the classroom — has put together a writing assignment suitable for the start of the school year. He's titled it "If Everyone Cared," and it asks students to reflect on several short selections, including a key paragraph from Martin Luther King's "The Drum Major Instinct," Pastor Niemoller's famous "First They Came" prose poem, the familiar (to teachers) "Legend of the Starfish," and the less-familiar (to adults) lyric "If Everyone Cared," from the song by the band Nickelback. Click on "Another Day in Paradise" at the bottom of the page and you'll be taken to John's discussion of a range of socially conscious music.

WEB-BASED SCIENCE LEARNING
This new site created by the National Science Teachers Association is still in "beta," but who wants to wait? You'll find web-based science learning activities including simulations, questions, and students' common misconceptions (with practical ideas for addressing them). This is a HUGE resource, with free NSTA Journal articles and lesson plans, e-chapters from selected books, "SciGuides" that help you integrate digital technologies into your lessons, and much more. Create an account and gain access to tools that let you organize your favorite resources, take notes, etc. The site contains a mix of free and for-fee resources, and it helps to be an NSTA member. But there's an abundance of free stuff available to all visitors.

MAKE THE MOST OF FIELD TRIPS
Done right, field trips can be a powerful component of a well-rounded instructional program, says this article in the Summer 2007 online issue of Educational Leadership. While trips often get tacked onto the back end of the school year, with the assumption that they are unlikely to directly support the reading and math skills that show up on high-stakes tests, done right they can bring important balance to the curriculum. "The most popular destinations," says teacher-author Linda Mayger, "have a natural fit with science, history, and the arts, subjects that have been marginalized by our current focus on basic skills." ALSO: This story about one inner-city school's "field trips with a purpose" may be of interest:. Although it's an elementary school, their instructional vision and clever use of Web 2.0 teaching strategies push field trips way up the Bloom's Taxonomy pyramid.

VENN DIAGRAMS -- MATH AND MORE
Unions, intersections, and differences: This can all be quite confusing to students trying to enter the potentially tricky world of Venn Diagrams, says the Scout Report, where we snagged this item. This resource from the MAA Mathematical Sciences Digital Library can help and it's easy for students to use. The interactive tool contains seven sections, including those dealing with the principles of union and intersection, distributive properties, and De Morgan's laws. Within each section, visitors can try their hand with a series of short questions and take advantage of review materials and basic tests. Think Venn Diagrams are just for math? Check out this page at the Read, Write, Think site of the National Council of Teachers of English for examples in language arts and social studies.

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED
Ginny, a Florida teacher and MiddleWeb subscriber, is looking forward to the dialog likely to be generated in this new blog by Tamara Fisher, a Montana-based education specialist who specializes (smile) in K-12 gifted education. Tamara's second post argues that "all children are NOT gifted," a position she goes on to explicate at some length. What makes a blog like this work are the comments and pushbacks from readers, so be sure to click on the Comments link at the end of each entry, both to read what others are saying and to add insights of your own.

STUDENTS LOVE TO CREATE PRODUCTS
"Work that engages students almost always focuses on a product or performance of significance to them." So said Phil Schlechty in his 1997 book "Inventing Better Schools." What does this look like in practice? A perfect example can be found in this text story and 6-minute video, profiling an expeditionary learning project at King Middle School in Portland, Maine. Seventh graders produced a CD about Maine's endangered species titled "Fading Footprints," based on an interdisciplinary study — one of several 4-12 week hands-on projects mounted by the school each year, each capped by a culminating event. You can bet the seventh graders saw value in their work when a U.S. Fish and Wildlife representative told them, "The state's Web site probably doesn't have as good information as what's in here." The video does a nice job of describing how it all works in the state's most ethically and economically diverse school.

CLASSROOM 2.0 — WORKING TOWARD EXCELLENCE
This website showcases the work of teachers (and their students) involved in a two-year project sponsored by the Microsoft Partners in Learning program. The Alabama-based project helps schools make strides toward 21st Century methods of teaching and learning. Your editor was a consultant on this project and co-authored the stories you'll find here. Click to the Classroom 2.0 Sampler to see several middle grades projects that use Web 2.0 tools, including one on Collaborative Books. But don't limit yourself to middle school — several ambitious elementary projects could easily be adapted for the middle — including the ThinkQuest award-winning "Case of the Mysterious Macros" site created by fourth graders at West Blocton Elementary. Principals, technology coaches, and other teacher leaders will also find the discussion about growing 21st Century teachers of interest. And there's a great resources page!

MORE NEW-TEACHER ADVICE
In our last edition, we included a link to the first installment of Coleen Armstrong's "Ask the Mentor" feature at Teacher Magazine Online. The complete three-part series has now been posted. Just follow the link above! FOR MATH TEACHERS: Check out these tips for "Starting the Year Off Right" at the website of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

READ • WRITE • THINK
Many veteran language arts teachers know about the Read/Write/Think website, sponsored by NCTE and IRA. The newbies among us may be less familiar with this wonderful resource, which offers reading/writing lessons and project ideas vetted by teachers. You'll also find student materials and other web resources. To browse the lesson plans, click on Lessons at the homepage, then choose Grades 6-8 in the Lesson Plan Selector. Click on any title to open its lesson plan, which includes estimated time, an overview, a theoretical basis for the lesson, student objectives, an instructional plan, suggested assessments, and the related NCTE/IRA standards. Embedded links lead to handouts, rubrics, other websites, etc. See, for example, this recent lesson to improve the peer review process (and reduce your teacher homework!)

MIXING IN MATH
This site supported by NSF and TERC offers a selection of activities that can be used to "slip a little math" into kids' everyday routines. Activities include using clocks and calendars, figuring lengths and widths, gathering and organizing fun facts about everyday things, and adding shapes and numbers to stories and skits. This link leads to a list of activities by grade. Also good to share with after-school programs.

THERE IS NO CULTURE OF POVERTY
So says Paul Gorski in "The Question of Class," a provocative article published in Teaching Tolerance (Spring 2007). "For too long, educators' approach to understanding the relationships between poverty, class and education has been framed by studying the behaviors and cultures of poor students and their families. If only we — in the middle and upper-middle classes — can understand their culture, why those people don't value education, why those parents don't attend our functions and meetings, why those kids are so unmotivated, perhaps we can 'save' some of our economically disadvantaged students from the bleak futures before them." Yet, Gorski says, "research has shown again and again that no such culture of poverty exists."

20TH CENTURY PRESIDENTIAL TIMELINE
The Presidential Timeline provides a single point of access to an ever-growing selection of digitized assets from the collections of the twelve Presidential Libraries of the National Archives. Among these assets you'll find documents, photographs, audio recordings, and video relating to events in the presidents' lives. The goal of the project is to make these resources readily and freely available to students, educators, and adult learners throughout the world. There's a special area for educators — click on the pictures to view lesson ideas and join discussions.

GETTING READY FOR THE NEW YEAR
Coleen Armstrong, author of "The Truth About Teaching: What I Wish the Veterans Had Told Me," is responding to reader questions in the Teacher Magazine feature "Ask a Mentor." This link leads to the first of three columns aimed at teachers who are just starting out in the classroom. Armstrong shares thoughts on pre-researching students, improving classroom management, setting reasonable student expectations, and getting off on the right foot with mentors. In early fall, Teacher Magazine will feature a series of "Teaching Secrets" articles by members of the Teacher Leaders Network, also written with the novice teacher in mind. Keeping watching this newsletter for information and links.

SUPER RESOURCE: SOCIAL SKILLS
MiddleWeb's long-time friend and former teacher-diarist Ellen Berg shares this website dedicated to resources that address "social skills for middle school students." No fancy bells or whistles, just a simple interface that leads to solid ideas and information on topics ranging from "passing in the hallway" to "expressing empathy." Ellen says: "I just found a GREAT lesson plan site for ooodles of social skills lessons. I'm integrating a ton of these skills into my ELA/SS classroom next year, and this site is the motherload!" That's recommendation enough for us.

TACKLING MIDDLE SCHOOL "BLAHS"
Yet another state task force is being formed to strengthen middle schools -- this time in Idaho. Here's a story from the Idaho Statesman (7/17/07). "Middle school is where you light the fire," says state superintendent Tom Luna. "High school is where you launch them on to dreams of their choice. If we mess up in middle school and we don't light that fire, in too many cases, it is too late." The story suggests that the governor's task force will focus not only on boosting quality and rigor, but on "innovative teaching" that can "drive out the blahs that can afflict young students just beginning their teen years." That's refreshing.

TEACHING HISTORY IN CLASSROOM 2.0
Eric Langhorst teaches 8th grade American History at South Valley Junior High in Liberty, Missouri. "And he's a great podcaster," writes teacher-blogger Steve Hargadon, a tireless promoter of Classroom 2.0. "Not only does he create audio study guides for his students before tests ('studycasts'), he also has a podcast series for history teachers called Speaking of History." Hargadon interviewed Langhorst about ways he uses Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Teachers in every content area can listen to the "Mr. Podcast" interview at Hargadon's blog (link above) and learn something about integrating digital technologies. Also visit Eric's website, where he's "teaching about George, Thomas and Abe using the latest technology."

MATH: A WEBSITE FOR NEW TEACHERS
A MiddleWeb visitor gently complained about a broken link to a website for new middle grades math teachers. Since we're fixing the link, we thought we'd also "re-share" the site for math newbies in the audience. Veteran teacher Terri Husted has compiled an impressive array of ideas drawn from her own experience — plus resources available elsewhere on the Web. "My first advice to anyone starting in teaching is to be careful of those who claim they know the perfect method of teaching," she says. "Teaching is an on-going learning experience." Amen to that! Much of Terri's content will also be of interest to "not so new" math teachers.

ENGLISH: GOOGLE EARTH LIT TRIPS
Teachers are starting to catch on to Google Earth, a tool that lets you combine the power of Google searching with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings. Here's a very cool application of those technologies that you don't have to be very techie to use. Google Lit Trips provides "a multidimensional experience" with great works of literature by tracing famous journeys of characters such as the Joad family and Huck Finn. Pop-up windows present photos and questions that challenge students to read more deeply. As the site says, students "discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place." Explore all three school levels to see the full array. Begin by clicking on "Getting Started" in the top left navigation bar. And check back — more is on the way.

FAMILY INVOLVEMENT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL
The Harvard Family Research Project is wrapping up a series of reports under the general heading Family Involvement Makes a Difference, with a publication focusing on family involvement in middle and high school. The brief summarizes research on family-school connections and profiles evaluated programs "to show what works to promote family involvement and student achievement during this critical developmental period." You'll also find highlights describing how schools can use the research to improve policies and practices.

SCIENCE: EVERYDAY MYSTERIES
Here's a fun site used by the Library of Congress to introduce its "rich collections in science and technology." Students (or teachers) can browse lists of questions in a variety of science areas, from Astronomy to Physics to Zoology. What are the Northern Lights? Why do boomerangs come back? How does GPS work? How much water can a camel hump hold? The answers are written with students in mind and always include related websites and further reading.

YALE'S CROSS-CURRICULAR RESOURCES
Cathy Kinzler, a middle school library media specialist in Richmond VA, participated this summer in the Yale National Initiative, a program at Yale University designed to strengthen public school teaching. Cathy says it was a high-quality professional development experience — one that's been offered in one form or another for nearly 30 years. The intensive institutes include curriculum writing and produce "hundreds of unit plans," she says. This link leads to an archive of thsse teacher products, across many content and electives areas. Explore!

NEW SCHOOL YEAR: WHO DO YOU STAND FOR?
Here's an activity that can help your faculty kick off the new school year focused on what matters most—the kids. We're proud to say that much of the Web interest in the "Stand for Students" idea began several years ago with an exchange in our MiddleWeb discussion group (which migrated to NMSA as "MiddleTalk" last year). Education World prepared this excellent article about the concept, quoting a number of teachers (mostly from the middle grades) who have participated in the group experience. The simple activity asks teachers to rise, name a student for whom they have made a difference and briefly reflect on why that student was named. The activity can be done at the beginning or end of the year. In either case, it often helps other teachers become more aware of students they will be teaching in the near future. "The activity puts a face—or many faces—to data and dilemmas," says one teacher who was interviewed. "(It) reminds teachers about why they continue to do the hard work of teaching."

STUDENTS AS CLASSROOM TECH SUPPORT
Edutopia blogger Chris O'Neal highlights a growing interest in using students to support the spread of effective technology use in schools. We've seen a number of examples of this in recent school visits ourselves, including a middle school where we visited with the SWAT team (Students Willing to Assist with Technology). If managed properly, it seems to empower the kids and help the teachers. In one high-needs school, the student tech team (3rd and 4th graders!) removed all the old computers from the technology center, installed them in teachers' classrooms, and set up 26 new computers in the center space. They are definitely ready. Are we?

BRAIN-BASED LEARNING
Want to keep up with current research on the brain, education and the science of learning? This page at the BrainSMART website, developed by consultants Marcus Conyers and Donna Wilson, offers articles by the pair and links to other useful sites on the Web. There's also a useful article in the free online Summer edition of Educational Leadership titled "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education."

HISTORY: ABE'S BICENTENNIAL
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is gearing up for a year-long celebration of our 16th president's 200th birthday (February 12, 1809). You'll find this growing site already offers many resources, including a timeline, key speeches, links to Lincoln-related organizations, and best of all, nine lesson plans developed by a pair of teachers. These lessons help students examine Lincoln's position on slavery, his performance as commander-in-chief, and how U.S. history might have been different had he not been assassinated. The lesson plans can be downloaded in PDF format for easy reading and printing and include readings, quotations and links to relevant resources.

A STRONG CASE FOR TEACHER RESEARCH
Fifteen-year classroom veteran Gail Ritchie is a passionate advocate for teacher action research—so much so that she choose "Teacher Research as a Habit of Mind" as the topic for her recent doctoral dissertation. In this recent interview with New York's TeachersCount organization, Ritchie makes the case for action research in the classroom and encourages other experienced educators to take up the role of teacher-researcher. "Teachers who conduct research are engaging in ongoing, job-embedded professional learning," she says. "Investigating their own questions, rather than waiting for someone to tell them what to do, empowers teachers to generate their own knowledge about 'what works' in teaching and learning." Ritchie also shares several ideas about how to get started.

INTERESTED IN GLOBAL COLLABORATION?
If you're a teacher or principal who's interested in involving your students in collaborations with kids in other parts of the US or the world, you may have become frustrated trying to find like-minded individuals. This wiki, created by several Apple Distinguished Educators, pulls together some resources that can help you find others who share your interest. And since it's a wiki, if you know of additional resources, you can add them yourself. Here's one good website for starters.

MATH & SCIENCE: TEACHING BASKETBALL WITH A BOOK
"Think about how basketball is taught and learned and how we might apply those processes to our schools," writes Milton Chen, president of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, in this essay titled "A Modest Curriculum Proposal." Chen relates a story passed on to him by science educator Roger Nichols, who spins out a tale of teaching basketball with textbooks to make an important point about the limits of "sit and get" teaching. In case we miss the point, Chen goes on to say: "Science and mathematics education should involve students getting out of the classroom and collecting data in fields and streams, at traffic intersections, and in their larger communities. Having students investigate seemingly simple but very meaningful questions such as 'Where does the water in your house come from? Where does it go? Can you measure its quality?' would transform science and math education."

COLLABORATIVE BOOKS: WRITING WITH WIKIS
"What would happen if we invited kids to write collaborative stories?" wondered a team of teachers at Cullman Middle School in Cullman, Alabama. "And what if we used web-based tools to build the collaboration?" The result, which makes full use of a wiki's ability to allow multiple authors to add, subtract and edit content, may spark ideas of your own about the Internet's power to encourage student writing. Students could choose from among fantasy, fiction, mystery, and poetry (the most popular, as it turned out). The results are sometimes messy, but teachers say the project created great excitement among students - including many who had shown minimal interest in writing in the past. It was "fun with a purpose," says CMS technology coach Aimee Smith, "and kids worked on it not only at school but a home, in the library—everywhere!"

GUIDANCE RESOURCES: SAFE AND ENGAGING SCHOOLS
Thanks to subscriber Nancy Schubb for responding to my plea for good resources of interest to school counselors, principals, and teachers who have an interest in school climate issues. Nancy sent several, and I'll share more as the year progresses, but this page at the National Association of School Psychologists website is a good starting place. You'll find a wide array of materials and links concerning school safety, violence prevention, bullying, crisis response, and student engagement.

NEW TEACHERS: HARRY WONG'S MAJOR CONCEPTS
What's the most common answer to the new-teacher question: "What should I do first?" We suspect it's "Read Harry Wong." The author (with his wife Rosemary) of the perennial best-seller The First Days of School is sometimes criticized for over-simplification but more often praised by new teachers (occasionally on bended knee) with comments like, "That was the most memorable, exciting and fascinating book on classroom management I ever read." This link leads to a Harry Wong "cheat sheet" — a one-page summary of major concepts found in the First Days of School and other resources. For more detail you can buy the book (and you probably should) or visit this index at Teachers.Net to explore a three-year series of Wong articles.

REDUCING DROPOUTS: AMERICA'S SILENT CRISIS
This 29-page paper presented in May 2007 at the National Summit on America's Silent Crisis summarizes a decade's worth of learning about dropout prevention at Johns Hopkins' Center for Social Organization of Schools. Written as a "practical guide" by Robert Balfanz, it draws on the work of many leading scholars in the field and also on the insights of school-based educators involved in the Talent Development middle and high school models. A colleague who brought this guide to our attention describes it as a "wonderful paper (with) both research and very practical suggestions for concrete strategies that schools can undertake to affect immediate changes in student outcomes." As the title suggests, dropout reduction requires a community effort, and Balfanz describes (in detail) a three-step process essential "to ending the dropout crisis in our communities." (PDF file)

ALL SUBJECTS: MARCO POLO AND THINKFINITY
We've just returned from the NECC conference in Atlanta, where this resource was highly visible at a large booth in the Exhibitors Hall. And deservedly so! For quite a few years, the MarcoPolo program has provided no-cost, standards-based Internet content for the K-12 teacher and classroom, developed by national content experts. Online resources include panel-reviewed links to top sites in many disciplines, professionally developed lesson plans, classroom activities, and materials to help with daily classroom planning. Marco Polo has now been integrated into the Verizon Thinkfinity search engine, making it an even more accessible and powerful resource. Check out the New Resources page for the latest contributions from teachers and curriculum developers. Or go directly to the search interface and select content and grade levels you're interested in.

SCIENCE: SOUTH POLE STATION
Here's a cool link for a hot day. This multimedia site offers the opportunity to explore research underway at the new U.S. South Pole Station, located on Earth's least hospitable continent. The station sits at the Earth's axis, atop a constantly shifting continental ice sheet nearly two miles thick. The NSF site can help students understand what makes the South Pole a unique place for studying astronomy, air and ozone, seismic science, and off-world simulations. You'll find videos and panoramic images, plus stories about the station and its crew and the instruments they use. During "summer" (beginning in October) there's a live webcam. Meanwhile, there's an eerie video featuring the colorful "aurora australis."

SOCIAL STUDIES: MANDATORY COMMUNITY SERVICE?
Should schools encourage — or even require — students to participate in community service activities? This lesson plan from the New York Times Learning Network gives students the opportunity to debate this question and to consider whether current community service activities are more about helping others, or helping yourself. The lesson builds on an NYT article, "A Better Society? Or a Better Resume?" and begins by describing supermodel Naomi Campbell's arrival to serve her community service (sentence) at an NYC sanitation depot — wearing a gray fedora and chinchilla coat and riding in a black Cadillac Escalade. Despite the wry touch, the article raises thoughtful questions about community service, college admissions requirements, and the difference between caring and going through the motions.

21st CENTURY SKILLS: WEB DANGERS OVERBLOWN?
Here's a very interesting column at the PBS blog "MediaShift" which offers considerable evidence that the Web is not as scary and threatening as television, print media and some over-the-top IT directors might suggest. Anastasia Goodstein, a guest expert for PBS Parents and author of Totally Wired: What Teens And Tweens Are Really Doing Online, writes that much of what we hear is "fear-based and divorced from reality." She includes a link to recent testimony by academic researchers about online youth victimization. This should be required reading as school systems work to develop Internet usage policies that balance safety with the access needed to help students build 21st Century skills.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: CHARTERS OF FREEDOM
This special website at the National Archives serves as a portal for easy access to the primary documents that shaped U.S. history, including images of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The site has many cutting-edge features and students will enjoy the easy navigation as they explore the stages of development of these "charters." They'all also learn more about the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention, Marbury v. Madison, Louisiana Purchase, slavery, Civil War, 13th Amendment, immigration, and women's suffrage.