happy new year

I wonder how many of us educators think about a "year" as being from September to June rather than January to December! And here we are, at the start of a new year. I hope your summers were both relaxing and glorious.

Here's a great place to begin your new year. The folks from Responsive Classroom have a huge amount of information for new teachers as well as for us veterans. And it's not just for primary teachers - read the guided discovery article about the fifth graders and their dictionaries! I especially like that they archive all their newsletters here at http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/newsletter/index.htm. For other great features, follow their links to their home page and to the Article Library.

Okay, I'm not crazy about the web design of this next site but I'm including the link here because the site is about Harry K. Wong and his beliefs. Wong is the co-author of The First Days of School and, although it's not all applicable for elementary teachers, there's some good reminders for us here as we start a new year. The Summary of Major Concepts Covered by Harry K. Wong can be found at http://www.glavac.com/harrywong.htm

I can't find the right URL for this next suggestion - I'll repost if I find it. In the meantime, to get this free mailing from The Master Teacher, you'll need to follow these directions: click on the link at http://www.masterteacher.com/freeresource/. Scroll down to the bottom right section of the page and look for "Weekly Tips." Sign up for emailed hints and strategies about teaching, inclusion, and discipline. Good stuff from a great group.

Lastly, words of inspiration for the new school year. One of my favorite pieces, The Art of Living at http://www.wuji.com/Classics/artofliving.htm carries a good message for all of us - educators or not.

Best wishes for a wonderful new year.

food for thought

Yes, here's another summer posting - the one I promised. If you're thinking I haven't taken a break this vacation, think again. I'm beginning this post at the picnic table on Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, where I'm having a glorious time!

This post is pretty heavy duty...no links to practical sites you can use in the classroom, no activities for the kiddos. The links here deal mainly with student learning for a future world and how education is changing to accommodate that. Somewhere this summer, I read that our work is becoming less about teaching and more about learning. Read on.

Remember that link from July for the NECC webcasts? Here it is again (http://www.kidzonline.org/necc/agenda.html) with a suggestion that you take the time to watch The Natives Are Restless with Deneen Frazier. This woman is an actress and a teacher who presented a wonderfully entertaining and informative NECC session showing where kids are today with regard to technology. If you only watch one webcast, make it this one. Guaranteed, it will change the way you look at student use of technology.

In recent months more and more ed tech bloggers have appeared on the scene. Here's one of the first - a guy I've been reading since January. The blog is called Teach42 and it's written by Steve Dembo from Chicago, I believe. Steve's been an elementary teacher and a tech coordinator, and this year will be teaching kindergarten! He's up on all things technological and updates his blog regularly. There are lots of good links off this site. And he even does a podcast if you want to listen while you're setting up your room. Teach42 is at http://www.teach42.com/. Click regularly for a good read - or subscribe if you have a news aggregator.

This summer I've been reading Empowering Students with Technology by Alan November, an educational technologist and consultant who founded an outfit called November Learning. He's a global thinker with innovative, thought-provoking ideas about student learning in a technological age. Apple is hosting a webcast of one of this presentations, "Fearless Learners, Courageous Teachers" at http://ali.apple.com/presentation/novemberpreso.html. Alan talks the viewer through one of his recent presentations, complete with a slide show and links to sites online. Great food for thought at a time when our roles as teachers are changing so dramatically.

Finally, a plug for a book - sort of. Thomas Friedman, a journalist, author, and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has written a new book called The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century. References to this book have come up this summer at several ed tech conferences and have appeared in quite a few blogs. Apparently there is a subtle message for us educators woven through Friedman's book about globalization in the 21st century. The copy I bought from an Amazon reseller is taking its sweet time getting here so I haven't actually read the book yet and thus can't endorse it. But I can point you toward the 2005 "Think Global" series featured on MPR, where Thomas Friedman himself speaks about the core thesis of his book. You can watch the speech using Windows Media Player or listen to it with Real Audio. It's at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/features/2005/05/collaboration/. Just listening to this speech has sure made me rethink how I teach.

I'd be interested to read your comments about any of these links. Enjoy the rest of your summer - and have a great start of school.