Yet another resource

Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You’ll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities. (from the Teachers' Domain website)

To learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.

Science education resources

What is it?
Science NetLinks is a premier K-12 science education resource produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At Science NetLinks, you'll find teaching tools, interactives, podcasts, and hands-on activities, and all of it is free!
Who is it for?Science NetLinks provides K-12 teachers, students, and families with quality resources for teaching and learning science. (from the "about" page at Science Netlinks)

A library without books?

San Francisco State University has been renovating and expanding its library since 2008, and now the overhauled building is finally finished and partly open to students. But some who enter its newly pristine doors may notice something lacking: books.


In a move that has thrilled some university employees and horrified others, only 25 percent of the collection of more than a million books and other materials will be available for browsing. (Andy Wright at the New York Times)

If you love words....

The English language is forever changing. New words appear; old ones fall out of use or change their meanings. World Wide Words tries to record at least some part of this shifting wordscape by featuring new words, word histories, the background to words in the news, and the curiosities of native English speech. (from the World Wide Words website)

To learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.

Interesting math resource

Iridescent beetles, LEGO gunships, gnomes in peril—math has never been more fun. That’s the point of Math Pickle, a site that employs these and other kid-friendly elements to teach mathematical concepts through creative problem-solving rather than worksheets. Spanning grades K–12, the site offers video clips, including one demonstrating the math structures in the picture book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. And curricular puzzle books featuring beautiful bugs are available for download in Powerpoint, PDF, and Keynote formats. (from The School Library Journal website)

To visit Math Pickle, click here.

World Read Aloud Day: March 7, 2012

Take Action for Global Literacy, Celebrate the Power of Words, Change the World

Worldwide at least 793 million people remain illiterate.
Imagine a world where everyone can read...World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.
By raising our voices together on this day we show the world’s children that we support their future: that they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world.
(from the LitWorld website)

Getting students engaged in learning

Now, as I travel the country coaching teachers on how to successfully use project learning, my goal remains the same. And I try to teach educators the strategies they need to achieve this goal in their own classrooms.


A teacher in one of my workshops said, "When my students and I are in the flow, then I don't feel like I have to work as hard." I heartily agree. When 90 to 100 percent of my students are excitedly engaged in their tasks and asking deep and interesting questions, I experience joy, and joy is a lot less tiring than the frustration that comes with student apathy. (Tristan De Frondeville on student engagement at Edutopia)

To learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.

The 'Flipped Classroom' in graphics

Talk about the so-called "Flipped Classroom" might not always get at what such an education concept could look like. The graphic below sheds some light on the concept. What are its possible benefits? What are its possible downfalls?


Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Does virtual education need to be studied more?

A flurry of reports and high-profile news articles over the past year has cast doubt on the effectiveness of online education, and raised concerns about the rapid growth of virtual education across the country. This increased attention comes as such education moves further into the mainstream of K-12 education and opens itself up to greater scrutiny. (Michelle R. Davis at Education Week)

Online supplemental courses

Next month, March 5th to be exact, the first MITx course will begin. The online course, Circuits and Electronics, will be offered for free and give students the opportunity to earn a certificate of content mastery through an online assessment. MITx is a promising program for students interested in the courses offered. The content mastery certificate opportunity takes open learning to the next step beyond simply watching lectures and accessing course hand-outs. (from Free Technology for Teachers)

Competition in whiteboard market

The battle for supremacy in the K-12 whiteboard market is heating up. Companies are scrambling for new sources of revenue, making strategic moves to reinvent their products in the age of tablet computing, and sizing up their competitors to see what they can do to differentiate themselves from the pack. (Ian Quillen at Education Week)

States granted NCLB waivers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was granting 10 U.S. states exemptions from parts of the "No Child Left Behind" education law, a move that could prove popular in an election year with parents and teachers who have criticized the law. (Caren Bohan for Reuters at Yahoo!News)

According to the article, these states will be granted NCLB waivers: Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

Common Sense Media resources

Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology.
We exist because our nation's children spend more time with media and digital activities than they do with their families or in school, which profoundly impacts their social, emotional, and physical development . As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume. (from the "About" page at Common Sense Media)

The President on dropout rates

President Barack Obama's call for every state to require school attendance until age 18 may spark a flurry of action in some statehouses, but changing attendance laws will do little by itself to drive down the nation's dropout rates, experts on the issue say. (Lesli A. Maxwell at Education Week)

To read more, click the above hyperlinked text.

Show your work

SlideShare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations. With 60 million monthly visitors and 130 million pageviews, it is amongst the most visited 200 websites in the world. Besides presentations, SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.
Below is a bit about Slideshare.

SlideShare 101

View more presentations from Amit Ranjan

Through the eyes of an immigrant

How would you support a student who did not speak English and had no one else at the school who spoke his or her native language? I was that student some 20 years ago. Coming from the war-torn former Yugoslavia, I was placed with my peers in an English-for-speakers-of-other-languages, or ESOL, class. At home, only my father spoke some English, and at school, no one spoke Serbo-Croatian, my native language. (Helen Janc Malone at Education Week)

Hand-held technology's appearance

While hand-held mobile learning is viewed in the United States as a recent trend, its roots go further back in the United Kingdom and Western Europe.
As early as 2001, David Whyley began directing national government funding toward hand-held computing devices for students as the head teacher of a school in the Midlands of England. (Ian Quillen at Education Week)

African American History Month

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society. (from the African American History Month website)

For more, click the above hyperlinked text.

Helping students with abstract thinking

A rolling stone, gathers no moss. Mick Jagger has moss? Don't cry over spilt milk. It's only milk, why cry? Too many cooks spoil the soup. I hate soup. Water under the bridge. Of course there is water under a bridge! A tiger's stripes do not change. Of course they don't! Birds of a feather, flock together. Yeah, those Grackles downtown are so annoying. There must be millions of them.
A college-ready student can think figuratively, or in other words associate abstract ideas with concrete examples. One of the best ways to help students think abstractly is to engage them in the ancient wisdom of metaphors and sayings. Initially, their reactions will be like the ones above, but with a little practice, students will be able to arrive at the real meaning of the sayings.

Thinking abstractly is useful in understanding the richness of literature, both classical and modern. Carol's Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Suess' Horton the Elephant, Milton's Paradise Lost would all be incomprehensible without the ability to think abstractly. (Ben Johnson at Edutopia on helping students thrink abstractly)

In the mood to learn?

We Make Useful Videos

Our videos may surprise you. They're short and simple. They use paper cut-outs and a whiteboard. But lurking under the simple surface are lessons that have been crafted with great care. Despite our fun and lighthearted style, we take explanation and education seriously. 

Handcrafted, By Us

Common Craft is a two person company.  Every video is created, by hand, by Lee and Sachi LeFever. From research to writing scripts, creating artwork, recording voice-overs, shooting the video and publishing it on the Web, we do it all. We are your personal explainers. Our dog Bosco helps some too. (from the Common Craft website)