Recent Blog Posts
Original, creative, practical, and sometimes unusual advice and ideas to get you started -- or keep you going! Posts are listed by publication date, with the most recent entry at the top.
Guest Blog: Making the Case for Social Media in Education
By Betty Ray
3/11/10During the time it takes me to write this intro (approx. one minute), 42,000 people will update their Facebook status, 36,000 tweets will be sent, and fifteen hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube.
Undoubtedly, the world as we know it is quickly becoming wired through social media. Our guest blogger, Steve Johnson (@edtechsteve) sheds some light on the current state of social media in schools and even provides some handy talking points to make the case to lift internet filters within schools.
--Betty Ray, Community Manager (@EdutopiaBetty) and Elana Leoni, Social Media Marketing Coordinator (@elanaleoni)
Engaging Students with Hands-on Work Experiences
By Bob Lenz
3/10/10It's a very exciting time for the eleventh and twelfth graders at Envision Schools. During the spring semester, students participate in the Workplace Learning Experience (WLE) for 12 weeks.
Fixing What’s Broken Without Breaking Everything Else
By Edutopia
3/9/10My adrenaline was still surging after joining thousands in my town demonstrating against the lay-offs of some of our best teachers at last Thursday's Day of Action to Defend Public Education. My spirits took a dive, however, when I opened my Sunday New York Times a mere three days later, and was reminded of another lay-off controversy turned lay-off melee in Central Falls, RI, where 93 high school teachers and staff were fired en masse by school officials last month.
Guest Blog: Report from the Learning and the Brain Conference
By Betty Ray
3/6/10Editor's Note: Guest blogger Kevin D. Washburn, Ed.D., is the Executive Director of Clerestory Learning, and co-founder/ owner of Make Way for Books among many other things. He recently attended the Learning and the Brain conference in San Francisco where there was a fascinating confluence of thinkers, researchers, educators and learners. This is his report.
How Schools Perform: Why Adequate Yearly Progress Needs Revising
By Edutopia
3/5/10Editor's note: Anne O'Brien is our guest blogger today. She is a project director at the Learning First Alliance, a Teach for America alumna, and a former public school teacher in the greater New Orleans area.
Report from March 4th, Day of Action: Voices That Must Be Heard
By Edutopia
3/5/10It is Thursday March 4th, "Day of Action to Defend Public Education" here in California and in states across the country. I'm making my way through the crowd of thousands in the massive square in front of City Hall in San Francisco.
Guest Blog: Boosting Teacher Morale
By Betty Ray
3/4/10Much big news in the education world of late. While fifteen Race to the Top finalists were just announced, both higher ed and K-12 educators across California and other cities are protesting layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of schools in March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education. Meanwhile, many teachers continue to be cut, with more to come.
It's a rough time for teachers, to say the least. Which is why this week's #edchat on teacher morale was particularly timely. Our guest blogger, Matt Guthrie (@mattguthrie) summarized the inspirational discussion.
--Betty Ray, Community Manager (@EdutopiaBetty) and Elana Leoni, Social Media Marketing Coordinator (@elanaleoni)
40,000 Teachers Speak Out on Fixing U.S. Schools in New National Survey
By Edutopia
3/3/10Results from what has to be one of the largest surveys of American teachers ever undertaken were released Wednesday. Teacher opinions on everything from merit pay to principal support to professional development revealed some surprising trends. The survey was sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Scholastic. Here is an executive summary of the findings. You can also download the full report here.
CoSN Day 2: White House CTO Fires Up for Innovation
By Edutopia
3/2/10Editor's Note: Don't miss David's dispatch from Day 1.
My second day at the CoSN Conference, also known as Consortium of School Networking, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in northwest Washington, D.C., was almost as enlightening as the first. Especially, when I discovered that the Shoreham Hotel is where the Beatles stayed at the height of their Beatlemania tour in 1964.
CoSN Day 1: Education Reformers Abroad Hitch Their Star to Technology
By Edutopia
3/1/10Editor's Note: Don't miss David's dispatch on Day 2.
Sunday, I camped out at the 9th Annual International Symposium of CoSN, also known as the Consortium of School Networking, in Washington, D.C., and learned a ton from an A-list of international education innovators. Listening to folks from Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, as well as some of our own American leading lights, I came away understanding, with ever more precision, how essential technology will be to educating students everywhere.
Learning, Not Perfection, Should Be Our Educational Ideal
By Owen Edwards
3/1/10Half a lifetime ago, I lived in Greece, on a small island not far from the coast of Turkey. In the process of furnishing a house on the cheap, I traveled a couple of times a year to coastal Turkish towns and bought old woven kilim rugs.
When Rote Learning Makes Sense
By Ben Johnson
2/26/10As a youth, I remember feeling cheated out of rich content in my education when I listened to my mother in times of sorrow or tenderness, lovingly recite entire poems and passages from books she studied in high school.
Common Sense Media Honors Edutopia Founder George Lucas
By Edutopia
2/25/10George Lucas, visionary and founder of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, is being honored today by Common Sense Media, the nation's leading nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving families’ experiences with media and entertainment.
Guest Blog: Igniting Student Passion
By Betty Ray
2/25/10Nicholas Provenzano (@TheNerdyTeacher on Twitter) has been an active participant in the regular Tuesday morning #edchat, where forward-thinking educators from around the world connect and discuss different issues of the day. His passion for teaching (and learning!) positively emanates from his tweets and blog The Nerdy Teacher. Here's his redux of this week's edchat.
--Betty Ray, Community Manager (@EdutopiaBetty) and Elana Leoni, Social Media Marketing Coordinator (@elanaleoni)
Pink Slip Season: How Teachers Can Prepare
By Heather Wolpert-Gawron
2/22/10Our goal here at Edutopia has always been to be place to come to as a first-stop resource and also as a place of support for educators.
Should Teacher Salaries be Linked to Student Performance?
By Maurice Elias
2/19/10A classroom of students is the collective product of all of the educators, support staff, paraprofessionals, classmates, parents, and living conditions that have accumulated to that point.
Guest Blog: Building Communities in the Classrooms
By Betty Ray
2/18/10Cheska Lorena (@MissCheska) is a self-described "twenty-something New Jersey native, certified HS biology teacher, and a huge ed-tech enthusiast." A native of digital communities, she was the natural choice for this week's #edchat. Feel free to share your thoughts in the space below this blog.
--Betty Ray, Community Manager (@EdutopiaBetty) and Elana Leoni, Social Media Marketing Coordinator (@elanaleoni)
What is community?
Twitter's afternoon #edchat session on February 16th was a flurry of great thoughts and conversation. Many tweeters gathered together to discuss how to build communities in classrooms in both online and offline settings. The conversation kicked off with an attempt at defining community:
Help the Teacher Salary Project Boost Our Profession
By Edutopia
2/17/10Editor's note: The following call to action was written by Nínive Clements Calegari, who was featured in Edutopia's 2007 Daring Dozen. She is also a member of the George Lucas Educational Foundation's National Advisory Council (GLEF).
In Our Classrooms: Supporting Children of Military
By Suzie Boss
2/15/10Many of the estimated 30,000 American teens who have a parent serving in Iraq or Afghanistan are facing their own quiet battles at home and at school.
Good Teachers Are the Product of Nurture, Not Just Nature
By Claus von Zastrow
2/12/10It has become an article of faith in the Washington thinktankocracy that teachers are the most important factor in their students' success. That's not an entirely bad thing. What professional doesn't want to be thought important?
But think-tank dwellers often draw the wrong conclusions from this claim. Most of their talk about teachers focuses on how to fire the bad ones, hire the good ones, and pay the really good ones. Too few people spare a thought for the environment and support teachers need to succeed.
