Update1


 * 25 Free Resources from Discovery Education **

1. New Teacher Survival Central - tips and resources for new teachers (and veterans) -[]

2. Curiosity - explore and learn a variety of topics -[]

3. Clip Art Gallery - free clip art -[]

4. Energy Balance 101 - get and keep students healthy -[]

5. The Road Ahead - energy lessons and resources -[]

6. Ready Classroom - emergency preparedness resources for schools -[|http://readyclassroom.discoveryeducation.com/#/map]

7. Web 20.11 - web 2.0 and tech tools for teachers -[]

8. Seimans Science Day - science activities, lessons, resources -[]

9. Turfmutt - environmental lessons and resources -[]

10. Toyota Teen Driver - driver safety and simulation -[]

11. Discovery Educator Blog Network - resources, articles, and more -[]

12. Seimens STEM Academy - STEM Resources and lessons -[]

13. Discovery News - daily news and lesson resources -[]

14. Discovery School’s Lesson Planner - resources and lesson plan creator -[]

15. Head Rush - science resources, video clips and show -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">16. Science Fair Central - science fair tips and resources -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">17. Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators - lots of great stuff -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">18. Science of Everyday Life - relate science to everyday things -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">19. Puzzle Maker - create your own puzzles for class -[| http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">20. Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge - great challenge and contest with great resources -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">21. Parent Resources -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">22. Explore the Blue - lessons about water for all subjects -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">23. NASA at 50 - great resources about NASA and science -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">24. WebMath - math resources and help -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">25. Free Student Resources - homework help and more -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Bonus!

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Hub for Teachers - storytelling in the classroom -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Training Resources for Discovery Education tools and resources -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Discovery Education on Twitter -[]


 * __<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Other Free Resources: __**

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Twitter! -connect with other educators -[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Evernote- free, note taking, web clips, and organization:[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Sugarsync- free (5GB) file sync and backup:[]

<span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">DropBox- free (5GB) file sync and backup:[]

<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">Results of Microsoft Survey on STEM Education
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">In September, Microsoft released the results of two surveys related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. In one, college students pursuing degrees in STEM fields were surveyed on how well they thought their K-12 education prepared them for study in STEM degree programs. The other survey was administered to parents of students currently in grades K-12, asking for their perceptions of K-12 STEM education. You may read more about the survey, including key findings, in the press release "Microsoft Releases National Survey Findings on How to Inspire the Next Generation of Doctors, Scientists, Software Developers and Engineers," which may be viewed here: <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/sep11/09-07MSSTEMSurveyPR.mspx <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Please use this URL to access the webinar archive:[] <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Download FREE White Paper: [|Blended Learning: How Brick-and-Mortar Schools are Taking Advantage of Online Learning Options] =<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">New report: Dropout rates five times higher for poor students =
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">Blended Learning Case Studies: How Brick and Mortar Schools are Taking Advantage of Online Learning Options **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">(From Connections Academy)

<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Graph from the NCES report <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Sen. Tom Harkin’s ( D-Iowa) [|new proposal] to reform No Child Left Behind is the latest attempt by policy makers to fix the country’s [|“dropout factories,”] identified in the bill as schools with lower than a 60-percent graduation rate. But a new report has found a silver lining amid the crisis: The number of dropouts is already on the decline. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">A new National Center for Education Statistics [|report on dropout rates] has found that while there has been an overall decline in dropouts since 1972, there are still 3 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 without a high school diploma, a disproportionate number of whom are minority and poor. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">According to the report, the “event dropout rate,” which estimates the percentage of high school students who left school between the beginning of one school year and the beginning of the next, is five times greater for low-income teenagers than it is for those from affluent families. The difference in the dropout rate between white and minority teenagers also remains stark. The rate is twice as high for black teens (4.8 percent) as it is for white teens (2.4 percent). It is even higher for Hispanics, at 5.8 percent. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">The report also measured the “status dropout rate,” which shows the percentage of school-age youth who are not in school and who haven’t earned a diploma or alternative credential, with largely the same results. Under this measure, the difference between Hispanic and white young people was even greater. While 5.2 percent of white youth were not in school, that number was 9.3 percent for black youth and 17.6 percent for Hispanic youth.

<span style="font-family: 'verdana','sans-serif';">October 25, 2011 <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">[|Download the full report] //**<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Zero to Eight **//<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> is a nationally representative survey of parents of U.S. children ages zero to eight, conducted to understand the patterns of media use among young American children. Covering TV, other video, reading, music, computers, video games, and mobile digital devices, we examine time spent and frequency of use; differences in children’s media use by gender, race, or socio-economic status; the home media environment; educational media use; and access to the newest mobile media platforms like smart phones and tablets.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">A Common Sense Media Research Study **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Go to **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">[|Key Finding 1: Young Children Use Digital Media Frequently]

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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">Flipping the Classroom: Homework in Class, Lessons at Home
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Brenda Álvarez of NEA's Priority Schools Campaign, on behalf of Clintondale High School in Clinton Township, Michigan

<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">… Through the help of a grant from Techsmith, “flipping the classroom” was launched. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">“I knew what I wanted; I just didn’t know what it was called. Techsmith labeled it as flip classroom,” said Green. “This now gave us a chance to expand our school [instruction] without stressing staff out,” referring to how the technology could be applied once and used by various educators. “It’s maximizing our ability to teach,” added Green. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Flipping the classroom allows an educator to record a lesson plan on video in the same fashion it would be presented to students. The structure of the video is an overview of the lesson, the content, and ends with a summary. Educators can insert their voice, video clips, photographs and images, as well as work out problems in their own writing within the video, which is less than ten minutes long. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Students can access the lessons on any computer, as well as on smart phones. School leaders also opened the doors to the library and computer lab before school, during lunch, and after school for students without access to a computer… <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">To find out more about the “intervention” of “flipping” please follow the url below:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Results: **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Dramatic decreases in student failure rates since 2009 **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">From 52% to 19% in English Language Arts **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">From 44% to 13% in math **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">From 41% to 19% in science **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">From nearly 33% to less than 10% in social studies **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Dramatic decreases in discipline cases (from 736 for 165 students in 2009 down to 249 for 140 students) **

<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">[]

<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">**<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">What Are Its Prospects for Passing the Full Senate? **
**<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Tuesday, November 1, 2011 ****<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">**<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m., EST ** ** <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">On October 20, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed a bill to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), by a bipartisan vote of 15 to 7. The bill has drawn mixed reviews from education advocates as it would eliminate the 2014 requirement that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading, but it would also lift specific accountability requirements on all but the lowest 5 percent of schools. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">From the perspective of the nation’s high schools, the bill is a significant improvement over the No Child Left Behind Act, which largely ignored high schools. Under the HELP Committee bill passed last week, all high schools would be required to calculate graduation rates accurately and high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent would undergo improvement and be eligible for funding to support these efforts. The bill would also level the playing field for high schools to receive Title I funds—the federal government’s primary source of support for low-income students. Under current law, high schools only receive 10 percent of Title I funds even though they serve nearly one-quarter of low-income students. The bill would help to make sure that more high school students can benefit from these resources. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">The next step in the legislative process is for the Senate HELP Committee to hold a hearing on the legislation and then for the bill to go to the Senate floor. But when is the bill likely to go to the Senate floor and how likely is the bill to pass when it gets there? And how does the Senate bill compare with the House’s plan to reauthorize ESEA? **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Register and submit questions for the webinar at **[|**http://media.all4ed.org/registration-nov-1-2011**]**<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">. **   <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">**************** <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Speak Up, a national online research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow®, gives individuals the opportunity to share their viewpoints about key educational issues. Each year, findings are summarized and shared with national and state policy makers. Participating schools and districts can access their data online, free-of-charge. ||  || <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the annual [|**Speak Up survey**]<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">, which gathers data from hundreds of thousands of K-12 students, parents, teachers, librarians, and administrators about the role of technology in schools. The survey, conducted by the nonprofit organization [|**Project Tomorrow**]<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">, adds questions each year to better refine the data received. For instance, this year, the survey asks students if they think they better comprehend information through electronic or print text. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Last year's survey found that about a quarter of middle school students and a third of high school students used digital or online curriculum in their schools, but half of all students surveyed listed digital curriculum as a component of their "ultimate school." <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">"We've heard stories about students printing hard copies of material they are finding online. We want to know what the percent is of students moving electronic text back to paper," said Julie Evans, the chief executive officer of Project Tomorrow, in a press release. "And, does that mean these students think they learn better from physical reading material than they do from online or electronic resources?" <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">We'll have to wait until spring 2012 to find out the answer to this and other questions, but the [|**2011 online survey**]<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> is now up, so head over there to participate if you haven't already. The survey closes on Dec. 23. || **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">International Education ** || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">On party-line votes, the Senate has just passed more education reform bills dealing with dual enrollment opportunities for K-12 students. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Sent to the House were SB 622, SB 623, SB 709 and SB 710 after the legislation was amended on the floor to only allow students to take two community colleges courses through their junior year. Students could then take four community college classes in their senior year of high school. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">Legislation removing the two-school cap on cyber-schools in Michigan (SB 619) was also passed 20-18. Democrats tried to amend the bill so that students attending cyber-schools would get 50 percent of the per-pupil foundation allowance, but that failed. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">The Senate also passed SB 621, which allows nonpublic school students to take elective courses in their intermediate school district or a contiguous one if their resident public school district rejected their request. ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Join members of the Alliance’s federal advocacy team for a webinar on Tuesday, November 1 **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;"> **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., ET ** to answer these questions and more. They will also review significant changes to NCLB that were contained in the Senate bill and take questions from webinar participants.
 * =<span style="color: #888888; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 22px;">[|Digital Education: Have You Spoken Up?] =
 * <span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 15px;">Posted: 25 Oct 2011 10:45 AM PDT
 * **What is behind China's education success?**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">A recent international comparison has placed the educational achievements of China in the spotlight, particularly with the success of students in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Experts attribute the rise of China in education to a cultural devotion to education, competitive exams and innovative teaching methods. In Shanghai, schools have received technology upgrades, and teacher training has been focused on interactive methods, while 8 in 10 older secondary students commit to after-school tutoring. <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">BBC <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';"> (10/11)
 * **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Dr. Yong Zhao on the downside of Asia's approach to education: **
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">The rise of Asian students in international education rankings has not come without a cost, said Dr. Yong Zhao, from the University of Oregon, adding students in China, Singapore, Korea and elsewhere around Asia are overly devoted to their studies. "The East Asian students suffer, actually," he said. "There is psychological stress, there is a lot of direction, a lack of social experiences and therefore emotional development." <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';">The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif';"> (9/28)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 19px;">Dual Enrollment, Cyber-School Bills Clear Senate **