<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0"><channel><title>Learning in Maine</title><description>"Connecting Maine Educators"</description><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Jim Burke)</managingEditor><pubDate>Wed, 19 Nov 2025 10:00:04 -0500</pubDate><generator>Blogger http://www.blogger.com</generator><openSearch:totalResults xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">1160</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/">25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/</link><language>en-us</language><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:keywords>Maine,MLTI,learning</itunes:keywords><itunes:subtitle>Learning in Maine</itunes:subtitle><itunes:category text="Education"/><itunes:author>Jim Burke</itunes:author><itunes:owner><itunes:email>jburke@mainelearns.org</itunes:email><itunes:name>Jim Burke</itunes:name></itunes:owner><item><title>Transitioning</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2012/05/transitioning.html</link><pubDate>Fri, 4 May 2012 21:21:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-6787245523994044553</guid><description>&lt;div style="background-color: red; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;Learning in Maine&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="background-color: red; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;is transitioning to&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="background-color: red; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;Learning in America.&lt;/span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;div style="background-color: yellow; text-align: center;"&gt;
&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;Go &lt;a href="http://learninginamerica.blogspot.com/"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; for the new&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;b&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: x-large;"&gt;name/address/location.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">4</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>I saw the future and it works</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-saw-future-and-it-works.html</link><category>adult education</category><category>charter schools</category><category>elementary</category><category>hybrid schools</category><pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:48:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-1170912285539379204</guid><description>&lt;div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"&gt;by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
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I am borrowing &lt;a href="http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/i-saw-the-future-and-it-works-a-visit-to-a-hybrid-school/" target="_blank"&gt;this headline from Larry Cuban&lt;/a&gt;, who borrowed it from Lincoln Steffens.&lt;br /&gt;
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Larry writes about his visit to a hybrid (charter) school in LA. His observations are curious, and honestly, do not describe a school I would like to send my child to if I had a choice. (My son attends a regular public school).&lt;br /&gt;
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I suggest you read all three parts of the experience, and get to the bottom of the concept. Does it really work?&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/rocketship-schools-and-the-future-part-2/" target="_blank"&gt;Part 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/are-rocketship-schools-the-future-part-3/" target="_blank"&gt;Part 3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">3</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>NCLB and the waiver</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2012/02/nclb-and-waiver.html</link><category>achievement</category><category>back-to-school</category><category>NCLB</category><category>performance-based learning</category><pubDate>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:44:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-8898044712477014234</guid><description>&lt;div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"&gt;It is too bad that Maine didn't make a run for the NCLB waiver. Maybe, the Maine DOE understands that the whole mandate is doomed anyway, why bother with all the tricks to get out of it sooner.&lt;br /&gt;
I am happy though that at least several states got out of it, and have looked again at ways to measure progress or performance of schools and students.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2012/2/10/the-measure-of-an-effective-school.html" target="_blank"&gt;This post provides some insights into what's happening in MN and Doug Johnson's thoughts about the measure.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">5</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>BFTP: Stone Soup: A Classroom Parable</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/09/bftp-stone-soup-classroom-parable.html</link><pubDate>Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:30:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-6702594683349225743</guid><description>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
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As schools are adopting new technologies, flying or struggling with  others, technology remains what has always been – including all  technology, starting with a simple stick – an extension of human  capacities. I can't even begin to steal Doug's thunder here, so just  enjoy his post, and the simple way to illustrate the ongoing battle.&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2011/9/10/bftp-stone-soup-a-classroom-parable.html"&gt;BFTP: Stone Soup: A Classroom Parable&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">4</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Bill Gates taking on state budgets and education</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/05/bill-gates-taking-on-state-budgets-and.html</link><category>adult education</category><category>budget</category><category>ted</category><pubDate>Tue, 31 May 2011 12:22:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-4891962182920489931</guid><description>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
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This is an interesting talk by Bill Gates. Of course, his main point we need to spend money on education, and disallow state level cuts to school budgets, including universities. He believes that this problem is solvable but – and this I like – we need to draw people in this discussion and search for solutions.&lt;br /&gt;
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It's certainly a divisive topic. It seems that Bill Gates takes certain things at their face value without questioning them (for instance, the fact that in a failing economy and general price suppression, the tuition has defied the trend like helium balloons, and is so high in the sky you can't see the tuition rates from here). He also promotes the idea that teachers need to be effective and need to be incentivized (the implication is money) in order to work well. While I agree that compensation must be appropriate, this alone is not the incentive to work well with kids. And to be effective, how does one define effectiveness (it sounds like we are back to standardized test results, oh boy!).&lt;br /&gt;
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Anyway, check this out and tell us what you think.&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_how_state_budgets_are_breaking_us_schools.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-03-22"&gt;Bill Gates TED Talk&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">9</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Sit Still</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/05/sit-still.html</link><pubDate>Sat, 28 May 2011 10:24:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-4419995756296368351</guid><description>&amp;nbsp;"You really need to look at the range of issues, because if a 5-year-old  can’t sit still, it is unlikely that they can do well in a kindergarten  class, and it has to be the whole range of issues that go into healthy  child development." ~ Kathleen Sebelius&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/erikkain/2011/05/27/kathleen-sebelius-wants-your-kids-to-sit-still/"&gt;Forbes - E.D. Kain, American Times&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;b&gt;Essential Question:&amp;nbsp; Should five-year-olds be expected to sit still in class?&lt;/b&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Deja Vu All Over Again . . .</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/05/deja-vu-all-over-again.html</link><category>standardized testing</category><category>testing</category><pubDate>Fri, 27 May 2011 18:11:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-8175602085259852170</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/26/33academy.h30.html?tkn=PSNFU6DkcFOb0+aCYE%2FhEvTNvp+l1p6qWTFD&amp;amp;cmp=clp-edweek"&gt;Education Week:&amp;nbsp; Panel Finds Few Learning Gains from Testing Movement&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>10 Years After . . . .</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/05/10-years-after.html</link><category>1:1 laptops</category><category>MLTI</category><pubDate>Fri, 27 May 2011 16:59:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-3631603969168081781</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://www.sunjournal.com/state/story/988012"&gt;Sun Journal: 10 Years after Laptops Come to Maine Schools, Educators Say Technology Levels Playing Field for Students&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">5</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Another perspective on school improvement</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/04/another-perspective-at-school.html</link><category>budget</category><category>democracy</category><category>school</category><category>student ownership</category><pubDate>Tue, 5 Apr 2011 09:25:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-3768749887349305524</guid><description>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
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Right now, school budgets all around the state, if not the country, are being considered, discussed, laid out, revisited, and whatnot in pursuit of pleasing the fiscal gods and making ends meet somehow. If your district is not planning to make cuts, you are a lucky exception.&lt;br /&gt;
There are public debates held over the proposals, and mostly if not solely it's&amp;nbsp; adults' business. Why? Because we foot the bill and of course we know better.&lt;br /&gt;
I found &lt;a href="http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2011/04/04/kids-are-the-real-customers-in-schools-we-need-to-listen-to-them/"&gt;this blog post&lt;/a&gt; this morning and I believe that kids should be a little – or maybe much – more involved in the process. They may not understand politics, but they definitely are capable – maybe not willing – to articulate what works for them and what doesn't. I think that as leaders and administrators, adults do end up making the decisions regardless of preceding procedures. What is truly important is that the adults take the chance to listen to what students have to say, leverage their talents and take the risk of believing that students do know a little about their own learning, and it's not all top-down as usual that is going to solve this mess. What do you think?</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>An interesting perspective: Do you have a hand in this?</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/03/interesting-perspective-do-you-have.html</link><category>blogging</category><category>college</category><category>education</category><category>loans</category><pubDate>Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:34:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-8608247763482605261</guid><description>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
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I am a dy/dan blog reader, and recently there has been a post about bloggers – especially the successful ones – who unknowingly become part of a game to improve money flow to certain institutions. If you are a blogger and don't want to improve the third party's bottom line in this way, you may be interested in learning &lt;a href="http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=9672"&gt;more: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=9672&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
I would love to hear other people's thoughts about this one!</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Collaborative Problem Solving</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/03/collaborative-problem-solving.html</link><category>behavior</category><category>behavior management</category><category>CPS</category><pubDate>Tue, 8 Mar 2011 10:07:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-2884065860003631417</guid><description>by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
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I am a convert. Last summer, I took a class (for my teacher certification renewal) in addressing the needs of exceptional students in the regular classroom. It was amazing. One of the things that came out of it was finding a book about problematic behavior, "Lost in School" by Ross Greene, PhD.&lt;br /&gt;
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I am now a big believer in the CPS approach.&lt;br /&gt;
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I have just discovered &lt;a href="http://livesinthebalance.org/"&gt;this site&lt;/a&gt; and noticed some of our own Maine schools practicing this approach to helping students develop skills they lack to deal with problems and demands appropriately. Check out &lt;a href="http://www.livesinthebalance.org/misty-mcbreirty"&gt;this testimony from Kittery&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.livesinthebalance.org/chuck-potter-and-kathy-clukey"&gt;in Sanford&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
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This approach is very down-to-earth, no-nonsense, and practical. The administrators in the videos talk about the implementation, and the success – and challenges, of course! – they have had in their buildings.</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">3</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>iFacilitate</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/03/ifacilitate.html</link><category>Classrooms Online</category><category>distance learning</category><category>online learning</category><pubDate>Mon, 7 Mar 2011 17:02:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-575706262143222833</guid><description>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFkTzzYb8Dk_GkAibcCWJnZ3V6GVUozDQ3vPkrgMi31T_GjymUhWUS34uhzzBoIMqWPiy7Xg1pUjUJv8EDgWPu9-xr_bZ77uU0Hr0J5s3IrqCzMrpTDb3NTxZzLfCNZjDJv214-PnaM4Ts/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-03-07+at+4.59.18+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"&gt;&lt;img border="0" height="91" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFkTzzYb8Dk_GkAibcCWJnZ3V6GVUozDQ3vPkrgMi31T_GjymUhWUS34uhzzBoIMqWPiy7Xg1pUjUJv8EDgWPu9-xr_bZ77uU0Hr0J5s3IrqCzMrpTDb3NTxZzLfCNZjDJv214-PnaM4Ts/s320/Screen+shot+2011-03-07+at+4.59.18+PM.png" width="320" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;It's been a very long time since I've posted to this blog, but now it's time to return. I've joined an online learning community called &lt;a href="http://sites.google.com/site/lccifacilitate/"&gt;iFacilitate2011&lt;/a&gt; which is all about learning the basics of facilitating online learning, a skill that I'm very interested in learning.&amp;nbsp; You can join, as well, right &lt;a href="http://sites.google.com/site/lccifacilitate/"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Right away I was impressed with iFaciliate because it is making using of &lt;a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?continue=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2F&amp;amp;followup=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2F&amp;amp;service=jotspot&amp;amp;ul=1"&gt;Google Sites&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.wikispaces.com/content/for/teachers"&gt;Wikispaces&lt;/a&gt;, two of my favorite tools.&amp;nbsp; Added to this was &lt;a href="http://www.elluminate.com/"&gt;Elluminate,&lt;/a&gt; a synchronous meeting place.&lt;br /&gt;
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I'll be using this blog to reflect on resources and discussions within the free online iFacilitate course.</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFkTzzYb8Dk_GkAibcCWJnZ3V6GVUozDQ3vPkrgMi31T_GjymUhWUS34uhzzBoIMqWPiy7Xg1pUjUJv8EDgWPu9-xr_bZ77uU0Hr0J5s3IrqCzMrpTDb3NTxZzLfCNZjDJv214-PnaM4Ts/s72-c/Screen+shot+2011-03-07+at+4.59.18+PM.png" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">3</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>2011 is the International Year of Chemistry!</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2011/01/2011-is-international-year-of-chemistry.html</link><category>chemistry</category><category>science</category><pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:08:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-2912573118994695659</guid><description>Do you want to be part of it?&lt;br /&gt;
To learn more visit this site: http://www.chemistry2011.org/</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Learning from mistakes</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/12/learning-from-mistakes.html</link><category>1:1 laptops</category><category>learning</category><category>Making Mistakes</category><pubDate>Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:21:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-6829866084166195752</guid><description>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, this is not an earth-shattering statement, although in the view of the current education policies and trends it might as well be.&lt;br /&gt;
This teacher doesn't say anything new, but why aren't more teachers embracing this idea and this approach? Granted, ditching your traditional views is difficult – and I am all for being careful about it too. Sifting through the methods and techniques will take time. But as I said, there is nothing earth-shattering in this story. It's just told well.&lt;br /&gt;
We all know – teachers or not – that this is how we learn, by doing. Yet, when you walk into a classroom, it often just flips the switch – and you often feel that half the time it's the learners who have already grown accustomed to a particular – lecture-type – style of doing school. So, you have to fight with them – sometimes – to have them start learning the way they are designed to learn. What's up with that?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;object height="326" width="446"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /&gt;&lt;param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/DianaLaufenberg_2010X-medium.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DianaLaufenberg-2010X.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=1034&amp;introDuration=15330&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=830&amp;adKeys=talk=diana_laufenberg_3_ways_to_teach;year=2010;theme=how_we_learn;theme=a_taste_of_tedx;theme=new_on_ted_com;event=TEDxMidAtlantic;&amp;preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;" /&gt;&lt;embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" bgColor="#ffffff" width="446" height="326" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/DianaLaufenberg_2010X-medium.flv&amp;su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/DianaLaufenberg-2010X.embed_thumbnail.jpg&amp;vw=432&amp;vh=240&amp;ap=0&amp;ti=1034&amp;introDuration=15330&amp;adDuration=4000&amp;postAdDuration=830&amp;adKeys=talk=diana_laufenberg_3_ways_to_teach;year=2010;theme=how_we_learn;theme=a_taste_of_tedx;theme=new_on_ted_com;event=TEDxMidAtlantic;"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">5</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author><enclosure length="507770" type="binary/octet-stream" url="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"/><itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit><itunes:subtitle>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante Well, this is not an earth-shattering statement, although in the view of the current education policies and trends it might as well be. This teacher doesn't say anything new, but why aren't more teachers embracing this idea and this approach? Granted, ditching your traditional views is difficult – and I am all for being careful about it too. Sifting through the methods and techniques will take time. But as I said, there is nothing earth-shattering in this story. It's just told well. We all know – teachers or not – that this is how we learn, by doing. Yet, when you walk into a classroom, it often just flips the switch – and you often feel that half the time it's the learners who have already grown accustomed to a particular – lecture-type – style of doing school. So, you have to fight with them – sometimes – to have them start learning the way they are designed to learn. What's up with that?</itunes:subtitle><itunes:author>Jim Burke</itunes:author><itunes:summary>&amp;nbsp;by Olga LaPlante Well, this is not an earth-shattering statement, although in the view of the current education policies and trends it might as well be. This teacher doesn't say anything new, but why aren't more teachers embracing this idea and this approach? Granted, ditching your traditional views is difficult – and I am all for being careful about it too. Sifting through the methods and techniques will take time. But as I said, there is nothing earth-shattering in this story. It's just told well. We all know – teachers or not – that this is how we learn, by doing. Yet, when you walk into a classroom, it often just flips the switch – and you often feel that half the time it's the learners who have already grown accustomed to a particular – lecture-type – style of doing school. So, you have to fight with them – sometimes – to have them start learning the way they are designed to learn. What's up with that?</itunes:summary><itunes:keywords>Maine,MLTI,learning</itunes:keywords></item><item><title>"Fix" for education</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/12/fix-for-education.html</link><pubDate>Thu, 2 Dec 2010 09:28:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-550486066150868355</guid><description>&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" id="internal-source-marker_0.4666607407979715"&gt;by Ed Latham&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;In all professional  sports, teamwork is vital to a successful year. Each team has an owner  and a head coach. Most have an offensive coach and a defensive coach.  Additionally there may be other specialist that work with different  positions so I will call them positional coaches. All of the coaches  must have a philosophy and means to get every team member on the same  page in order to build a culture of success. For the sake of discussion,  lets compare these vital structures to the educational team and talk  about educational “success”. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;The owner of the team basically is  responsible for the money. This equates to the school board and both  parties want to see some measure of success for the investment. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;The head coach is the  heart and soul of the team and ultimately directs the leadership in  which direction the school is headed in, what aspects need highest  attention and even some possible ways to accomplish those goals. This is  our school superintendents. They take the charge of the school board  and works with the administrators and public to set up the organization  of people to make it happen.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;The offensive and defensive coaches can be  thought of as managers of squads of players with specific foci. These  are our principals, elementary school and middle/high school, that work  day to day with the staff to help accomplish goals specific to their  grade level learners. The principal will also have to pick up some of  the public relations with parents (similar to the media in sports) who  are always interested in why things are the way they are. In sports, the  head coach has that responsibility. In education, our superintendents  and principals share that role of trying to educate and sometimes,  placate, the public that has some investment in that team.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Finally we have the  players. Our teachers and our grant people working on literacy and  numeracy and technology all fill these rolls. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Now that we have our  team assembled with their team responsibilities outlined so that every  team should now be successful, right? Much press has been out in the  last decade about failing schools followed by “Why?” questions that to  this day everyone still questions. From a sports perspective I offer the  following reason why. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Education does not have ANY form of free  agency. In professional football (American, not soccer), considered by  most to be the most popular televised sport in the world right now,  there has been a free agency system that has created not only successful  teams, but a successful system of organizations that produce most of  their goals, (entertain, create interest, generate money …).  In case  you are not familiar with this system let me offer a short summary. Each  professional player in the league has an agent and is represented by a  league wide players union. The player’s union(teachers union) works with  the owners (school board) to ensure just rules and regulations for both  parties exist. The agents for each player are charged with finding the  organization (school) in which each player’s strengths and weaknesses  best fit with the team they are hired to work at. The coaches on that  team (admin staff) have an evaluation period of training camp (first two  years of teacher contract) in which to work with each player to find  out how well that player fits “the system”. When cuts come up, the  coaches (admin staff) contact all the other teams with notes and  suggestions about which of their cut players (teachers) may be better  suited for the desires of other coaching staffs. In this system, a  player that does not “fit” is not discarded, rather the system  encourages directions the player can go to find a better fit. When that  system works, the teams are highly successful.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Schools have much of  the free agency system foundation in place. We are missing agents for  teachers and any sort of system in which administrators can move staff  to systems in which the teacher’s skills can best be used. In effect,  every administrator is “stuck” with the staff they have. Granted, the  diverse skills and attitudes can be a great boon in some ways, but the  lack of cohesion and attitude prevent true teamwork. Again, back to the  sports world, there are teams in most sports that throw money at talent  and assemble the greatest collection of talent (on paper) for a year and  that team almost always bombs horribly. Almost any collection of  superstars, all individuals with great talent, fails if those  individuals do not buy into some team philosophy or direction. No matter  how talented the individuals are, no staff with diverse personal  agendas, philosophies and goals can be as successful as a cohesive team  of lesser talented individuals all believing and working in the same  system. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Lets look at this  “new” system for success. I am a new administrator to a system. I get in  with my staff and work with them for two years. During that time I am  evaluating my players (teachers) to see their strengths and personal  goals to see how that fits with my administrative goals. Meanwhile both  the teachers and the admins above me are looking at my fit in the  system. If any group feels there is a mismatch, there is a system to  resolve. I, as an administrator have an agent. This agent may represent  other admins around the state, around the region, or even a whole  country. My agent gets paid by taking a slight percentage of whatever  wages are negotiated in each school she gets a teacher or admin hired  at. Therefore, my agent has a vested interest in helping me find a  system that best fits my skills and directions and she gains from my  success and longevity. If there are difficulties in my placement in my  new school, my agent is getting all this feedback. She processes that  and helps to hit up the other schools that may better fit based on the  feedback she receives. After my two year try out, I know I either fit  the system or my agent has a short list of places I can land and some  constructive feedback for me to better my next placement. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;The same works for  teachers and their agents. The admin comes up and shares a direction and  some methods the system wishes the staff to adopt. I don’t successfully  adopt either by ability or attitude and my agent is getting all this  feedback to best determine where I might be successful as a teacher.  After my two years, if I fit, I am in a system that not only fits my  abilities, but my attitudes and goals are at least in a similar line. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;By now union people  are screaming at this idea, but let me remind you that the teachers  union, the admin union, and heck even the school boards could have a  union all work together to help create and maintain a fair workplace for  all. After all, our current union structure’s main focus is on the  group, not the individual. It is impossible for any one union to best  represent each individual’s need. For that you need a personal  representative, an agent. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"&gt;Educators all want success and many are  feeling there is much lacking in terms of success nationally and  locally. I suggest we can all find our educational home in a free agent  system as described in professional sports. Sports that are highly  successful in accomplishing individual team (school) goals and the  entire organization like the National Football League (NFL) to prosper  just like we wish to see Education prosper. The salvation of education  lies in getting the right players connected with the right leaders to  create teams all accomplishing their goals rather than forcing  reformation that has annual circularity. &lt;/span&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">7</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Making most of MLTI in middle and high schools in Maine</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/12/making-most-of-mlti-in-middle-and-high.html</link><category>Common Core Curriculum</category><category>common core standards</category><category>MLTI</category><pubDate>Wed, 1 Dec 2010 11:59:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-4806930827841992116</guid><description>This is the link and a lot of these resources may be accessible to lots of Mac users and even web-based apps users.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://xserve.aneedu.com/groups/mlti/wiki/1cd9f/ELA__CCSSI.html"&gt;ELA: Complex text and such&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/usf.edu-dz.4348317755"&gt;A Christmas Carol&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;from Lit2Go (in iTunes U) - will open in iTunes. Download and burn to a CD and distribute among younger readers/non-readers.</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Let's Celebrate Gifted Kids</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/11/lets-celebrate-gifted-kids.html</link><category>gifted children</category><category>respecting differences</category><pubDate>Tue, 9 Nov 2010 16:02:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-5729211118766998012</guid><description>By Pam Kenney&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sean* is ten and a gifted child. He reads voraciously, thinks way outside the box, and is on a personal quest to understand the world around him by learning as much as he can about everything he can as fast as he can. Like many other bright kids, his social skills aren't as well-developed as those of some of his peers, and he finds many of his classroom assignments needlessly repetitive and not particularly challenging (and says so, of course); he can be a know-it-all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know Sean well, and I imagine he can be a handful for his teacher and often irritating to his classmates. His school, though, thinks he may have a "problem". &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Maybe he needs a social skills class or would benefit from some other type of intervention...&lt;/span&gt;  After all, the kids in his grade have complained about him because he brags sometimes, and he thinks he's so-o-o smart, and he's quite touchy, reacting verbally when they tease him.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sean does not need a social skills class. He doesn't have a problem---he's smart. And it's time educators started celebrating the uniqueness of academically gifted students instead of labeling their eccentricities as problems that need to be fixed. Yes, Sean should learn that tooting his own horn isn't the way to make friends, but his classmates need to be taught that their behavior toward him, manifested solely to bring him down a peg or two, is equally inappropriate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Classrooms are composed of children of every stripe and are ideal environments for teachers to initiate discussions with their students about differences among people, including intellectual and personality-related ones. Kids already know that some of us are more athletic or musical than others; some are good with their hands while others are more awkward. They've been told since they were toddlers that we're all different, and that that's a good thing. Yes, it is a good thing, but schools today are so intent on bolstering children's self-esteem and reassuring them that they are up to every challenge, that they have shied away from celebrating the gifts of unusually smart kids.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gifted children can be hard to deal with; but so can star athletes, and reluctant readers, and good math students, and introverts, and computer geeks, and kids who sit and stare into space. The personalities and attendant behaviors of all of them are affected by their strengths and weaknesses. They don't need special classes or therapy; they need committed teachers and parents who will take the time to discuss &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;all&lt;/span&gt; the ways people differ from one another and how those differences affect how they act. Through example and lots of practice at home and at school, I believe kids are perfectly capable of understanding and accepting each other's idiosyncrasies, not with scorn and ridicule, but with grace and pride.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*name changed to protect the child's identity</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">5</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Daylight Savings?</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/11/daylight-savings.html</link><pubDate>Mon, 8 Nov 2010 07:53:00 -0500</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-3670090567224114308</guid><description>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/DaylightSaving-World-Subdivisions.png"&gt;&lt;img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 401px; height: 176px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/DaylightSaving-World-Subdivisions.png" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By Ed Latham&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My natural biorhythm has been complaining much in the last few days as I am still adjusting to our seasonal changing of the clocks. This disruption has forced me to research the why of these time changes in the spring and fall.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I found the following map showing who is still changing these clocks(Blue), who has stopped (Orange) and who never changed them in the first place (Red). One might conclude that the red countries just never got the memo in the first place or have so much sun around the equator they did not see what all the fuss  was about. Digging further, I found that many of the reasons for DST (Daylight Savings Time) are interesting when looking at this map.  Here are some of the key reasons.&lt;br /&gt;1. Energy Use: The thought was that if we shift the hours around, people would have more natural light and therefore use less artificial, electricity consuming light. As Ben Franklin pointed out, this is a fallacy as the usage of lights in the morning increase to render any benefits from this afternoon shift to be minimal. Given the Blue countries above typically have access and knowledge of energy efficient lighting, any support of energy savings rational for DST today has to be based on an unwillingness or inability to adopt the newer more efficient technologies for lighting.&lt;br /&gt;2. Retail: Originally, more daylight hours after work translated into more people shopping at local stores. With the Internet and our instant access to most any resource (especially in the blue countries in the map), the rational for shifting times around is no longer applicable. In fact, as many are dealing more and more on a global scale, these changes in time often cost more time and money to restructure business connections.&lt;br /&gt;3. Safety: The thought was that more light on the evening commute would equal less fatal accidents. Although the data has shown that less pedestrians get hit with this shift, there has been no solid evidence that when one factors in the morning fatalities from people having disrupted sleep patterns that there is any significant drop in the number of fatalities. Interestingly, the blue countries tend to be the only ones that have tons of cars on the road in the first place. Seems like getting rid of some of the cars might have more of a safety effect than messing with time :)&lt;br /&gt;4. Health: This reason sounds good at first. More daylight in the afternoon equals more physical exercise. Data suggests the disruption in our natural circadian rhythm for up to a month after each shift causes many health detriments. Factoring in the increased suicide rates, especially after the spring switch and one has to question this at a purely data level. Again looking at the health of those in the blue countries, I am seeing the most wealthy of the world. For the most part the blue countries have many more comforts in their lives and through no coincidence have higher rates of obesity and inactivity. Although they can afford nicer exercise equipment and gym memberships, the lack of need of physical exercise is more of a health hazard than the lack of sun in the afternoon. Maybe we all need to have to carry our drinking water home every afternoon and this health issue would be fixed rather than messing with time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One more observation. The orange countries are those that had DST and then realized the futility of it. In fact, based on population, one could argue that only the richest 2 or 3 percent of the world still stick to this silly tradition. Everyone else must realize that nature has a flow of light and dark periods and they somehow manage to adjust their lives appropriately rather than artificially changing the name of the hour to feel better.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do you see any other observations from this interesting map? Any thoughts on the whole DST thing as it applies to learning? After all, most adolescents are not even functional mentally until at least 2-3 hours after sunrise, so our students are still sleeping till almost halfway through our school days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, looking at my clock it is either time to get to work or I am already late, or is it early? I think I need to go for a nature walk outside first to find out.</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">4</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Real processing</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/real-processing.html</link><category>social networking</category><pubDate>Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:20:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-3185383489730656023</guid><description>by Ed Latham&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Checking my mail this morning, I received a chat from a student. The student was having difficulty (in a game of course) and did not know what to do next to resolve the issue. We chatted for a few min to find what he had attempted and what the resulting conditions were. He was very patient and articulate in describing the issue and what he had done thus far. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I jumped into some searching and digging through some forums to find others with similar issues to his. I quickly found others complaining of the same thing and the solutions offered by members of the forums. I shared my findings with him and how I went about getting that information. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He got very quiet (in chat that just means he went more than 2 minutes without typing) only to return with many negative comments in reference to his lack of ability to figure this out himself. He was quite upset that he had not thought to check the forums, had not thought of such a simple solution, and many other "failings" to resolve this problem himself. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Intervention time! I stopped him and asked him why it was so important that he figure it all out himself. He replied that he felt computer competent and not being able to fix things himself is perceived internally as a weakness. I was a bit shocked and asked him where he thinks these feelings came from. "Well in school, friends and teachers chew you out for asking stupid or obvious crap ... so idk I guess it is just I am used to people dissing me if I ask for help"&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My fingers flew into action as I jumped on my digital soapbox. I shared the importance of developing and using our social networks to discuss and resolve solutions. The world this young child is going into not only benefits from the ability to reach out to others to process and work together, it is becoming more and more a necessary skill. Many reading this post already know the power of a good social network and how many hours of frustration and other negatives that are encountered without our personal resources and connections. After I stepped down off my soapbox and congratulated the boy on reaching out, asking the right questions and articulating so well what the problem was he reported he felt better. "Besides, I probably would have been all week trying to figure this out on my own and would have just given up on the whole thing and quit that game if I couldn't get this working."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have the pleasure of working with people all over the state of Maine and I have been exposed to so many wonderful projects, practices and classrooms. Establishing connections with all of these great people has enabled me to field at least 5 questions a day from teachers from k-16. Many of those questions I get daily are of such a specific nature, I know I don't have more than a surface idea what they are asking, but I do know someone on my social networks that has experience with that and I can get almost instant help and walk throughs for the teacher asking the original question. Additionally, my knowledge expands in that arena! I am learning so much just by being the middle man in a social network chain. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where are our students getting their help from? Many classrooms are still very teacher directed and may reward compliance more than personal inquiry. Mom and Dad, if they are around, are often glad to be done with all that school stuff. For many students, they may feel their friends are just as lost on the topic as he or she is. Cell phones are not allowed in classes nor are most forms of communication that allows connection to any social networks. Unless the student can get some time to visit their media specialist (one of the few social network resources allowed in school), the student is resigned to individual searches on the Internet, re hashing notes or the book, or trying to hit up the teacher after class some time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In short, my social network allows me to get almost instant help not only for me, but for everyone I work with. With almost every educator I talk to wanting students to learn to think and problem solve, are we not removing access to tools real people use every day to resolve their problems? In most every workplace, people facing difficulties almost never go to their boss asking for a fix. Instead they hit up their network of resources to resolve the issues, hopefully quickly so the interruption does not set the worker behind or cause a scene. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How can we help students safely establish social networks and learn how to use these resources well? Is that enough? Shouldn't we be encouraging responsible efficiency in using our peeps to help move our current projects forward? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are your thoughts on the importance of using a social network and if you are using/promoting such how are you doing so with students?</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Three Things I'm Going to Do</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/thring-things-im-going-to-do.html</link><pubDate>Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:27:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-7778859284857043166</guid><description>&lt;span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;"&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;by Cheryl Oakes&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;There are 3 things that I am going to actively do after reflecting on the ACTEM Keynote from Vicki Davis and Angela Maiers.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; 1. Expose the Crab Bucket for what it is. If you name something then you&amp;nbsp; can change it.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; 2. Listen to my students, no I really mean listen to my students. By  having my students name their challenges, their hopes, their future-  then we have a collective vision.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; 3. Collaborate with another class, group, project. Now that I am in the classroom, I have this ability to make this a reality!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; For those wondering about the Crab Bucket, here is what Wikipedia has to say: crab bucket mentality ,&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality"&gt;crab bucket mentality&lt;/a&gt; describes  a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it,  neither should you." The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs. Singly, the  crabs could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they grab at each  other in a useless "king of the hill" competition which prevents any  from escaping and ensures their collective demise. The analogy in human  behavior is that of a group that will attempt to "pull down" (negate or  diminish the importance of) any member who achieves success beyond the  others, out of jealousy or competitive feelings.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;This  term is broadly associated with short-sighted, non-constructive  thinking rather than a unified, long-term, constructive mentality. It is  also often used colloquially in reference to individuals or communities  attempting to "escape" a so-called "underprivileged life", but kept  from doing so by others attempting to ride upon their coat-tails or  those who simply resent their success.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt; I will ask my students to name their dreams and what this year will help  them accomplish and as far as a project I am going to sign up for  Digi-Teen&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://digiteen.ning.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="http://digiteen.ning.com/"&gt;Digi-Teen&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="font-family: 'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;What are you going to do?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Cheryl Steele Oakes&lt;br /&gt;
Resource Room Facilitator/Teacher&lt;br /&gt;
Wells High School&lt;br /&gt;
Wells Ogunquit CSD Wells ME 04090&lt;br /&gt;
Google Certified Teacher&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.cheryloakes.com/" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.cheryloakes.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">1</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>The Corporate Reform Action Pack!</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/corporate-reform-action-pack.html</link><category>Corporations</category><pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:44:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-8942627528796320306</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://failingschools.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/introducing-the-corporate-reform-action-pack/"&gt;Sabrina Stevens Shupe Blog&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;object height="385" width="640"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mciucQi-2GA?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mciucQi-2GA?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
H&lt;a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sabrina-stevens-shupe/the-ultimate-measure-of-a_b_751412.html"&gt;uffington Post:  The Ultimate Measure of a Teacher?&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>K12 Online Conference 2010</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/k12-online-conference-2010.html</link><category>conference</category><category>k12online10</category><category>sharing</category><pubDate>Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:02:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-4685412283667579366</guid><description>&lt;div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://k12onlineconference.org/"&gt;&lt;img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVAtoPbYaLAXkkpi-J-H0F8MoASiOM158a5jUr08fGqQnVyiGXebISlMTqiwVYegPNeIzmy_6IjlgxSKjYGn-JGaf_jtjrF_nRmHLt0CR_Hta71zEhBJf9BV8xzJ-T-04E6Hp_bN8ME1vp/s1600/Picture+6.png" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://k12onlineconference.org/"&gt;Conference Link&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;object height="347" width="420"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://dotsub.com/static/players/portalplayer.swf?plugins=dotsub&amp;uuid=027a4da1-8be2-4ea7-85e9-2e3be140db1a&amp;type=video&amp;lang=none"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src="http://dotsub.com/static/players/portalplayer.swf?plugins=dotsub&amp;uuid=027a4da1-8be2-4ea7-85e9-2e3be140db1a&amp;type=video&amp;lang=none" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="420" height="347"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</description><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" height="72" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVAtoPbYaLAXkkpi-J-H0F8MoASiOM158a5jUr08fGqQnVyiGXebISlMTqiwVYegPNeIzmy_6IjlgxSKjYGn-JGaf_jtjrF_nRmHLt0CR_Hta71zEhBJf9BV8xzJ-T-04E6Hp_bN8ME1vp/s72-c/Picture+6.png" width="72"/><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Which Manifesto for You?</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/which-manifesto-for-you.html</link><category>manifesto</category><pubDate>Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:05:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-6288457829446698587</guid><description>&lt;h6 class="uiStreamMessage"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span class="actorName"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.facebook.com/jburkemaine"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; &lt;div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4cb3902a63fc700086e51"&gt;&lt;a class="external UIImageBlock_Image UIImageBlock_MED_Image" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/39025530/A-Declaration-KenRev-5r?ref=nf" rel="nofollow" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" tabindex="-1" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img class="img" src="http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=9a2ceaacd68a87d53f18a8a92e3dff25&amp;amp;w=90&amp;amp;h=90&amp;amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fimgv2-2.scribdassets.com%2Fimg%2Fword_document%2F39025530%2F164x212%2F1a4afe7e73%2F1286668878" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"&gt;Twenty  years ago, Kenneth Goodman penned &lt;a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/39025530/A-Declaration-KenRev-5r?ref=nf"&gt;"A Declaration of Professional  Conscience for Teachers"&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;nbsp;  It is interesting to juxtapose it with the  recent &lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html"&gt;Manifesto by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, etc.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4cb3902a63fc700086e51" style="font-family: &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;Which view do you subscribe to?  Which viewpoint is clo&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: small;"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;span class="text_exposed_hide"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="text_exposed_show"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"&gt;ser to yours?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
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See also Daily KOS: Education: Manifesto versus Manifesto&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/9/191018/358" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.dailykos.com/story/&lt;span class="word_break"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;2010/10/9/191018/358&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="text_exposed_hide"&gt;&lt;span class="text_exposed_link"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3997838873455865285&amp;amp;postID=6288457829446698587"&gt;See More&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/h6&gt;&lt;div class="mvm uiStreamAttachments clearfix"&gt;&lt;div class="UIImageBlock clearfix"&gt;&lt;div class="UIImageBlock_Content UIImageBlock_MED_Content fsm fwn fcg"&gt;&lt;div class="uiAttachmentTitle" style="font-family: &amp;quot;Helvetica Neue&amp;quot;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.rcowen.com/rcoprfdv.htm"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: large;"&gt;&lt;b&gt;A Declaration of Professional Conscience for Teachers&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.scribd.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Bridging Differences</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/bridging-differences.html</link><category>discussion</category><pubDate>Fri, 1 Oct 2010 22:17:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-7790373877588286500</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/"&gt;Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier: Bridging Differences on Education Week&lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item><item><title>Merit Pay for Teachers</title><link>http://learninginmaine.blogspot.com/2010/09/merit-pay-for-teachers.html</link><category>merit pay</category><pubDate>Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:57:00 -0400</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3997838873455865285.post-2292077553299733355</guid><description>&lt;a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/09/merit_pay_fails_another_test.html"&gt;Diane Ravitch at Bridging Differences: "Merit Pay Fails Another Test&lt;/a&gt;"&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/21/study-merit-pay-teachers-doesnt-improve-student-test-scores/"&gt;Fox News: "Study: Merit pay for teachers doesn't improve test scores"&amp;nbsp;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://k6educators.about.com/od/assessmentandtesting/a/meritypay.htm"&gt;Merit Pay for Teacher - Pros and Cons of Merit Pay for Teachers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/09/merit_pay_for_teachers_doesnt_raise_test_scores_study_finds.html"&gt;ColorLines: "Merit Pay for Teacher Doesn't Raise Test Scores, Study Finds"&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Merit_pay_for_teachers"&gt;Debatepedia: Merit Pay for Teachers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_pay"&gt;Wikipedia:&amp;nbsp; Merit Pay&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-wojcicki/new-research-shows-merit_b_577886.html"&gt;Huffington Post: "New Research Shows Merit Pay for Teachers a Poor Idea"&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-922/merit.htm"&gt;ERIC: Merit Pay for Teachers &lt;/a&gt;</description><thr:total xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0">0</thr:total><author>jburke@mainelearns.org (Jim Burke)</author></item></channel></rss>