The following resources are available to stimulate thinking and conversations around rethinking the high school experience.

Changes Taking Place in Society

Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0 - Part 1
With the start of the new school year, many teachers and students are seeking new products and technologies to help them through their upcoming academics. With the increase of teachers using blogs and wikis, and students networking and utilizing online tools, the demand for easier and more efficient ways of learning is on the rise. To me, the growing interest for web-based learning is amazing, which brought me to thinking; what if I were to consolodate some of the helpful online products and services that can help students, teachers and administrators alike? Well, I convinced myself. The following is a compilation of Web 2.0 products that I’ve personally researched and tested. These services are grouped into two main categories: “Tools”; and “Office Applications”. Some more specific services include: organizers, gradebooks, research tools, document managers, diagrams, and more.

The Blogvangelist
Will Richardson, a high school English teacher turned edu-tech consultant, wants to share the good news about blogs, wikis, and podcasts. They could, he believes, change your life. By Patrick J. McCloskey Teacher Magazine

REAPING THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS
Social networking, in the form of MySpace or Friendster, has gone mainstream among younger Internet users, but the data that social networks reveal has also captured the attention of academics, consultants and corporations seeking insight into how companies operate, how employees interact, and how employee relationships and social networks can be used to improve productivity and channel knowledge dissemination. Wharton management professor Lori Rosenkopf says social network analysis "will give you a sense of whether actual work flow and communication match what you hope to achieve. Maybe there are bottlenecks where one person is managing all interactions. If you expect two groups to work together closely, and you don't see them doing this, you might want to create liaison roles or other relationships to make information flow better." Networks can also reveal what are known as "cosmopolitans" -- the employees who serve as hubs to information flow within a company. "Often you find that people you might not even think of as very valuable turn out to be important links in the structure of the organization," says University of Chicago professor Valery Yakubovich. Rosenkopf notes that companies are just now becoming aware of the benefits of social network analysis: "Some firms are doing interesting things, but in many cases the idea hasn't hit its stride yet. The top leaders of Fortune 100 companies haven't been exposed to it in a major way. They may be aware of things like small worlds and 'The Tipping Point.' It's
not yet reached the point where companies are using these ideas for business process reengineering. But I do think it's coming." (Knowledge@Wharton 14 Jun 2006)

TEACHING ON THE 'MUVE'
Multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) are a genre of software games created to inspire children to learn about subjects like math, science and history. Unlike most games and social networks, MUVEs are structured environments with rules for behavior, yet no pat formula for action. They provide problems for kids to solve that don't involve shooting, speeding or slaying monsters. Learning-based virtual worlds are growing more popular, thanks to ongoing efforts by universities and private companies. Harvard University's "River City" is a MUVE that involves a society in the late 1800s that's in political and environmental disrepair, and kids must figure out why residents are falling ill. MUVEs are popular because research shows that kids engage deeply in virtual environments, which provides a conceptual and ethical understanding of school subjects. Many children are already comfortable socializing online, so educationally oriented virtual worlds offer that same sort of stimulus to aid learning. Using a virtual
world to teach about Rome and its ancient art, politics and society, for example, can spark a child's imagination more than a textbook filled with beautiful pictures. Ironically, virtual environments offer a strong feeling of reality. But virtual worlds must have knowledgeable and motivated teachers driving the effort. "As a (teaching) supplement, this is the wave of the future," said Jennifer Sun, CEO of MUVE maker Numedeon. (CNet News.com 12 Jun 2006)

LEARNING TO READ ON THE WEB
Technology developed over the last ten years by researchers at IBM's Watson Research Center has been incorporated in a Web-based program called Reading Companion that teaches children and adults to read. Voice recognition enables the program to "listen" while the student speaks into a microphone attached to a headset. On the screen a cuddly panda cocks an ear and gives feedback, just like a parent or teacher would -- "You sound great!" or "Try it again." "Everyone knows that to increase reading skills, fluency and literacy, you need to practice. In order to practice, you need to be sufficiently engaged to do it. You need feedback, and, interestingly enough, you need privacy," says IBM research manager Jennifer Lai. One second-grade teacher says her kids love the program because it's a way to practice without a human looking over their shoulder. "You have an outside source other than a teacher correcting you. You have an animated character, so it's not always an adult saying, 'This is wrong.'" IBM International Foundation president Stanley Litow says, "This is a clear example of how you can take IBM innovation in voice recognition technology and use it to resolve what is the most critical social problem facing America and perhaps the world. The result will be something that's never existed before: A way to teach everybody to read over the Internet for free." (The Journal News 11 Jun 2006)

BUSINESS EYEBALLS USER-GENERATED CONTENT
The spring of 2006 will go down as a curious moment in the annals of buzz. The mainstream-media steamroller caught up with a bona fide cultural phenomenon, then flattened it into a cliché before the average person knew what all the fuss was about. That's ironic, because the fuss was about the average person and their participation in what's known variously as "social media," "social networking" or "user-generated content." Companies are changing the way they communicate, make decisions, and develop and market products, because of the exponential rise of new tools that allow people to express themselves easily online. "Social networking isn't a product or, God forbid, a company, but a feature that lives in service of some other mission," says Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo's head of technology development. "The spirit of social computing is the concept of leaving value in your wake." That value starts with expression. Users of social-networking sites are producing and freely sharing a whole universe of content for others to consume. Why watch fake "reality" shows when you can connect with actual reality? For media and Web-portal companies, the new social gadgets can look like a magic money machine. Rather than exhaust yourself producing what you *think* the kids might want, why not sit back and provide them a showcase for them to show off for one another? (Fast Company June 2006)

THE WORLD WIDE WEB: THINGS TO COME
Anticipating a meeting of the WWW2006 conference in Edinburgh, computer science professor David De Roure of the University of Southhampton predicts that Web development will continue to focus on "social networking" and says that one of the hot topics will be how people use and contribute to the Web: "Back in 1994 people were beginning to use Web browsers but significantly, and perhaps unexpectedly at that moment, people started publishing Web content too. The Web changed from a tool for disseminating
information to a place where anyone could publish almost anything. This phenomenon has been taken even further in the past couple of years with Web pages that allow users to contribute to and edit existing sites. Blogs, wikis, social networking sites like MySpace and file-sharing services have transformed the Web into a truly interactive experience. This social dimension, where people's participation adds value to the Web, is proving hugely significant. But in this world of sharing there are also hazards. As the Web becomes even more deeply embedded in our lives, it will become a new battleground and security issues threaten to erode the public's trust in the Internet. It can be used to steal your identity, trick you into buying non-existent goods or, more worrying, to threaten the very infrastructure of our society. At WWW2006, security experts will be tackling the latest threats to and defenses of the World Wide Web. The power of the Web fundamentally stems from joining things up and sharing, and this is exactly the power of the Web conference too." (BBC News 22 May 2006)

Teens Get a Virtual Nightclub
Instant messaging avatars can now dance, hang out, see ads, and buy music in Doppelganger’s virtual world. May 15, 2006 - RedHerring Magazine
Doppelganger, which makes virtual nightclubs for teenagers, debuted Monday after two years as a stealth startup.

WIKI FEVER SPREADS TO SHOPPING SITES
The wiki phenomenon, begun as a means to create a collaborative encyclopedia using contributions from volunteer experts, is spreading to the retail realm. Amazon recently decided to pull the "beta" tag off its ProductWikis, found on product pages below the customer reviews, and two  DoubleClick founders last week launched a ShopWiki.com site that encourages  consumers to share their knowledge of particular products. Both Amazon and  ShopWiki note that their services are different from the usual customer reviews: "These should be written from the point of view of a really great salesperson," says ShopWiki CEO Kevin Ryan. "It should be totally objective, like, 'Tell me in three minutes what I should be thinking about when it comes to buying refrigerators.'" Unlike some other wiki sites, ShopWiki's initial entries were written by staff writers rather than amateurs. "On things like technology products especially, we wanted someone with more expertise to kick things off," says Ryan. Amazon's ProductWiki, on the other hand, contains more than 4,500 volunteer entries of varying length and quality, and relies on users to report offensive, overly biased or irrelevant content. Despite occasional lapses into editorial debate, such as the merits of Xbox 360 versus Sony Playstation, customers are finding the feature useful, says an Amazon spokesman: "Customers really seem to like it, and are becoming more and more involved in refining the wikis." (New York Times 24 Apr 2006)

STARTUPS LET VIDEOGAMING GO TO THEIR HEADS
Videogaming entrepreneurs have developed technology that monitors a player's brainwaves and uses the signals to control the gaming action. The goal is to provide gamers with the ultimate immersion experience in imaginary worlds. NeuroSky CEO Stanley Yang says, "Research on brain waves is well known. But we have worked on a way for detecting them with a low-cost technology and then interpreting what they mean. We think this will have broad applications." NeuroSky hopes to produce game console add-ons costing less than $100 that users could wear to enhance their gaming experience. Some of game features would be conscious, such as choosing to take out an enemy position, but others could be subconscious, such as slowing down the game's tempo if the sensors picked up an increase in anxiety, says NewSky CTO and co-founder Koo Hyoung Lee. NeuroSky isn't the only player in this field; CyberLearning Technology has also created a gaming controller system with a brain wave-monitoring helmet that can be used to direct a game. CyberLearnin's Smart BrainGames system exploits technology developed by NASA scientists who wanted to train pilots to focus on their cockpit equipment. It's priced at $584 and is being marketed to ADD patients. (San Jose Mercury News 24 Apr 2006)

IN SEARCH OF KILLER CONTENT
Cisco Systems is throwing cash at university students to develop killer content for broadband users. Through a relationship with mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college network, Cisco's Digital Incubator program selects 10 student groups, and gives each $25,000 cash to fund projects aimed at developing broadband content. "Some of the ideas that students have come up with are better than things we've venture-funded to the tune of $2 million," says Cisco's senior VP of corporate development Dan Scheinman. This year's winners combine elements of short-form programming, gaming, social networking, blogging, instant messaging, podcasting and mobile phone interactivity. The first Digital Incubator projects will premiere later this month as part of mtvU's on-air, online, on-campus and wireless programming. Cisco's strategy is built on the assumption that Internet Protocol technology will profoundly change home entertainment. With more than half of all U.S. households subscribing to broadband service, they believe people are finally ready to do much more than surf the Web and e-mail over the Internet. AT&T and Verizon are already building new networks to get into the paid TV market. And content owners such as Disney/ABC, CBS, NBC, and dozens of others are starting to make their TV programs available on the Net. (CNET News.com 19 Apr 2006)

CASH CARD TAPS VIRTUAL FUNDS
The developers of Project Entropia, an online role-playing game, are blurring the lines between virtual and reality with their real world cash card that allows players to convert virtual dollars into hard currency at any cash machine in the world. "We're bridging the gap between virtual reality and reality right now," says Entropia founder Jan Welter. The Entropia economy works by allowing gamers to exchange real currency for Project Entropia Dollars (PEDs) and back again into real money. Gamers accumulate PEDs through their online efforts to acquire and sell goods, buildings and land. For instance, a gamer may assume the role of a hunter who traps virtual animals for their furs and then trades them for weapons. MindArk, maker of Entropia, makes its money by periodically "repairing" all the tools that characters need to survive and prosper. Last year, $165 million passed through the game, and the founders of the online Universe expect that number to more than double this year. "It is incredible to now think that is possible to manufacture and sell a virtual item one minute and then go out and buy real dinner the next minute, with the same funds," says one player, who owns a virtual space resort in the game. (BBC News 2 May 2006)

iPods flood onto education scene
By Howard Cohen Issue date: 4/26/06 Section: Campus KRT
MIAMI - Stroll onto any college campus and you'll see iPods galore. But while many of the students are no doubt cranking Arctic Monkeys, just as many are listening to podcasts of lectures or specially designed video "vodcasts" of supplemental classroom material.

eBay Inc (EBAY)
Web phone-calling company Skype is bringing social networking to crowds as it unveils a service for groups of up to 100 people to hold spontaneous conversations online. The company said on Tuesday it is previewing a shared communications service called "Skypecasts" along with an upgrade of its core Skype software. Skypecasts are live, moderated discussions that allow groups of Skype users anywhere in the world to discuss shared interests, from classes to computer support to cultural or political debates. The service is moderated by a designated host who is able to pass a virtual microphone to participants in the group when they wish to speak. To keep conversations on track, the software allows the moderator to silence or eject detractors. Hosting or participating in a Skypecast is completely free. The feature is in preview mode, said the unit of online auctioneer EBAY INC. (Reuters 12:01 AM ET 05/03/2006)

High School Reform References

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Increasing U.S. Graduation & College-Readiness Rates
All students in the United States can and must graduate from high school, and they must leave with the skills necessary for college, work, and citizenship. To meet this goal, the foundation identifies and invests in organizations that are working to improve the U.S. education system.

The Education Alliance at Brown University
From "A Nation at Risk" to "No Child Left Behind", efforts to improve K-12 education have increasingly recognized that improvement requires reform of a host of interconnected systems that make up education as we know it. "School reform" still means many things to many people, but there is widespread agreement that it must be more than just "tinkering around the edges."

NCREL's Comprehensive School Reform Web Site
Welcome to NCREL's Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) Web site! This site includes a wide array of materials to assist in the planning and implementation of CSR programs, including an overview of the program, tools and resources, NCREL state contact information, guidance in addressing the 11 components, and frequently asked questions.

WELCOME TO THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL ALLIANCE
The National High School Alliance (HS Alliance) is a partnership of nearly fifty organizations representing a diverse cross-section of perspectives and approaches, but sharing a common commitment to promoting the excellence, equity, and development of high school-age youth.

Overview of the Department of Education's High School Reform Initiative
Reform in the middle grades has led to the increased interest in high school reform. The Commissioner of Education recently convened a High School Reform Task Force which will further explore the middle grades foundation, curriculum standards, accountability, course credits, compulsory attendance age, promotion standards, and graduation requirements, using Middle Grades Reform as a stepping stone. Membership will include Middle Grades Reform Task Force Members as well as education experts and stakeholders, such as teachers, parents, principals, and representatives from education associations.

District of Columbia High School Reform Briefing
This Briefing outlines plans to create Career Academies and Program Majors within the District of Columbia Public and Charter school system as a means for improving achievement, graduation rates and post-secondary options for all students. In June 2001, the Superintendent of Schools, with approval from the Board of Education, launched The Business Plan for Strategic Reform. This measure led to the development of a Blue Ribbon Panel on High School Transformation and out of this panel came recommendations for high school reform. Among those recommendations are the implementation and design of seamless educational systems that will help ensure that all students are prepared for post-secondary education and employment opportunities.

The Association for Career and Technical Education - High School Reform
In light of the current and future challenges facing the nation’s youth, high school redesign and reform has become a rising issue of importance, capturing national attention. ACTE has released a position statement on high school reform, “Reinventing the American High School for the 21st Century,” outlining the organization’s vision on what high schools should be and how career and technical education (CTE) can contribute to reform and redesign efforts.

High School Models

The Big Picture
The Big Picture Company’s mission is to catalyze vital changes in American education by generating and sustaining innovative, personalized schools that work in tandem with the real world of their greater community.

A visit to one of the Big Picture schools and/or a discussion with Dennis Littky, his colleagues at the Met, student graduates of the Met, etc. This could be through iSight technology, a conference call, iChat, etc.

Small, unorthodox school has big results
MetWest's seniors all graduate, and all accepted to college
MetWest High School in Oakland is a rebel in the world of public education that thrives on breaking the rules -- and succeeds. Simone Sebastian, Chronicle Staff Writer - Thursday, June 15, 2006

The Coalition of Essential Schools
We envision a world in which all children receive the nurturance, guidance, and resources they need to reach their fullest potential. Mission: Our mission is to create and sustain equitable, intellectually vibrant, personalized schools and to make such schools the norm of American public education.

High Schools That Work
High Schools That Work is the largest and oldest of the Southern Regional Education Board’s school-improvement initiatives for high school and middle grades leaders and teachers. More than 1,000 HSTW sites in 31 states are using the framework of HSTW Goals and Key Practices to raise student achievement.

The National High School Center
The National High School Center is a central source of information and expertise on high school improvement issues for the Regional Comprehensive Centers. In helping the Regional Comprehensive Centers build capacity of states across the nation to effectively implement the goals of No Child Left Behind relating to high schools, the National High School Center identifies effective programs and tools, offers user-friendly products and provides high-quality technical assistance to support the use of research-based approaches within high school learning communities.

Best Practice High School - Chicago, IL
BPHS provides a child-centered, democratic, collaborative, challenging environment, where students can develop respect for themselves and others. All of our students will be lifelong learners.

New Country School
The New Country School exists in the belief that children can gain academic skills while keeping their sense of wonder and respect for life and for one another.

New Country School strives to provide opportunities for students to develop their self-esteem and social skills through a creative, developmentally appropriate academic program in a multi-age setting, recognizing and addressing the individual learning styles of each child.

The International Center for Leadership in Education
The International Center for Leadership in Education provides services to schools, school districts and states to help them improve their education systems.

High School Best Practices Study
BY JOHN BOCHE, CHAIRPERSON
INTRODUCTION
The high school level best practice committee met initially in September of 1999. It was an outstanding collection of educators with a very wide range of educational backgrounds. The effort and dedication exhibited by this group was nothing short of spectacular. As the chairperson of this committee, I want to make it very clear how much I appreciate the work that the committee members put into this very important task.

America’s Most Successful High Schools
Case Studies and Resources on Best Practices contains print and video resources from the 12th Annual Model Schools Conference in June 2004. The Conference was the capstone activity of Bringing Best Practices to Scale, an initiative, cosponsored by the International Center and the Council of Chief State School Officers, with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative gathered information on high schools that have been most successful at providing all students with a rigorous and relevant education.

Wisner Pilger High School
Investigate the Five year Associate Degree experience at Wisner Pilger High School (contact: Alan Harms, Superintendent)

Books

The Big Picture: Education is Everyone's Responsibility
by Dennis Littky: While there are lots of books about education that propose to change what you do in classrooms and schools, here's one that promises to transform how you think.

Drawing from 35 years of taking on tough schools with disadvantaged kids and achieving the kind of progress that many thought "couldn't be done", Dennis Littky explains the principles and rationale of a model for schooling that gives students what they need most. Discover how a philosophy of personalized learning--one student at a time--is the key to creating schools where motivated students are engaged in a meaningful curriculum, and academic progress is measured against real-world standards.

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes
by Alfie Kohn: Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train the family pet. In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
by Jerry Mander: Most Americans, whether on the political left, center or right, will argue that technology is neutral, that any technology is merely a benign instrument, a tool, and depending upon the hands into which it falls, it may be used one way or another. There is nothing that prevents a technology from being used well or badly; nothing intrinsic in the technology itself or the circumstances of its emergence which can predetermine its use, its control or its effects upon individual human lives or the social and political forms around us.

The argument goes that television is merely a window or a conduit through which any perception, any argument or reality may pass. It therefore has the potential to be enlightening to people who watch it and is potentially useful to democratic processes. It will be the central point of this book that these assumptions about television, as about other technologies, are totally wrong.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t.
by Jim Collins - Jim Collins is a student of enduring great companies—how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested more than a decade of research into the topic, Jim has authored or co-authored four books—including the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week bestseller list for more than six years, and the New York Times bestseller, GOOD TO GREAT: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t. His work has been featured in Fortune, The Economist, Fast Company, USA Today, Industry Week, Business Week, Newsweek, Inc., and Harvard Business Review

12 Brain/Mind Learning Principles in Action: The Fieldbook for Making Connections, Teaching, and the Human Brain by Renate Nummela Caine, Geoffrey Caine, Carol McClintic, and Karl Klimek Finally! The book that demonstrates how to include up to date brain research in your teaching, with practical concrete applications! This new book from Renate and Geoffrey Caine, along with their colleagues Carol McClintic and Karl Klimek will introduce new readers to the Caine's 12 organizing principles for how the brain/mind learns and how to use that information to enhance student learning. For new readers and for those already using the Caine's groundbreaking work in their schools, this fieldbook will add the latest research, emphasizing the critical role of the brain's executive functions. The book makes the learning principles more practical than ever before for classroom and school-wide application. With many of the National Teaching Standards woven throughout, the connections are made between best practices, instructional strategies, and research on how the brain learns.

The Underground History of American Education
by John Taylor Gatto - Our problem in understanding forced schooling stems from an inconvenient fact: that the wrong it does from a human perspective is right from a systems perspective. You can see this in the case of six-year-old Bianca, who came to my attention because an assistant principal screamed at her in front of an assembly, "BIANCA, YOU ANIMAL, SHUT UP!" Like the wail of a banshee, this sang the school doom of Bianca. Even though her body continued to shuffle around, the voodoo had poisoned her.

Breaking Ranks II
A follow-up to the 1996 seminal report Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution, Breaking Ranks II engages principals, teacher leaders, and the entire school community in reforming the American high school into an academically rigorous, personalized learning environment that is improved through collaborative leadership. Where Breaking Ranks I presented a vision of a dramatically different high school for the 21st century, Breaking Ranks II takes a step further by outlining tested strategies for positive change that have proven successful in all types of high school settings.

Ready or Not, Here Life Comes
by Mel Levine "Lives flow with heavy undercurrents, much like the open sea; they undulate through well-timed waves, such as the preschool period, adolescence, and the so-called golden years of late life."

Future Positive
by Edward De Bono - 'The quality of our future will depend on the quality of our thinking' Edward de Bono writes, "We have to make it a deliberate and positive effort to secure a positive future. The call is to arms: not the outmoded arms of gun and bomb but the focused power of human thinking unleashed from its pettiness.' - Penguin synopsis

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
by John Taylor Gatto
No one in America today is better qualified to report on the true condition of our government education system than John Taylor Gatto, the now-famous educator who spent 26 years teaching in six different schools in New York City and quit because he could no longer take part in a system that destroys lives by destroying minds.

Evaluating Professional Development
by Thomas R. Guskey
How do we determine the effects and effectiveness of activities designed to enhance the professional knowledge and skills of educators so that they might improve the learning of students? Thomas R. Guskey explores the processes and procedures involved in evaluating professional development, from the very simple to the very complex, at five increasing levels of sophistication:

• Participants’ reactions to professional development
• How much participants learn
• Evaluating organizational support and change
• How participants use their new knowledge and skills
• Improvement in student learning

. . . complete with sample evaluation forms, checklists, and helpful hints and tips.

Thinking for A Change
by John Maxwell
At the heart of John C. Maxwell's brilliant and inspiring book is a simple premise: To do well in life, we must first think well. But can we actually learn new mental habits? Thinking for a Change answers that with a resounding "yes" -- and shows how changing your thinking can indeed change your life.

Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education
By Peter M. Senge, Nelda H. Cambron McCabe, Timothy Lucas, Art Kleiner, Janis Dutton, Bryan Smith
Written by bestselling author and MIT professor Senge and his Fifth Discipline team, this new addition to The Fifth Discipline Resource Book series offers practical advice for educators, administrators, and parents on how to apply learning organization principles to help strengthen and rebuild schools.

Balanced Leadership, A Working Paper
by McRel (Robert J. Marzano is one of the authors)

Leadership Courage
by David Cottrell & Eric Harvey

The Tipping Point
by Malcom Gladwell
It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.

How Full is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Work and Life
by Tom Rath & Donald Clifton
How did you feel after your last interaction with another person? Did that person -- your spouse, best friend, coworker, or even a stranger -- "fill your bucket" by making you feel more positive? Or did that person "dip from your bucket," leaving you more negative than before?

Preparing Teachers for a Changing World
(edited by Linda Darling-Hammond & John Bransford)
Based on rapid advances in what is known about how people learn and how to teach effectively, this important book examines the core concepts and central pedagogies that should be at the heart of any teacher education program. Stemming from the results of a commission sponsored by the National Academy of Education, Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends the creation of an informed teacher education curriculum with the common elements that represent state-of-the-art standards for the profession. Written for teacher educators in both traditional and alternative programs, university and school system leaders, teachers, staff development professionals, researchers, and educational policymakers, the book addresses the key foundational knowledge for teaching and discusses how to implement that knowledge within the classroom. Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends that, in addition to strong subject matter knowledge, all new teachers have a basic understanding of how people learn and develop, as well as how children acquire and use language, which is the currency of education. In addition, the book suggests that teaching professionals must be able to apply that knowledge in developing curriculum that attends to students’ needs, the demands of the content, and the social purposes of education: in teaching specific subject matter to diverse students, in managing the classroom, assessing student performance, and using technology in the classroom.

Now Discover Your Strengths
by Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton
Marcus Buckingham, co-author of the national bestseller, First, Break All the Rules, and Donald O. Clifton, Chair of the Gallup International Research & Education Center, have created a revolutionary program to help readers identify their talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy consistent, near-perfect performance. At the heart of the book is the Internet-based Clifton StrengthsFinder Profile, the product of a 25-year, multi-million dollar effort to identify the most prevalent human strengths. The program introduces 34 dominant "themes" with thousands of possible combinations, and reveals how they can best be translated into personal and career success. In developing this program, Gallup has conducted psychological profiles with more than two million individuals to help you learn how to focus and perfect these themes.

Building Shared Responsibility for Student Learning
by Anne Conzemius and Jan O’Neill
How does your school define “success”? How can you get everyone—educators, parents, and students—to work together toward that goal? Rather than resorting to top-down mandates or packaged programs, this book describes how schools succeed by creating shared responsibility for student learning throughout the community. Combining theory, research, and practical strategies, the authors describe a framework and process that help you focus diverse constituents on common goals, encourage reflection, and promote collaboration. Stories and examples from actual schools help you empower others to take charge, advance their practice, and make student-centered, data-driven improvement a reality. Plus, numerous tools and techniques help you navigate the various stages of the improvement process and assess how well you’re doing.

The Constructivist Classroom
by Jacqueline Grennon Brooks & Martin G. Brooks

Schooling For Life: Reclaiming the Essence of Learning
by Jacqueline Grennon Brooks

How to Think Like Leonardo daVinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day
by Michael J. Gelb

On Common Ground: The Power of Professional Learning Communities
by Edited by Richard DuFour, Robert Eaker, and Rebecca DuFour

Read material related to the following concepts:

1. Project-based learning

2. Alternative Education

3. Team Teaching
4. Collaborative Teaching
5. Differentiated Learning

6. Alternative Grading (Alfie Kohn is a must read!)

7. Student Led Conferences
8. Learning Communities (Richard DuFour is a leader in this field)

Articles

BEING INTELLIGENT IN TODAY'S WORLD
Modern technology -- from pocket calculators to the Internet -- is radically changing notion of what intelligence is necessary to function in the today's world. "Our environment, because of technology, is changing, and therefore the abilities we need in order to navigate these highly information-laden environments and succeed are changing," says University of North Florida professor Susana Urbina. Driving the shift is the Internet's democratization of information. Anyone can log onto Google and in minutes find sources of information like legal documents or scientific treatises. And gadgets like the Treo or Blackberry make it possible to factor Pi or describe a weather system over the Pacific, but still be unable to recall a phone number without it. "It's true we don't remember anything anymore, but we don't need to," says Palm Computing cofounder Jeff Hawkins. "We might sit around and reminisce about having to remember phone numbers, but it's not a bad thing. It frees us up to think about other things. The brain has a limited capacity; if you give it high-level tools, it will work on high-level problems." Meanwhile, computer pioneer Doug Engelbart is hoping that society's ability to gain insight from information delivered via technology will change the way we tackle issues like arms control and global warming: "The key thing about all the world's big problems is that they have to be dealt with collectively. If we don't get collectively smarter, we're doomed," says Engelbart. (CNet News.com 19 Sep 2005)

TIME TO RETHINK THE HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE - NCSA TODAY ARTICLE - September 2003
By Doug Christensen, Nebraska Commissioner of Education
Our schools are essentially the same as they were 100 years ago. The same is true for our high schools. The last times significant changes were in made in high school, were the first few years immediately after A Nation At Risk. Prior to that, one would have to go back to the late 1950's when Sputnik created a massive rethinking of the math and science curriculum of the high school.

More Than 10,000 Students Take Governors' High School Survey
Contact: John Blacksten, Office of Communications
WASHINGTON--Thousands of high school students across the country made their voices heard May 16-20 during Rate Your Future Week, a part of the National Governors Association's (NGA) drive to overhaul America's high schools. NGA had hoped to survey at least 10,000 students by the end of June, but on Friday, May 20, the 10,000th student logged on to www.rateyourfuture.org to let governors know what is going right and what is going wrong in high schools today.

NGA to 'Honor States' with $2 Million Grants
RFP for the First Phase of High School Redesign State Grants Released
WASHINGTON -- Beginning April 8th, governors committed to redesigning their state's high schools may apply for competitive grants worth up to $2 million as part of the ongoing high school reform efforts of the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices.

Remaking High School
by Kathleen Vail, American School Board Journal, November 2004
Fifty years ago, the American high school was doing fine. Most students weren't headed for college. If they earned a high school diploma, they could land a well-paying job. If they didn't graduate, they could still find good work. "But today it's a disaster," says Tom Vander Ark, director of education for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "A third of American students drop out, half of Hispanic and African Americans drop out. That's a civic, social, and economic disaster."

Critical Studies of Schooling
I’m Emily of strangechord.com. This weblog is my reading journal for an independent study class I’m taking this spring. The objective is to take a critical look at schooling in the U.S. with an eye toward the alternative education models that have arisen like social movements in response.

Learning? Yes, of course. Education? No, thanks.
by Aaron Falbel - IN 1982, A BRITISH INTERVIEWER ASKED JOHN HOLT HOW HE DEFINED the word “education.” He responded: “It’s not a word I personally use. . . . The word 'education' is a word much used, and different people mean different things by it. But on the whole, it seems to me what most people mean by 'education' has got some ideas built into it or contains certain assumptions, and one of them is that learning is an activity which is separate from the rest of life and done best of all when we are not doing anything else, and best of all where nothing else is done—learning places, places especially constructed for learning. Another assumption is that education is a designed process in which some people do things to other people or get other people to do things which will presumably be for their own good. Education means that some A is doing-something to somebody else B. I guess that, basically, is what most people understand education to be about.”

The Flight From America
By Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet. Posted May 31, 2005.
Richard Florida's new book warns that an isolated and hostile post-9/11 America may find itself on the losing end of the global competition for the ultimate economic prize: creative talent.

Look, Ma, No Schoolbooks!
[Wired] 03:10 PM Aug. 18, 2005 PT
VAIL, Arizona -- Students at Empire High School here started class this year with no textbooks -- but it wasn't because of a funding crisis. Instead, the school issued iBooks -- laptop computers by Apple Computer -- to each of its 340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools to shun printed textbooks.

Getting Honest About Graduation Rates: How States Play the Numbers and Students Lose by Daria Hall, The Education Trust, June 2005
The past year has seen unprecedented attention paid to the nation’s public high schools. Faced with stagnant achievement in the secondary grades, declining academic standing among other industrialized nations, and most important, reports from college instructors, employers, and young people themselves that high schools are not preparing students for the expectations that they’ll face once they finish, the nation’s leaders have taken heed and announced plans to transform and improve our high schools. The National Governors Association has produced An Action Agenda for Improving America’s High Schools. The Bush Administration has made high school reform a top priority. Bill Gates has advanced the conversation with his widely publicized statement that “America’s high schools are obsolete,” and has contributed $1.2 billion to the reform effort.

States Raise Bar for High School Diploma
By Lynn Olson - Published: June 22, 2005
It has been less than six months since the nation’s governors gathered for a summit on high schools, and already at least half a dozen states have enacted policies that require students to complete tougher academic programs to earn a diploma.

Rethinking the high school experience
by barbara nordby
BEATRICE - The warning bell rings at 8:10 a.m. at Beatrice High School, a modern two-story building full of skylights, exposed brick and trophies. Chelesy Walters, a sophomore who wants to be a nurse, swings her backpack over her shoulder.

THE REVOLUTIONARY IMPLICATIONS OF EDWARD DE BONO'S LATERAL THINKING
The significance of de Bono's twenty-five year old theory is momentous, universally applicable and dimly realised. Adapted and updated from an article in the London Sunday Times
by Nicholas Berry, 4 October 1992

Examine the National Board Teaching Standards
NBPTS is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization governed by a board of directors, the majority of whom are classroom teachers. Other members include school administrators, school board leaders, governors and state legislators, higher education officials, teacher union leaders and business and community leaders.

Conferences

Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform
Beginning the Conversation
It appears that several states are now putting on their own conferences around Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform. The Colorado Association of School Executives has one in June 2006. The Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators has a workshop in July.

Annual Model Schools Conference
June 25 - June 28, 2006
At the Model Schools Conference, administrators, teachers, and board of education members will join state superintendents/ commissioners, legislative leaders, governor's representatives, and business leaders to learn about the most successful U.S. high schools.

Redesigning American High Schools
July 1-6, 2006 - American High Schools: A Time of Change
High schools in America face profound challenges: unprecedented demographic changes, increased scrutiny from parents and the public, powerful pressures from external accountability systems, and changes in leadership and the composition of the teaching force. In the face of these challenges, however, high schools have been resistant to improvement. The basic features of the American high school—age-graded, departmentalized structures with limited access to high-level learning—have changed little since the nineteenth century, even in the face of relentless criticism.

Building Learning Communities Conference
Main Conference: July 18th through July 20th • Pre-conferences: July 17th
Location: Regis College, Weston, MA
To all who wish to have their thinking about teaching and learning stretched. Building Learning Communities is THE conference for meeting leading-edge thinkers, international leaders in education and colleagues from around the world.

11th Annual Learning Communities and Collaboration Conference
11th Annual Conference on Learning Communities and Collaboration
Bay City, Michigan • November 3-4, 2006