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Charter schools’ freedom to set and enforce their own discipline rules has raised concerns among educators, policymakers, and parents, who worry that strict policies may push students out of some schools for minor infractions. To examine those practices, Education Week analyzed national and district-level data on student expulsions and suspensions and tracked efforts in some urban districts to establish uniform disciplinary standards for charters and regular public schools. - See more at: http://edudemic.com/2013/02/how-traditional-and-charter-schools-handle-discipline/#sthash.0CGbPpNZ.dpuf

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We are seeing a big push into interactive publishing. From iPads to Chromebooks to mobile devices … the future of books is a hot topic right now. There are places like Boundless offering free customized open source textbooks and even textbook publishers building entire iTunes U for classes. The book of the future is being written right now, it seems.

In the above video, design consultancy IDEO shares their vision for the future of the book. It’s an interesting take on what the new experience of reading might entail.

If you’re like most connected educators and students out there, you’ve got a blog. You’ve got a little digital place called home that you wish more people would visit. There’s more to getting the word out than just publishing and wishing. There’s SEO, social media, commenting, links, pinning, liking, guest posting, tweeting, the list goes on …

Lucky for you, the fine folks over at Launch Grow Joy have published a fabulous boiled-down cheat sheet for bloggers. It details quite a few useful ways to help you grow and promote your blog. From using your current contacts to reaching out to fellow bloggers, the tips in the below infographic are important to know.

Whether you’re a seasoned blogger or not, these tips should help you on your path to blogging glory! (Note: blogging glory is a relative term and actual glory may vary)

Well…Are you asking me if you have to try? If you have to participate? If you will have to do any work to succeed? If you view that as ‘hard’ then it will be. However if you participate in activities, try your best to complete assignments, work with others when asked to and open your mind to trying something new…it might not be as ‘hard’ as you think.

Teach your Monster to Read: First Steps is a new, free game to help children practise the first steps of reading with fun phonics games..

The site combines fun games with essential learning. The game is built on the principles of synthetic phonics and follows the teaching sequence of the Letters and Sounds programme. It has been assessed by reading experts at the University of Roehampton.

It’s a fun looking site with some lovely graphical touches, and the games are clear and simple to access. For example in the game below children use the mouse to help the monster herd the sheep into the correct sound – in this case CK.

Read more http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2013/02/teach-your-monster-to-read/

n an unplanned series of sorts, we’re showcasing a couple of posts about the 2013 NMC/EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Horizon Report for Higher Education. We’ve already talked about the key trends in the report, but it also addressed another important topic when it comes to classroom technology – the challenges involved with implementing new technologies.

The Horizon Report identified six broad challenges to implementation which span the widest range of users – while recognizing that there are many significant local barriers that present their own challenges as well. They’ve taken some of the obvious issues such as financial limitations and physical limitations (getting wifi through the thick bunker-like walls of some 1940′s buildings, for example) and looked more specifically at the nature of higher education and how that presents challenges to implementing new technology.