“The action briefs [give] school leaders a deeper understanding of the [Common Core State Standards] and spell out the leaders’ critical role in implementation. Based on feedback from school leaders who expressed a need for more guidance, the action briefs outline strategies and techniques that can be used … by school leaders to prepare their schools, teachers, and students for the standards and upcoming new assessments,” said Achieve’s director of content and instructional supports, Doug Sovde.

Achieve developed the guidance in partnership with College Summit, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the National Association of Elementary School Principals, with support from the MetLife Foundation.

All are available at no charge in the “Publications”  section at www.achieve.org.

For instance, Digital Wish works with technology manufacturers to negotiate ed-tech discounts for teachers. Current deals include two Trio Stealth 7-inch Android tablets with cases and internet cards for $220; a USB document camera for $79; refurbished Dell laptops and desktops starting at $229; and a $100 matching grant for Elmo document cameras. Users can check out the website’s current deals here.

What’s more, Digital Wish includes free lesson plans, and the organization recently launched a new volunteer matching service that connects teachers with “expert” volunteers by video conference.

As schools implement the new standards, two multi-state consortia—the Partnership for the Assessment of College and Career Readiness (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium—are developing next-generation assessment systems aligned with the Common Core. Schools in participating states can expect to administer these new tests beginning in the 2014-15 school year. One important feature shared by both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessment systems is that the tests will be technology-delivered.

At least 33 states currently administer one or more state tests online; however, for many schools and districts, the shift to computer-based assessment will be new.

“Policy makers and education leaders must undertake a proactive, systems [-based] approach to addressing school technology needs for the long term,” said Douglas Levin, SETDA’s executive director. “To meet present and future technology needs, any realistic approach must consider curricular, instructional, assessment, professional development, and school operations goals.”

To download the new guidance as a PDF, click here. The file is also available on the “Assessment Readiness” page of SETDA’s website, which contains additional information about the new online tests.

Educators around the world are using this free website to create more interactive lesson materials, to “flip” their classroom—or to have students create their own projects.

Authoring what the site calls “four-dimensional stories” occurs via a few simple prompts on an intuitive interface, and users can share their creations online and via social media when they’re finished.

http://www.meograph.com/education

In the new Clubhouse, students can look through the porthole in the floor to see pictures of Earth taken from space; read about why NASA explores; play a game about what astronauts eat in space; discover what their age and weight would be on a moon or another planet; see color pictures of wildlife living on NASA centers; assemble a polygon featuring NASA aircraft; and check out the “hot spots” that come to life upon contact.

In addition to these many games, the site’s “Now in Space” area provides current and past information about the astronauts on the International Space Station—and the “More Pictures” section contains incredible NASA images.

NASA Kids’ Club is an award-winning educational website designed for children in kindergarten through fourth grade. Content is based on education standards and designed to engage young children in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“We created this from scratch, so we’re pioneers in that respect,” says Craig Wilson, headmaster of UM Global Academy (UMGA), the online high school based out of the University of Miami’s Division of Continuing and International Education. “We recognized a need to help high school students prepare for college, and we wanted to use the MOOC model to give them that opportunity without having to worry about going through a pay-for-preparation aspect.”

About 200 high school students, some as far away as China, were enrolled as of press time to take UMGA’s “MOOC SAT BIO” course via Skype and an electronic classroom platform. The class will air live, allowing students to pose questions in real time—a rarity for a MOOC, according to Wilson.

Taught by UMGA lead science instructor Jennifer Taylor, the course will be offered once a semester and will prepare students for the SAT subject test in biology administered by the College Board. Depending on the success of the course, UMGA might offer other MOOC test prep courses in the near future, Wilson said.

The inaugural version of the course began Nov. 26 and ends Dec. 14. Sessions also be recorded for students who have missed any session, officials said.

For more information or to register, go to http://www.umga.miami.edu/mooc.

Run by the Beckman Institute’s Imaging Technology Group (ITG) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Bugscope helps teachers give their students the chance to become scientists: The kids propose experiments, explore insect specimens at high magnification, and discuss what they see with university scientists—all from a regular web browser over a standard broadband internet connection.

Here’s how it works: Teachers sign up, ask their students to find some bugs, and mail them to ITG, which then schedules a session and prepares the bugs for insertion into the electron microscope. When your session time arrives, ITG puts the bugs into the microscope and sets it up for your classroom. Then, you and your students log in over the web and control the microscope. ITG scientists are available via chat to guide you and answer students’ questions. After your session, you can return to the website to view every chat line, image, and sample you—and every other classroom—has collected.

Bugscope has been active since 1999 and has supported about 300 sessions with more than 200 schools. The website recently was added to FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence), the Education Department’s collection of more than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources.

http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/

The website provides adult educators with access to resources; on-demand, web-based professional development opportunities, including online courses and targeted face-to-face trainings; and a connected network of practitioners. LINCS also offers specialized tools, including the ability for adult educators across the country to engage in real-time discussions.

The new and improved website offers a collection of high-quality, evidence-based online resources for adult educators and other practitioners within the adult education system. One of the site’s key features is the “LINCS Community,” which includes 16 topic-area groups. These virtual community groups provide an opportunity for those in the field to engage in topic-specific networking and information sharing activities. By engaging in a group, educators are able to share and obtain real-time answers to peer-driven questions based on their collective professional experiences.

“We want adult educators to use LINCS to improve their practice and connect with peers and experts. We believe that a professionalized teaching workforce and high-quality professional development are key to improving program effectiveness and raising student outcomes so that more adults can complete college or training,” said Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education Brenda Dann-Messier.

http://lincs.ed.gov

http://constitutioncenter.org/constitution/

The 17-part video series kicked off in September with interviews of five authors: Peter Brown, Doreen Cronin, Jeff Kinney, Daniel Kirk, and Mo Willems. Featuring the writers of New York Times bestselling and Newbery Award-winning titles, the “Writers Speak to Kids,” series will feature a wide variety of additional authors throughout the fall, including Nick Bruel, Michael Buckley, Douglas Florian, Amy Ignatow, Gordon Korman, Ridley Pearson, Judy Schachner, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Philip C. Stead, Rebecca Stead, Clare Vanderpool, and Jacqueline Woodson.

“Writers Speak to Kids” is a free resource that can be found at www.nbclearn.com/writersspeak. NBC Learn also makes a much larger collection of “Writers Speak” interviews available to its subscribers at http://archives.nbclearn.com.