Welcome to the midway of the 151st edition of The Carnival of Education! Here's the very latest roundup of entries from around the EduSphere. Unless clearly labeled otherwise, all entries this week were submitted by the writers themselves.Folks interested in hosting an edition of the C.O.E. should please let Edwonk know via this email address: owlshome [at] earthlink [dot] net.Thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about last week's midway, which was hosted over at The Education Wonks. Visit the C.O.E.'s early archives here and later archives there.

Next Week's Carnival will be hosted by So You Want to Teach? Contributors are invited to send submissions to: joel [at] soyouwanttoteach [dot] com, or, easier yet, use this handy submission form. Entries should be received no later than 6:00 PM (Eastern) 3:00 PM (Pacific) on Tuesday, January 1, 2008. Please include the title of your post, and its URL, if possible. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the midway should open Wednesday, January 2, 2008.

The Legalities of Education

Can students take pictures of you and place them on the Internet or release them to the press?Ms. Cornelius presents Smile, Teach! It's Candid Camera! posted at A Shrewdness of Apes.

Are schools losing the ability to make rules? Do you think it is because they have been abusing their authority? Give Judy an answer after you read her post Tiggers Are Wonderful Things After All posted at Consent Of The Governed.

Accountability and Discipline

In short, we want high standards, we want high expectations, we want students to behave and learn. But at the same time, we don't want to look bad when the students don't meet expectations. We worry about the self-esteem of students to the point that we don't expect high performance or adherence even to a dress code. That’s just a snippet from Matt Johnston’s presentation which is an interesting look at expectations titled Going to the Mat: The Tragedy of Education posted at Going to the Mat.

The Tempered Radical tackles a tough topic this week---what exactly should be taken into account when designing school accountability models that promote the kinds of teaching and learning necessary to advance America's future.

Tom Kim examines the tension between a lecture on The Pressured Child and the Status of American Education in the documentary Two Million Minutes in his post Two Million Minutes of the Pressured Child

After reading Breaking the Code of Silence I have to agree with Chanman…..the code of silence isn’t just for prison or the ghetto.

NYCEducator was shocked to read that teacher unions oppose NCLB, and that democractic candidates for president are opposing it as well. Are you surprised that NCLB could be left behind?

Maybe success isn't all it's cracked up to be. Maybe the obsession with superficial success is driving wisdom out of education. Diana presents in praise of failure.

A comment to an older post got The Science Goddess wondering about grades and the grading process. Check out her post Medians on the Mind and Number Crunching.

The Science of Learning

Rightwingprof says, “The only thing more over-rated in education than teacher creativity is student creativity.” Hmmm…..content or creativity? Read Rightwingprof’s post Your Inner Grandfather posted at Right Wing Nation.

Recently a scientist on the importance on mental exercise and lifelong learning for healthy aging stated, "What matters is being engaged with life, continually exposed to stimulating activities, always trying to get out of our comfort zones, doing our best at whatever we are doing. A major typical misconception is that there is only one general intelligence to care about. In reality, we have many different cognitive abilities, such as attention, memory, language, reasoning, and more, so it makes sense to have different programs designed to train and improve each of them." Alvaro Fernandez presents Brain Training: No Magic Bullet, Yet Useful Tool. Interview with Elizabeth Zelinski posted at SharpBrains.

Check out this review of a recent study that examines Reduced Verbal Ability in African American Children posted at Greg Laden's Blog.

Thoughts on Teaching and Ideas to Snag

Pat presents A Teacher Who Inspired Me posted at Successful Teaching.

Kilroy_60 wants all educators to realize that education is very much an individualized process and there are many paths to success. Check out his post Fear and Loathing in Academia.

Fun, personal, interactive, and easy to particpate….The description of a great lesson, right? Mathew Needleman presents My Favorite Interactive Advertising Sites of the Year posted at Creating Lifelong Learners.

Sometimes we just need a different prospective…it’s how we look at things.
Batya presents Different Perspectives posted at me-ander.

J.M. Holland presents a post mentioned in Alexander Russo's speed read recently titled Save Humpty Dumpty! posted at Circle Time "Lead From The Start".

Larry Ferlazzo shares, “This HRW website now appears to be functioning well for the first time in a year, and has extraordinary online activities for geography and history.” Head on over here and also check out Larry’s Best Social Studies Websites for 2007. You know I’m already there!

Concerns: Dealing with the Bureaucracy of Education

Woodlass over at Under Assault: Teaching in NYC gives us The Zen of Being an ATR (day- to- day sub) followed by HR (Human Resources) Connects or Does It? How she and other ATRs haven’t pulled their hair out I simply do not know.

EdWonk presents Inflation.... It's Baaack! posted at The Education Wonks.

General Thoughts
My Bellringers presents From Podless to Podness posted at Bellringers.

Parenting and Child Guidance

Christine presents Choosing a French Lycee (High School) for Your Child posted at Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France.

Lori Prokop Keyboard Culture Co-Founder presents Do Your Children Have Negative Self-talk? posted at Dr. Paula Fellingham Stay at Home Mom Expert at Keyboard Culture Expert Community.

Everything College….Choosing a Career Path, Paying for College, and the Writing in College

Carrie Kirby presents Paying for College: Rays of Hope posted at Parenting Squad.

Have a profesion you can be proud of….Alex M presents Have a Profession You Can Be Proud Of posted at Online education: schools, colleges and universities distance learning.

The Digital Student presents Top 7 College Application Mistakes posted at The Digital Student Blog.

So much has been said about college application essays. This is because the subject is relatively quite critical. And yet neither applicants nor their parents seem to give this the attention that it merits. Many candidates believe that their high SAT and good grades will turn the trick for them. Often this does not happen. The reason for this is that hundreds, if not thousands of candidates also have high SAT scores and exemplary grades. In situations such as this it is the quality of the application essay tips the scales. Alex presents College Application Essays - Tips to Do It Right posted at Customessays.co.uk Blog: guide on how to write essays, courseworks, dissertations, assignments. Essay help, Dissertation Assistance, GCSE Coursework.

Also from CustomEssays.co.uk:

The Importance of a Quality Application Essay
An Essay to Analyze Ideas
An Exploratory Essay Explained
Research Paper Format
PhD Dissertation

Ending the Way We Began…With a Mention of Creativity

Andrew Edgington presents a couple of tutorials regarding techniques on how to create some nice borders for your images and using the old photo effects in Create Cool Photo Edges with Photoshop and Andrew also presents Old Photo Effect in Photoshop posted at David Peters.

And finally: This, like nearly all of our journeys around the EduSphere, has been both enjoyable and informative. We continue to thank all the contributors whose submissions make the midway's continuing success possible, the folks who give of their time to help spread the word, and the readers who continue to make it A Free Exchange of Thoughts and Ideas.

Labels: education carnival