Adam Simpson will be the host of the next ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival on March 1st, and has written an excellent post describing its theme of “Flow”:

What I’m looking for in your entries for the next blog carnival are those moments in your class when the students were utterly absorbed by the task in which they were involved.

It also has a video there of a great example of what he’s talking about….

Any blog post sharing a time when you had that experience in your class is welcome.

Send the link to your post directly to him or to me.

David Deubelbeiss posted The 26th EFL / ESL / ELL Blog Carnival last week. Bloggers from all around the world contributed posts connected to the theme of “fun.”

Dani Lyra will be hosting the May 1st edition.

Sharon Turner will be the host for the July 1st edition.

Let me know if you might be interested in hosting future editions.

You can see all the previous editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.

Go To Parent/Teacher Conferences Or Get Your TANF Benefits Cut-Off, Says D.C. Council Member is the title of a new post I’ve written at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School.

You might be interested in reading about this awful idea to increase parent involvement….

I sent out my free monthly email newsletter this week to about 2,000 subscribers.

If you’re interested, you can subscribe to it here.

Because of the holiday craziness, David Deubelbeiss has extended the deadline to contribute posts to the next ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival.

The submission deadline is now January 31st, and the Carnival will be published on February 1st.

You can get all the information at Enter the next blog carnival!

The Sacramento Bee has just unveiled a very accessible database showing the average salary in each School District in California, along with that district’s Superintendent’s salary (ahem, there’s a bit of a difference).

It doesn’t include benefits, so it doesn’t tell the entire story, but it’s interesting, nevertheless.

I sent out my free monthly email newsletter this week to about 2,000 subscribers.

If you’re interested, you can subscribe to it here.

As regular readers know, I’m an enthusiastic supporter of teachers make home visits, and the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project.

Over at my other blog, I’ve just published a report on a recent Parent Teacher Home Visit Project national conference and have made new additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Teacher Home Visits.

My Eye On Education Webinar about Student Motivation and Classroom Engagement seemed to go very well this afternoon. Thanks to everybody who participated!

It will be available free for a “limited time” (I’m not quite sure for how long), so you can watch, listen, and download the hand-outs (including several lesson plans) after registering here. The chat was pretty interesting, too, and the full chat log is included in the hand-outs.

If you participated in it today, or if you’re going to watch it at anytime, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section here….

Just a final reminder — over four hundred people are registered, and there’s room for more…..

Eye On Education is sponsoring a free one hour webinar on December 13th, 4:30 PM Eastern Time, with me to discuss Student Motivation & Classroom Management. You can learn more about the Webinar, and register for it, here.

EOE are the publishers of my last book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges, and its upcoming sequel. They also graciously provide a choice of free books to educators whose questions I respond to in my Education Week Teacher advice column.

I’ll be discussing specific ways to help students develop intrinsic motivation “on the spot,” as well as lesson plans that combine literacy instruction with long-term strategies to “help students motivate themselves.” I’ll also be covering positive classroom management issues, including dealing with immediate issues and, again, lessons plans to use as building blocks for a classroom community of learners.

I won’t be “blabbing” the entire time, and there will be several periods built-in for questions and discussion. It should be fun!

I hope you’ll join me….

I thought readers might, or might not, be interested in hearing about some things I’ll be up to over the next few months (in addition to teaching and playing basketball):

* I’ll be doing a free one-hour Webinar on December 13th on Student Motivation and Classroom Management for the publisher of my last book, Eye On Education.

* The 100,000 word book that my colleague Katie Hull and I are writing, The ESL Teacher’s Survival Guide, is going through final edits and will be published by Jossey-Bass in the summer.  I think educators might find it very helpful.

* I’m working on a sequel to my last book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves:Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges. That should be published by Eye On Education in early 2013.

* The weekly teacher advice column I’m writing for Education Week Teacher is going strong and has been a lot of fun. Feel free to leave any question related to education that you’d like to ask in the comments section of this post. Thanks again to Eye On Education for giving free books to people who’s questions I use.

* ASCD Educational Leadership will be publishing an article I’ve written on teaching reading to English Language Learners. It’ll be in their March issue on reading.

* I’m working with The New York Times Learning Network on a guest post about student motivation for early in 2012.

* I’ll be leading two workshops at the Colorado Council International Reading Association Annual Conference On Literacy in February.

I’ll keep you posted….

There are now 816 categorized “The Best…” lists.

That’s a lot of lists….

You can find them categorized by subject here.

They are listed chronologically here.

The best way to find one that you’re looking for is to go to one of those two pages, hit “control F” on your keyboard, and then type in a key word.

Their original post date is generally not that important, since I continuously revise and update most of them.

I’ve got quite a few more “The Best…” lists on my “to do” list, though I doubt I’ll publish them quite as frequently as I have done in the past. It’s a pretty big job just to keep the ones I have updated. And writing my books and my Education Week Teacher column are all taking up a fair amount of time, too — not to mention teaching, family and playing basketball!

All sense of proportion and insight leaves New York Times columnist David Brooks whenever he writes about education (and, more recently, Occupy Wall Street).

However, he periodically hits a home run when he tackles other topics. He did so today in his new column, The Life Reports II.

He shares extraordinary life advice he’s gleaned from readers. It’s well worth visiting and sharing….

I’ve just sent-out the latest issue of my free monthly email newsletter.

You can subscribe to it here.

Here are the newest additions to The Best Sites To Learn & Teach About Thanksgiving:

Here’s a CNN video about the Traditions of Thanksgiving (it might not show in an RSS Reader)

Researchers are working hard to build a better turkey is from MSNBC. If you scroll to the bottom of that page, you’ll see a slideshow on the “Science of Thanksgiving.”

Millions Savor Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade is a video from MSNBC:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: A Look Back is a slideshow from ABC News.

Thanksgiving during tough times is a CBS News slideshow.

I’ve just revised and updated The Best Places To Learn About Christmas, Hanukkah, & Kwanzaa.

Feel free to offer additional suggestions, and I’m sure that list will be getting longer in the coming weeks.

The NY Times’ Tom Friedman On Parent Involvement is a new post at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School.

You might find it interesting/useful.

Today’s Dilbert comic strip wondered about the definition of “curation”:

The characters obviously didn’t read The Best Posts & Articles About Curation!

I just sent out my free monthly email newsletter. You can see this month’s issue, and all previous issues, here. It has about 1,500 subscribers.

You can subscribe to it here.

Access to the entire Education Week site is free during their “Open House” from October 26th to October 30th.

Ordinarily, a fair number of their articles are always available (including my column), and more are accessible with free registration. But some of their best stuff is often behind a paywall, so this is a good opportunity to check the whole site out.

A federal court today blocked schools from checking the immigration status of students. Unfortunately, the court allowed other aspects of the law to stand. You can read all about it in The New York Times’ article, Mixed Ruling on Alabama Immigration Law.

I’ll add it to The Best Resources To Learn About Alabama’s Awful Immigration Law (& Its Impact On Schools).