But what makes a good teacher? There have been many quests for the one essential trait, and they have all come up empty-handed. Among the factors that do not predict whether a teacher will succeed: a graduate-school degree, a high score on the SAT, an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, enthusiasm and having passed the teacher-certification exam on the first try. When Bill Gates announced recently that his foundation was investing millions in a project to improve teaching quality in the United States, he added a rueful caveat. “Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn’t have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching,” Gates said. “I’m personally very curious.”

When Doug Lemov conducted his own search for those magical ingredients, he noticed something about most successful teachers that he hadn’t expected to find: what looked like natural-born genius was often deliberate technique in disguise. “Stand still when you’re giving directions,” a teacher at a Boston school told him. In other words, don’t do two things at once. Lemov tried it, and suddenly, he had to ask students to take out their homework only once.

Fascinating article. Watch the video too.

[via Sanford Shapiro]

The iPad is a natural for these kinds of books and activities. This is a mock up of some ideas for interactive books and learning tools for the iPad. Great stuff.

[via Sanford Shapiro]

A private equity firm took over the debt Leibovitz owed the loan organization that fronted her $24 million in exchange for signing over the rights to all her past, current, and future work.

So, she’s still under the thumbs of money men but these money men are helping her market her work and no doubt have a piece of the action as well as the debt.

This is no doubt a common story in the art, music, and performance world, it’s just that the scale is bigger here.

My flickr contact roddh got a shot of a fisher in a tree in his backyard. They can be pretty fierce little animals.

Tyson Robichaud goes wild with a Panasonic GF1 and a load of Canon lenses. Fantastic post.

Fantastic, and if they can build it, people will come.

This mock up reminds me of Apple’s concept movie of a future Knowledge Navigator done in 1987. More on the history of Apple’s project here.

[via Daring Fireball]

Jason Hawkes shows images of New York City and Las Vegas at night shot with a Nikon D3S from a helicopter. Fantastic.

My friend Mamen documents the Holi (festival of colors) last year at Stanford.

Ed Kashi’s images of daily life in modern Syria are incredible.

Do you like going to Syria?

It’s a funny thing. I do like the idea of going there. There are moments where I actually like being there. But in general, I find it to be a bit of a frustrating and almost depressing place because you’re so close to having it be a cool place. It’s interesting. It’s colorful. People are lovely. There’s so many interesting things. But ultimately, that heavy arm of security apparatus, that paranoia, that mistrust – it sort of hangs in the air. If it doesn’t poison, it really detracts from the experience there.

Warren, Connecticut. My friend Zarinna had a bowl full of these flowers floating in water. What a great idea and the water made for a great "armature" to hold the flowers upright for shooting.

Hellebore on wikipedia.