To celebrate the release of the National Education Policy Center's Bunkum Awards for 2011, P.L. Thomas gives us an update on the continuing tragedy that is the National Council on Teacher Quality that only affirms the growing belief among many that the days are numbered for the majority of Colleges of Education as well as affirming my own decision to broaden/transition my work and research to other fields. However, it was this little gem of an article at Ed Week that really made my day...

Two researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created a robotic teacher that can gauge students' level of attention and use some of the same techniques as human teachers to bring it back, according to the United Kingdom-based New Scientist. The researchers, Bilge Mutlu and Dan Szafir, have been testing whether a robot teacher could help boost how much students retain from lessons.