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"he sound of activity echoes throughout the classroom. I find myself engaged in a small-group conversation around the igneous rocks that the students in this group are holding. Remembering that shortly before that conversation I'd been about to redirect some students, I quickly scan the room searching for off-task behavior. To my delight, I find that a wide array of learning is taking place. In one corner, I see students watching a video and typing online reflections. In the other corner, I see students comparing their drawings on the rock cycle. This is what a good day built on learning centers looks like. As teachers strive to find ways of promoting key success skills while making use of limited resources, learning centers can be an invaluable tool in the secondary classroom. In addition, learning centers provide time-strapped teachers with opportunities for meaningful formative assessment that helps drive the classroom instruction. What are some strategies that secondary teachers can use to successfully launch learning centers in their classrooms?"

"This past Friday, my wife (@sfryer) and I facilitated a full-day, hands-on workshop about ways to use iPads in the classroom with students to "show what they know with media." 164 teachers participated in the workshop, which was held in two adjacent ballrooms of the Alumni Center at Kansas State University. The event, iCamp iPad Day, was hosted by the College of Education at Kansas State (@ksucollegeofed) and organized by Cyndi Danner Kuhn (@cyndidannerkuhn). The workshop included many elements of iPad Media Camp (@iPadMediaCamp), a 3 day workshop I've offered in the summertime the past four years. During the planning stages for "iCamp iPad Day," Shelly and I discussed the different sharing options we wanted to model for participants and encourage them to use. We decided to use the term "INSIDE SHARING" for the private sharing we'd do during the workshop using SeeSaw. We decided to use the term "OUTSIDE SHARING" for public sharing on Twitter using our #iCampKSU hashtag and other open websites. In this post, I'll explain why both inside and outside digital sharing are important, and how we can use these terms with students, teachers, parents and others to advocate for SHARING AS A MORAL IMPERATIVE (hat tip to Dean Shareski @shareski)."

"That computer mouse that fits so nicely in your hand, the way your iPhone reacts to your creative way of spelling, the "so simple why didn't I think of that?" processes you encounter every day -- these are the result of design thinking, a sequential process embraced by innovative companies and entrepreneurs. Design thinking, or human-centered design, is an empowering way to solve problems and design products and solutions by starting with discovery, moving on to ideation and rapid prototyping, then testing, and finally execution. How can this high-level, innovative style of problem solving work in a classroom or after-school program? Quite well, actually. The West Michigan Center for Arts + Technology (WMCAT) engages urban high school students in a best-practice after-school program that is grounded in design thinking. I'll share our journey so that you can find ways to enhance your own learning environment through design thinking. "

"24% of teens go online "almost constantly," facilitated by the widespread availability of smartphones. Aided by the convenience and constant access provided by mobile devices, especially smartphones, 92% of teens report going online daily - including 24% who say they go online "almost constantly," according to a new study from Pew Research Center. More than half (56%) of teens - defined in this report as those ages 13 to 17 - go online several times a day, and 12% report once-a-day use. Just 6% of teens report going online weekly, and 2% go online less often."

"Just as a teacher has to create conditions that support and encourage student success, school districts have to support teachers' professional development. Today, professional development runs the gamut from one-shot workshops to more intensive job-embedded professional development, which has teachers learn in the day-to-day environment in which they work rather than getting pulled out to attend an outside training. However, the National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education report, "Teaching the Teachers," notes that most professional development today is ineffective because it neither changes teaching practices nor improves student learning."

"You want to engage learners, and it should be easy, right? Of course, inspiring every student to interact with assignments and lessons is a teacher's most imposing challenge. This infographic, from teacher Jeni Day, outlines four amazingly easy ways to engage learners. Day adds practical tips for evaluating learning, which we find brilliant because they are student centered and involve meaningful feedback."

"Here we go again. Some of you might say I am some sort of glutton for punishment, but it's time to start a new 30 Days With project. I am typing this in the iWork Pages app on an iPad 2 because this month I am spending 30 Days With the iPad."

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"When Jennifer Lanier began working as a media specialist at Summit Parkway Middle School in South Carolina's Richland School District Two, the school library looked like one most of us remember from our own school days. "There were large heavy tables and chairs with shelves lining all walls," she says.  "It was a very fixed space."  After a period of intensive research, she was ready to make some major changes. "My library is now split into two main sections," Lanier explains, "with the circulation desk as the dividing point.  I focused on renovating the back half first.  This would become the Creative Commons area.  I removed the shelves from the corner, purchased six tall mobile tables, a few stools, six white boards, and twenty beanbag cubes." The idea, Lanier explains, was not to set up the tables, stools and cubes ahead of time but, rather, to leave the furniture out of the way and let users (both students and staff members) grab it and reconfigure the space to meet their needs.  "The arrangement of the space does not dictate the way collaboration is carried out; instead the collaboration can freely flow in the direction it takes.  Users can gather around on the cubes to discuss an idea.  They can break out to a project table and visualize it on a white board.  The simple act of moving allows the brain to be more creative." "

"Our initial reaction when seeing the following infographic from Mia MacMeekin was to think about instructional design rather than classroom management. That is, work backwards from a student-centered, inquiry-based, self-directed, and inherently personalized learning model where students, while plugged in to relevant digital and physical communities and working closely with mentors and peers, solved important and authentic problems through a mix of design, creativity, and macro critical thinking. Then we awoke from our naps, wiped the drool from our lips, and realized that for many teachers, the reality they face each day is very traditional:"

"The first day of tinkering was just awesome. Within a matter of minutes, Kearn had the MaKey MaKey connected to Play Doh and was controlling a train simulator on the computer. Ludwig controlled the horn and Kearn drove the train. Kearn wanted to make a video to show what he had done, so we pulled out an iPad and made an impromptu video which he wanted to add to his Youtube channel. He also started following my blog and even left a comment about how much he loves the makerspace. Both students were completely independent and were perfectly capable of dreaming, tinkering, and making on their own. I was available for support as needed, but they really just wanted a space to explore. As they continue, I want to connect them with some experts that might mentor their ideas and curiosities, but for now, they just need to tinker. "

"When I attend yoga classes, the instructor guides participants through a series of poses. An outsider unfamiliar with yoga might think the class was instructor-directed, with everyone moving through poses as they are called out. The truth is that people add or subtract movements based on their comfort, drive, and current capabilities. (My favorite is Child's Pose to catch my breath before rejoining the flow of movements.) This culture where participants shape the class along with the instructor is something I've found in every yoga class that I've attended. Education culture can be just as powerful when students, like yoga class participants, are encouraged to help shape what and how learning takes place every day. It requires teachers to view what students can do alongside us. I already explored this in Student-Centered Learning: It Starts With the Teacher. There are many tools for establishing a culture of student voice. Here are some that are easy to implement as you launch your students' journey."

"The big day was upon us. Hundreds of man-hours of preparation. Thousands of dollars invested in equipment and supplies. An untested, unproven design incorporating materials not usually found in schools. How would students react? Would we achieve our objective: creating a student-centered, flexible learning space that inspires creativity, curiosity, and wonder?"

"How many schools and how many classrooms allow student choice? And, in adult-centered spaces, how often do young people have the opportunity to make important decisions? Our mainstream educational machine is fueled by the idea that adults know best-that adults must impart their knowledge to prepare students for a demanding world. Our responsibility as teachers is to teach students for their own good…a "good" that more and more of us are having difficulty understanding. We teach students addition and multiplication facts because some day they will need to calculate very quickly…a tip at a restaurant or a bill at the grocery store in case their smartphone runs out of batteries. We teach them to write a five paragraph essay on the theme of a book because they will need those writing skills when…writing an argument to dispute a lawsuit. We teach them how to conjugate "to be" in Spanish because it might save their life…at a fruit stand in South America. While we are preparing them for possible situations, should these situations define the entirety of the direction of their education? I propose that we introduce some choice and some unknown into the situation of school. What if we allow students to make choices about what they learn, how they learn, and when they learn? In a way, 1:1 iPad programs are sparking choice whether we're OK with it or not."

"Shhh! You're in the library! As the great-granddaughter of a librarian, I was brought up to know that the quiet of the library was sacred space. Fast-forward 30 years. In the media centers of the Cherokee County, Georgia schools, where I train as an instructional technology specialist, quiet is no longer the chief value. Instead, makerspaces are bringing books to life, and the new mantra is, "Innovate, create, collaborate." Many media specialists still struggle with this transformation from silent reading space to innovative makerspace; with that in mind, I interviewed six women who seamlessly flow from rockin' librarians to Creative Directors of Making in the same day to ask how they do it."

"As both a teacher and administrator, I often heard from parents whose children were exceptionally good at math. "My daughter already knows how to multiply four-digit numbers, so third grade math is too easy for her. She needs to be accelerated." There's lots of research to support acceleration as a strategy for gifted learners. The Acceleration Institute, part of the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa, recently produced a report entitled "A Nation Empowered" which details the enormous benefits to accelerating a student when he or she is performing well above grade level. Researcher Jonathan Wei of Duke University says, "All students deserve to learn something new each day." In math, the obvious way to learn something new is to accelerate the instruction, letting the student go on to the next topic or grade level. But "learn something new" is not the same as "learn the next thing on the district's scope and sequence.""

"How do you know if something you read is true? Why should you care? We pose these questions this week in honor of News Engagement Day on Oct. 6, and try to answer them with resources from The Times as well as from Edutopia, the Center for News Literacy, TEDEd and the Newseum. Although we doubt we need to convince teachers that this skill is important, we like the way Peter Adams from the News Literacy Project frames it in a post for Edutopia. As he points out, every teacher is familiar with "digital natives" and the way they seem to have been born with the ability to use technology. But what about "digital naïveté" - when students trust sources of information that are obviously unreliable?"

"Most teenagers in the United States start the school day too early each morning, robbing them of the sleep they need to concentrate properly and remain healthy, according to a study. Fewer than one in five middle and high schools in the United States start at 8:30 am or later, as recommended, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has found that adolescents are biologically programmed to stay asleep longer than adults."

"This is part 1 in our #iteachthought campaign. This is our equivalent to "back to school," and is intended to help you focus in the 2015-2016 school year on taking a thoughtful approach to your craft as a teacher. Among these shifts we'll talk about is turning our focus from content and teaching to thinkers and thinking. This is a student-centered approach to pedagogy (and heautagogy), and will consist of four parts: Part 1: Classroom Setups That Promote Thinking Part 2: Learning Profiles: What Great Teachers Know About Their Students Part 3: 50 Questions To Ask Your Students On The First Day Of School Part 4: Getting The Best Work From Your Students"