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" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

"For me DS106 was an amazing learning experience. I enrolled in this free, online Digital Storytelling class, hosted at the University of Mary Washington, in the Spring of 2012. Jim Groom and Alan Levine (aka "cogdog") were the instructors who introduced me to a completely new style of authentic learning."

Most schools were built upon the idea that knowledge and teachers are scarce. When you have limited access to information and you want to deliver what you do have to every citizen in an age with little communication technology, you build what schools are today: age-grouped, discipline-separated classrooms run by an expert adult who can manage the successful completion of the curriculum by a hundred or so students at a time. We mete out that knowledge in discrete parts, carefully monitoring students progress through one-size-fits all assessments, deeming them "educated" when they have proven their mastery at, more often than not, getting the right answer and, to a lesser degree, displaying certain skills that show a "literacy" in reading and writing. Most of us know these systems intimately, and for 120 years or so, they've pretty much delivered what we've asked them to.

"One of the most important skills of the 21st century - web literacy - is often overlooked in the classroom. The ability to read, write and participate online is an indispensable skill for learners, but it's curiously absent from many educators' curricula. At Mozilla, we believe web literacy should be a cornerstone of education. When students can create their own content on the Web, tinker with HTML, and understand the basics of online privacy, they're empowered to do great things. We also believe web literacy is best taught through hands-on, interactive learning. We've just wrapped up Maker Party, Mozilla's annual celebration of teaching and learning the Web through hands-on activities. But Maker Parties can be held anywhere, anytime. And our resources for teaching web literacy are free and open source, always. To kickstart web literacy learning in your classroom - or outside of it - here are six tools and activities from Maker Party for teaching critical 21st-century skills:"

CORE Education is a not for profit educational research, development and implementation organisation in New Zealand. CORE aims to provide educators with the quality professional learning opportunity in an online context. Centre4 acts as the portal to this e-learning world and you are welcome to explore it in the areas that interest you. While many communities are open to the wider public, some areas have restricted access for project participants. Their purposes are indicated below.

"We are strong proponents of children learning to code, but we have concerns about the motivations and methods underlying many of these new learn-to-code initiatives. Many of them, motivated by a shortage of programmers and software developers in industry, focus especially on preparing students for computer science degrees and careers, and they typically introduce coding as a series of logic puzzles for students to solve. We co-founded the Scratch Foundation in 2013 to support and promote a very different approach to coding. For us, coding is not a set of technical skills but a new type of literacy and personal expression, valuable for everyone, much like learning to write. We see coding as a new way for people to organize, express, and share their ideas. This approach to coding is embodied in our Scratch programming software developed at the MIT Media Lab and available for free online. With Scratch, children ages eight and up snap together graphical programming blocks to create interactive stories and games with animated characters. They can share their projects in the Scratch online community, where others can try them out, give feedback and suggestions, and even revise and extend the projects with their own ideas."

A fascinating approach to the role of the parent in raising good digital citizens. "..children of limiters who are most likely to engage in problematic behavior: They're twice as likely as the children of mentors to access porn, or to post rude or hostile comments online; they're also three times as likely to go online and impersonate a classmate, peer, or adult."

"Noodle's team of education experts investigated the vast array of online learning tools to create this list of the 32 best, most innovative online tools that we think will change the education space in 2015. We spoke with teachers, tutors, and leaders in the space. We sifted through reviews, awards, and profiles. As we evaluated the available resources to bring you the best, we maintained a strict set of criteria. The selections had to be: designed for high school or college students, user-friendly, in a strong design language, easy to use, and available for free. Among many other factors, each also had to have a solid base of users, a reputation for excellence, and big plans for 2015."

"School teachers need to better prepare pupils of the risks posed by "fake news" and disinformation online, the education secretary Damian Hinds has warned. Every child will learn about confirmation bias and online risks as a compulsory part of the curriculum as the government publishes new safety guidance for schools. Teachers will have to help children learn to evaluate what they see online, how to recognise techniques used for persuasion, how to identify potential risks and how and when to seek support. "

"A major shift in the force of education has emerged as teachers have become self-directed, independent designers of their own learning. Embracing social media, blogging, and learning from one another in digital spaces, they have forged a new era of professional development that is changing classrooms from the ground up. Simultaneously, and perhaps because of their online interactions, teachers also have begun to re-energize the professional learning in their brick-and-mortar professional spaces."

"Learning math can be a great source of fun for kids. There is a wide variety of entertaining and interactive online games  to use with your kids to introduce them to basic as well as intermediate mathematical concepts. As learning aids, games are proven to engage kids' attention and boost their interest in learning. To this purpose, and besides the multiple math resources we have shared here over the last couple of years, here is a very good collection of websites that provide games designed specifically to address kids mathematical needs."

"The idea of connecting with other educators, school leaders, and parents online is a great one. But figuring out where to start can be a challenge. Currently, about 80% of U.S. teachers are on social media and using it to become better at their profession. In an effort to make sure these teachers are making the most of their time, we wanted to put together a handy visual guide that will help you grow your professional learning network (PLN) using social media. These tips and ideas are simple and there's a big reason for that. Instead of giving you 50-100 different ways to use the social networks, we wanted to start small. Teachers have basically no time to learn 100 different ways to use Twitter so why not instead offer our best tips in one simple-to-use visual."

"he two categories to be discussed in this post include Games and Back Channels. Both allow for a wonderful formative experience. There are a number of resources that can be found on the internet in these two areas. The back channel in the classroom is powerful and your LMS (Learning Management System) may serve this quite well. You also may get some added privacy which is important. While I believe kids can create games as a awesome formative experience, I will save that for a later post. In this article I wish to focus on how educational games provide a wonderful learning experience perhaps going well beyond content. As in all online tools be sure to check your district AUP along with the terms and conditions of the website you are using. Enjoy the resources and please let me know what I should add for a future post!"

This research began with the premise that video game play, especially as it relates to participation in persistent virtual worlds, provides fictional spaces where players engage in cognitive and communicative practices that can be personally transformative in prosocial ways. Players' experiences with these worlds are as much defined by the technical design and construction of these spaces as they are influenced by the socio-cultural arrangements that develop. In support of this belief, we collected data on children's experiences with a range of technologies germane to the Digital Age, including their participation in the Quest Atlantis environment, an immersive space for learning that is intended to engage children ages 9-12 in a form of dramatic play comprising both online and real-world learning activities. By enlisting this innovation to nonintrusively collect data about children's participation as well as their engagement with media more generally, the research team was able to move beyond an ethnographic study of what already exists in the world and develop a grounded appreciation for what an innovative technology-rich context might make possible in the future.

"Even if you think the buzz around "learning how to code" is overkill, you have to admit it's here to stay. Just like it's easier to learn a foreign language if you start in grade school, getting an early grasp on mark-up and programming languages such as HTML, CSS and Java ensures you'll have an idea of what makes our digital lives and devices tick, even if you don't plan on becoming a software developer."

"Back in April, my 10 year old daughter (Rachel) shared a Google Document with me which was her fourth completed book, and her longest finished chapter book to date. She titled it, "Mature Little Me." Inspired by Chris Simon, the STEM teacher at Independence Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, from 2011-2013, it's a fourth grade adventure story with some invention/maker flavor. Back in April I didn't set aside the time needed to help with some edits and get it published online for Rachel, both as an eBook and a print-on-demand book via Lulu.com. This evening I spent about 3 hours editing and publishing her book, and learned a BUNCH as a result. I'll attempt to document much of that learning in this post."

"Almost overnight, remote work has become mainstream. Companies around the world are encouraging their employees to work from home to prioritize the health and safety of their workforce and communities amid coronavirus. Working through this rapid change can be hard and we're moving quickly to help members get information they can trust, stay connected to their community and learn now to be more productive and successful in their jobs. Since January 2020 "remote working" searches on LinkedIn Learning have tripled as both employees and managers increasingly look for advice on how to navigate the challenges of working remotely and managing a remote workforce.   We now have a free learning path with 16 online courses that can help. These courses feature top tips from remote work experts to figure out how to: "

"Resources and activity ideas for kids to learn computer programming and coding - learning tools, programs, apps, websites, books, online and offline courses, and teaching / learning activities for kids from preschool kindergarten to middle and high school"

"If you're brand new to the world of web design and web development, it makes sense to get started learning to code by utilizing all the free resources available online. This way, you can discover what you like (and more importantly don't) before financially investing in a certain set of courses. However, there are so many free resources, classes, and books to pick from! It's easy to become overwhelmed. (Ever hear of too much of a good thing?!) To make things easier, I compiled a list of 64 FREE web design and development resources."