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"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"As a learning strategy, inquiry-based learning is all about learners constructing their own understanding and knowledge through asking questions. Unlike traditional learning methods that focus primarily on drills, memorization and rote learning, inquiry-based learning is essentially student-centered. It starts with posing questions and directly involves students in challenging hands-on activities that drive students to ask more questions and explore different learning paths. In today's post, we have assembled a collection of some useful web tools and apps that support the ethos of inquiry-based learning.  Using these tools will enable students to engage in a wide range of learning tasks that are all driven by a sense of inquiry and questioning."

"What is Design Challenge Learning? It's a combination of project-based learning, design thinking and the engineering design process that develops the innovator's mindset through iteration. It's a method of learning for which The Tech is best known.  The lessons on this page, developed over the years by educators at The Tech, will help teachers lead their students through science and engineering challenges. They also make fun and effective team-building activities for groups of teachers."

"There has been a large body of work in neuroscience, psychology, and related fields offering more and more insight into how we learn. Below are five of the top tips from Barbara Oakley, Professor of Engineering at Oakland University, who has faced her own learning challenges (failing middle and high school math and science classes), and has made a study of the latest research on learning. She is also offering a free online course, Learning How to Learn, which starts August 1 on the Coursera platform with co-instructor, Prof. Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at UC San Diego and the Salk Institute."

"Fizzy's Lunch Lab Fresh Pick is a free iPad app from PBS Kids. The app is based on the popular PBS web series Fizzy's Lunch Lab. The purpose of the app is to challenge students' math and problem solving skills. The app contains eight challenges for students to try. Students can go through the challenges in any order that they like. The eight challenges for students are Buying Groceries, Grocery Mapping, Neighborhood Mapping, Pantry Hunt, Fizzy's Invention, Customer Change, Find Freddy, and Food Matcher."

"True Project Based Learning (PBL) challenges students to acquire deeper knowledge of a concept by establishing connections outside their classroom. According to the research on PBL, the main tenets are to create real world connections, develop critical thinking skills, foster structured collaboration, motivate student driven work, and enable a multifaceted approach. Similarly, coding applies all of these core tenets as programs require logical thinking, team work, a variety of tools, and - most importantly - perseverance on the part of the student. Consider the potential of applying the challenges of coding to the proven successful tenets of PBL."

"A few years ago, I began shifting to a play-based approach in my kindergarten classroom. Research extolled the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional benefits of play and called to mind Friedrich Froebel's vision of kindergarten as a place where play and learning go hand in hand.  As I made small changes in my classroom, I began to understand that play is a primary and integral mode through which children make sense of the world, and that it is essential to their development and well-being. In addition, it supports skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity. Offering play can feel challenging when mandated programs and standardized tests are requirements of many school districts, but play-based learning is an effective practice for deepening understanding and engaging children. The key is finding a balance between academic expectations and the developmental needs of young students."

"The rise of the Maker has been one of the most exciting educational trends of the past few years. A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her. A Maker, re-cast into a classroom, has a name that we all love: a learner. A Maker, just like a true learner, values the process of making as much as the product. In the classroom, the act of Making is an avenue for a teacher to unlock the learning potential of her or his students in a way that represents many of the best practices of educational pedagogy. A Makerspace classroom has the potential to create life-long learners through exciting, real-world projects. Making holds a number of opportunities and challenges for a teacher. Making, especially to educators and administrators unfamiliar with it, can seem to lack the academic rigor needed for a full-fledged place in an educational ecosystem. However, project-based learning has already created a framework for Making in the classroom. Let's see how Making could work when placed inside a PBL curriculum unit."

"This year has been a marathon for teachers. They've faced constant changes and big challenges at every turn. It's been hard to teach into the abyss of black screens and muted microphones or navigate the hybrid landscape with our attention split between students at home and in person at the same time. Or the challenge of keeping students socially distanced with the constant reminders to keep their masks on. We miss the little things like fist bumps and high fives and the smiles on students' faces when they have that "aha" moment. Teaching has been a marathon. However, at the end of this marathon, there are different levels of tired. Some people are simply exhausted. They have crossed the finish line and they are placing their hands over their head with a mix of gratitude that it's over and a sense of pride over facing a huge challenge. These teachers are worn out and need rest. Other teachers are injured. These teachers have finished the marathon but they're hurting. They have experienced is genuine injustice and it has shaken them to core. Many have faced trauma. These teachers need more than just rest. They need healing. I made this continuum for myself to think through whether I'm tired or actually injured. This isn't scientific or research-based. It's just a tool I made for myself years ago and I thought I'd share it. You can see it in the video below:"

"Before students are able to directly tackle the challenges outlined in the 17 Global Goals, they need to build content and skill-related knowledge. Whether you are working to create a global focus in your curriculum or designing a specific PBL or IBL activity for your students, Curriculum Pathways provides both academic content and the skill-based resources you need. Think of the 17 Global Goals as scaffolding to help students find greater relevance and meaningful applications for their learning. Challenge students to examine scientific concepts, patterns of human injustice, or data analysis skills in a global context. Global goals provide the opportunity to extend the challenges and successes experienced in a local project to similar components found in global issues. Check out the free Curriculum Pathways resources that provide academic connections to Global Goals for science, math, English, Spanish, and social studies."

"Since November I've had the privledge of teaching with an iPad in my grade one class. Along the way I have discovered a lot of great ways to use it to help my students have their individual learning needs met.  Having just one iPad did bring about its own set of challenges but we were very lucky to have access to some additional iPads in the final term of school.  Next year we will have  iPads again thanks in part to my participation in my school's successful innovative learning grant application and another special project I'm involved with at the school district level.  Needless to say my head has been spinning all summer with ways I can integrate this technology into my classroom with out loosing sight of the important non technology based teaching and learning my students need too."

"Both project-based learning and STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, art and math) are growing rapidly in our schools. Some schools are doing STEAM, some are doing PBL, and some are leveraging the strengths of both to do STEAM PBL. With a push for deeper learning, teaching and assessment of 21st-century skills, both PBL and STEAM help schools target rigorous learning and problem solving. They are not exactly the same, but teachers can easily connect to them to teach not only STEAM content and design challenges, but also authentic learning and public, high-quality work. In fact, many know that STEAM education isn't just the content, but the process of being scientists, mathematicians, engineers, artists and technological entrepreneurs. Here are some ways that PBL and STEAM can complement each other as you deliver instruction"

"Last summer at the Apple developer conference, WWDC, we learned that there were more than 1.2 million apps in the Apple App Store alone. That's a lot of choices. In a sea that large, understanding how to find apps for the classroom can be challenging. In speaking with numerous educators, we learned that most app downloads result from a colleague's recommendation (i.e., word of mouth) or from choosing the first app in the search results. These are both sound strategies given the limited time educators have to explore each new app. But a larger point has become clear: learning to swiftly evaluate apps has become an essential skill in the fast-growing, ever-changing mobile classroom. The Great App Checklist, go.sas.com/MobileLearning. We offer this checklist to help educators zero in on the app they need and to judge how well it performs key functions. This rubric can help developers understand how educators choose apps, what information would help someone in this audience, which details to mention in the app store summary, and what is the essential functionality. The checklist's themes - Purpose, Alignment, Pedagogically-based, Personalization, Sharing, Ease of Use, Privacy, App Citizenship, and Access - are those discussed throughout Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Developers, Educators, and Learners."

"Working as a productive and sensitive member of a team is looked upon by STEM-based companies as being a requirement to being an effective and contributing employee: As technology takes over more of the fact-based, rules-based, left-brain skills-knowledge-worker skills-employees who excel at human relationships are emerging as the new "it" men and women. More and more major employers are recognizing that they need workers who are good at team building, collaboration, and cultural sensitivity, according to global forecasting firm Oxford Economics. Other research shows that the most effective teams are not those whose members boast the highest IQs, but rather those whose members are most sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. (http://fortune.com/2015/03/05/perfect-workplace/) In academia, the majority of research in STEM fields is conducted through collaborations and working groups, where a diversity of ideas need to be proposed and analyzed to determine the best strategy(ies) for solving a problem. In the technology sector, product development is done as a team, with specific roles for each individual but its success is predicated on each member of the team providing a different skill set / perspective. Thus, students who are interested in both academia and industry will benefit from learning how to successfully work in a diverse team. (https://teaching.berkeley.edu/diversity-can-benefit-teamwork-stem#sthash.mHRBJQtV.dpuf) What follows are some team building activities that use collaboration to explore and solve STEM-related challenges. Note that most of them require minimal supplies - costs."

"Cultivating an innovative culture inside your classroom and enhancing your students inquiry-based approaches to learning is not an easy task particularly in the light of all the surrounding distraction coming from digital media. It is probably one of the major challenges facing educators and teachers in the 21st century classroom. However, no matter how big the challenge is there are always ways to come to grips with it. Our colleague Mia MacMeekin from anethicalisland has designed this beautiful graphic where she featured 27 ways teachers can help their students be innovative."

"Engineering is a critical part of STEM education, and engineers play a role in creating, improving, and maintaining some of today's most valued and essential things, from smartphones and airplanes to zippers and roller coasters. This year, Engineers Week celebrates "Creating the Future," and it emphasizes the vital role engineers play in creating innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems and biggest challenges. Highlighting engineering also encourages students to pursue engineering classes and, potentially, engineering career paths."

Educational robotics can turn this downward trend around by incorporating all aspects of STEM in an engaging way that helps students reach success in problem-based learning challenges early on. This motivates students to tackle more difficult challenges.https://wegovyaustralia.org/

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"For subjects like math and foreign language, which are traditionally taught in a linear and highly structured context, using more open-ended inquiry-based models can be challenging. Teachers of these subjects may find it hard to break out of linear teaching style because the assumption is that students can't move to more complicated skills before mastering basic ones. But inquiry learning is based on the premise that, with a little bit of structure and guidance, teachers can support students to ask questions that lead them to learn those same important skills - in ways that are meaningful to them."

"For subjects like math and foreign language, which are traditionally taught in a linear and highly structured context, using more open-ended inquiry-based models can be challenging. Teachers of these subjects may find it hard to break out of linear teaching style because the assumption is that students can't move to more complicated skills before mastering basic ones. But inquiry learning is based on the premise that, with a little bit of structure and guidance, teachers can support students to ask questions that lead them to learn those same important skills - in ways that are meaningful to them."

"Many schools are moving to project-based learning as a way to help students make meaning about content in deeper and more lasting ways than a lecture can provide. While those goals are clear to educators, and inspiring examples of schools successfully implementing the pedagogy exist, it can still be a challenging shift for many teachers. It is difficult to design projects that both help students learn required content and that genuinely interest them. Some educators are finding that connecting projects to a global community is a powerful way to make a project feel meaningful to students."