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"Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms. This resource for K-12 teachers and students developed by the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library is designed to bring historically significant map documents into your classroom. Inside are high quality images of historic map documents that illustrate the geographical dimensions of American history. "

The Google Reader Team is proud to introduce several new help resources designed specifically at introducing beginners to using Reader: Google Reader Help Videos and the Google Reader Getting Started Guide, both accessible directly from our Help Center.

Welcome to Know IT All, Childnet's multi award-winning suite of education resources designed to help educate parents, teachers and young people about safe and positive use of the internet.

"Project K-Nect is designed to create a supplemental resource for secondary at-risk students to focus on increasing their math skills through a common and popular technology - mobile smartphones."

"Happy Numbers is a new interactive maths resource aimed at young children from reception to Year 2 designed to work on interactive whiteboards as well as tablets and chromebooks."

"July 16, 2014 While searching for some resources on a paper and writing on  the 21st century learning skills I came across this skills checklist created by the university of Toledo. This checklist is meant to help students build powerful resumes outlining all the skills they master. I spent some time going through the components of this sheet and found it really sharing with you here.  You can use this sheet with your students as an explanatory guide of some of the important skills ( I said some because some other important skills particularly those related to digital citizenship and digital literacy are missing) they need to work. Below is a round-up of the 9 most important skills which I selected from the entire list. You can acccess this list from this link. 1- Research skills Know how to find and collect relevant background information Be able to analyze data, summarize findings and write a report 2- Critical Thinking skills Be able to review different points of view or ideas and make objective judgments Investigate all the possible solutions to a problem, weighing the pros and cons 3- Organizational skills Be able to organize information, people or thins in a systematic way Be able to establish priorities and meet deadlines 4- Problem-solving skills Be able to clarify the nature of a problem Be able to evaluate alternatives, propose viable solutions and determine the outcome of the various options 5- Creative thinking skills Be able to generate new ideas, invent new things, create new images or designs Find new solutions to problems Be able to use wit and humour effectively 6- Analytical/ logical thinking skills Be able to draw specific conclusions from a set of general observations of from a set of specific facts Be able to synthesize information and ideas 7- Public speaking skills Be able to make formal presentations Present ideas, positions and problems in an interesting way 8- Oral communication skills Be able to present information and ideas clearly a

"If you're looking to support your K-2 students in science this year, you'll want to check out the interactive curriculum from Science4US.  They provide a complete science curriculum with both online and offline materials for elementary school-aged students.  There are teacher resources in addition to activities designed for your kids."

"Amazon has launched a new segment of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), KDP EDU, targeted at educators and authors of textbooks and other educational content. Publicly available as a beta, Kindle Textbook Creator is designed to allow authors to use PDFs "easily prepare, publish and promote e-textbooks and other educational content for students to access on a broad range of devices," according to a news release. Once created, the resources can be uploaded to KDP for use by students anywhere in the world on Kindle Fire tablets, iOS and Android devices, Macs or PCs."

21st Century Fluency Project An innovative resource designed to cultivate 21st century fluencies, while fostering engagement and adventure in the learning experience.

"Today there are many resources for people to learn code. The Barbies and GI Joes of yesteryear have become tablets and smart phones. Young kids, such as 12-year-old Thomas Suarez, who gave this excellent TED Talk, are learning advanced forms of coding that few adults even fully grasp. The following is a list of websites online that offer free tutorials and courses for children that want to learn how to code. And even if you are not a kid, you might learn a thing or two. We reviewed a collection of websites and the following three are the best that we found, incorporating various features that put them above the rest. We went through all the most popular coding websites on the Internet and found the three best free coding websites, based on the following criteria: ● Ease of use ● Aesthetics ● Fun ● Effectiveness ● Free Without further ado, the following are the best coding websites we found that was designed especially with kids in mind."

"Gmail is a powerful mail service that we have been recommending for teachers over the last couple of years. The strength of Gmail lies in the arsenal of features it provides to users from tips on how to organize and sort emails for easy access to setting auto-replies and automatically saving attachments. Gmail Tips for Teachers section here in EdTech and mLearning features a number of key resources to help you tap into the educational potential of Gmail. Additionally, to take your Gmail experience to the next level you may want to try out some third party tools designed particularly for this purpose. Below is a curated list of some of our favourite apps. Check them out and share with your colleagues"

"Digital citizenship is an essential 21st century literacy that empowers students to navigate the digital world more safely, respectfully and responsibly. It is a set of interconnected skills that, taken together, form a holistic pedagogical framework to foster students learning in a digitally focused environment. To help teachers incorporate the ethos of digital citizenship in their classrooms, Common Sense Media has put together this interesting resource titled 'Digital Literacy and Citizenship (teacher edition)' . This is a curriculum designed specifically for upper elementary to help students  learn the basics of digital citizenship while also developing their digital literacy skills."

""Coding is one piece of computational literacy and should be taught explicitly in school, but a semester or two of coding won't do," said Sweeney, who emphasized that a more "broad and deep approach" is necessary. He advocates a progression where students are challenged to use design thinking-a method that draws on logic, intuition, and different types of reasoning-to identify opportunities, harness the appropriate tools and resources, and demonstrate their outcomes."

""Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President"; "ISIS Leader Calls for American Muslim Voters to Support Hillary Clinton." These examples of fake news are from the 2016 presidential election campaign. Such highly partisan fabricated stories designed to look like real reporting probably played a bigger role in that bitter election than in any previous American election cycle. The fabrications spread on social media and into traditional news sources in a way that tarnished both major candidates' characters. Sometimes the stories intentionally damage a candidate; sometimes the authors are driven only by dollar signs. Questions about how and why voters across the political spectrum fell for such disinformation have nagged at social scientists since early in the 2016 race. The authors of a new study address these questions with cognitive experiments on familiarity and belief."

"In this series we explore Powerful Learning, a set of principles to guide educators designing learning experiences that engage the hearts and minds of learners and incorporate technology in ways that contribute to closing the Digital Learning Gap. In this second post, we explore how Powerful Learning is authentic and challenging, share research that grounds these two principles, and provide resources to support your own learning and teaching practices."

"At ISTE 2016 I presented a new session called "Make It, Wear It, Learn It" about wearable electronics. It's a combination of what's out there now that can be done by students today, some far out gee-whiz stuff coming in the next few years, and how to start with wearables for young people. Wearables are a way to introduce people to engineering, design, and electronics that are personal and fun!"

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"You've read about the maker movement. You've seen the posts with 3D printers, laser cutters, and three-axis mills in shiny new labs. And you want your students to start making, too. But you've got one big problem: you don't have a full lab -- or even a 3D printer -- because, like many educators, you don't have the biggest budget. Maybe you have no budget at all. But what if you could get started making tomorrow and didn't need all the fancy tools to join this movement? Making starts with a mindset, and simple materials are all that you need to get started. There are resources all around you, materials hidden in plain sight, tools just waiting to be used for a creative purpose. And with a little dose of ingenuity, you'll have your students making in no time. One perfect way start making on the cheap is through upcycling, the intentional transformation of hard-to-recycle materials into new products, thus saving them from the landfill. This type of real-world project not only teaches making skills but also helps you integrate making into your subject area. Study material science, explore industrial design, or dig into environmental education. As an added bonus, a project like this ignites your students' entrepreneurial spirit."