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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

"Yesterday we published top iPad apps for librarians and today we are featuring another equally important visual comprising some of the best web tools to help librarians in their everyday work. We have arranged these tools into 10 main categories: Database portals, research tools, curation tools, animated video tools, poster creation tools, note taking tools, timeline creation tools, tools communicate with parents, presentation tools and reference tools."

"Below are two handy visuals we published awhile ago featuring what we think are some of the best educational web tools and iPad apps curated specifically for librarians. The web tools are organized into the following categories: Database portals, research tools, curation tools, animated video tools, poster creation tools, note taking tools, timeline creation tools, tools communicate with parents, presentation tools and reference tools. "

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

"Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we've compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher's tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom. "

"User Generated Education Education as it should be - passion-based. Design Thinking Process and UDL Planning Tool for STEM, STEAM, Maker Education leave a comment » Post by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D. @jackiegerstein and Barbara Bray @bbray27. Crossed posted at http://barbarabray.net/2017/06/08/design-thinking-process-and-udl-planning-tool/. If there is a makerspace in your school, it may be down the hall, in the library, or in another building. If there is someone other than the teacher managing the makerspace or there is a schedule for the school, your kids may only be able to use it once a week or month. Some makerspace activities may be focusing on how to use the resources available and may not be connecting the activities to the curriculum or around a real world problem. If this is how the makerspace is set up in your school, then your kids may not have access to the resources, materials, and tools when they need them, especially for STEM or STEAM. In deciding what resources you need based on the learners you have, you may first need to determine how your learners learn best, what projects you plan to do, how you can set up a makerspace in your classroom, and much more. This is why we decided to create a planning tool for makerspaces in the classroom for you using the Design Thinking Process and Universal Design for Learning®."

" This Copyright Decision Tool was developed by the Copyright Consortium of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) . The CMEC Copyright Consortium is composed of the ministers of education of the provinces and territories, with the exception of Quebec. (For further background on copyright and education, you can visit the CMEC Web pages on copyright. ) This Copyright Decision Tool is a supplement to the Fair Dealing Guidelines , created to help teachers determine whether their use of a copyright-protected work is fair dealing. The tool helps teachers assess whether fair dealing permits them to use a copyright-protected work for students without permission or payment of copyright royalties. Fair dealing is only one of several users' rights provided to educational users in the Copyright Act. For a description of other educational users' rights, see Copyright Matters! Every school board or school district should have a staff member who is familiar with copyright law. For more information, contact the ministry or department of Education Copyright Officer for your province or territory, listed here. CMEC wishes to acknowledge that the Copyright Decision Tool is liberally adapted, with permission, from the University of Ottawa's Fair Dealing Decision Tree ."

"Bookmarking tools are key to the effective management of digital resources. They allow you to capture  and save important information to read later. Most of these tools provide organizational features enabling users to organize their bookmarked content into boards and collections that can be shared with others. Other tools  even go a step further to provide collaborative features that allow a group of people to collectively bookmark and share online resources. Based on our long experience with reviewing educational web tools, we went ahead and curated for you what we believe are some of the best bookmarking tools for teachers. These are tools you can use to bookmark, annotate and share resources you come across online. We invite you to check out our updated below and share with us your feedback in our Facebook page. Links are provided under the visual."

"The gaming trend is gaining more and more ground within the educational landscape. Online games are being integrated into students learning strategies and while they are not a game changer, they do seem to have a promising potential in education. As Dr Jackie argued , the use of games for educational purposes have undergone three main phases and in each phase games have been repurposed in such a way as to align with the ethos of that phase. In education 1.0, online games which are nothing else but electronic worksheets were played in one unidirectional way and there was only way correct way for players to win ; in education 2.0 commercial games have made it into the educational scene and teachers and students started using them, examples of these games include: SIMs, World of Warcraft, Portal. However, in education 3.0, learners are not only using these commercial games in unique ways but they are also using several platforms to create their own games."

ollaboration Tools Collaborative learning is essentially people working together to solve a problem, create a product, or derive meaning from a body of material. A central question or problem serves to organize and drive activities, and encourage application, analysis, and synthesis of course material. While the landscape of technology that can be used to support central activities of collaborative learning is vast and varied, it is often lumped together under a single label: "collaboration tools." Given this vast and distributed landscape of tools, the difficulty of finding one or a set of tools to meet your goals can be time intensive. We are here to help. For faculty who are interested in learning more, want to explore, or try out a tool, contact us to talk with an Eberly colleague in person.

"Every year thousands of educators gather for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference eager to learn about the newest features in favorite apps and to glean ideas from one another about how to effectively teach in new ways. The conference seems to grow every year and there is palpable excitement from educators who finally get to commune with their "tribe" - techy teachers from around the globe. But many of the products currently being marketed to educators are firmly rooted in the current moment of education. For the most part, they focus on how to help educators do what they already do more efficiently. Or they offer flashy digital tools meant to engage learners presumed to have short attention spans, and entice teachers with the analytics under the hood. But too often the conversations around what educators can do with technology in their classrooms focus on the current moment in a system that almost no one thinks is perfect. "I'm fascinated by trying to look forward rather than looking at what schools look like now," said Alan November during a presentation at the conference. November has long been invested in education, first as a teacher and now has a consultant and speaker. He suggests that to fundamentally change, education leaders need to define a new role for learners and then hire teachers who can help nurture those qualities. With that in mind, November proposes seven questions that he thinks should become standard in the interviewing and hiring process. "

"​The purpose of Makerspace for Education is to provide educators with a hands-on, creative, user friendly, "anytime, anyplace", professional development tool that can be used as part of a community of practice. It allows educators to inform themselves, with tools at their fingertips, on the various aspects of the makerspace as they are ready. Using interactive tools that allow access to necessary information, directly from a user-friendly interface and based on the key frameworks of constructionism and constructivism, makerspace, design thinking and media literacies, teachers will have the tools they need to begin, or continue, their makerspace journeys. This site will evolve and grow as the participating educators add to the content and support the construction of knowledge. "

"Since its release in 2009, Minecraft has sold millions of copies worldwide revolutionizing thus the gaming industry and providing game players with an endless world of possibilities. As a sandbox construction game, Minecraft has successfully and distinctively set itself from the crowd by incorporating the ethos of 21st century learning that include: creativity, challenge, problem solving, and strategic thinking all of which are adeptly adapted to the player's little gaming world. Minecraft provided players with the tools and resources to construct their own gaming reality and test their creative possibilities. In a relatively short time, Minecraft succeeded in marking a strong presence within the education sector  and became one of the leading educational learning platforms for students. As a culmination of its sweeping popularity among the educational community, Minecraft recently released  Minecraft for Education which is a website geared primarily towards providing teachers with a forum where they can share their ideas about how they use Minecraft in their teaching. Given this growing potential of Minecraft in education, we decided to compile the list  below featuring some of the best reads on Minecraft. These books will help you learn more about how educators are using Minecraft as a powerful instructional tool to engage students and teach different subjects."

" 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

"Thanks to OnlineUniversities for this list of the Best Pinterest Boards in Educational Technology. Blogs and Twitter aren't the only social tools out there that can help you keep up with the latest and greatest developments in educational technology. Pinterest is rapidly becoming a favorite tool of educators all over the nation, and many have amassed some pretty great collections of edtech-related pins that teachers and students alike can use to explore new ways to learn, share, teach, and grow. While it would be nearly impossible to highlight every edtech pinboard out there, we've shared some of the boards we think stand out among the crowd here. Many are maintained by major educational websites, key figures in edtech, and well-known bloggers, but others were created by teachers just like you who simply want to share resources and tips with others in education."

"In a relatively short time, Minecraft succeeded in marking a strong presence within the education sector  and became one of the leading educational learning platforms for students. As a culmination of its sweeping popularity among the educational community, Minecraft recently released  Minecraft for Education which is a website geared primarily towards providing teachers with a forum where they can share their ideas about how they use Minecraft in their teaching. Given this growing potential of Minecraft in education, we decided to compile the list  below featuring some of the best reads on Minecraft. These books will help you learn more about how educators are using Minecraft as a powerful instructional tool to engage students and teach different subjects. "

"The maker movement and maker education, in my perspective, are such great initiatives - really in line with what student-centric education should be in this era of formal and informal learning. Maker education (often referred to as "Maker Ed") is a new school of educational thought [at least in terms of having an "official" educational label - JG] that focuses on delivering constructivist, project-based learning curriculum and instructional units to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as full high school workshops with high-tech tools, or as small and low-tech as one corner of an elementary classroom. A makerspace isn't just about the tools and equipment, but the sort of learning experience the space provides to students who are making projects. (9 Maker Projects for Beginner Maker Ed Teachers) Social media has helped me gain a more global perspective and become aware of some of the problems associated with the maker movement. The two I discuss in this post are: Maker movement initiatives are often driven by more affluent white males. The maker movement is too often being associated with the tech stuff - Arduinos, Littlebits, Makey-Makeys - stuff that less affluent schools and community programs can afford."