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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

"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

"Today's Best Educational Apps for Kids list is Natual and Animal Science Apps for Kindergarden and Early Elementary School Kids (age 6 to 10). There is another list of science apps for this age group but on other subjects, such as astronomy, physics, or chemistry. For this other science list, you can visit an earlier post HERE. Please add your favorite nature and animal science apps in the comment area. I will update the list periodically. I"

"On a sweltering day in late July, a group of 9th and 10th graders gather around an iPad inside of the otherwise empty International School of Science in Queens. They've just completed an assignment on the quadratic equation, and a team of three is showing off their project: a funny video they animated of themselves playing volleyball, with the arc of the ball graphing out a parabola. There's not a sheet of graph paper in sight. The app they are using is called ChoreoGraph, and it's part of a suite of apps collectively known as Noticing Tools, developed by the New York Hall of Science, that aim to leverage the way kids naturally play to teach math and science concepts. The goal is to solve one of the major issues facing educators today: getting more kids interested in STEM-science, technology, engineering and math-an area where the U.S. has consistently lagged behind other top countries."

As thousands take to the streets as part of a global 'March for Science' it is worth considering the significant role that education has to play. What are the messages we need to send our students about science and what role have schools played in creating the current climate? Now seems like the time to pause and reflect on the place of science in our community and our schools.

"The Nature Conservancy's Nature Works Everywhere site has fantastic resources for teachers and students. The site provides educators with free lesson plans and videos that promote higher-level thinking in conjunction with good citizenship. Below are 10 lessons and videos from Nature Works that you can integrate into your curriculum. Plus, there are additional resources included to further students' understanding of the content."

"Computer Science can sound pretty daunting, particularly if you don't know a lot about the subject, and it is often thought of as the preserve of 'geeks' or particularly intelligent students. The idea that it is particularly difficult can put off students who might actually have a real natural ability for the subject, which is a great shame, so finding accessible tools to help them explore and get to know the subject from an early age is a great way to avoid it becoming something feared! And with everything becoming ever more internet orientated, it has never been more useful to provide students with some simple computer science skills from a young age, which will stand them in excellent stead for the future."

"The YMCA's Camp Combe is one of the most popular and best-known sleepaway camps in the New York Area. Serving over five hundred children a day during the summer months, the facility keeps its guests both busy and entertained with a whole host of activities including swimming, archery, high rope courses, nature walks, and...Minecraft? No, I'm not kidding. An hour outside of New York City, New York, a group of third-to-fifth graders this week dove into the camp's first ever Minecraft session. Of course, as creatively-oriented as the base game is, it doesn't really teach kids all that much as far as practical knowledge is concerned. That's why Camp Combe is using an educational variant of the title: MinecraftEdu. Deveoped by TeacherGaming, MinecraftEdu is a modified version of the base game whose sole purpose is to get its players interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. After logging in to MinecraftEdu, players are first taught the basics of the vanilla Minecraft experience - logging into a server, controlling their avatars, manipulating the environment, acceptable behaviors...you get the idea. Once they've been schooled in how to play, they're then given an objective; this task could be anything from building a bridge to creating a functional particle accelerator."

"oday's "Best Educational Apps for Kids" list is Science apps for kindergarden and early elementary kids. I did not include those animal related apps, as there will be a separate list of "Best Educational Apps for Kids" on "Nature and Animals". If you know any good science apps for kids age 6 to 10, please leave the app name in a comment. I will update the list periodically."

"STEMbite is a YouTube Channel developed by Andrew Vanden Heuvel, one of the original Google Glass Explorers. On this channel, you can find over 60 informative and entertaining brief clips sharing how math and science relate to our everyday life. Though the segments are brief in nature, you will find they are extremeley helpful. My favorite part about each of Andrew's videos is that he makes science and math seem easy and fun. Before you know it, the video is over and you're craving for another bite size video. "

"From Creative Schools by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, published April 21, 2015, by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright by Ken Robinson, 2015. Creative Teaching Let me say a few words about creativity. I've written a lot about this theme in other publications. Rather than test your patience here with repetition of those ideas, let me refer you to them if you have a special interest. In Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, I look in some detail at the nature of creativity and how it relates to the idea of intelligence in the arts, the sciences, and other areas of human achievement. In 1997, I was asked by the U.K. government to convene a national commission to advise on how creativity can be developed throughout the school system from ages five through eighteen. That group brought together scientists, artists, educators, and business leaders in a common mission to explain the nature and critical importance of creativity in education. Our report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, set our detailed proposals for how to make this happen in practice and was addressed to people working at all levels of education, from schools to government."

"There have been complaints leveraged against out of the box robots like Dash and Dot, Ozobot, Hummingbird, Sphero. The complaints usually revolve around the canned and prescriptive nature of their uses and programs, that they lack creative engagement by the younger users. I personally love the excitement my learners have using these robots. As with all tools and technologies and with creative framing, though, they can be used in creative and imaginative ways. Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. (How Robots in English Class Can Spark Empathy and Improve Writing) This past term, I had my 2nd through 4th grade students work on their robot-enhanced creative writing and stories. In small groups, students were asked to create a fictional storyline and use StoryboardThat.com to create both the physical scenes and the accompanying narrative. As part of their directions, they were told that they were going to create a 3D setting out of cardboard boxes, foam board, LED lights, and other craft materials; and that they would use Wonder's Dot with the Blocky App and Ozobot as the characters in their stories. Preparation time was divided between storyboarding, creating the scene, and learning how to use/code the robots. Because of all of the preparation and practice, the recording actually went quite quick and smoothly. Here is a break down of the learning events that learners were asked to complete:"

"A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing has deep links with mathematics, science and design and technology, and provides insights into both natural and artificial systems. The core of computing is computer science, in which pupils are taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. Building on this knowledge and understanding, pupils are equipped to use information technology to create programs, systems and a range of content. Computing also ensures that pupils become digitally literate - able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through, information and communication technology - at a level suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world."

"In the documentary Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times, the Dalai Lama and retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died in 2021, share two lifetimes' worth of wisdom on how to live with joy in troubled times. When writing The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, they asked co-author Doug Abrams to investigate the science of happiness.  "They said, 'This shouldn't be a Buddhist dialogue or a Christian dialogue. This should be about the nature of being human,'" Abrams recalled in the documentary. "They asked me to find out whether what they were saying was confirmed or contradicted by science.""

"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"

"A meaning of "essential" involves important questions that recur throughout one's life. Such questions are broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable - What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author's view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional. In other words, we are liable to change our minds in response to reflection and experience concerning such questions as we go through life, and that such changes of mind are not only expected but beneficial. A good education is grounded in such life-long questions, even if we sometimes lose sight of them while focusing on content mastery. The big-idea questions signal that education is not just about learning "the answer" but about learning how to learn. (http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artid=53)"

"Bias is a fundamental human characteristic. We are all biased, by our very nature, and every day we make countless decisions based on our gut feelings. We all have preconceived ideas, prejudices, and opinions. And that is fine, as long as we recognize it and take responsibility for it. The fundamental promise of AI, besides the dramatic increase of data processing power and business efficiency, is to help reduce the conscious or unconscious bias of human decisions. At the end of the day, this is what we expect from algorithms, isn't it? Objectivity, mathematical detachment rather than fuzzy emotions, fact-based rather than instinctive decisions. Algorithms are supposed to alert people to their cognitive blind spots, so they can make more accurate, unbiased decisions. At least that's the theory…"