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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

" 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

" ANJALI MULLANY 03.30.16 8:20 AM Two years ago, model Karlie Kloss enrolled in Flatiron School's two-week pre-college coding course and caught the programming bug. She started taking regular private coding classes with Flatiron dean and cofounder Avi Flombaum (who she already knew socially) and enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to underwrite 21 Kode with Karlie scholarships so other young women could take the same two-week pre-college coding course at Flatiron that had kicked off her own programming education. This summer, Kloss is taking it up a notch by launching her own Kode with Klossy coding camps for young women aged 13-18 in Los Angeles, New York, and her hometown of St. Louis, using Flatiron's Learn.co curriculum and learning platform. Unlike last summer's Kode with Karlie program, this year's 80 scholarship recipients will participate in their own program, separate from other Flatiron School students. By the end of the camp, which is being taught by independent instructors, students will have learned the fundamentals of Ruby on Rails and built their own web app. Kloss is not underwriting this latest round of scholarships herself but instead, in partnership with Flatiron School and CSNYC, has pulled together a number of partner brands as fiscal sponsors for the program."

"Ed tech company Learning.com is partnering with Codesters, a platform for K-12 computer science instruction, to develop EasyCode Pillars, an online interactive curriculum that incorporates coding challenges and game design into the classroom to cultivate students' coding skills. This digital literacy resource is designed to offer students a dynamic, hands-on coding experience, while providing teachers with an easy instructional solution for use in the computer lab or in the classroom."

"We believe in a future where every child leaves school knowing how to code. It's not realistic to expect educators to achieve this on their own, developers and the wider community must help. The amazing thing is that many developers believe in our cause and want work with educators to make this happen- someone just needs to bring them together. That's where we step in. We provide a platform where educators can post code-related projects, request a custom project or pick from our growing base of pre-defined projects. Developers can browse projects in their local area and connect with the educators to take discussions further and bring authentic learning opportunities to the classroom. So, we're currently looking for our founding partners to get the ball rolling. If you know anyone or would like to become a founding partner, please get in touch with us (team@codefuture.org)!"

"Since I began taking my first Information and Technology In The Classroom course (last year) and began learning more and more about 21st Century tools, I have become so passionate about exploring the idea of classroom blogging. My teaching partner, Ray Swinarchin has also become interested in blogging as a way to engage his students.  Although we know we have much to learn about it and have to work on making it more exciting and interactive for our students, we have come to believe in the benefits of class blogging through reading many other classroom blogs and by learning from many other teachers experiences."

"I've been traveling the country speaking on the power of a student's voice in his or her own educational experience along with the need for transforming learning spaces in today's schools. Both topics are very important to me not only for my own passion as an educator, but as a parent of two children. I've personally seen the impact a learning space can have on a child's experience within the classroom. Additionally, I've been fortunate to have my children surrounded by caring educators who value the importance listening to students. This week I have the pleasure of speaking at Blackboard World in D.C. When I arrived at Blackboard World, I knew the first stop I had to make, the student maker space. Blackboard invited students from all ages to participate in a day of creating their ideal learning environments. The company partnered with the Smithsonian to provide resources and guides to help facilitate the activities. Children would rotate between 5 stations throughout the day - each station lasting roughly thirty minutes."

"I've been traveling the country speaking on the power of a student's voice in his or her own educational experience along with the need for transforming learning spaces in today's schools.  Both topics are very important to me not only for my own passion as an educator, but as a parent of two children.  I've personally seen the impact a learning space can have on a child's experience within the classroom.  Additionally, I've been fortunate to have my children surrounded by caring educators who value the importance listening to students.  This week I have the pleasure of speaking at Blackboard World in D.C.  When I arrived at Blackboard World, I knew the first stop I had to make, the student maker space.  Blackboard invited students from all ages to participate in a day of creating their ideal learning environments.  The company partnered with the Smithsonian to provide resources and guides to help facilitate the activities.  Children would rotate between 5 stations throughout the day - each station lasting roughly thirty minutes.  "

"On Saturday, AASL committee members announced the 2017 Best Websites and 2017 Best Apps for Teaching & Learning at ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. In case you missed those big reveals, no worries!  Actually, worry-big time. You are in for a serious summer rabbit hole adventure. Now in its ninth year, The 2017 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning list presents 25 websites that provide enhanced learning and curriculum development for school librarians and their teacher partners."

"The history classroom was a mess. There were wires, nails, brads, and wooden pieces on every desk, and students around me struggled with a difficult task. I knew that, in the middle of the mess, I had reached a good balance between student independence and teacher instruction, between hands-on experience and historical material, when one of my students looked up and said, "Mrs. Pang, this is fun! It's really hard, but it's fun." She looked back down at the length of wire in her hands and kept winding it onto a large nail. She was following instructions to create the electromagnet on a telegraph machine. This student and her partner got theirs to work on the second try. Through this small making project, they were exploring the history of innovation and communication. At the same time, they were learning about making electrical connections, how to use tools, and how to troubleshoot their work when it failed. And they said it was fun. In my mind, they were referring to Seymour Papert's kind of fun: hard fun."

"When it comes to education, it seems no matter where in the world you are from, the same innovative practices bring us together. This week at Microsoft's Partners in Learning Global Forum hundreds of educators from more than 80 countries came together to showcase, learn, discuss and think about innovative teaching, learning, and leading practices. "

"The learn-to-code movement is aiming younger. MIT and partners, for example, recently released a free iPad app with its visual programming language ScratchJr., so kindergartners could use it to code stories and games even before knowing how to read. Vikas Gupta, a former Google executive who founded the startup Wonder Workshop (formerly called Play-i), has taken a slightly different path. "We learned that in order to make programming of interest to young children, it has to be a tangible product. It can't be just software," he told Co.Exist last year. Enter Dot and Dash-Wonder Workshop's two new robots that teach coding skills to children as young as five that are now being field tested in a few dozen elementary school classrooms nationally. And they are definitely tangible: Dash hears and responds to sounds, navigates around a room and avoid obstacles, and comes to life with sound and lights. He can even play the xylophone. Dot, on the other hand, doesn't have wheels and is meant to interact with Dash via Bluetooth and act as a controller. Both have their own customizable "personalities." On the back end, through four apps that control both robots, they are secretly teaching coding skills such as "event-based programming, sequencing, conditionals, and loops.""

"In our three gr. 8 classrooms, students have learned the process of 3D printing using dual extrusion (printing with 2 colours) using a Makerbot Replicator 2X. Last year, due to the large number of students we had using the printer, we needed another to keep up, but this time we chose an AirWolf 3D HDR printer for a few reasons: cloud based slicing via Astroprint, larger print size, and the ability to print with a wider range of materials. Added bonus - the tech support help from AirWolf3D is excellent. While I've posted some examples of how our students design and print using dual extrusion with the Makerbot, my teaching partner, Marc Westra, and I quickly learned the process was quite different using an AW3D HDR - like taking the elevator instead of the stairs. Here's what I learned over the Christmas break, and what we'll be teaching our students…"

"What is on the five-year horizon for K-12 schools worldwide? Which trends and technologies will drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and how can we strategize effective solutions? These questions and similar inquiries regarding technology adoption and transforming teaching and learning steered the collaborative research and discussions of a body of 56 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition, in partnership with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). The NMC also gratefully acknowledges ISTE as a dissemination partner. The three key sections of this report - key trends, significant challenges, and important developments in educational technology - constitute a reference and straightforward technology planning guide for educators, school leaders, administrators, policymakers, and technologists. It is our hope that this research will help to inform the choices that institutions are making about technology to improve, support, or extend teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in K-12 education across the globe. View the wiki where the work was produced."

"A year into the pandemic, the instructional sands keep shifting from in-person, to remote, to concurrent (or hybrid) and back again. And almost every conversation I have with educators regardless of whether they are classroom teachers, instructional specialists or administrators is around student engagement. Sometimes these conversations are with administrators concerned about the increasing numbers of students on the schools D-F list or with teachers disconsolate about students who won't turn on their cameras, turn in work or participate in discussions and whose attendance (virtual or in-person) is sporadic at best. All of them are asking, with some urgency, about how we can boost student engagement under these difficult and fluctuating circumstances. From my vantage point, the causes and symptoms are multi-faceted. We need to partner with students-individually and collectively-to discover the root causes and empower them to be their own antidotes."

""Before the term started, a lot of people were feeling under-confident, especially in primary schools," says Swidenbank. "All evidence now shows confidence is on the up." The biggest challenge remains the knowledge gaps, she asserts. But Codeacademy's own figures show the extent of the dent being made in that area. It has had 100,000 new student signups in the past three months and has partnered with more than 2,000 schools since September, bringing its total to more than 3,000. The biggest change, has been a growth in confidence -- in both teachers and students. Keeping on top of the learning is the key to ensuring that confidence thrives, and Swidenbank has seen the results of that firsthand."

"What makerspace materials and supplies should you buy or stock for your hands-on learning lab?  There are a lot of options out there to choose from and it can be confusing when you're first starting out as a maker educator.  Instead of just spending money randomly on items you think you will need, it's always a great idea to work backwards first.  You need to make a list of your goals for your makerspace and then define some of the projects you want to do in your makerspace.  Once you have defined the projects, you will have a better idea of the materials you need to buy.  Since money is always tight and you can't buy everything, try partnering with another maker educator and share/trade some of your items.  Lets say you're both working on a series of robotics lessons.  Each of you can buy one type of robotics kit and then when you have completed a few lessons you can trade with each other.  This is also a great way to try out new types of kits, equipment or materials before buying them. Now keep in mind makerspaces don't always need structured lessons and are great for open ended exploration.  Give your students some materials, maybe a little instruction and then let them loose to see what they do. Here are some of the top makerspace materials and supplies a classroom or library should consider adding to their space.  They are not ranked in any particular order and they all have a STEM component to them.  Please let us know in the comments section if we are missing any good materials so we can send out an updated post later on."

"Evernote is definitely one of the apps I use everyday. It helps me stay organized and scales up my productivity. However, the app has even more to offer when used with other partner apps. These apps are particularly useful in expanding Evernote functionality and in providing you with a richer and organized experience."