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" "Even young kids have gotten very adept at Minecraft, so it can be quite intimidating for teachers," said Jason Schmidt, an instructional technologist for Bennington Public Schools who will teach the four-week MinecraftEdu MOOC, in a prepared statement. "If I can help get teachers over that hump, imagine how delighted students will be to have a learning environment tailored to their interests for a change." The other, Minecraft for Educators, "is a course for teachers who are wishing to gamify their learning experiences and deliver a unique pedagogy that will engage, enthuse and keep learners coming back for more," according to information released by the company. Both MOOCs are available through the Canvas Network. Minecraft for Educators will start January 26, 2015 and run through March 9. The company has also released a Minecraft app to allow students to submit assignments to the Canvas learning management system from within the game. Using the app, students can tag what they've made in the game for their teachers to visit, upload books they've written in game directly to the speed grader or use the game's circuitry tool to complete assignments that will be automatically graded. A video demonstration of the app is available at YouTube. Other MOOCs for teachers in the suite include: Digital Literacies 1; Digital Literacies 2; Five Habits of Highly Effective Teachers; Teachers without Borders: Educating Girls; and Tinker, Make and Learn. Among the other MOOC offerings in the new suite is a course designed specifically for parents, Parenting in the Digital Age, which aims to help them address issues such as cyberbullying, digital citizenship, exposure to inappropriate content, media literacy and screentime. Taught by Andrew Swickheimer, director of technology at Noblesville Schools, the self-paced course opens September 22. "Parental involvement in K-12 education has one of the biggest impacts on a child's commitment to learning," said Jared Stein, vice pres

"As the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development points out, today's educators face a catch-22 - they must "help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets." Fortunately, teachers have a solution to this dilemma in differentiated instruction. A differentiated classroom accommodates the heterogeneity of students by tailoring instruction to each student's backgrounds, interests, skill, and readiness levels. Read on to learn more about differentiated teaching, why it works, and how to implement it in your classroom."

"Social media in the classroom, while not perfect, has its benefits. Though many teachers are (perhaps wisely) forbidden to "friend" students on facebook, that doesn't mean that facebook, pinterest, social media at large are without merit in education."

"We know how to help kids develop into powerful learners. Now, we just need to make that happen in schools. "A parent of two teen-agers, Will Richardson has spent the last dozen years developing an international reputation as a leading thinker and writer about the intersection of social online learning networks and education. Will has authored four books (with two more on the way), including ""Why School? How Education Must Change When Learning and Information are Everywhere"" (September, 2012) published by TED books and based on his 2013 TEDx talk in Melbourne, Australia. ""Why School?"" is now the #1 best-selling TED book ever. A former public school educator of 22 years, Will is also co-founder of Modern Learner Media and co-publisher of ModernLearners.com which is a site dedicated to helping educational leaders and policy makers develop new contexts for new conversations around education. "

"FEBRUARY 22, 2018 -From the instant replay that decides a game to the bodycam footage that clinches a conviction, people tend to trust video evidence as an arbiter of truth. But that faith could soon become quaint, as machine learning is enabling ordinary users to create fabricated videos of just about anyone doing just about anything. Earlier this month, the popular online forum Reddit shut down r/deepfakes, a subreddit discussion board devoted to using open-source machine-learning tools to insert famous faces into pornographic videos. Observers say this episode represents just one of the many ways that the this technology could fuel social problems, particularly in an age of political polarization. Combating the negative effects of fabricated video will require a shift among both news outlets and news consumers, say experts.  "Misinformation has been prevalent in our politics historically," says Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., who specializes in political misperceptions. "But it is true that technology can facilitate new forms of rumors and other kinds of misinformation and help them spread more rapidly than ever before." So-called fake news has been around long before Macedonian teenagers began enriching themselves by feeding false stories to social media users. In 1782, Benjamin Franklin printed a falsified supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle maligning Seneca Indians in an attempt to influence public opinion during peace negotiations with Britain."

"The Writer's Workshop is a playlist of twenty-two TED-Ed lessons. The The Writer's Workshop contains lessons on basic topics like how to use punctuation and videos on more complex topics like how to make your writing humorous."

"Since as early as the 1800's, fears of robots taking over human jobs has been a reality. As we enter the true age of robotics, those concerns are resurfacing, and educators are unsure about what jobs their students will be competing for. For example, IT jobs will grow by 22% through 2020 and jobs in STEM are said to see similar growth. Educators are expected to equip their students with skills that will translate into careers and yet they have no idea what these skills should be. While timeless skills such as critical thinking, languages and mathematics aid in every career they do not provide the specialized skills that "jobs of the future" may require. So, what are the jobs of the future and how can be best prepare students for them?"

"For some women, enrolling in an engineering course is like running a psychological gauntlet. If they dodge overt problems like sexual harassment, sexist jokes, or poor treatment from professors, they often still have to evade subtler obstacles like the implicit tendency to see engineering as a male discipline. It's no wonder women in the U.S. hold just 13 to 22 percent of the doctorates in engineering, compared to an already-low 33 percent in the sciences as a whole. Nilanjana Dasgupta, from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, thinks that mentors-people who can give advice, share experiences, or make social connections-can dismantle the gauntlet, and help young women to find their place in an often hostile field."

In this lesson, students examine the poetry of Amanda Gorman, who was chosen to read her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. Gorman's poem will complement Biden's message and themes of "unity."

With Christmas almost upon us we are seeing the usual raft of big name video game releases. With that in mind it seems timely to take a look at a recent TED talk by Daphne Bavelier exploring the effect of video games on the brain.

"What if a child's success in school were measured not in IQ but in strength of character? That's the question Paul Tough tries to answer in his book How Children Succeed-Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character."

"Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" and a New Yorker staff writer, told me how he prepared, years ago, to write his first "Talk of the Town" story. "Talk" articles have a distinct style, and he wanted to make sure he got the voice straight in his head before he began writing. His approach was simple. He sat down and read 100 "Talk" pieces, one after the other."