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"Figuring out which tool is right for the job is something we all struggle with every day. Whether you're a contractor, plumber, or teacher, there's a lot of options to choose from. Teachers managing connected classrooms have it quite rough, though. There's an embarassment of riches when it comes to apps, web tools, and digital services that want to make your life easier. So how do you easily figure out which are the best education apps for connected classrooms, you ask? Great rhetorical question, Jeff!"

"Some Mac users who upgraded to OS X Yosemite have discovered a variety of wireless network connectivity issues, ranging from dropping wi-fi connections, to an inability to connect to the outside world despite being connected to a wifi router, even suddenly and strangely slow internet speeds. These network issues seem to occur most often on Macs that have updated to OS X Yosemite from Mavericks rather than those who performed a clean Yosemite install, which could suggest the issue has to do with improper network setting and preferences, or even a corrupted file somewhere. That's a good thing, because it should mean a resolution is fairly easy to implement, as we're about to show you."

"Need to run Windows 10 on a Mac? You can install and run Windows 10 in OS X for free using VirtualBox and the Windows 10 Preview from Microsoft. Because this installs Windows into a virtual machine atop existing Mac system software, running Windows is basically like running any other application, which makes it much easier than configuring Boot Camp for a native Windows experience. "

"Collecting data on student progress is an important part of making decisions about intervention and how to best support the children in our classrooms.  Running Record Calculator is an app for iOS devices that helps teachers who are administering this type of assessment.  It records students as they read a passage and gives you a quick way to keep track of self-corrections and errors.  After the recording finishes you can enter the word count from the passage to calculate words per minute."

"Open any newspaper or turn on any TV and the chances are you will see a negative report on the state of teaching. From heavy workloads to rising stress levels, times are tough. But there's lots to feel positive about too: I love my job. And despite the fact my life should be a recipe for disaster - I have two young children and a husband who is training to be a teacher - it's actually not. I've worked hard to find some sort of work-life balance. It's not been easy and I don't always get things right. "

"So… I was minding my own business… drinking my triple grande iced vanilla latte… when Terri Eichholz (@terriechholz) tweeted me that Canva had 27 FREE EDU PDF Lessons… and everything after that is kind of a blur…"

"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."

"Over sixty years ago, our dear friend Benjamin Bloom chaired the committee of educators responsible for delivering what we all know today as Bloom's Taxonomy (a bit rich naming it after himself, but it does have a more catchy ring than Krathwohl's Taxonomy). As a key foundation to many modern teaching philosophies, Bloom's Taxonomy gives a theoretical progression to help classify learning objectives. While this theoretical model is the backbone for many of our education systems, turning the theory it into real classroom tasks requires a more practical slant on the taxonomy. In an effort to turn a high level taxonomy into meaningful classroom learning experiences a number of educators have translated each definition into a set of actionable Bloom's Taxonomy verbs. The below chart visualizes each level of the taxonomy, offering verbs that can be used to traverse a wide range of thinking skills and provide hands-on ideas and inspiration for practical classroom activities."

"We need to teach students about how to properly use and leverage social media. For many very good reasons, social media has been given a bad rap in the past few years. There have been far too many cases of cyberbullying with tragic results. However, social media is not going to go away. It is here to stay and we as educators have a responsibility to teach students how to use it properly. Instead of banning it from our classrooms, we need to embrace it and model the many great ways that it can be used. (Sylvia Duckworth in https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/pmate-ppmee.nsf/eng/wz02162.html)"

"Google Cardboard is a virtual reality headset which immerses you in the video or picture so you can see a 360 degree view of an image or video.  Put on the headset and you are instantly inside the media.  Turn your head and look around to see in all directions."

"Why teach coding? Simply put, coding can change and impact people's lives. The effect technology - as a result of computer code - has on this world is incredible. What used to be thought of as impossible is now made possible. What's more amazing is that our technological accomplishments always open up new realms of possibilities. Cellphones, for instance, didn't stop at phone calls - they led to streaming music and eBooks and brain teasing games and the ability to map the night sky. This suggests that learning technology and its underlying language - coding - is extremely powerful."

"As a parent and an educator I strive to invite joy into my classroom and my home everyday. Joy is much more than happiness. Joy is a process in and of itself where we creatively learn to embrace all our emotions including disappointment and failure. Here I offer 5 entry points based upon the influential work of Marta Davidovich Ockuly (2015) and Catherine Camden-Pratt (2008), where we may foster and cultivate JOY in our own lives and the lives of those we influence."

The teaching of thinking is a critical endeavour for teachers and one that brings enhanced learning opportunities for students. Unfortunately thinking is not something that we naturally do well and as a consequence it is a skill we need to learn.

"The students in Molly James's kindergarten classroom were tasked with creating a mathematical art gallery. They had each drawn a number and then searched for two types objects they could use to compose a visual number sentence - such as two rulers plus three scissors to equal five objects. After photographing and mounting their pictures on the wall in numerical order, the students sat on the floor with their sketchbooks and began to draw and talk. "I had expected them to learn something about number composition," James said, "but I didn't expect the remarkable observations they began to have about the photographs." For example, when one girl looked at a picture of two red scissors and three blue scissors (2+3=5), she noticed that the direction of the handles gave rise to a new number sentence: 4 scissors pointing left + 1 scissor pointing right = 5 scissors. James, who recently published a paper about creativity in the classroom, said moments like these remind her that "creativity is not fluff or an add-on, but is instead an essential part of what it means to be a mathematician."  In fact, she believes creativity is the key to helping her students become confident and skilled mathematical thinkers."

"The internet is filled with websites. Billions of them. Some are useful, some, not so much. Some of the useful websites are quite popular, and rightly so-a tool like Canva is a life saver for easy web graphics. Then you have helpful tools like Down for Everyone or Just Me. But there are many other useful websites beyond the ones you may know about. The fun is in discovering them. Fortunately, we went ahead and did the hard work for you."

"It's the bottom of the ninth with two outs and it's all tied up. You've got a runner on first base and you need to decide who you're sending to the plate. You have a player with a stellar batting average, a player reliable for drawing walks and one who promises they can win it all for you-who do you play? In the fall of 2002, the Oakland Athletics shattered a 55-year-old record with twenty consecutive games won. The A's accomplished this on a shoestring budget and despite losing three of their best players at the start of the season. How, you ask? By applying rich data analysis to the sport, a practice known as sabermetrics. When we set out to design an engaging kickball unit for our middle school students, we asked ourselves how we could learn from the 2002 A's. In short, we wondered how we could combine data analysis, computational thinking and kickball to make the P.E. experience more personal, more academically rigorous and more inclusive to students of all athletic abilities."

"In the ever-changing technological world, computer science is not only becoming more prominent in classrooms, but a staple in education. Computer science combines the principles of technology and use of computers to educate learners on both the hardware and software of computer technology. The field of computer science is exceptionally diverse, as the skill sets are in-demand across practically every industry-serving as a lucrative and stable career pathway. In addition, computer science has many facets, meaning educators can leverage various components of the field to reach students across all levels and learning abilities. With technology present in almost every classroom, educators have a greater opportunity to implement computer science lessons throughout the curriculum. This provides students with the knowledge and skills required to help follow job market trends when they graduate."