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"Instructional rigor is a concept we can agree is important, despite the debate about the use of the word itself. Rigor is "creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels; each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels; and each student demonstrates learning at high levels (Blackburn, 2008)." But how does technology relate to rigor? As with any instructional tool, educational technology is critical to increasing rigor in the classroom.  There are five ways technology can be used to increase rigor."

"When I first started my makerspace at Stewart Middle Magnet School back in January of 2014, I was figuring everything out as I went along.  The term was still brand new, I couldn't find any maker sessions at conferences, and there were only a handful of other school libraries sharing about their makerspaces.  Armed with a couple of books on the growing Maker Education Movement and a dream to create an engaging environment in my library,  I gathered some supplies, put them out there, and waited to see what would happen.  My ideas and philosophy were constantly growing and evolving as we tried new activities and formats at my school.  Some experiments worked; some failed miserably.  But I learned from each and every one as our makerspace grew into an integral part of our library culture.  Looking back on the last year and a half, I've realized that there's several essential lessons I've learned in getting our makerspace going. Hopefully they can help save you some stress (and reassure you that everything will be awesome)."

"Filmmakers are using virtual reality to make the problems of the developing world seem more ... real. But how can you see their work? You could buy a headset, but you might end up in virtual debt. Prices range from $200 to $500 for devices from big players like Oculus Rift, Sony and Samsung. And forking over that much cash is a problem since there's not a lot of content yet. MindMaze Software Engineer Nicolas Bourdaud demonstrates a virtual reality system at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. All Tech Considered Developers Continue Push To Make Virtual Reality Mainstream An attendee at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles plays Sony's Project Morpheus London Heist video game with a virtual reality headset and Move controllers. All Tech Considered Gaming Industry Pushes Virtual Reality, But Content Lags "You're in a store ... and here's all the head-mounted displays and then it costs $200 or $300. Why would you ever buy it when you don't know why you're buying it? You wouldn't," Tony Christopher, CEO of Landmark Entertainment Group, told NPR last month. But there are inexpensive options that require only your smartphone and some cardboard. Google Cardboard, a project of the tech giant, offers instructions and templates to build your own cardboard virtual reality headset. Grab a pair of scissors, X-Acto knife and some glue. Then find some cardboard at home, print out the templates, trace and cut out the different pieces and assemble your goggles. The instructions can get confusing, so our multimedia editor Ben de la Cruz suggests following a how-to video like this one from the tech site, CNET."

"It really all started with the 20+ iPads we loan out to educators. Those suckers are constantly in demand and constantly in need of charging. They're each firmly encased in Fintie Kiddie cases, which, laugh all you want, those things can stop a bullet. And they stand up. And they recline, have carrying handles and come in neon colors, perfect for locating 20+ loaned out units during the chaos of an event, but that's a whole other blog post. Anyway, we've been loaning these iPads out in tote bags, and just tossing the chargers in higgledy-piggledy. Mainly because if you have done any shopping around for charging carts you likely have needed to be resuscitated at least twice when looking at the prices. The cheapest we could find that works with our beloved Fintie cases started at $399.00, and there was no guarantee everything would fit. We've borrowed another department's iPad charging tray a couple times, but a) it cost them closer to $1,000.00, b) weighed close to 25 lbs and c) had no wheels, thus entailing that their tech guy** lug it four blocks each way. The thing about the Fintie cases is that part of their magic durability is that they surround the iPad in thick molded foam rubber - perfect for tossing in bags and bike panniers (guilty!) but problematic for trying to buy a pre-made charging cart, as the slots in those are generally cut for slimmer, uncased iPads. Plus can we get back to the whole cost thing? Are school districts really running around with so much cash? I know I'm not. And thus, with no more rambling, I present: How to Build Your Own iPad Charging Cart Out of Office Supplies"

"I fell in love with Periscope, the free live-streaming app created by Twitter, this summer while at ISTE.  Free, instant access to events happening around the world - finally!  The myriad of ways I could see implementing it in my classroom overwhelmed me in a good way.  Kids could periscope our class at any time to bring the world in.  Students could interact with other students around the world.  Students could have a real-time audience at any time we needed.  We could explore every day moments in cultures around the world.  On and on, the ideas went. Yet, when I thought about it some more, I started to second-guess my love for it a little bit.  I didn't fall out of love, but I did start to question my own ideas, as well as the professional responsibility that I carry not just as a teacher, but also as an active conference goer/speaker.  So what has made me slow down?"

"There are a few theories out there about informal learning at work - the 70:20:10 split, Jay Cross's 80%/20% model and Dan Pontefract's 3:33 model, to name three. One thing they have in common is that they are just guidelines. It's not suggested that companies should break their backs trying to achieve these splits or ratios. But it's important to emphasise the role that informal and social learning plays in training. On that note, here are five ways to boost informal learning at work:"

Today was Dr. Davey's first Maker Day, and an amazing one at that! Here's a look at our day. All of the Grade 1-Grade 7 students participated in today's Maker Day. Students attended two of seven different sessions based on their interests: Minecraft/Coding, Collaborative Art, Beautiful Junk, Positive Graffiti, Making Music, Lego/Blocks, and Egg Drop. Staff members paired up together to facilitate the learning at each of the sessions, and the students directed most of the learning based on their interests. I (Aviva) worked with an amazing Grade 4 student that led the Minecraft/Coding session, and even worked with small groups of students on coding the Arduino. It was really quite incredible! After two sessions, students reflected on the day and on their learning, and then extended the "Maker Learning" back in the classroom. Today was all about the Learning Skills, problem solving, creativity and critical thinking. As you can hear in our video reflection, there were also links to our classroom learning including Science (Structures) and Math (shapes, figures, and non-standard measurement). There was also a lot of Arts learning today (with creating music and creating works of art including the elements of design). What an amazing day!"

Manitoba educators who are "reaching out" to other schools using technology should consider applying for $1000 grant. Six grants in total are available with 2 at K-4; 2 at 5-8 and 2 at 9-12 grade levels. Submission deadlines are Jan 26 & Apr 13, 2011. This opportunity is a meaningful extension for LwICT empowered students to reach out and make a difference.

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Need online homework help or need to prepare for your tests? Get the answers you need at Studio4Learning.tv. Browse or search to find what you are looking for. Click one of the 10 categories at the top of the page and select one subject listed in the drop down menu. You can also type a word or phrase in the search box and click search. Explore, find and watch free online video help at Studio4Learning.tv

"What you're looking at here is the i-FlashDrive, a memory dongle that sports both a USB plug and an Apple 30-pin dock connector, and it comes in three flavors starting from 8GB at $95 up to 32GB at $180. "

"Gone are the days of single-television households; in fact, who needs a big, fat, cumbersome television set when you've got an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in the palm of your hand? How to Watch TV Shows on the iPhoneThanks to an innovative partnership between MobiTV and AT&T, we've got the AT&T U-verse Live TV iOS app to make sure that everyone wins control over their favorite television content at any time they like."

Lee Keller and Kim Cavanaugh of Palm Breeze Cafe (a video training series for teachers) look at a cool but somewhat unknown feature of Google Docs, the forms. Available at Youtube where you can subscribe to the series.

Lee Keller and Kim Cavanaugh of Palm Breeze Cafe (a video training series for teachers) look at a cool but somewhat unknown feature of Google Docs, the forms. Available at Youtube

"If I had written this article two years ago, it would have been very different. Back then, I would have made (or felt like I had to make) a compelling case for why we should even consider the idea of incorporating video games into classroom instruction. Back then, I would have expected most readers to incredulously click to the next article. But today, Game-Based Learning (GBL) and Gamification are gaining some real traction in the teaching community. At the recent OETC conference, the organizers dedicated an entire wing of the convention center to the subject, and educators weren't shy about their interest. When I presented on the subject at Common Ground 14, I had the dreaded "last-presentation-of-the-day" spot, but I was very pleased at the turnout and interest."

""Whether at the start of the school year, the re-start of school after the New Year, or at any time when we want to strengthen our students' engagement in school and learning, it is valuable to have tools at our disposal that help us effectively reach students.""

"Current events articles are a great choice for informational text.  Students can learn all about news stories and practice reading skills at the same time.  If you have a class full of students reading at different levels you'll definitely want to check out Newsela.  This fantastic site contains brand new articles everyday.  The best part is that you can change the Lexile level of each article by clicking on the one that's right for your students.  You can share the same article at a few different levels with each of your reading groups."

"On a recent weekday morning, a six-year-old girl with brown pigtails stared at an iPad perched on the desk in front of her. As she studied the screen, she squinted her eyes, and her brow furrowed into a pair of delicate question marks. A minute ticked by. She was still perplexed. Then suddenly, the iPad emitted a soft, triumphant-sounding ping, and her face lit up. The girl had successfully solved a mathematical puzzle in the educational software program ST Math. At adjacent desks, her first-grade classmates at Jack L. Weaver Elementary School, in Los Alamitos, Calif., were grappling with their own ST Math challenges. The room was silent, with no hint that the morning recess was just 15 minutes away. "They could do this all day," the teacher, Kathi Ruziecki, whispered. "

"Last year at this time, I was trying not to think about kindergarteners. I was still teaching ninth grade English and had just accepted a job teaching technology to K-5. I was excited about the challenge, and I knew that I'd bitten off more than I could chew. Developing the tech curriculum challenged me to teach programming or at least computational thinking at each elementary grade level. Our school is mid-pivot in technology -- we're in our second year of a middle school 1:2 iPad program, our first year of having a cart of iPads available for elementary, and our last year of two PC labs for the students to use (next year we'll have only one lab). Knowing this, I wanted to design a program that mostly used tablet-based tools."

"Marlon Frausto is in pursuit of the new American dream. Just a few weeks ago he left his job, in Hispanic marketing for the legal industry, and moved to San Francisco. Every day he wakes at 5:30 a.m., commutes 45 minutes by train, and studies until 9 or 10 at night. He's spending down his savings and says he's getting help from "my loving family." At age 26, Frausto has gone back to school. Sort of. He's enrolled in a brand-new kind of trade school: the immersive web-development program, also known as a "coder boot camp." These programs promise, for several thousand dollars, to take people like Frausto and, in a manner of weeks, turn them into job-ready web developers."