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"t's time to debunk the myths about who is good in math, and Common Core state standards move us toward this worthy goal. Mathematics and technology leaders support the standards because they are rooted in the new brain and learning sciences. All children are different in their thinking, strength and interests. Mathematics classes of the past decade have valued one type of math learner, one who can memorize well and calculate fast. Yet data from the 13 million students who took PISA tests showed that the lowest achieving students worldwide were those who used a memorization strategy - those who thought of math as a set of methods to remember and who approached math by trying to memorize steps. The highest achieving students were those who thought of math as a set of connected, big ideas."

Behind the rhetoric and politics, education is about the outcomes it achieves for its learners. More than being about the nuances of technology, learning space design, curriculum structures and pedagogical practices schools should have effective answers to questions that focus on what they hope to achieve for their learners. How we answer this question should then dictate the measures we utilise to achieve these goals and it is to these ends that we must apply our efforts.

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.

"This week, Grade 5 began a unit on Volume, Capacity and Surface Area. On a weekly basis, I take combined groups from the 4 grades consisting of the higher achievers, while the classroom teachers concentrate on the mainstream group and students needing more individual instruction to achieve success. I made a conscious decision this week to focus on using iPads with my group to explore both volume/capacity as well as surface area."

"The use of various applications enable a workflow. Through clever use of various tools a product can be achieved that at first may have been thought impossible with an iPad. Truth be told the iPad is often perceived as simply a consumption device, however, the iPad can achieve a lot more than first thought and is an amazing device that can support, learning and product creation. To import a video from 'YouTube' to 'Keynote' follow this step by step guide. "

"Two years ago I attended an edtech conference focused on the then up-and-coming trend of makerspaces. The opening keynote speaker ended his presentation with a charge for all in attendance: "I hope that makerspaces don't become an edtech fad that goes away as quickly as it has risen to popularity; I hope you all can figure out how to do it right." So what is the "right way" when it comes to using makerspaces? And now that they have been established in schools all across the globe, how can we measure the impact that makerspaces have on student learning and achievement? Most facilitators would agree that standardized test scores may never accurately reflect the impact that makerspaces have on student achievement. Rather, it is a combination of the design thinking processes, service learning experiences, and 21st century skills being developed in makerspaces that are positively impacting student learning."

The best measure of academic achievment is successin the real world, not tests. Schools can measure their success by following up on alumni. aUse real-world, real-life experiences to connent students to potential new jobs, showcase their talents, develop partnerships, and measure academic achievement.

"The U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act defines the concept of the Least Restrictive Environment as the opportunity for a student with a disability to be "provided with supplementary aids and services necessary to achieve educational goals if placed in a setting with non-disabled peers." (Daniel R.r. v. State Bd. of Educ., 874 F.2d 1036, 1050, 5th Cir.1989) This concept of providing students with "supplementary aids and services necessary to achieve educational goals" could be applied to all students. By leveraging the capabilities of mobile devices, teachers can support their students in creating a personalized learning environment with the least number of barriers. "

"It's a familiar classroom ritual - every June, teachers assign summer reading. And every September, students come back to school having read too few books. This is frustrating for teachers, and challenging for students. When kids aren't in school, they forget crucial skills they learned during the year - at least a month of reading achievement, on average. This so-called "summer slide" is particularly pernicious in children from low-income families. Low-income students often walk through the door of their kindergartens already behind their more fortunate peers because of a mix of poverty, poorer health, less parental education, and higher rates of single and teenage parents. With limited access to books and other academic opportunities in the summer, these children experience the summer slide threefold. Over time, this adds up. By third grade, children who can't read at their grade level (a whopping 73 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch) begin to struggle with other subjects. Students living in poverty who cannot read proficiently by third grade are 13 times less likely to graduate from high school. By ninth grade, some have estimated that two-thirds of the reading achievement gap can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities. There is good news: Stemming the summer slide isn't impossible. Students who read just four to six books over the summer maintain their skills (they need to turn more pages to actually become better readers.)"

"Murphy & Beland's recent study is making the rounds online, particularly among those who are eager to find reasons to ban learning technologies in classrooms. The economists found that banning mobile phones helped improve student achievement on standardized test scores, with the biggest gains seen by low-achieving and at-risk students. Here are my thoughts on this… The outcome measure is standardized test score improvement. Is that all you care about or do you have a bigger, more complex vision for student learning? For instance, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving are difficult to assess with a standardized test. Most schools I know didn't adopt their learning technology initiatives for the sole purpose of test score improvement. (if they did, how sad is that?)"

"An idea that is beginning to gain a lot of favour in educational circles at the moment is the notion of fixed versus growth mindsets, and how they might relate to students and learning. Based on the work of Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck, the idea of mindset is related to our understanding of where ability comes from. It has recently been seized upon by educators as a tool to explore our knowledge of student achievement, and ways that such achievement might be improved."

"Changing the Culture of Schools: Creating Conditions that Promote Student Achievement"

"Youth branding themselves using social media to achieve #instafame: research report"

"The single most important skill you will ever learn is in itself an oxymoron. It is dependent on your ability to vanquish procrastination and achieve something today with view to tackling the unknown that comes tomorrow. As I've written previously it requires the drive to tackle the modern world head on: doing nothing has never been so easy. Got a spare few hours? They can disappear as quickly as unlocking your smart phone. For me then this affords opportunity for those who have taught themselves the skill I allude to; to learn how to learn and have the desire to maniacally do so for the rest of your life. The ability to employ autodidacticism in your every day life is the single most valuable skill you can ever acquire and employ. Self-directed learning enables you to learn the skills that you are most passionate about and employ them in innovative way to achieve your goals and ambitions. We no longer need schools, universities or teachers to spoon feed us the information you are paying to acquire. Go out and try finding what interests you and expand your horizons through learning. Schools are broken, they teach you memory skills required to pass exams at the detriment of teaching you what it means to learn."

"Over the years, many of us have personally experienced the growth of technology in today's classrooms. Instead of taking notes, students are now occupied by surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook, and messaging their friends on their smart phones, tablets, and laptops. Instead of focusing on the instruction, teachers are constantly required to interrupt class in order to remind those students again and again, that class time is for learning, not texting. However, as today's students are using more technological devices, it is imperative that teachers have access to the resources to keep pace with the growing tech culture. The use of smart phones, tablets, and other tech items in the classroom do not necessarily have to have a negative impact on student achievement. On the contrary, the increasing accessibility and growth of technology presents teachers with the unique opportunity to take advantage of those once distracting gadgets, and use them to facilitate academic achievement in new and innovative ways. In this capacity, teachers do not need to be constantly fighting for student attention, but can freely accept it, by introducing a new educational environment that will automatically encourage student participation. Below are some resources that teachers may find useful when attempting to implement technology into their classrooms, separated by 5 common areas that are increasingly important for teachers, and for an effective learning environment-Organization, Project Based Learning, Class Management, Presentations, and Assessment. "

"When you see things from multiple perspectives, you realize you can achieve almost anything you want in far less time than you imagined. Yet most people have fixed and limited views about themselves and what they can accomplish. They have fixed and limited views about the resources available to them. They have fixed and limited views about time, and how long things must take to accomplish. In this article, I squash all of those limiting perspectives and provide concrete strategies you can use to achieve your goals. There are no fixed limits. Here's how it works:"

As with many things in education, the outcome achieved will be a result of all that we do. Efforts to promote and empower student agency, voice and choice certainly falls into this category. We might have the best of intentions but unless each of our messaging systems align, we are unlikely to achieve success. So where do our efforts go wrong and what else might we change so that student agency is genuinely a part of our learning environment?

The same revision schedule I used to get an A* in GCSE maths a year early! It can be used by any GCSE/IGCSE maths student, regardless of the examining body. It covers the new UK GCSE Maths specification (9-1) released in September 2015. The fatal mistake thousands of students make in their maths revision and how YOU can avoid it. The most important area of your revision yet it goes widely unnoticed. This is where the A/A* grades are achieved. 3 unique memory retention techniques you can use to remember all you need to know for your exam. What process to follow a few days before your exam and why there is NO need to do any past papers at this point. A simple technique that will allow you to spend up to 50% of your time doing the things you enjoy! How to revise for all your other GCSE exams and achieve a top grade in each one. Tips on how to score up to 100% in your exam. A neat little trick to eliminate stress & anxiety on exam day. How to enter the exam if you're a private candidate with a tip on saving on the entry cost.

""Nothing could be more absurd than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where nothing else is changed." - Seymour Papert When it comes to improving outcomes in the digital age, efficacy matters more than ever.  Billions of dollars are spent across the world on technology with the hopes that it will lead to better results.  Tom Murray and I shared this thought in Learning Transformed: Educational technology is not a silver bullet. Yet year after year, districts purchase large quantities of devices, deploy them on a large scale, and are left hoping the technology will have an impact. Quite often, they're left wondering why there was no change in student engagement or achievement after large financial investments in devices. Today's devices are powerful tools. At the cost of only a few hundred dollars, it's almost possible to get more technological capacity than was required to put people on the moon. Nevertheless, the devices in tomorrow's schools will be even more robust. With that in mind, it's important to understand that the technology our students are currently using in their classrooms is the worst technology they will ever use moving forward. As the technology continues to evolve, the conversation must remain focused on learning and pedagogy-not on devices. Unfortunately, technology is not a magic wand that will automatically empower learners to think critically, solve complex problems, or close achievement gaps.  These outcomes rely on taking a critical lens to pedagogical techniques to ensure that they evolve so that technology can begin to support and ultimately enhance instruction.  If the former (pedagogy) isn't solid, then all the technology in the world won't make a difference.  As William Horton states, "Unless you get the instructional design right, technology can only increase the speed and certainty of failure.""