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"Can technology help kids develop empathy? Due to the rise of virtual reality experiences, there's been some buzz lately about the impact technology might have on how we understand and share the feelings of others. Since video games have an inherent ability to transport us to places and meet people we normally wouldn't, teachers can use them to create authentic experiences in their classes - where students reflect on their own lives, share personal stories with peers, and hopefully begin to share in the perspectives of others. Games can't be the sole tool to help build empathy, but emotional and powerful moments in games can drive meaningful discussions in the classroom."

"Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are all around us - from Siri on your iPhone to Google Map suggestions, to recommendations for purchases during your Amazon check-out. While many of us may think AI and machine learning mean more robots and self-driving cars, at a fundamental level, they are about data - and ways to make meaning of data. In this workshop, we'll use a hands-on project based approach to learn how to put data to use for us in our everyday lives."

"As you may remember from your own (in)glorious youth, most university students are required to take a statistics course even if they hate math and aren't in a particularly numbers-heavy major. Ellen Peters, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, heard this was driving a lot undergrads on her campus crazy. "A lot of the students are really threatened by it. They're kind of afraid of it, they dread taking it," she says. "If they do dread it, they can end up in a cycle of failure." Curious to see if she could make a positive change among math-phobic Buckeyes, Peters created an intervention that tested whether or not value affirmation could improve student's comfort and ability with numbers, otherwise known as numerical literacy or numeracy. The results, which were published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, indicate that confidence and core values have a lot to do with learning the numbers."

 If the young people of today are to thrive beyond the walls of the classroom they will need to be able to cope with a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The children of todays Kindergarten will enter the workplace in the fourth-decade of the 21st Century. We debate the merits of teaching 21st Century Skills and what they might be while teaching children who have lived their entire lives in that very century. The challenge is how will schools and individual teachers respond to this drive for urgent change.

"In the last few years, Netflix has completely transformed the way many Americans watch movies.  Long gone are the days of driving to the video store, browsing through the aisles of endless new releases. Now,  you can do it all, right from the comfort of your home. From romance to dramas, there's something for everyone. Lucky for us, the streaming site is jam-packed with educational shows on Netflix."

"GE Teach Tour is a free tool that you and your students can use to create tours to play in the new web version of Google Earth. To get started head to geteach.com/tour/ then enter a title for your tour. The next step is to give your first placemark a title and to enter a description of the location you're featuring with that placemark. To place your placemarks in your tour you can either manually enter latitude and longitude coordinates or you can click on the map to insert your placemarks. Finally, to add images to your placemarks you will have to link to publicly available images that are in your Google Drive account or on another image hosting service like Flickr (by the way, linking to images found on sites that prevent hotlinking won't work)."

"3D printing has been used to build houses, cabins, offices, bridges, pavilions, large-scale structures, and much more. Even though they only existed for a handful of years, there are a vast number of completed projects, ongoing construction jobs, and unique concepts that are driving the industry today. Before we get started with the greatest 3D printed houses and structures in the world, take a glance at the top five advantages that 3D printing can offer the construction industry."

"While on Twitter today this graphic caught my eye. It was posted by @MindShiftKQED linking to an article on their blog. The sketch itself was created by Sylvia Duckworth and it definitely caught my attention. I began to think about the kinds of professional learning we offer at Powerful Learning Practice and asked myself if we were honoring what teachers want. We are a small, intimate group here at PLP, but we have huge hearts and an extensive amount of combined experience both in and out of the classroom when it comes to pedagogy and future ready learning. No one works harder and thinks deeper than the folks at PLP who selflessly plan and offer the coaching, professional learning, e-courses, and products available on our site. I am grateful for each instructor's drive and ability to be self directed, conscientious and caring toward our clients. But I was curious if what we do we aligns with this list of teacher wants? And more importantly, should we? Was anything important missing from this list?"

"I recently was asked to give a webinar that would guide participants through selecting the right products for their makerspace, where I unveiled my "Worlds of Making 'MAKER' Framework." I was really excited about this opportunity, as it gave me the chance to address one of the questions I am most frequently asked. In my work with schools across the country, I have shied away from telling people what they should buy in their makerspace, although many want to know from me what they should buy. I strongly believe in following a process for how you and go about selecting the right products for your makerspace. My definition of what a makerspace is drives every decision I make for my makerspace, and that includes selecting the right products for my makerspace. Many people associate the Maker Movement with 'stuff' like 3D printers, but in my opinion, this isn't what pushes children outside of their comfort zone, it is that opportunity for open-ended exploration that is key. When creating a makerspace, many school districts just go out and buy things that other districts buy, really in essence, just replicating another school districts makerspace. But here's the reality: no two school makerspaces should be exactly alike because no two school communities are exactly alike."

"Democratization of technological and data-driven enterprise are themes that are on everyone's lips. We've seen how top-down transformation, directed by business leaders working together with data scientists on strategically-aligned initiatives has the potential to create efficiencies, better understand business processes and predict problems before they occur. At least, if you are one of the still small number of businesses which is managing to do so successfully, you have. But imagine how much greater the potential for change could be if it could spontaneously emerge anywhere in an organization. When everyone has access to the tools, skills and knowhow to harness tech to do their job better, or drive efficiencies, then a workforce looks better equipped to deal with the challenges of the future."

"Nothing matters more for economics and human living standards than innovation. It's innovation that has allowed us to cure diseases and extend life spans. It's innovation that has drastically increased the pace of transportation and communication, and ultimately it's innovation that has let most people do high-wage work rather than subsistence agriculture. What the researchers found is fascinating. They discovered that both an actual ability to invent things and early life exposure to a culture of innovation and opportunity are crucial to driving inventions. Ability itself is, of course, unevenly distributed. But in the United States, so is opportunity - with huge numbers of highly skilled children from unfavorable backgrounds seemingly locked out of pathways to careers as inventors."

"You wouldn't use a hammer to try to cut down a tree. Try to use an axe to drive nails and you're likely to lose a finger. Different physical jobs call for different tools. So, too, do different mental jobs.  Optimism and big-picture thinking will help you sell your business idea. Keeping your books in order requires a more detail-oriented approach. Motivating employees requires more empathy than analytical thinking.  Different modes of thinking are best suited for different situations, and according to a new interview with star Wharton professor and best-selling author Adam Grant most of us don't utilize one particularly powerful mindset nearly enough. "