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"On supply, normal rules don't apply. You may be left a set of plans, fully resourced, for the day. Or you may turn up with five minutes (10 minutes after you received the call to go) before the children arrive, to an empty desk, a missing laptop, and no password for the photocopier. You don't know that the children have some work to finish off in any spare five minutes. You need to make sure that the children are fully occupied and engaging with their task to help minimise fuss and poor behaviour. You may be warned assembly is a 9:30 sharp, only to arrive and discover that it has been cancelled for today. In short, you need help! From five minute time fillers, to whole session activities ideas on the hop, apps are an essential tool for supply teachers."

"I was very excited to try out this new tool from Techsmith. It's called Screenchomp and it does something that I've wanted to do for a while. It lets your create your own screencasts on your iPad. So, I eagerly downloaded it and set about to create my first screencast. I did what everyone does when they first grab this application…I doodled on the screen with my finger. It was very responsive to the touch and had a small set of tools to do the task. I did the mandatory "2+2=4″ and got excited. Maybe I could start my own educational academy…"

Surely there must be some impact all of this technology is having on our brains and behaviours as even mere males become more competent at multi-tasking their technological devices.

"For our last day of class with a "normal" schedule (today), I met with my students in our school's 21st-century learning space. There's a sampling of flexible furniture, a corner with stadium seating, iMacs, a big-screen TV, an Apple TV, tables that also serve as white boards… chairs on wheels, couches with charging stations… it's a great space! Screen Shot 2014-05-27 at 6.32.43 PM Students' first task today was to finalize their multi-touch math books and submit them to me. Since some student groups were able to virtually turn in their books last Friday, I was able to embed their .ePub files on my teacher website, and use each unique URL to share all of the books in a ThingLink. Student groups downloaded and read no less than five books authored by their peers."

"This web site is designed to foster visual creativity by making stories out of photos. It is based completely on the Five Card Nancy game devised by comics guru Scott McCloud and the nifty web version at 741.5 Comics. However, rather than using randomly chosen panels of the old Nancy comic, my version draws upon collections of photos specified by a tag in flickr. You are dealt five random photos for each draw, and your task is to select one each time to add to your building set of images, that taken together as a final set of 5 - tell a story in pictures. When you are done, you can add a title and explanation, and save the story. You can easily put a link in your resume or send to your Mom (she may print it out and tape it to the fridge, or she may criticize your creativity, your mileage and mom may vary). Plus we offer the ability to tweet your story or use an embed code to add it to your own web site."

"My wife came home the other day and started describing a new problem arising in her school, where students were claiming to be tired of using devices for everything. The students were apparently saying "Can't we just do a lesson on paper today or you just teach us." As she told me this, my wife didn't notice that she was simultaneously picking up her iPad to check Facebook and that made me think. Photo Credit In my observations around my school, it's those same students claiming device fatigue in the classroom that are not hesitating to turn to their device for 'life updates' as they leave that very same room. I would propose that it's not fatigue caused by device use but that caused by the pain of trying to carry out conventional, 20th century classroom tasks on devices that are designed for a world that conducts itself very differently."

"By definition, an avatar is a figure or character that you can create and customize the way you want. You can use this character to interact with other friends online . Users have the full control of what they want to feature for example the kind of background, accessories, clothes...etc. There are several reasons why you need to consider using avatars with students some of which include: Students can use avatar images in their profiles instead of their real pictures Avatar-creation provides students with hands-on activities in identity building Using avatars can increase students engagement and keep them focused and on-task Students can use avatars in their multimedia projects Below are some very good iPad apps that you can use with students to create avatars. Here is the link to access and download the chart in Google Doc version. "

"As more and more users turn to their phones and tablets for everyday computing tasks (email, Web browsing, even word processing), there's one aspect that often seems elusive: printing. After all, it's not like you can plug in a USB printer, and even if you have a Wi-Fi model connected to your home network, it may not show up when you search for printers within iOS. Fortunately, it's pretty simple to print just about anything from your iPhone or iPad, and to just about any printer. For starters, check out Sharon Profis' tutorial on printing wirelessly from any iDevice, which shows how to get connected to AirPrint and non-AirPrint printers alike. What remains is the nuts and bolts of how to print various kinds of items from various apps (a process that's not always consistent across iOS). For example, want to print a document from the newly updated Word for iPad? Or a set of directions from Google Maps? How about a magazine page? Here's a simple rundown of how to print just about anything."

"Stress about a meeting that is still a week away, handwringing before talking to the cashier in the grocery line, worrying about seeing an acquaintance on the street-for people with social anxiety disorder, even the simplest task can prove challenging. The symptoms of social anxiety often set in around adolescence, when people place a new emphasis on social interactions and their place in their peer groups. But some academics fear that greater access to technology could exacerbate social anxiety among teens, particularly as smartphones, tablets, and computers become omnipresent in and out of the classroom. And even though teachers are increasingly exploiting the devices as learning tools, they also play an integral role in stemming the tide of social anxiety."

"Jean Piaget once said that "play is the answer to how anything new comes about." As educators in the digital age, it is important that we embrace the power of play in our classrooms. One of the ways that we can redefine our practice is by using game education in our schools. Game education is a powerful way to engage 21st century learners in a variety of cognitively complex tasks that lead to deeper levels of understanding. Educational games help students to learn about certain subjects, expand their thinking on specific concepts, and reinforce skill development while they play while increasing engagement, empathy and excellence in the classroom."

"Teaching reading is an art filled with limiting factors: motivation, vocabulary, decoding, and comprehension are only a few of the comprehensive skills or traits that students need to be able to comprehend text, making the subject of literacy, in particular, difficult to teach. video gameYes, there are ways to garner student interest, especially when it comes to interacting with text, but in a society that is becoming increasingly visual and dependent on instant gratification, the delayed gratification of interacting with text can be far less enticing to our little ones. And for this reason, it's important to help them see that interacting with text can be just as gratifying as watching a movie or playing a game. But this is not a simple task. Not simple at all."

"As a learning strategy, inquiry-based learning is all about learners constructing their own understanding and knowledge through asking questions. Unlike traditional learning methods that focus primarily on drills, memorization and rote learning, inquiry-based learning is essentially student-centered. It starts with posing questions and directly involves students in challenging hands-on activities that drive students to ask more questions and explore different learning paths. In today's post, we have assembled a collection of some useful web tools and apps that support the ethos of inquiry-based learning.  Using these tools will enable students to engage in a wide range of learning tasks that are all driven by a sense of inquiry and questioning."

"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."

"One thing it doesn't mean, or it really shouldn't mean, is that we replace any existing teachers with engineers or computer science specialists. "Learning how to code is certainly not an easy task, but it pales in comparison to learning how to teach," says Adam Enbar, cofounder of the Flatiron School, a coding academy in New York. Indeed, it doesn't matter how well you know your way around a line of code if you can't impart that information clearly to a pupil, a lesson Gina Sipley, a former English and social studies teacher, experienced firsthand when she herself was learning to code through a General Assembly course. "The teacher we had was a brilliant programmer, that was clear, but had never taught before," she explains. "So as the course went on, people sought out the teachers in the room and said, 'This doesn't make sense. How would you present the information?' I don't have a deep content knowledge at all, but I know how people learn best and how to structure lessons so people are going to get the most out of it." So, what's the smartest, most effective way to go about teaching our 3.1 million existing public school teachers to code, so they're prepared to teach our students?"

"Any parent who has battled with a child over homework night after night has to wonder: Do those math worksheets and book reports really make a difference to a student's long-term success? Or is homework just a headache-another distraction from family time and downtime, already diminished by the likes of music and dance lessons, sports practices, and part-time jobs? Allison, a mother of two middle-school girls from an affluent Boston suburb, describes a frenetic afterschool scenario: "My girls do gymnastics a few days a week, so homework happens for my 6th grader after gymnastics, at 6:30 p.m. She doesn't get to bed until 9. My 8th grader does her homework immediately after school, up until gymnastics. She eats dinner at 9:15 and then goes to bed, unless there is more homework to do, in which case she'll get to bed around 10." The girls miss out on sleep, and weeknight family dinners are tough to swing. Parental concerns about their children's homework loads are nothing new. Debates over the merits of homework-tasks that teachers ask students to complete during non-instructional time-have ebbed and flowed since the late 19th century, and today its value is again being scrutinized and weighed against possible negative impacts on family life and children's well-being."

"We live in an era where robotics and artificial intelligence will replace many of our current jobs. Global connectivity will continue to allow companies to outsource labor to other countries. Our students will likely change jobs every five to seven years. The corporate ladder is gone and in its place, is a complex maze. They will inhabit a world of constant change. But how do we help students navigate that maze? We often hear that our current students will work in jobs that don't exist right now. But here's another reality: our current students will be the ones who create those jobs. Not every student will create the next Google or Pixar or Lyft. Some students will be engineers or artists or accountants. Some will work in technology, others in traditional corporate spaces and still others in social or civic spaces. Some of them will work in high-skilled manufacturing. But no matter how diverse their industries will be, our students will all someday face a common reality. They will need to be self-starters and self-managers. This is why metacognition is so vital. Metacognition happens when students analyze tasks, set goals, implement strategies and reflect on what we're learning."

"fter talking to 350 students, educators, and parents across 30 schools, they found few schools where powerful learning, in which most students were engaged and thinking critically, was happening across the board. However, they did find individual teachers who were making it happen on their own. In those classrooms, students were enthusiastically engaged, participating in challenging tasks that drew on their analytical and problem-solving skills. Mehta and Fine describe these bright spots in their new book, In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School. Usable Knowledge sat down with Mehta and Fine, who is now the director of the teaching apprenticeship program at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education in San Diego, to find out how other teachers can replicate the successes they uncovered - and how to prepare teachers to facilitate the kind of deeper learning we'd hope to see in every setting."

"Students undergo a lot of pressure when exams are around the corner. It can be quite a challenge to focus on the task at hand in such a state of mind. This article is going to look at how students can relieve stress by playing with LEGO during exam times. People normally consider LEGO just a toy, however, it is so much more than just a toy. It exercises your brain and gives you many benefits as a result. Rather than watching cartoons on TV and tablets most of the time, engaging in LEGO can prove to be such an excellent utilization of time and energy."

""Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." We should learn from experiences, particularly if those experiences show our previous beliefs to be untrue. So why are people so easy to fool when it comes to beliefs about learning? For years, a stream of articles have tried to dispel pervasive but wrong ideas about how people learn, but those ideas still linger. For example, there is no evidence that matching instructional materials to a student's preferred "learning style" helps learning, nor that there are "right-brain" and "left-brain" learners. The idea that younger people are "digital natives" who use technology more effectively and who can multi-task is also not supported by scientific research."

"Our RISE community has been on fire, exploring the breathtaking possibilities of ChatGPT. The uses of ChatGPT are simply endless and intoxicating It's still early days. Companies are trying to figure out the legal and ethical implications of a content world suddenly turned on its head by artificial intelligence. And yet … applying powerful AI to everyday tasks is awesome. So I challenged my RISE community friends … let's have some fun and come up with some non-obvious uses and share them with the world. Here we go."