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"Does your child have an iOS device (iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch) or access to your personal device? iOS devices have many security features that parents don't know about. You can use these features to help protect your child from accessing inappropriate content; guard your personal data on a shared device; and safeguard you from unexpected credit card bills due to unapproved app and itunes purchases. The following video explains how!"

"Almost two years ago to the day, I wrote a post, "The iPad: Why Teachers Should Care." Flash forward to today, both of the schools I work at have purchased one iPad for each classroom. Although I've already mastered how to manage all the iDevices in my personal household, learning to manage iPads in an institutional environment involved a bit more learning due to the complexities of software licensing and the necessity to keep institutional accounts separate from personal ones."

"It's no secret among my friends and family that I have an Evernote addiction. Between Evernote and my personal scanner, I cannot decide which one is more important to my work and personal life. I started out with the free version of Evernote, but quickly figured out that the Premium version was the only way to go based on the quantity of documents I store as well as the number of times I must access stuff offline. Suffice to say, if you're not using Evernote, I highly suggest giving it a try - only then will you be able to truly determine if it's a beneficial service or something you can do without."

"Y'all know we love TED talks. Short, watchable snippets of useful information, thought provoking questions, personal stories, inspiration, and learning. While I always take something away from every TED talk that I watch, some stick with me more than others. That said, most don't come with a specific list of takeaways meant to help you with your everyday life. This talk, from David Pogue, offers 10 time saving tech tips. Most are for technologies that we use every day. They're simple, easy-to-do, they'll save you time, and make you feel like a suave tech person who can (seemingly) make their technology do whatever they need it to do with little effort. The video is embedded below, but we've typed out the handy list for you to reference later."

"The video consists of three sections. It starts introducing Gardner and the main problem of education versus different individual skills. Then it turns to present the eight intelligences as proposed by Howard Gardner, including a suggested learning strategy for each of these intelligences. Then in the third and final part it presents the concepts of personalization and pluralization, defined in respect of the multiple intelligences theory, as the guiding principle for a more including and developing educational strategy. Regardless of what type of student, their age, level, or subject you're teaching, awareness and understanding of the theory of multiple intelligences will help reach more and deeper in the teaching effort. Even for people not directly involved in education, this theory will help in getting a more nuanced and deeper picture of human skills and personalities."

"Most educators who learn to use Twitter effectively say they learn more from their personal learning network (PLN) on Twitter than they've achieved from any other forms of professional development or personal learning. Unfortunately educators often dismiss Twitter, or fail to see the value of Twitter, when they're first introduced to Twitter. Our aim of this post is to provide all the information you need to learn how to use Twitter effectively as an educator."

"Siri is the name of Apple's personal digital assistant. It's basically voice control that talks back to you, that understands relationships and context, and with a personality straight out of Pixar. Ask Siri questions, or ask Siri to do things for you, just like you would ask a real assistant, and Siri will help keep you connected, informed, in the right place, and on time. You can even use Siri's built in dictation feature to enter text almost everywhere by simply using your voice."

""If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve," Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: "Do what you love, and don't stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…" Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) - an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness."

"In Manitoba there are traditionally five provincially mandated PD days per year. This year the topics for the first four of my school's PD days were 'Cultural Proficiency' (a division sponsored event), an 'EdCamp' (facilitated by division coordinators), a day where teachers work with other teachers from around the province in their teaching area, and a school-based session on 'Deeper Learning and Critical Thinking' with support from a division coordinator. Our final day will be on the topic of 'Positive Behaviour Interventions and Supports'. We will join one of our feeder elementary schools, and the day will be facilitated by divisional educational support services staff. Although these sessions have all been of great value, and have resulted in many thoughtful conversations, the days are somewhat disjointed. The topics for each day are chosen by divisional administration or school-based administrators, without the input of the teachers that will 'benefit' from the PD sessions. To make these PD days more valuable, teachers need to keep the conversations going on these important topics for deep learning to occur, or this 'one size fits all' model needs to be abandoned for a more teacher directed PD model. If teachers are in charge of the topic of their personal PD, they will be more likely to own this time and use the division sponsored PD days as a catalyst to deeper learning and connections to other professionals within their own building and beyond. Teachers need going beyond the four or five division sponsored PD days to ensure personal and professional growth."

"A year and a half ago I decided to implement a job-embedded growth model at the suggestion of some of my teacher leaders. They desperately sought time during the school day to engage in professional growth opportunities, learn how to integrate Web 2.0 tools, and develop their own Personal Learning Networks (PLN's). After some thinking and looking at various options inherent in the current schedule, I decided to cut all non-instructional duties in half to create a Professional Growth Period (PGP). The inspiration for this idea came from Google's 80/20 Innovation Model where engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally. Duties that we cut are now assumed by me and my administrative team."

"School and district leaders that are thinking about personalizing education tell us one of their top concerns is how to train, support, and develop teachers effectively to teach in ways that may feel new and unfamiliar.  As former educators we agree that this is crucial, and are happy that they recognize the challenge and are ready to take it on. First and foremost, in order to support the teachers we are asking to teach in blended learning environments we have to understand the implications on teaching practice.  Over the past three years, we've worked with thousands of teachers tackling the question of how to personalize learning in their classrooms and we've gathered a set skills into 5 domains of blended learning teaching that we believe are new skills to master for veteran and novice teachers alike. This five-domain rubric was created, not for evaluation purposes (there are enough evaluation rubrics out there!), but for teachers to be able to self-assess, set goals and progress.  In the same way, we want blended learning to allow for students to have a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, we want teachers to be able to identify blended specific skills and better understand their own strengths and areas for growth.  We wanted to give teachers, their coaches, and their leaders, a sense of what to strive for, and help them plot a path to get there through aligned professional development.  We also found that the teachers we work with cherish the opportunity to self-reflect, identify the skills they have and the skills they need, and take the time to set goals around where they want to shift their practice.  Many of our schools infuse these concepts into community of practices discussions for continuous learning."

"As the collective family of social media channels grows, each adopts their own personality. LinkedIn is oldest sibling -a go-getter that wore a suit in middle school. Instagram is the playful teen that opened her own restaurant with her family's money. Facebook is the walking political argument that you know not get started. And twitter? twitter is the wild child of the bunch. Offering quick bits of information, a dynamic stream that looks great on desktop and mobile devices, and a variety of ways to communicate from #hashtags to @messaging to micro-blogging and link distribution, twitter works, and unlike facebook, blogging, and other digital tools, when something does indeed "fail" on twitter, the overwhelming number of tweets can help mitigate the loss. The best I've heard explanation we've heard for the difference between twitter and facebook is (paraphrased), "Facebook makes me dislike people I've known for years, while twitter makes me like people I've never met." I'm not sure it's quite that cut and dry, but the big idea remains the same-every social channel has its own personality."

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.

"30+ Cool Content Curation Tools for Personal & Professional Use"

"Genius hour is a great way to allow students to drive their own personalized instruction but where to begin such a big project? "

"Ed note: This is the first part of a two-post mini-series (can you call two posts a mini-series?) The second part of this post will be published tomorrow morning, and will focus on the design cycle of genius hour and passion-based learning. For the past eight years students in Year Six at Redlands have participated in a Personal Passion Project during Term Four. It is a way to finish their time in Junior School with a project that connects their passion with all they have learned about managing inquiry/design based projects to that point. Over the years it has proven to be a highlight of the year and has produced amazing results. With a change to the Australian & NSW syllabus we have had to revise our approach to the Personal Passion Project and so now is the perfect time to reflect on the past and identify the lessons learned."

"The scientific research on the benefits of so-called expressive writing is surprisingly vast. Studies have shown that writing about oneself and personal experiences can improve mood disorders, help reduce symptoms among cancer patients, improve a person's health after a heart attack, reduce doctor visits and even boost memory. Now researchers are studying whether the power of writing - and then rewriting - your personal story can lead to behavioral changes and improve happiness."