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There are terms within education that we use with reckless abandon and as a result cause great levels of confusion. Understanding is one such word and its usage and our 'understanding' of it can have a significant effect on the learning we plan, deliver and assess. With multiple definitions and its broad usage in curriculum documents, philosophies of teaching and learning and as an indicator of the quality or depth of student learning it is a word we should better understand. 

""This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience." This is important because it can actually change what you strive for and what you see as success. By changing the definition, significance, and impact of failure, you change the deepest meaning of effort. In this mindset, the hand you're dealt is just the starting point for development. So how does this apply to learning and what can we do to help instill this attitude in our students?"

"Technology is changing the way we teach and learn at a rapid speed. So, how can teachers make learning more interactive and more fun with technology? True, teachers can make up games to teach a concept that involves every student. But, when teachers need to help students in small groups or one-on-one, how can they make sure that other students are actively practicing subject-area skills? One of the great aspects of having tablets, laptops, and desktops in the classroom is the availability educational apps. With these apps, students can individually learn, practice, study, and have fun with different subjects and concepts. Luckily, there are many good, quality apps for students of all ages. It is important to note that this list is separated into categories, and the apps in each category are not in rank ordered. Here are 116 of the best teaching and learning apps for 2017."

"Adobe is getting into the mobile scanning game with a new free iOS and Android app that is supposed to provide users with high-quality images of physical content they want to capture digitally. It's called Adobe Scan, and it works similarly to a bunch of other apps already available. Users point their smartphone cameras at whatever document, white board, or presentation screen they want to capture, and the app automatically crops the image to just pick out a document. The clearest difference between Scan and other apps, like Microsoft Lens, is that the app integrates with Adobe Document Cloud and automatically performs optical character recognition on the PDFs it generates. Users can then copy and paste text from those documents into other files."

"Students in Grade 3 created their own I Spy pages. The items were gathered from yard sales, usually by the bag full, for a few dollars, and put through the dishwasher. The first class was spent exploring 'I Spy' books and arranging the items onto colourful card. I had 9 baskets of items so small groups or pairs each photographed the same designs but did their own clues. During the second class period, students cropped their photos and used PicCollage App to add clues. Image quality is an issue with closeups with our iPad 2s. Other classes will try to find the items in the images and they were included in a school assembly video.  Continue reading to see more examples."

"Computer programming, otherwise known as coding, is currently offered in a small fraction of US K-12 schools. There has been a push to change this recently, as evidenced by several White House initiatives, the heavily publicized Hour of Code program, and recent large scale adoptions of hands on STEM programs such as Project Lead the Way. Serious challenges remain. Many schools find themselves ill-equipped to set up coding for schools programs, citing reasons such as insufficient human capital, out-of-date equipment, and high speed internet issues. Setting up effective coding programs at schools can be challenging, and there as many issues to consider including curriculum selection, staffing, professional development, and funding. One fundamental issue dogs nearly every program implementation. Trained engineers with coding backgrounds are needed to provide the level of rigor needed to support high quality computer programming courses. It is hard enough to find skilled engineers to handle private sector demand, and even more challenging to find those with in teaching. In this guide, we provide teachers and administrators with guidance on how to set up effective K-12 computer programming courses, whether they be comprehensive STEM curriculum implementations, daytime classes or after school clubs."

Recently I have been diving into the world of Assessment, seeking to better understand how we might design effective processes around this essential phase of the learning cycle. In doing so I have found a wealth of resources and quality reads that offer insights and strategies to be applied into our classrooms. Here then is a sampling of what I have been reading. 

"During the 2016 National Week of Making, as a part of President Obama's Nation of Makers initiative, Digital Promise and Maker Ed announced the Maker Promise. A commitment made by school leaders, in-school and out-of-school educators, and community advocates to bringing quality making experiences to all students. By signing the Promise, individuals commit to becoming champions of making, supporting spaces for making, and showcasing what students have made. As this year's Week of Making comes to a close, we are excited to publish our first annual Maker Promise report, which shares what we have learned about the state of making in schools and how this is shaping our future efforts. This year, our work focused on understanding how maker learning is being implemented at Maker Promise schools and identifying areas where the Maker Promise could offer support and resources. To develop our understanding, we interviewed K-12 school leaders who had signed the Maker Promise and surveyed the "maker champions" most responsible for integrating making into their school or district. Here are a few highlights from our findings:"

"Adobe Photoshop is considered the gold standard in photo editing software. In fact, it can be hard to picture (see what I did there) a world without the amazing images created with this software. In the right hands, photographs can be created that would leave you believing that a magical unicorn had walked through your back yard. But, with all its power comes a steep learning curve. And that's intimidating. Simply loading up the software and trying to figure things out on your own doesn't work as well when you want to learn Photoshop as it does for other pieces of software. And, while you could try and read the manuals (which may be more effective at putting you to sleep than anything else), a more visual and interactive learning approach is almost always the better option. Luckily, a high-quality learning experience may be just a few clicks away. Here are 14 places that will let you learn Photoshop for free, giving you all of the information you could want for the most reasonable price in the world."

Pedagogy and curriculum that engages students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and is deemed personally relevant to the lives they live, are seen as important factors towards equality of outcome by Wrench, Hammond, McCallum and Price (2012). Their research involved designing a curriculum and pedagogy that would be highly engaging to students of low-socioeconomic status. 'The interventions involved curriculum redesigns that set meaningful, challenging learning task(s) (culminating in high quality learning products); strong connection to student life-worlds; and a performative expectation for student learning.' (Wrench et al 2012 p934)

"A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing has deep links with mathematics, science and design and technology, and provides insights into both natural and artificial systems. The core of computing is computer science, in which pupils are taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. Building on this knowledge and understanding, pupils are equipped to use information technology to create programs, systems and a range of content. Computing also ensures that pupils become digitally literate - able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through, information and communication technology - at a level suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world."

"We all want our kids to emulate qualities of bravery, strength, and intellect. Modeling these characteristics for our kids is ideal but books can also help to solidify the lessons we want our kids to learn. In fact, according to the 6th Edition Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report, families seek out books featuring characters who display these traits. "Characters who are 'smart, brave or strong' or 'face a challenge and overcome it' are the most popular among kids and parents," according to the report.  Here are nine books featuring characters who show strength, exhibit bravery, or are incredibly smart."

"In addition to doing away with homework, Maier will encourage parents to spend quality time with their kids each evening, reading to them for at least 20 minutes. While there is no solid evidence that homework is beneficial for academic success in younger kids, there is plenty of evidence that reading is. Maier cited the work of Richard Allington as support for her decision. Allington is a professor of education at the University of Tennessee, and has dedicated his career on studying early literacy."

"Every year thousands of educators gather for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference eager to learn about the newest features in favorite apps and to glean ideas from one another about how to effectively teach in new ways. The conference seems to grow every year and there is palpable excitement from educators who finally get to commune with their "tribe" - techy teachers from around the globe. But many of the products currently being marketed to educators are firmly rooted in the current moment of education. For the most part, they focus on how to help educators do what they already do more efficiently. Or they offer flashy digital tools meant to engage learners presumed to have short attention spans, and entice teachers with the analytics under the hood. But too often the conversations around what educators can do with technology in their classrooms focus on the current moment in a system that almost no one thinks is perfect. "I'm fascinated by trying to look forward rather than looking at what schools look like now," said Alan November during a presentation at the conference. November has long been invested in education, first as a teacher and now has a consultant and speaker. He suggests that to fundamentally change, education leaders need to define a new role for learners and then hire teachers who can help nurture those qualities. With that in mind, November proposes seven questions that he thinks should become standard in the interviewing and hiring process. "

"I've spent much of the summer working with teachers who are eager to integrate making and writing but uncertain where to begin. This is what I tell them:  I tell them that making must elevate writing, otherwise it will merely replace it. And writing matters. I tell them that we need frameworks that help us see how making and writing can connect inside of our classrooms and workshops. Making writing looks like play, but it's purposeful. Intentional. I tell them that we need tools and strategies and protocols that inspire complex, creative, and high quality work. I tell them that for all of these reasons, planning matters. Planning really matters. So, this is where my return to blogging will begin."

"No matter your position in education, you have gone through some form of professional development. In many cases, the act of being "developed" comes in a variety of standard types such as workshops, mandated PD days, presentations, conferences, book studies, or keynotes. Many of these are often the one and done variety or conducted in a drive-by manner. Now, don't get me wrong; some educators find value in the experiences I have outlined above and have gone on to change their respective practice for the better. However, I would say an equal amount have found little to no benefit. The bottom line is that all educators yearn for quality professional learning as opposed to development that leads to sustained improvements in teaching, learning, and leadership. The image below from Katie Martin sums up nicely what educators want out of professional learning.  "

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"Last week, Mona Lisa smiled. A big, wide smile, followed by what appeared to be a laugh and the silent mouthing of words that could only be an answer to the mystery that had beguiled her viewers for centuries. A great many people were unnerved. Ars Technica Join Ars Technica and Get Our Best Tech Stories DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX. SIGN ME UP Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy Mona's "living portrait," along with likenesses of Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali, and others, demonstrated the latest technology in deepfakes-seemingly realistic video or audio generated using machine learning. Developed by researchers at Samsung's AI lab in Moscow, the portraits display a new method to create credible videos from a single image. With just a few photographs of real faces, the results improve dramatically, producing what the authors describe as "photorealistic talking heads." The researchers (creepily) call the result "puppeteering," a reference to how invisible strings seem to manipulate the targeted face. And yes, it could, in theory, be used to animate your Facebook profile photo. But don't freak out about having strings maliciously pulling your visage anytime soon. "Nothing suggests to me that you'll just turnkey use this for generating deepfakes at home. Not in the short-term, medium-term, or even the long-term," says Tim Hwang, director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative. The reasons have to do with the high costs and technical know-how of creating quality fakes-barriers that aren't going away anytime soon."

Today I had the pleasure of joining over three-hundred educators for a day of learning and sharing. That this was a Sunday and that the event was organised as a free event for educators by educators speaks volumes of the quality and care that educators bring to their role.