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"Teaching with video games is not what you think. Unless you recognize video games as an increasingly engaging, compelling, and interactive narrative form that is seeking to leapfrog film as the medium of choice not just for teenage boys who like Call of Duty, but, well, you too. And that teaching with them means taking as close a look at the creation and design of the stories and play mechanics and the interaction between story and player as you do the narrative itself. Which can act as a kind of schema to inform how you teach novels, poetry, government or science-as-inquiry."

"As we head towards a world where coding is considered a necessary skill, teaching pupils the basics of programming has never been more crucial. Unlike the common belief that coding is a specialised skill only applicable to selected areas, programming is actually used in almost all industries. Coding is not for young adults and 'geeks' anymore; even elementary students can easily dive into this complex world with the use of modern day technology. The qualm that people have against teaching coding so early usually involves lack of space in the current curriculum and the lack of confidence (in the child or teacher's) ability to code themselves. Thanks to the rise in popularity of mobile technology and apps, even the most inexperienced user can easily learn the core concepts of coding. Below are great apps which you can utilise to learn and teach basic programming."

"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?"

"What are the kind of things a 21st century teacher needs to know and be able to do? What about 21st century students? What education technology works, and what is a waste of time? What would a checklist for 21st century teaching look like? Does "21st century teaching" even make sense to use as a phrase anymore? If not, do we just say "teaching"? Does that fit our needs to innovate our collective profession to meet a modern circumstance? These are among the questions today's teachers have to face daily-in the classroom, mass media, professional development, and more. These conversations can get complex, opinionated, stuffed with rhetoric, and downright overwhelming at times. In response, Sylvia Duckworth has made consistent contributions to this conversation by creating colorful illustrations that communicate many of these ideas in easy-to-skim, easy-on-the-eyes, tempting to pin and share graphics."

"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."

"This page contains some useful resources and links to help teachers in their art teaching. You will basically be directed to websites where you can find art materials, videos, printables, worksheets, activities, games, and many other teaching ideas that are art informed."

"Recently, when I perused my twitter feed, I came upon a blog post titled Teacher as Learning Designer. Andrew Miller, the author, states: "If you are a teacher and you are trying to explain what you do, say, 'I am a learning designer!' Teachers need to be empowered with a variety of instructional designs to meet the needs of all students. They need to be honored for their expertise to create creative and engaging learning environments. We can re-frame the concept of "teaching" to truly encapsulate all that teachers can and should do!" The way teachers teach their students has, I believe, a direct correlation to the way in which they learn themselves. We have all read in the latest teaching journals that teachers of today have to be devoted to lifelong learning. But what does that mean, really? What elements affect teacher learning and then in turn affect how that teacher teaches?"

"Making use of free iPad apps in the classroom can enable you to diversify your teaching, while providing the opportunity to inspire and get students more engaged in lessons. There are many different educational apps available, which range from apps like Evernote that allow you to organize your teaching materials, through to interactive whiteboards from Educreations, and Screen Chomp, a screen recording app that can be very useful for teaching lessons on the go. What, then, are some of the best iPads that can be used in the classroom, whether you have multiple tablets, or just one as a teaching tool for different groups?"

"In our latest issue of our iPad magazine, we talk about the importance and benefits of teaching kids how to code. This lively video by Stephen Howell in the Dublin Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference tells us all about how he developed a toolkit 'Kinect2Scratch' that teaches kids programming by using Scratch and the Kinect."

Only those who have taught a class for a year, who have struggled with the challenges faced by students and who have shared in the moments of success will truly understand why we teach. Maybe that is why we seek out opportunities to gather and share what we do, to spend even a Saturday in the company of those who "get" what it is that we do and why we do it. Teaching is a beautiful thing to be a part. 

" I've spent a lot of time lately reflecting on the way I teach literacy in my classroom and about the ways that the digital text I often use to teach now is inherently different from the text I used to teach reading ten years ago. In an earlier post, I talked about some of the ways that I think using digital text in shared reading, such as when reading projected blog comments or tweets, is actually superior to the traditional text we have long used. Even if you are not convinced that digital text can work better than traditional text, it is difficult to argue that digital text is not here to stay or that it is not becoming increasingly important. It is and will be a significant part of our students' lives both now and in the future. If this will be true, it only makes sense to begin to teach children strategies for reading this new form of text."

"Finland's plans to replace the teaching of classic school subjects such as history or English with broader, cross-cutting "topics" as part of a major education reform have been getting global attention, thanks to an article in The Independent, one of the UK's trusted newspapers. Stay calm: despite the reforms, Finnish schools will continue to teach mathematics, history, arts, music and other subjects in the future. But with the new basic school reform all children will also learn via periods looking at broader topics, such as the European Union, community and climate change, or 100 years of Finland's independence, which would bring in multi-disciplinary modules on languages, geography, sciences and economics. It is important to underline two fundamental peculiarities of the Finnish education system in order to see the real picture. First, education governance is highly decentralised, giving Finland's 320 municipalities significant amount of freedom to arrange schooling according to the local circumstances. Central government issues legislation, tops up local funding of schools, and provides a guiding framework for what schools should teach and how. Second, Finland's National Curriculum Framework is a loose common standard that steers curriculum planning at the level of the municipalities and their schools. It leaves educators freedom to find the best ways to offer good teaching and learning to all children. Therefore, practices vary from school to school and are often customised to local needs and situations."

"Light is a fascinating and familiar topic for children and adults. It's also rich and complex, which is great if you are teaching a graduate level course in Quantum Mechanics. But how do you lay the foundation for this exciting topic? What do you teach to the youngest would-be scientists? This self-paced, 5 week course is designed for both formal and informal educators who want to teach children ages 6-14 about the science of light and optics. Starting with a simple kit and some basic activities, we'll work through understanding the basics of light, color, shadows, reflection and refraction. Each module offers easy to digest science content, application of science process skills, connections to real world technologies and engaging activities designed to build your comfort and confidence with light and optics. Throughout each module, guidance (suggestions) on how to use and create learning experiences for children will be provided through online discussions and other opportunities for self-reflection and sharing. This process will support the completion of a final project."

"How many schools and how many classrooms allow student choice? And, in adult-centered spaces, how often do young people have the opportunity to make important decisions? Our mainstream educational machine is fueled by the idea that adults know best-that adults must impart their knowledge to prepare students for a demanding world. Our responsibility as teachers is to teach students for their own good…a "good" that more and more of us are having difficulty understanding. We teach students addition and multiplication facts because some day they will need to calculate very quickly…a tip at a restaurant or a bill at the grocery store in case their smartphone runs out of batteries. We teach them to write a five paragraph essay on the theme of a book because they will need those writing skills when…writing an argument to dispute a lawsuit. We teach them how to conjugate "to be" in Spanish because it might save their life…at a fruit stand in South America. While we are preparing them for possible situations, should these situations define the entirety of the direction of their education? I propose that we introduce some choice and some unknown into the situation of school. What if we allow students to make choices about what they learn, how they learn, and when they learn? In a way, 1:1 iPad programs are sparking choice whether we're OK with it or not."

"Recently the Center for Teaching Quality launched a #Teachingis campaign for teachers to tweet different visions and realities of teaching. The responses were varied and poignant. As we know, teaching is ever changing and virtually indescribable in its complexity. Reading the tweets of "what #Teachingis" helped me think more deeply about the multilayered identities that we have as teachers. These many roles and identities change from moment to moment, and shift throughout the course of a school year. "

"Whole Child Learning is a thing; Whole Teaching should be a thing too, no? Here at TeachThought, Jackie Gerstein's usergeneratededucation is at the top of our reading list, in large part for her thinking about the human side of formal education. Much of our content-that is, the content here at TeachThought, and that on her site-overlaps because of our shared perspective on teaching and learning: self-directed learning, the role of play in learning, the idea of citizenship, student-centered learning (and student-centered teaching), and more."

Hi impact, curated magazine of articles and professional resources for those interested in e-learning and online teaching. Published by Dennis O'Connor, Program Advisor for the University of Wisconsin Stout E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program.

""Be sure to cite your sources." "Give credit where credit is due." "Don't plagiarize." It's possible all teachers have said these things to students. But what do those directives mean to students who, in all reality, haven't had to do much citing?  What does it even mean to cite your sources?  The first step in the process is for students to understand the purpose and importance of citations. We found this great resource outlining that information from The Write Direction. One of the co-authors of this piece, Jessica Steege, is a middle school writing teacher. In her first year of teaching she did her best to explain the importance of citing her work. But somewhere along the way, the message got lost. When a student turned in a research project citing just one source-www.google.com - she felt defeated and wondered where she'd gone wrong. She realized that teaching citations from a "handbook," especially one that would quickly become outdated, wasn't the best way to teach her tech savvy students. So she turned to electronic resources. The Internet offers an abundance of online citation tools, from the extremely easy to use, to ones that require more research on the part of the user. We'd suggest teaching students about a few tools and let them decide which one to use to help them successfully cite their research."

"Not all apps are created equal. Not all teacher planning and instructional design are created equal. Mash the two, and we're beginning to see the opportunity for some real disparity. In response, we've taken the popular SAMR model and use it as a framework to understand how to better teach with apps. This post started as a look at "app workflow"-the patterns of student and teacher interaction, the movement of learning artifacts, the visibility of quality criteria, assessment results, and so on, but we thought it might be better to start with some concrete examples of the movement from basic technology integration-in this case, apps-to that which redefines the learning process entirely. Below, then, are 21 ways apps can be used to teach-and learn-with varying degrees of ambition, from mere substitution of existing teaching practices, all the way to full-on redefinition of what's possible. (This post also presumes you're familiar with the SAMR model-if not, here's a good primer.)"