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"October is National Bullying Prevention month. I like to focus on getting students to spread kindness and feel the benefits of being kind versus being mean to others. Many children play social games, such as Roblox and Fortnite, and experience cyberbullying much more than we did in the past. Many students have shared with me their experiences of others being mean, trash talking, or cursing at them during the games. Many of the children don't realize the impact of their reactions or words on others. To help students reflect more on how their words and actions impact others our objective this month is, "How to be kind online and offline!" Below are some resources and ideas related to this theme so you can challenge your students to choose to be kind online and offline."

"This year the Hour of Code will be the biggest and best ever. There is so much I can't wait to share, and it starts with a special video! Creativity is our theme for the Hour of Code this year."

"Education has been a recurring theme throughout the many programs of the NYC Media Lab, a public-private partnership where I serve as an Executive Director. How will virtual and augmented reality change the classroom? How can teachers use immersive media to educate citizens and keep our communities vibrant? In what ways can enterprises leverage innovation to better train employees and streamline workflows? These are just a few of the top-of-mind questions that NYC Media Lab's consortium is thinking about as we enter the next wave of media transformation."

An unavoidable element of the discourse around educational disadvantage or equality is how we define and assess equality. One definition will see this as being in equality of access to education, funding for education and/or resources. Such an approach has largely been seen in government funding models however subtle variations on this theme have resulted in significant differences in resulting policies.

"Photocopiables is a theme-based supplementary resource center for English language teachers. Go to Resource Packs page, where you'll see bundled resources listed according to their grammar concept. There are also online versions of the resources for you to try them out before you take them to your class.You'll also find nice&sound&tested EFL ideas for your lessons on my blog."

"Jeopardy! has been on the air, in one form or another, since the 1960s. The modern Alex Trebek-hosted incarnation of the show-whose famous theme song is now in your head (sorry!)-began in 1984 and still airs about 230 episodes every year. There is an art to a Jeopardy! clue. Its answers-in-search-of-questions exude a certain tone and tenor that's different from trivia offerings from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, HQ, The Weakest Link, or even a throwback like You Bet Your Life. But the writer's room is also a factory, one that must churn out 61 clues per episode, which adds up to hundreds of thousands of clues aired during the show's long run."

"When I first started my makerspace at Stewart, I had no idea what I was doing.  I just had three bins of K'nex and a vision for what our makerspace could be.  Shortly after we got our supplies, we began 6th grade clubs that met during school.  I started the K'nex club.  The next year we created during school clubs for all grades, so I started STEAM clubs for each grade, which was basically open exploration time in our makerspace.  The next year I helped co-found our afterschool club program, where my Makers Club took off. Now at Tampa Prep, I've started a Maker Mondays club where we have different themed projects each week after school for an hour.  Since we already had a VR lab when I got there, I started an 8th Grade VR club this year during middle school lunch. At both of my schools, variations of Makers Clubs have been a huge catalyst in my makerspace programs."

Test scores, school report cards and Facebook posts complaining about homework problems often drive critiques of how math is taught in schools. Amid the debates, it has become increasingly clear that one ingredient is necessary for success: opportunities for students to talk about math. Unfortunately, these are often lacking in U.S. classrooms. We are both math education researchers. While we focus on different levels of the K-12 span, a common theme across our work is the role of talk in math classrooms - what talk can sound like, how talk impacts student learning, and how teachers can support math talk. Want to support your student's understanding of math? Talking will play a critical role. And a good place to start is to talk about math yourself.

"Though there were a host of professional learning takeaways for me, one stood out as a real actionable item. Funny, this same theme came up at every conference I attended: Celebrating Failing."

"It's high time for students to move beyond an hour of coding exercises and learn computational thinking. That's the message of a new report from Digital Promise that examines what's important to know and be able to do in a "computational world." Digital Promise is a non-profit that that promotes the use of innovation in education, particularly as it uses digital technologies. The new report, "Computational Thinking for a Computational World," explains its theme of computational thinking by borrowing a description from a long-ago article published by the Association for Computing Machinery: It is "a way of solving problems, designing systems and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science… a fundamental skill for everyone, not just computer scientists." More simply, the report noted, "The skill required to tell a computer what to do is programming. The thought process behind programming is computational thinking." What it isn't is humans thinking like computers. And, according to the report's authors, it's something that needs to be taught across subjects in K-12 schools."

"Dr. Seuss is gold-whimsical and visually interesting traipses through surreal worlds, and always full of life advice. And life advice is learning advice, and learning advice-well, that's why we're all here, yes? There are themes below that apply directly to the responsibilities of a teacher. Let's face it-teaching is an emotional roller coaster, and a microcosm for life itself, full of tedium and wonder, disappointment and triumph, down days and days to celebrate. Take #11 for example-you have brains in your head and feet on your choose, you can steer yourself any direction you choose-can be both encouragement to elementary students, or high school students taking themselves-and life-too seriously."

The Future of Education is a topic often discussed, and at the recent gathering of educators in Florence, it was the title and theme for the conference. Now in its ninth year, The Future of Education is an international conference that attracts educators from around the world and across all domains touched by education. The conference is an inspiring two days of discussion and sharing, with the city of Florence, the centre of the Renaissance, providing a constant reminder of what might be possible when creativity and critical thinking combine. Here are my key takeaways from this event.

"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."

"I am a big fan of music in the history classroom and I have created a number of Spotify Playlists for this purpose. Often this is merely to help create a calm and purposeful working atmosphere, when a bit of Chopin or Debussy sets the tone perfectly. Occasionally it's even possible to have calming instrumental music directly related to the topic in question: for example, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, which was inspired by the composer watching British troop ships heading off to France in 1914. However, some songs are better used to stoke up some energy during lessons, whilst the very best of all are historical sources in themselves, combining musical feeling with powerful lyrical content. What follows is a list of songs I regularly use in class, organised in broadly chronological order in terms of the topics they relate to, with a brief explanation of how you could make use of them with your own students. What follows is a list of 25 principal songs, but with links to others on similar themes or by similar artists, bringing the total up to over 50. If you have any other suggestions, please contact me (@russeltarr / @activehistory on Twitter) and I'd be delighted to add them to the list (as long as it isn't "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. Which I admit is superb, but we all know this one, surely?)."

"This is the seventh post is a series of posts covering educational iPad apps to use with elementary students. We are trying to build a repository of good apps elementary students and teachers can easily  access and use in their learning and instruction. To learn more about the previous posts we have published so far check out this section. Today's collection features a number of useful apps to use with young learners when teaching social studies. These apps, which we curated from iTunes App Collections, cover 3 main themes: Geography, History and World Cultures."

"For many attending the Future of Work symposium on Wednesday, there wasn't any question whether automation is going to take over jobs-but rather when, and how education should respond. Hosted at Stanford University, the day-long event brought together dozens of minds who are thinking about what careers and skills students need to prepare for, and how an increasingly digital higher-education system will need to adapt to help get them there. Speakers including edX CEO Anant Agarwal, associate dean and director of Stanford's Diversity and First-Gen office Dereca Blackmon, and Deborah Quazzo, a co-founder of investment firm GSV, shared their ideas on what that might look like. Here are a few major themes we heard throughout the day:"

"Few middle schoolers are as clued in to their mathematical strengths and weakness as Moheeb Kaied. Now a seventh grader at Brooklyn's Middle School 442, he can easily rattle off his computational profile. "Let's see," he said one morning this spring. "I can find the area and perimeter of a polygon. I can solve mathematical and real-world problems using a coordinate plane. I still need to get better at dividing multiple-digit numbers, which means I should probably practice that more." Moheeb is part of a new program that is challenging the way teachers and students think about academic accomplishments, and his school is one of hundreds that have done away with traditional letter grades inside their classrooms. At M.S. 442, students are encouraged to focus instead on mastering a set of grade-level skills, like writing a scientific hypothesis or identifying themes in a story, moving to the next set of skills when they have demonstrated that they are ready. In these schools, there is no such thing as a C or a D for a lazily written term paper. There is no failing. The only goal is to learn the material, sooner or later."

"Creating, remembering, using and protecting passwords. It's all part of everyday life but are you and your students managing passwords well? Poor password management can lead to minor annoyances, like someone changing your blog theme, to life changing issues, like identity theft. The divisions between your online and offline world are blurring and many of your most valuable possessions and information are now housed online. So much of what we do online is password protected, from your blog to your email, bank account, social media and more. The advice around passwords has recently been updated and while there are varying opinions, this post will help you learn about the current best practices."

"8-year-old Kaori Misue was born without fingers. Usually, creating specialized prosthetics costs upwards of $15,000. However, thanks to a 21-year-old inventor, Misue received a prosthetic hand which has changed her life. Gino Tubaro is offering kids born without limbs the chance to receive a cheap 3D printed prosthetic. Misue's mother, Karina Misue, adds: "It was magical… The confidence it gives kids is tremendous. They're using it with pride." Tubaro's 3D printed prosthetic designs are part of the "Alternative Limbs Project", which began in his home of Argentina. The prints come in a range of designs, offering users the chance to decide what they need the prosthetic for most, whether it's playing an instrument or ping-pong. The prosthetics for kids can even be superhero themed (and shoot rubber bands)."

In this lesson, students examine the poetry of Amanda Gorman, who was chosen to read her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021. Gorman's poem will complement Biden's message and themes of "unity."