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"Teachers are always looking out for new ways to motivate young children to write; ways to give their writing purpose and meaning. If you have access to mobile devices, why not try building in opportunities for children to create an ebook. There is a breadth of activities and experiences involved - from the planning stage, to the writing and then sharing their creation with the wider community. It is also a great way for sharing work with parents…many apps allow you to save ebooks created onto a secure site which can be accessed via a link or by sharing a QR code. Here are some of the best apps I've found to create eBooks with your iPads in the classroom:"

"Social media offers some great opportunities for learning in the classroom, bringing together the ability to collaborate, access worldwide resources, and find new and interesting ways to communicate in one easily accessible place. Teachers and educators around the world have found innovative ways to use Twitter as a teaching tool, and we've shared many of these great ideas here with you. Read on, and we'll explore 60 inspiring ways that teachers and students can put Twitter to work in the classroom."

"The following presentation by Jackie Gerstein takes a slightly different approach, considering learners as "connectors, creators, constructivists." In this context, the "web is curriculum," forged by learners as teacher, access to experts through social media, open-access, and the learner-as-connection maker, something that spooks education today."

"If you have a visual impairment that makes it difficult for you to read text or see icons on your iPhone or iPad, the zoom feature is a great accessibility option that allows you to magnify text and even your Home screen, but only when you need to. While larger and bolder text helps, enabling zoom adds even more flexibility on the fly. All you've got to do is enable it first!"

"Research by the Penn Graduate School of Education (from the University of Pennsylvania), looking at 1 million students on 16 courses run through Coursera, showed that only half of those enrolled look at a single lecture and an average of 4% completed the course. Let's assume that there's nothing wrong with the product, and nothing wrong with the theory that easier access to education is No Bad Thing. It's something else. It's a commitment thing. It's too much to ask, too big a shift in 'consumer' behaviour, from directed learning to self-directed. So perhaps we should get used to this new style of learning in easier ways. Self-direction without the pressures. Accessing some of the finest academic minds, but because you want to, not because it's a compulsory step in your education paperchase. And if its education for its own sake, then look at these as a starting point. Six of the best/most intriguing free online courses focusing on science, from some of the best boffins around. Dip in, get used to the idea, and follow the video trails they offer til you find what you're intrigued and interested in. So dive in, make yourself clever…"

"It's a familiar classroom ritual - every June, teachers assign summer reading. And every September, students come back to school having read too few books. This is frustrating for teachers, and challenging for students. When kids aren't in school, they forget crucial skills they learned during the year - at least a month of reading achievement, on average. This so-called "summer slide" is particularly pernicious in children from low-income families. Low-income students often walk through the door of their kindergartens already behind their more fortunate peers because of a mix of poverty, poorer health, less parental education, and higher rates of single and teenage parents. With limited access to books and other academic opportunities in the summer, these children experience the summer slide threefold. Over time, this adds up. By third grade, children who can't read at their grade level (a whopping 73 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch) begin to struggle with other subjects. Students living in poverty who cannot read proficiently by third grade are 13 times less likely to graduate from high school. By ninth grade, some have estimated that two-thirds of the reading achievement gap can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities. There is good news: Stemming the summer slide isn't impossible. Students who read just four to six books over the summer maintain their skills (they need to turn more pages to actually become better readers.)"

""When I have a camera in my hand, I pay closer attention," she tells me. I feel the same way. I've written about using photos to document learning before. The process is as efficient as it is powerful, particularly for those who keep a cell phone tucked into their pockets most days. Begin by thinking about the most critical moves learners might make in a given period of time, make sure your phone is charged and easily accessible, and start shooting your data. When you're finished, these four tools can help you curate, share, and analyze the evidence you gather. Be sure to invite company. Accessing other voices will deepen your perspective and help you develop insights you may not have otherwise. This enriches data analysis."

""Making the Case" contains resources that demonstrate the impact of the maker education movement and provide inspiration for what's possible. These stories, articles, reports, videos, and other information may help funders, administrators, fellow educators, facilitators, and community members see how making in education affects learning for all. The resources below are listed in alphabetical order, as a default. They are also organized into subcategories, accessible by the tabs at the top of the grid. When hovering over each box, keywords provide a simple description and glimpse into the content of the resource, which is accessible by clicking on the arrow in the upper right-hand corner."

"With the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), students from anywhere with an Internet connection, can access free courses facilitated by some of the top educators and experts in every subject area. From mathematics, to computer science, to philosophy, to business design, MOOCs give learners unprecedented access to some of the most valuable knowledge, from some of the most prestigious universities, for free. Though most of the courses do not offer actual credit towards a degree, some MOOCs are beginning to offer certificates, additional credit options, and other enhanced learning services for nominal fees. Students have also been able to submit course work done through MOOCs to their own universities and be granted credit or research units. Additionally, students may use completed courses as a way to build their qualifications by highlighting their work on resumes, cover letters, and social media."

"Exam season can be especially stressful for children in primary school; many of their high-brain neural networks, which manage emotions such as stress, won't have been built yet. Neuro-imaging research shows that stress blocks communication from the upper cognitive brain down to the brain's lower core, which is more emotionally reactive. This means that just when children need it most, they have limited access to the upper-brain regions that helpself-control, and access to their high-brain cortex where the memories they need are stored. Under pressure students can become emotional and find it hard to remember vital information."

The purpose of the survey was to ascertain the level of awareness and openness to mobile learning among English language teachers. I also wanted to find out to what degree and how teachers were already using mobile learning both in their teaching and and professional development and to establish whether they would be willing to pay for and use mobile content. The survey also collected information about the teachers' existing access to mobile services and the kinds of device they are using to get access to mobile Internet.

"The internationally recognized WorldImages database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project. It has just been selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collection of Internet materials. It contains approximately 80,000 images, is global in coverage and includes all areas of visual imagery. WorldImages is accessible anywhere and its images may be freely used for non-profit educational purposes. The images can be located using many search techniques, and for convenience they are organized into over 800 portfolios which are then organized into subject groupings"

"All it takes is a quick look at one of the extensive comment threads of an iPhone-eccentric post to see that people have different opinions on iOS. But what you rarely see debated are its accessibility features."

"The iPad 2 is a great learning tool for the younger ones, and with the correct apps you can probably supplement your child's learning. But if you are worried that your child may access the internet without your supervision, we will walk you through a step-by-step to restrict access to anything from Youtube, listening to explicit music or podcast or even buying apps."

"What started as an idea for an iPad application evolved into a more accessible tool for the next generation of electronic textbooks, which Johnson and Macosko call "BioBook." BioBook was created within a Moodle-based learning management system designed by Odigia. Moodle is a free, open-source Web application that educators can use to create online learning sites. "Students can access BioBook from desktop PCs, laptops, iPads and mobile devices," said Johnson."

"Parental Controls, also known as Restrictions, allow you to set what your children can and can't access on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. With Parental Controls, you can lock out Safari, Camera, FaceTime, Siri, AirDrop, CarPlay, the iTunes, iBooks, Podcasts, or App Stores (including in-app purchases), as well as content by age rating, and the ability to make changes to accounts and other app settings. In other words, they're a way to block your child's access to anything and everything you deem inappropriate for them based on their age and sensitivity, and your own best judgement. And they're part of what make Apple devices an ideal computing platform for kids!"

"Classroom technologies such as smartphones, tablets, computers, and wireless internet access offer exciting opportunities to enhance and deepen the learning process. However, using technology in the classroom can also bring multiple distractions to students. Without your proactive supervision, students might access games, web pages, and social networking sites as you deliver instruction. As an educator, how can you confront this dilemma? Read on to learn the various ways on how you can minimize the digital distraction in your classroom. Digital tech rules and regulations"

"One of the biggest stumbling blocks on our road to successful iPad implementation was WiFi coverage and bandwidth. The Information Services department had to install new access points and optimize the access points we already had. We also found that we did not have enough bandwidth. Every time I launched a new App to the 200+ iPads on campus we exceeded our bandwidth and took every other Internet based function off line. Eventually though we did get our bandwidth more than doubled and that was very helpful."

"The Lock screen exists in between states, when your iPhone or iPad is no longer asleep, but is also not yet open and fully functional. It can protect your device from unauthorized access and actions by a simple slide-to-unlock gesture, by a 4 number pin-code, by a strong alpha-numeric password, or Apple's Touch ID fingerprint identity scanner. Yet the Lock screen can be functional as well. If you want to, you can access Notification Center and Control Center, the Camera, and Siri. On the iPhone, you can even make emergency calls. Yes, the Lock screen can be secure or it can be convenient, it's entirely up to you!"