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I want my students to be sceptics. I believe that in the present age scepticism is more important than ever. Easy access to information, ease of publishing, scams and confidence tricksters combine to create a climate where blind trust is dangerous for our security, our finances and our knowledge bases. For students of all ages a healthy dose of scepticism is much needed not just so they may reveal falsehoods but to allow them to discover new truths.

"Manipulatives are objects that allow learners to interact with mathematical concepts. The learner changes the manipulative in some way, and the manipulative provides informative feedback. Research suggests that using maniuplatives (physical or virtual) has a positive effect on student achievement.  Check out how ST Math educators incorporate physical manipulatives with education technology to provide different ways to explore math concepts and facilitate deeper learning:"

We are the stories that we tell and it is the stories we share which unite us. This was the seed of an idea planted by a day with author, artist, musician and story teller Boori Pryor. Understanding the power that our stories have allows us to better value their role in our lives, to see them as more than recounts of the past or imaginings of the future. Stories should be viewed as the powerful agents that they are with the force to shape who we are as much as we shape them.

"Being able to create your own robot gives students and kids a great sense of achievement, with the added bonus of allowing children to develop patience, imagination and problems solving skills. There are a number of impressive kids robotics kits on the market that even parents will enjoy playing with. Plus, these types of projects provide valuable bonding time for kids and parents as it's a toy that both can really relish. In classrooms, robotics are perfect for teaching coding to kids, there are many programmable robot kits that use a simple drag and drop programing language based on Scratch. Making your own robot is also a creative a process, where kids and students utilize their design skills to come up with interesting robot designs. The 10 best make your own robot kits for kids on the market are listed below."

"As any parent or teacher knows, tests can create crippling anxiety in students-and anxious kids can perform below their true abilities. But new research in cognitive science and psychology is giving us a clearer understanding of the link between stress and performance, and allowing experts to develop specific strategies for helping kids manage their fears. These potential solutions are reasonably simple, inexpensive and, as recent studies show, effective. Some work for a broad range of students, while others target specific groups. Yet they're unfamiliar to many teachers and parents, who remain unaware that test anxiety can be so easily relieved. Here, three such approaches:"

"Technology can be a powerful tool to assist students with special needs or any sort of learning challenge. In particular the Chrome web browser allows users to install a wide variety of web extensions that provide tools that can help all learners, regardless of ability level. In this blog post we will take a look at 21 Chrome web extensions that can assist students in five main categories: Text to Speech Readability Reading Comprehension Focus Navigation Some of the tools fit into more than one topic, but each is only listed once. Certainly this list does not cover all of the useful web extensions available for struggling learners, but it is a great place to begin. In addition to the list of extension, I have also linked in the video and help guide from a webinar I did a while back on "Google Tools for Special Needs"."

"Remember Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) in the movie Forrest Gump? How did Hollywood make his legs disappear? Click here for a short video clip explaining the magic. How can you make your lessons more meaningful? How can your students use Green Screen to demonstrate their learning? Using Green Screen in the classroom is easy, economical and appropriate for all grade levels and subject areas! Green Screen allows you to create a video using an image or video for your background. If your students are studying about the Pyramids of Egypt, they can create a video report with the Pyramids in the background. What about a weather report from the banks of the Nile River or on top of Mt. Everest? The possibilities are endless, so let's get started!"

"I'm very privileged to be on the BETA testing team for the Green Screen app from DOINK. Today I tried forcing an interaction between my pre-recorded green screen footage and the drawn animation layered before a solid color field. Here are the pieces: Picture This app will allow you to combine live footage and drawn animations. I film before green screen and draw an animation in DOINK Below is a look at the interface of the new GREEN SCREEN app by DOINK."

"As Abby walked into the school building she had a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was November and she had just moved into a new community. She was nervous about starting a new school midway through the school year. This was her first day of school and she kept her eyes down, nervous, not knowing what to expect as she walked into the main office. Suddenly, the office secretary called out to her in a tone that made her skip a breath, "Where are you supposed to be?  Do you have a pass?  Move on now before the tardy bell rings and the vice principal gives you a detention for being late." Each day in school offices across the country this scenario is playing out with regularity.  Although it may come across as somewhat exaggerated, those of you who have spent any amount of time in school have probably at one time or another been witness to such an interaction in the main office area.  It is these defined interactions that has led to us to ponder this question.  Have we reached the point where we are willing to allow negative interactions to drive the level of success of our students, staff and our school? What if we were to pause, step back and view our office culture through the eyes of students, parents, guests or even staff who visit the main office? What would they say?  If we manage our interactions appropriately they will leave feeling valued and cared for and look forward to their next return trip."

"Have you noticed how bizarre social media and the news cycle has been lately? In the age of digital media, journalism is changing significantly. Widely available storytelling and distribution tools, misinformation spreading like wildfire, social media filter bubbles-headlines and stories are increasingly vying for attention, plastered across a smorgasbord of platforms. Can media get any stranger? Without a doubt. The videos we watch and podcasts we listen to may themselves soon be seamlessly manipulated, distorting the truth in new ways. Photoshop was just the beginning. Advanced media creation tools today are cheaper than ever, and innovative tech is accelerating the bleeding edge, further blurring the line between fantasy and reality. One of the latest developments was introduced last week at Adobe Max conference in San Diego. Engineered to make audio editing easier, Adobe's Project VoCo allows users to edit voices by rearranging words or saying phrases never actually recorded-all via typing. The software requires a minimum 20 minutes of recorded talking to do its magic. Then you can make an edited or brand new snippet of speech. In a text box below a visualization of the audio, you can copy/paste or type whatever you want. In a playful demo, Adobe presenter Zeyu Jin jokes around with comedian Jordan Peele by using the software to make him speak falsehoods. In short, this is the audio version of Photoshop-the ability to create something from nothing. A new generation of "sound-shopping," à la photoshopping, has been born."

"Some people think that K-12 computer science requires a large budget, a classroom full of tablets and robots, and an experienced tech teacher. We are pleased to dispel those myths--and introduce you to SAS CodeSnaps! CodeSnaps is a collaborative coding environment requiring only one iPad and one robot. The app takes advantage of tangible, printed coding blocks, allowing students to prepare programs together on a shared work surface without a device. After students scan the blocks with the app, commands can be executed on the connected robot (compatible robots include Sphero, Ollie, SPRK, and SPRK+). "

"The messaging app Snapchat allows motorists to post photos that record the speed of the vehicle. The navigation app Waze rewards drivers with points when they report traffic jams and accidents. Even the game Pokémon Go has drivers searching for virtual creatures on the nation's highways. When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep drivers' hands on the wheel. Innovations since then - car Wi-Fi and a host of new apps - have led to a boom in internet use in vehicles that safety experts say is contributing to a surge in highway deaths."

Teachers can use this software to assign students to groups. One free tool, the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness allows teachers to input the desired criteria on which to base groups. Teachers also have the option of selecting from a bank of questions provided by CATME developers. Tools within a learning management system may also have features that allow instructors to assemble students into groups based on instructor-generated criteria.

"Mac users now have a window snapping feature built directly into Mac OS, which allows users to easily snap windows to aspects of the screen or against one another. This offers a nice way to quickly and precisely align windows, and it's more or less the Mac equivalent feature of window snapping from the Microsoft Windows world. Window snapping is a helpful but fairly subtle feature, we'll show you how it works in MacOS."

"Now that we finally have the Oculus Rift's Touch controllers, VR gaming on the platform is about to get a lot more interactive. However, based on a video released by Oculus on Monday, the best use of the Touch controller may turn out be Medium, a software tool from Oculus that allows you to sculpt with digital clay in virtual reality."

"At its core, the rise of "fake news" is first and foremost a sign that we have failed as a society to teach our citizens how to think critically about data and information. Take that email from a Nigerian prince offering to transfer you ten million dollars if you'll just send him $10,000 to cover the wire costs. Enough people get that email each day and wire those ten thousand dollars that this scam continues in 2016. The Internet has globalized the art of the scam and the reach of misinformation, allowing a single tweet to go viral across the planet, sowing chaos in countries on the other side of the world from the person sending it. At the heart of all such news is the inability to think critically about the information that surrounds us and to perform the necessary due diligence and research to verify and validate. In April 2013 when the AP's Twitter account was hacked and tweeted that there had been an explosion at the White House that left President Obama injured, automated stock trading algorithms took the news as fact and immediately launched a cascade of trading activity that plunged the Dow Jones by more than 100 points in less than 120 seconds. Human reporters, on the other hand, simply picked up the phone and called colleagues stationed at the White House to inquire if they were aware of any such attack and were quick to refute the false information."

"The Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 5-11, is an annual initiative that mobilizes educators, parents, nonprofits and the industry to inspire all young people to learn computer science and open the door to a promising future. With our rising digital economy and the nonstop pace of technological change, we have an imperative to prepare young people to pursue careers that are in demand. Computer science refers to the academic discipline of studying what can be done using a computer and how to do so. At the foundation of this is computational thinking, a mental process that allows one to formulate problems so as to design possible solutions that a computer or human can easily understand. Coding is one way that computational thinking can be expressed. It is simply writing a list of step-by-step instructions for computers to perform what we want to do. More importantly, it provides everyone a platform to unleash our creativity to create software websites, games, and apps. More than half of today's jobs require some technology skills, and this will increase to 77 percent in the next decade, according to IDC. With youth unemployment in Southeast Asia alone almost three times that of total unemployment rate, coding and computer science serve as the gateway for youth to secure a more fulfilling career or even venture into entrepreneurship. In the Philippines for instance, an entry-level tech position pays 38 percent more than the minimum wage.   I strongly encourage everyone to try coding-and here's why:"

"Veteran researchers present five strategies-like maintaining success files and allowing choice-to help struggling students develop a positive attitude needed for success."

Making, Maker Centred Learning and STEAM fit neatly alongside Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) for many schools. Commonly this approach includes a constructivist view of knowledge and teachers seek to establish conditions which allow students to explore questions and ideas with greater independence than may occur in the traditional classroom.  Learning becomes a collaborative partnership between teachers and students with a clear focus on a learner centric approach.