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"We typically teach students a growth mindset through online programs that demonstrate how the brain changes with learning (how the neurons grow stronger connections when students work on hard things and stick with them) and how to apply this to their schoolwork. These programs also contain testimonials from other students about how they've used a growth mindset to approach their schoolwork and to work toward meaningful goals in their lives. In the wake of the many exciting research results, educators became increasingly interested in promoting a growth mindset among their students. This was extremely gratifying. To see some of the great successes was even more gratifying. However, I slowly became aware that not all educators understood the concept fully."

"One of the things we need to be doing as educators is to critically evaluate the resources and learning experiences that we provide for our students. This is even more important when we are spending vast sums of public money to implement new or innovative hardware devices into our schools. At the moment only short term studies have been released showing the benefits or not of using 1:1 tablet programs. There are few that are easily accessible to teachers or that outline specific strategies for implementing tablet programs. It would good to create a collection of these if people are aware of them. Send them through and I will add them to this article. These could even be cited when making the argument for implementing such programs. "

"School isn't just about learning and books, as teachers are already well aware. For students, going to school also teaches them about a slew of life lessons - and interacting with others is at the top of that list. We all know (having been young ourselves) that kids can sometimes be really mean. Bullying is serious business, and as bullys move online, there are a lot of resources popping up to help out parents, teachers, and students to understand bullying and what to do about it. The handy infographic below looks at some statistics regarding cyber bullying, demographics, and the effects it can have on a student. Keep reading to learn more."

"I spend much more time and much more effort learning how to understand the people around me than I do code, systems, architectures, and technologies. I'm not an expert or even remarkable at it, but I work on it consciously and consistently. The it I'm describing here is called "empathy": the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner-Merriam Webster"

"Today, February 5th, 2014, is Digital Learning Day. According to its website, the focus of this awareness campaign is "about giving every child the opportunity to learn in a robust digital environment everyday, with the goal of success in college and a career." To celebrate, here are 5 of the best, must-follow #edtech curators on Scoop.it."

"One of the toughest challenges for any teacher charged with younger grades education is finding a way to teach phonics awareness while also keeping short attention spans engaged. "Phonics Genius," a simple app for the iPad and iPhone, offers a way to do just that, as well as work on fluency and decoding skills that are all instrumental to literacy skills."

"How do we raise emotionally aware and well-adjusted kids? With lots of talking and sharing, of course. For some kids, digital media can also help by packaging powerful messages inside enticing apps. In one, kids explore how we are the same and how we are different from one another. In another, they interact with silly characters to learn their emotional responses. And in a third, virtual friends share stories to get 'tweens thinking about how to best handle emotionally charged situations. Here's a closer look at these three masterful apps. Wee You-Things"

"Over the last several decades, the United States has declined as an economic and educational global leader in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). To regain economic success and global competitiveness in these fields, government at all levels should launch campaigns that raise STEM awareness and increase student engagement. Actively leveraging social media channels is one potential path to drive K-12 excitement in STEM education and jobs through challenges."

"Because this book's main focus is on the day-to-day classroom applications of brain-based research, I will not attempt to provide you with a thorough description of the physical brain and all its functions. However, it is beneficial for teachers to have at least a general awareness of how the brain physically functions. This knowledge can help teachers understand their students' needs or reactions and may provide a physiological basis for certain instructional decisions. So, let's take a quick walk through the brain."

"About a year ago, I read Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. I wanted to tell everyone about this book right away, but I also wanted to let what I'd learned sink in. I wanted to sit alone with my new self-awareness, process my experience, and absorb the revelations I'd had -- all in true introverted fashion. See, as I'd read Cain's book, my predominant thoughts were, "She's describing me! I'm an introvert! And there's nothing wrong with that!" The margins of my copy are littered with stars, exclamation points, and scribbles that, as I look back, reflect my profound relief and gained understandings. "

"The video consists of three sections. It starts introducing Gardner and the main problem of education versus different individual skills. Then it turns to present the eight intelligences as proposed by Howard Gardner, including a suggested learning strategy for each of these intelligences. Then in the third and final part it presents the concepts of personalization and pluralization, defined in respect of the multiple intelligences theory, as the guiding principle for a more including and developing educational strategy. Regardless of what type of student, their age, level, or subject you're teaching, awareness and understanding of the theory of multiple intelligences will help reach more and deeper in the teaching effort. Even for people not directly involved in education, this theory will help in getting a more nuanced and deeper picture of human skills and personalities."

"George Takei knows how to tell a great story. In this case, a true story of his life. The famed Star Trek actor, activist, and social media star was in town recently to give a remarkable talk as part of a very special TEDxKyoto event. I was invited to watch the rehearsal just before the live event, so I arrived early and grabbed a front row seat. George did not give a speech in the traditional sense. There was no lectern, no notes, no teleprompter. George obviously was reciting the speech from memory-his live version was exactly the same as in the rehearsal-but the speech did not seem memorized. That is, when I was listening I was not aware that he was giving a speech or a prepared talk, I was just lost in the narrative flow of his story."

"Google has several officially released apps that teachers (and anyone else) can use on their iPads. All of these apps are available for free download from the iTunes app store. Recently,  Shake Up Learning published this wonderful infographic where she featured some useful Google apps for iPad. As is the case with all the visuals she shares, this graphic sums up the most essential Google apps every teacher should be aware of. These apps are arranged into 7 main categories:"

"The best way to remember facts might be to set them to music. Medical students, for example, have long used rhymes and songs to help them master vast quantities of information, and we've just gotten fresh evidence of how effective this strategy can be. A young British doctor, Tapas Mukherjee of Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, was distressed by a survey showing that 55 percent of nurses and doctors at Glenfield were not following hospital guidelines on the management of asthma; 38 percent were not even aware that the guidelines existed."

"We published a post last year titled, "Why Good Teachers Quit." Nearly 70,000+ social shares-and scores of comments-later, and it's pretty clear that this idea (captured so well by Kay Bisaillon) is resonating with more teachers than we were aware. We've taken a few different approaches to the idea in the past, including 25 Ways To Reduce Teacher Burnout & Secrets For Teacher Survival, as well as The Best Teachers Don't Do What They're Told, as well as a recent post about "teaching differently." So here we are again, taking another look at teacher burnout, this time trying to understand how it happens. If you're increasingly tired, prone to the Sunday night blues, and have had your July's excitement increasingly replaced by a sense of dread, teacher burnout could be the reason why."

"There's a very easy way to make better use of the iPad in class. Simply become more aware of what you're using the iPad for when teaching. This is where the SAMR model comes in, something I believe all teachers should be familiar with. The SAMR model is a 4 stage framework, illustrated below by the fantastic Sylvia Duckworth, creator of many great sketch notes."

"In 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets to spread the message of environmental awareness, and in the process created the first ever Earth Day. To honor what has become a global observance, a new Google Doodle has been created for Earth Day 2015."

"Each year, the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE release the NMC Horizon Report, which looks at the technology most likely to shape education in the next five years. The 2015 report highlights a number of key changes that educators, those at the higher education level in particular, should be aware of."

"The maker movement and maker education, in my perspective, are such great initiatives - really in line with what student-centric education should be in this era of formal and informal learning. Maker education (often referred to as "Maker Ed") is a new school of educational thought [at least in terms of having an "official" educational label - JG] that focuses on delivering constructivist, project-based learning curriculum and instructional units to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as full high school workshops with high-tech tools, or as small and low-tech as one corner of an elementary classroom. A makerspace isn't just about the tools and equipment, but the sort of learning experience the space provides to students who are making projects. (9 Maker Projects for Beginner Maker Ed Teachers) Social media has helped me gain a more global perspective and become aware of some of the problems associated with the maker movement. The two I discuss in this post are: Maker movement initiatives are often driven by more affluent white males. The maker movement is too often being associated with the tech stuff - Arduinos, Littlebits, Makey-Makeys - stuff that less affluent schools and community programs can afford."