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"Digital storytelling is the best tool for the classroom to engage students of all grade levels. It is the best way to help your student to learn things with fun. Moreover, digital storytelling practice gives students a way to communicate information in a reliable way. One of the best things about digital storytelling is that a student can create work that can demonstrate their understanding. Here is a list of five amazing digital storytelling apps for kids with iPad."

"ere are what believe are some of the best iPad apps we would recommend for music teachers as well as anyone interested in creating music on the go. There is no huge learning curve in using these apps and anyone with the least knowledge of music and notations will be able to come to grips with how these apps work from the first few trials.  Their intuitive interfaces and easy-to-use functionalities make them an ideal fit for classroom integration. Every app comes with detailed illustrations and graphical guides to help you make the best of it. We hope you will find them useful."

Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.

"Our weekly picks for Best iPad App of the Week are published here every Saturday. Check out all our picks via the link at the end of this post and you'll soon have a collection of stellar apps for your favorite tablet. This week's pick is Curious, and app that's touted as being 'designed for the lifelong learner in each of us'. It's full of video lessons and courses covering a broad array of topics. "

"If you want to make pictures and words that the rest of the world can recognize as such, you need a little help. Luckily, iPad accessory makers also ignored Jobs' complaints and set out to fill the world with wonderful iPad pens. Here are the best you can buy."

"Given the amazing freedom and creativity involved in this virtual playground, the best Minecraft books take on so many different forms. From handbooks to crafts to novels to activities, there there are so many different books to blow the mind of young Minecraft fans. So, to get things in order, we have gone exploring and found thirteen of the best minecraft books for kids!"

"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm quite a fan of the iPad (the Lollipop Nexus 9's not too bad either). Not because of its design or because its by Apple or any of that, but because of its keen heritage in the learning arena. Any one who knows me will tell you that I am not one for using tech for tech's sake, despite my evangelist moniker. Use of technology in a cross curricular sense should be measured and done with consideration for the best potential learning outcomes. With all that said, I've been doing this for quite some time now and I thought it time that I shared some of the Apps that have stuck by me or have struck me for their ease of use and impact upon learning in the classroom. Rather than blog about each one however or write in depth about each one either, I've done this in the form of a small poster, with the apps icons on."

"In creative jobs, design in particular, inspiration is one of the keys to productivity. Perhaps, one of the most productive kinds of inspiration is the one taken from experts, successful people who have experienced what they share. Today we're going to recommend you a set of interesting and informative TED-talks that we think could be interesting, useful and helpful for designers as well as other creative people! Should be said, TED is a great resource of wise and informative things to learn in diverse directions and spheres, so we never miss the chance to share our findings there.   Here we offer you 20 TED-talks all with the descriptions given on the TED website. Most of them are already classic, sometimes even could be called legendary, and that makes them even more precious as they have been successfully checked with the time and practice. The ability to analyze take the best from the past usually broadens the creative horizons and becomes a solid foundation from innovative thinking. We also added some prominent thoughts full of wisdom and practical experience. So, let's move on!"

"One of the most common questions we get is in regards to buying makerspace materials.  There are a ton of products and supplies out there and it can be overwhelming to pick the right ones especially if you are just starting out.  One of the first steps you should do before spending any money is to talk with the people who will be using your makerspace.  Some schools and libraries have done formal or informal surveys to capture this data.  These surveys can help to determine what projects and areas of interest people are most excited about.  But always remember that one of the best parts of maker education is discovery.  It's good to have items that people know they like but always make sure to include projects and products they've never used before.  Makerspaces are a great way to help students discover new interests and potential career paths. The list below contains a lot of great products that are makerspace friendly.  They are ranked in no particular order and are all worth checking out.  Take this post with you and download a printable supply list of makerspace materials and products."

"The rise of the Maker has been one of the most exciting educational trends of the past few years. A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her. A Maker, re-cast into a classroom, has a name that we all love: a learner. A Maker, just like a true learner, values the process of making as much as the product. In the classroom, the act of Making is an avenue for a teacher to unlock the learning potential of her or his students in a way that represents many of the best practices of educational pedagogy. A Makerspace classroom has the potential to create life-long learners through exciting, real-world projects."

"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."

"Since its release in 2009, Minecraft has sold millions of copies worldwide revolutionizing thus the gaming industry and providing game players with an endless world of possibilities. As a sandbox construction game, Minecraft has successfully and distinctively set itself from the crowd by incorporating the ethos of 21st century learning that include: creativity, challenge, problem solving, and strategic thinking all of which are adeptly adapted to the player's little gaming world. Minecraft provided players with the tools and resources to construct their own gaming reality and test their creative possibilities. In a relatively short time, Minecraft succeeded in marking a strong presence within the education sector  and became one of the leading educational learning platforms for students. As a culmination of its sweeping popularity among the educational community, Minecraft recently released  Minecraft for Education which is a website geared primarily towards providing teachers with a forum where they can share their ideas about how they use Minecraft in their teaching. Given this growing potential of Minecraft in education, we decided to compile the list  below featuring some of the best reads on Minecraft. These books will help you learn more about how educators are using Minecraft as a powerful instructional tool to engage students and teach different subjects."

"The YMCA's Camp Combe is one of the most popular and best-known sleepaway camps in the New York Area. Serving over five hundred children a day during the summer months, the facility keeps its guests both busy and entertained with a whole host of activities including swimming, archery, high rope courses, nature walks, and...Minecraft? No, I'm not kidding. An hour outside of New York City, New York, a group of third-to-fifth graders this week dove into the camp's first ever Minecraft session. Of course, as creatively-oriented as the base game is, it doesn't really teach kids all that much as far as practical knowledge is concerned. That's why Camp Combe is using an educational variant of the title: MinecraftEdu. Deveoped by TeacherGaming, MinecraftEdu is a modified version of the base game whose sole purpose is to get its players interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. After logging in to MinecraftEdu, players are first taught the basics of the vanilla Minecraft experience - logging into a server, controlling their avatars, manipulating the environment, acceptable behaviors...you get the idea. Once they've been schooled in how to play, they're then given an objective; this task could be anything from building a bridge to creating a functional particle accelerator."

" have been looking at the future of play for about 5 years and have spoken about the topic at MIT and written about it in Fast Co. Design, Parents Magazine and The Atlantic. Recently, I summed up the research into a poster for parents and teachers to help them frame the value of play in education (see below attachment). I think this excerpt from my Atlantic article said it best, "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think "with their hands" and play productively). Standardized aptitude tests will be replaced by our abilities to see (observe and imagine), sense (have empathy and intrinsic motivation), and stretch (think abstractly and systemically). We will advance our abilities to collaborate and create." The future favors the flexible. And that's another reason this poster has + signs at the top of each category - because the superpowers of play we will need for a constantly evolving world is always changing and it encourages everyone to add their own powers of play. "

"Why use video games in the classroom as teaching tools? Let's be clear-we've come a long way from Asteroids and Space Invaders. The modern capabilities and designs of computer games provide endless opportunities for meaningful learning experiences. Used appropriately and effectively, technology can make a difference in students' lives and affect their attitude toward school in a positive way. So ditch the old stereotypes and misconceptions you may have about the ill effects of video games and reframe your perception in the light of using them to enhance learning. Gamification of classrooms isn't a new idea. The components of the gaming world lend themselves well to self-directed learning, because gaming taps into the variables which inherently motivate the desire for progress. In fact, using a set of constructs called game mechanics one could conceivably create situations that enhance learning by incorporating the kinds of motivating strategies found in today's best video games. Whether you choose to "gamify" your physical classroom all the way or only use video games as an occasional learning enhancement, making learning fun will positively reinforce students' experiences of school. Here are some suggestions on how to successfully use video games in the classroom."

"Ask any educator, and they've probably at least heard of flipping the classroom. There are articles for days about the benefits and rewards to be reaped from flipping. Plenty of teachers have given it a go, or at least considered it. Too many teachers have ruled it out on account of their students' lack of access. It's true that our students come from all walks of life. We see the ones with the new Jordans or the latest iPhone, and their peers wearing the old hand-me-down sweater. All of them are our future. All of them are entitled to the best education possible. Only some of them are equipped with the means to achieve their fullest potential. Believe it or not, flipping the classroom can actually help close this gap. If only the gap weren't the main reason educators choose not to flip in the first place. So how can we reach kids who don't have consistent access?"

"In India, 41km of highway road was constructed every day for the year of 2016. In the Indian government budget, it estimated the cost just for 2016 to be 19 billion USD. It would be financing any shortfall through tax-free government bonds. Computational thinking would have played an instrumental role in deciding on where the road would go through with taking into account the key hubs and may have saved the government millions, if not billions of dollars. Jeanette Wing (2012) defines computational thinking as the thought process involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution in a way that a computer-human or machine can effectively carry out. It is the process of abstraction by; choosing the right abstractions, operating in terms of multiple layers of abstraction simulations and defining the relationships between layers guided by efficiency, correctness, and flexibility. Computational thinking can best be related to as writing software or instructionals. Every action or non-action is accounted for in the way computational artifacts are constructed. Computational thinking is great for working out a solution but there is an argument that computational thinking does not put enough emphasis on the problem itself. Design thinking, on the other hand, attempts to understand the intent or problem before looking at any solution - computational or otherwise. Design thinking attempts to identify why the problem exists in the first place before solving it. IDEO defines design thinking as the application of empathy and experimentation to arrive at innovation solutions through making decisions based on stakeholder input and evidence based research. Using the Indian roading example, a design thinker would ask, what is the intent of building the roads in the first place?"

The narrative of "learning loss" is weaponizing static achievement against young people and families in ways that further harms them in a time of global pandemic and disarray. Instead of falling back on the nostalgia of an outdated and mechanized education system, we must push forward into the global shift of our human existence and post-pandemic learning needs and opportunities. As we design teaching and learning now, and in the future, it is best we recycle the good mineral components of the previous education machine and build new resources for teaching and learning that serves the needs of all of our futures.

"n this episode we're talking to Laura Fleming. Laura has been an educator in the state of New Jersey for 20 years.  She has been both a classroom teacher and media specialist in grades K-8 and currently as a Library Media Specialist for grades 9-12.  Laura is a strong advocate of using New Media and Vanguard Techniques for Interactive and Transmedia (multi-platform) Storytelling. She is also the author of the best-selling Worlds of Learning:  Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School (Corwin, 2015). "

"No doubt about it, YouTube features some of the most informative and entertaining content about 3D printing on the magical electronic interwebs. Whether you're looking for 3D printing tutorials, tips and tricks, product reviews, cool projects, or just general goofing off, here's a list of the best YouTube channels about 3D printing you can watch. Please note, this list is ordered according to the number of subscribers. We'll be updating the list with fresh additions in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned. Did we miss one of your favorites? Let us know in the comments."