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"We have recently started a class Twitter feed to extend our classroom beyond its walls and share our learning with the world. The students are so thrilled to upload their work samples for parents, teachers and other classes around the world to see. They excitedly wait to see whether we have any new followers or replies and my inbox is crowded with emails from my students sending me examples of their iPad work to post. They love to hear my laptop "ping", indicating a new email, and announce matter-of-factly to the class "That was me, just sending you my work for our Twitter". This latest technological venture for us has brought a new-found sense of enthusiasm to our learning environment. Last week as part of our History studies we connected with experts via Twitter to completely transform our History assessment. The existing assessment task required students to observe photos of old and new technology and pose and answer questions based on what they could see in the images. I immediately thought of Twitter and the possibility of engaging with experts to answer our questions, and provide us with new information that we could not gain ourselves by analyzing a photograph."

"I believe that every single child is gifted and that every kid has a talent which we as educators should help uncover. This is not easy when you have a curriculum to follow and tons of material to teach. But that given we need to make time to work with kids in a different and more creative setting. It's important to let them explore new things that may not be present in your curriculum but are in your students' heads all the time. This is how we can awaken curiosity in young children and help them develop creative thinking. Interestingly though, this idea does not originate in education or teaching practice. It was actually inspired by Google's "20% Time" rule, which encourages employees to spend 20% of their time working on their own projects and ideas outside Google. This concept inspired the idea of a "Genius Hour" at school."

"Spreadsheets can be intimidating to a lot of teachers and students. I have to admit that at one time working with spreadsheets was a daunting task for me too. Fortunately, Google Sheets has made it much easier for the average computer user to work with spreadsheets. Once you get the hang of working with Google Sheets there are a lot of great ways to use spreadsheets as a teacher or as a student. Here's a run-down of some of my favorite things to do with Google Sheets in the classroom."

"These days, new ideas about "best practice" in the classroom are published every day. It is an indication that educators are increasingly taking ownership of their own destiny, and with social media making the sharing of ideas so easy, teachers have constant instant access to new and exciting suggestions from around the world. Though this is exciting, there is an associated danger. The ideas badged as "best practice" are, more often than not, untested in any reliable way. This means that teachers could be implementing practices that do not impact positively. Worse still, they could be having a negative impact on learning. Perhaps rather than "best practice", we need to consider "effective practice". Thankfully, we now have access to a body of research that helps us know what sits in the area of effective practice: the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is hugely accessible and allows teachers to see what works, and how much it costs. Similarly, the work of John Hattie, from the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, helps us get to grips with what he terms "visible learning" - aspects of teaching that can be seen to makes a difference. Both the EEF and Hattie cite the development of metacognition in our students as a highly effective approach to securing progress over time. Metacognition is not an instantly easy word to understand - people sometimes glaze over. But in my experience, once it is explained, people "get it", and "want it". It is a powerful concept that can make a significant difference to our students."

"We live in an era where robotics and artificial intelligence will replace many of our current jobs. Global connectivity will continue to allow companies to outsource labor to other countries. Our students will likely change jobs every five to seven years. The corporate ladder is gone and in its place, is a complex maze. They will inhabit a world of constant change. But how do we help students navigate that maze? We often hear that our current students will work in jobs that don't exist right now. But here's another reality: our current students will be the ones who create those jobs. Not every student will create the next Google or Pixar or Lyft. Some students will be engineers or artists or accountants. Some will work in technology, others in traditional corporate spaces and still others in social or civic spaces. Some of them will work in high-skilled manufacturing. But no matter how diverse their industries will be, our students will all someday face a common reality. They will need to be self-starters and self-managers. This is why metacognition is so vital. Metacognition happens when students analyze tasks, set goals, implement strategies and reflect on what we're learning."

"Welcome to Teen Ink, a national teen magazine, book series, and website devoted entirely to teenage writing, art, photos, and forums. For over 25 years, Teen Ink has offered teens the opportunity to publish their creative work and opinions on issues that affect their lives - everything from love and family to school, current events, and self-esteem. Hundreds of thousands of students, aged 13 -19, have submitted their work to us and we have published more than 55,000 teens since 1989. Distributed through classrooms by English and Art teachers, and available in libraries nationwide, Teen Ink magazine offers some of the most thoughtful and creative work generated by teens today. We have no staff writers or artists; we depend completely on submissions from teenagers around the world for our content. Teen Ink has the largest distribution of any publication of its kind. Teen Ink is devoted to helping teens share their own voices, while developing reading, writing, creative and critical-thinking skills. All proceeds from the print magazine, website and Teen Ink books are used for educational purposes to further our goals."

Web2.0 and Classroom Instruction That Works Readers and contributors will learn and share information about specific Web 2.0 tools that can be used by teachers, and strategies that can be used with those tools that align with and support research-based effective instructional methods. Reference will be made to specific instructional strategies and a variety of examples will be shared covering all content areas from K-12 to college/university levels. This wiki is an information resource as well as an interactive space where readers can add their own insights and strategies.

Models of effective technology integration.

"Project-based learning (PBL) - an educational approach in which students work together to solve real-world problems - is redefining how many kids learn. Vine, a social video app purchased by Twitter, is growing in popularity - and fast. What happens when the two collide? PBL teachers across the country intend to find out."

"The biggest and most oft-heard criticism of the iPad usually revolves around it not behaving like a desktop PC or laptop. The people making this complaint are simply missing the point. Apple aren't trying to make a laptop replacement, why would they? They make a couple of extremely good ones! The iPad is a new kind of device that asks you to think and work differently. The fact that it isn't a laptop, to me, is its greatest attribute:"

"With the increasing rate of new tech devices and web 2.0 tools being developed each day, it is very easy for both teachers and students to get excited by something flashy and lose sight of the purpose. We often have to remind ourselves to start with our learning objectives and THEN decide what technology can enhance the learning process."

""Imagine that your mind is a television," I told the small group of students I was visiting at the rural Oregon school where I worked as a counselor. "And you have a remote." I then asked them to change to a sad channel and notice how it made them feel. "Now let's change it to a happy channel." How did that feel? What differences did they notice? We practiced this for a while, the students taking turns to see how all sorts of different channels made us feel. We tried it while holding a yoga tree pose. The students noticed that certain thoughts made it easier to balance; others made it harder. What they were learning, of course, was how to be mindful of their thoughts and how those thoughts affect their bodies. They were also learning that they could direct their thoughts - that none of us is ever stuck on just one channel; that mindfulness gives us tools for dealing successfully with all manner of challenges and difficulties."

"Often I speak to teachers who are so ready to redefine their classrooms but simply don't have the resources to go 1:1 at this time. While I point them to this page to start thinking about grants, there aren't always open funds ready to dole out $15,000+ to teachers. If you are in this situation, and have a projector, laptop, and perhaps one teacher iPad, here is a "recipe" for how you can leverage these devices on a daily basis... and still work some magic. "

"To be clear-learning can happen in the absence of technology. Integrated poorly, technology can subdue, distract, stifle, and obscure the kind of personal interactions between learner, content, peer, and performance that lead to learning results. But increasingly we live in a world where technology is deeply embedded into everything we do. Thinking about it simply in terms of "digital literacy" puts you about 5 years behind the curve. It's really much more than that-less about being connected, and more about being mobile. There will be growing pains, and I'm sure educators that have brought in BYOD programs into their school can come up with 50 reasons it won't work. But most of those 50 are a product of the continued poor fit that exists between schools and communities-the system and the humans it serves."

"n Mrs. Chellani's continual efforts to create an engaging learning experience for her students, she has found utilizing QR codes to facilitate collaboration to be highly beneficial. In order to review material discussed in an assigned video and in class in her Pre-Calculus and Calculus courses, she created QR codes with relevant questions on the material and its' applications. Students were placed in groups of four to five; and, using a QR reader app on their phone, they were able to view the question. Once the students worked on the problem together, they would confirm the result with Mrs. Chellani. When the solution was correct, they would be given the next QR code (i.e. question). The level of engagement increased dramatically with the use of QR codes and simply allowing students to utilize their cell phones in the learning process! "

""Ability to multitask". That phrase is seen on nearly every job description that I've ever read. It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what job you're applying for - everyone expects everyone to be able to multitask. But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean being able to work on three things at once? Let's be real here, you can't write three different emails at once - multitasking usually means something more along the lines of rapidly switching gears from one project to another. But does multitasking actually help you get more done, or is it eating away at your actual productivity? "

"Our school is a 1:1 iPad school. We made the decision to go with iPads knowing that there are relative strengths and weaknesses of the device. For our purposes, it was decided that the strengths outweighed the weaknesses. One strength that factored heavily into the discussion was the camera, and putting the power to create multimedia work in the hands of every student. Here are 7 ways the camera can be leveraged for deeper learning in your class."