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"Exciting news from Colorado: The Colorado Library Consortuim (CLiC), Douglas County Libraries and Unite for Literacy, a Colorado-based publisher funded by sponsorships, have partnered to provide access to more than 120 free ebooks for young children."

"Cult of Mac wanted to know how those iPads get into schools - which ones want them, how they get paid for, what schools are doing with them - so we caught up with Brayden Wardrop. Wardrop is a CTO for Utah-based company called iSchool (yeah, iKnow!), currently getting those tablet computers to schools in Texas, Colorado, Utah, Minesota and Nevada. Wardrop manages around 500 iPad2s, 50 Macbook Pros and 75 iMacs for Colorado school Legacy Academy, the kind of deployment that costs around a million dollars "for a total technology overhaul.""

via Colorado Department of Education

"Back in February, an EdWeek Market brief reported that Amazon Education was starting to beta-test a new platform with educators, helping teachers navigate the jungles of open educational resources (or OERs, for short). Well, that platform-Amazon Inspire-has officially launched today in tandem with the ISTE conference in Denver, Colorado. A free, mostly-OER platform (see below for why it's "mostly OER"), Amazon Inspire works like a search engine for educational videos, lesson plans and games. Users can search by criteria like topics (say, "fractions" or "the Constitution"), standards, grade level, and time to complete, as shown below; additionally, they can rate materials with 1 to 5 stars."

"Teachers in Littleton, Colorado - like teachers in many places - are increasingly asking students to read and write online. Free tools like Google Docs have made it easy for students to work on the same piece of writing at home and at school, and have allowed teachers to explore collaborative writing assignments and synchronous editing with students. There are also many digital tools that can support students as they learn how to read deeply, take well-cited notes, and navigate the writing process. While many teachers are finding efficiency in allowing students to write and submit assignments online, not all students or teachers want to use the exact same set of tools. That's why Littleton's Instructional Technology Specialist, Dana Levesque, started compiling resources on a site that both teachers and students can access to find the tools that fit their needs."

"Ashley Kazyaka and the Colorado State Library invited me to speak to Coloradans/school librarians about makerspaces in affluent communities versus makerspaces in lower socio economic schools. I had a great time today discussing my passion for inclusive makerspaces and in case you missed it, here are the slides for my webinar and here is the Webinar recording!"

"Even after teaching for a decade, Pamela Baack found herself battling the calendar as she tried to keep her students on track. She's the first to admit it wasn't easy to change the way she had been teaching for a decade. "We were always on someone else's pace, not our kids' pace," says Baack, who teaches at the Bella Romero Academy of Applied Technology, a K-8 public school in Greeley, Colorado. Most lessons were taught to the entire class, requiring Baack to constantly search for opportunities to help the students who struggled. "It was hard to differentiate, because it was hard to find the time to go back," she says. Today, students in Baack's third-grade classroom work through addition, multiplication, and division activities at their own pace. Some progress through lessons quickly, while others get the opportunities they need to relearn and practice key concepts until they are ready to move forward. Importantly, Baack says, even the students who struggle the most are at grade level. "They're still doing what every else is doing, but at a different pace," she says. "They're exposed to grade-level standards and content and will be able to move up." "

"Gold mining has been an integral part of world conquest from the time of the explorers. Gold and silver drove the explorers and Conquistadores to decimate world populations and colonize foreign lands, bringing home vast amounts of wealth to nations during what became known as the Age of Imperialism. Europeans colonized all parts of the globe in search of gold, silver, and cash crops. Although the colonization of America started as a result of turbulence in Europe and the search for religious freedom, it wasn't long before people struck out in search of riches here, too. The fever started with the California Gold Rush at the end of the 1840's. Ten years later, gold was discovered in Colorado, and silver at Pike's Peak and Nevada. Now, everyone wants a piece of Alaska."

"Kyle Schwartz teaches third grade at Doull Elementary in Colorado. By now, you've likely heard of her-or at least one of her ideas, #Iwishmyteacherknew. Every now and then, there's an "Education" story that the masses take notice of-standardized testing, Michelle Rhee, Waiting for Superman, the flipped classroom, the iPad failure in LA, the testing scandal in LA, among others. The most recent to crossover is the hashtag #Iwishmyteacherknew, which is what it sounds like it might be-an asynchronous conversation (or rather, series of statements) illuminating the realities that many students face every day. On one hand, there's an inherent kind of other disconnect at work here that makes the whole thing a huge act of spectacle, while inviting frank discussions about privacy. We'll talk more about that in a follow-up later this week. To provide context to that kind of analysis, first the tweets themselves."

Adams County School District 50 in Colorado throws out grade levels and groups students by mastery levels.

"As the school year draws to a close, I am looking forward to the laidback freedom of summer with its less hectic schedule and longer daylight hours. If I'm being completely honest, there's something really incredible about turning off my alarm clock for the foreseeable future. For me, it's time to recharge, to reflect and to prepare to return to the classroom and library renewed with energy and ideas. As an educator, I'm also keenly aware of the potential for kids to suffer from the summer slide-a loss of academic progress over the course of the summer months. According to a study done by the Colorado Department of Education, children in low-income households fall behind an average of 2 months in reading during the summer. And, summer slide is cumulative, with these learning losses building up each summer. The basic solution? Stay engaged in learning: read, write, do some math."

""I don't like math," my students commonly say. The alternative high school in rural Colorado where I've been working for the last two-and-a-half years serves students ages 14 to 20, who come to us when they have not done well in traditional environments since we have more freedom to use creative instructional methods to meet their needs. Thinking about that comment, I used to ask myself, "How would the students' attitudes toward math change if there was an opportunity to experience a different side of math, one that involved hands-on learning, promoted teamwork, and ended in a product to be proud of?" I thought I could use Rubik's Cubes to facilitate camaraderie among my math-anxious and math-eager students, based on my own love of the popular puzzle. And after learning about students creating mosaics of historical figures, famous landmarks, and animals out of the cubes, I saw a way to promote critical thinking and algorithmic problem-solving."