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"I work part-time with elementary learners - with gifted learners during the school year and teaching maker education camps during the summer. The one thing almost all of them have in common is yelling out, "I can't do this" when the tasks aren't completed upon first attempts or get a little too difficult for them. I partially blame this on the way most school curriculum is structured. Too much school curriculum is based on paper for quick and one shot learning experiences (or the comparable online worksheets). Students are asked to do worksheets on paper, answer end-of-chapter questions on paper, write essays on paper, do math problems on paper, fill in the blanks on paper, and pick the correct answer out of a multiple choice set of answers on paper. These tasks are then graded as to the percentage correct and then the teacher moves onto the next task. So it is no wonder that when learners are given hands-on tasks such as those common to maker education, STEM, and STEAM, they sometimes struggle with their completion. Struggles are good. Struggles with authentic tasks mimics real life so much more than completing those types of tasks and assessments done at most schools. Problems like yelling out, "I can't do this" arise when the tasks get a little too difficult, but ultimately are manageable. I used to work with delinquent kids within Outward Bound-type programs. Most at-risk kids have some self-defeating behaviors including those that result in personal failure. The model for these types of programs is that helping participants push past their self-perceived limitations results in the beginnings of a success rather than a failure orientation. This leads into a success building upon success behavioral cycle."

"Homework: valuable learning tool or complete waste of time? "

"SoloLearn's Learn Java is a comprehensive guide to one of the most popular programming languages in the world. And here's a big bonus: Learn Java is FREE! The Learn Java lessons are fast, easy, and effective; the app is set up so that you can complete the work in less than three hours. No prior programming experience is needed. Once you have completed the course, you will have learned object-oriented Java programming and have the ability to write clear and valid code in almost no time at all."

"Watch children, youth, and even adults when they are immersed in learning something of interest of them, and you will see often complete engagement and personal joy. When education is done "right", learners often feel and experience the following in their both formal and informal educational environments: Joy Engaged Excited Wonderment Intrinsically Motivated Creative Accomplishment and Pride (in themselves and in their work) Connected (to the content, to other learners, to experts) Purposeful Important Valued All of these feelings described above are often experienced as part of a FLOW state. The characteristics of "Flow" according to its originator and researcher, Czikszentmihalyi, are: Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored Sense of serenity Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward."

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros' Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century. Anyone is free to use this video for educational purposes. You may download, translate, or use as part of another presentation. Please share.

Memidex is a free online dictionary/thesaurus with extensive cross-referencing, complete inflections, simple interface, and frequent updates. It's fast too. Use the Find box for exact matching or browse using the complete index.

"Complete #edtech20 guide to #googleplus in #education20"

provides teens with the opportunity to explore, engage, and create through activities and projects. FreshBrain takes advantage of the latest technologies, such as web conferencing and social networking, to provide a very progressive environment where teens can complete activities and work together on projects. This experience is enhanced with Advisors, available to support and mentor teens who are working on projects, with the intention of increasing the likelihood of success. In addition, FreshBrain provides teens with tools and training in the latest technologies to complete these projects.

"Rarely, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will become completely unresponsive and errant, leading to what amounts to a frozen device that just won't do anything. The most obvious indicator of this is when something on screen just cease up completely and the touch screen becomes unresponsive to all input, and clicking on any of the hardware buttons also does nothing. Fortunately you can almost always remedy these unusual situations by forcibly rebooting the iOS device, a low tech solution that works to remedy most of these issues, it only takes a few seconds, and which is really pretty easy."

"Teachers will be introduced to Google Apps for Education as a resource to enhance collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity with students, colleagues and their school community. Emphasis will be placed on introducing resources that provide best practices when using Google Apps for Education. The course is online and divided into 10 self paced modules. Each module can be completed individually. Staff will demonstrate completion of each module through a Google Form. "

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will enroll an additional 40 crore residents for Aadhaar cards by March, 2014, minister of state for planning Ashwani Kumar said on Thursday. "UIDAI was earlier mandated to enroll 20 crore residents which has been completed and enrolment of additional 40 crore residents mandated to be completed by March 2014, has commenced," the Kumar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. Aadhaar card issued by UIDAI provides a soft identity infrastructure which can be used for better and efficient delivery of public services, he said, adding that enrolment for Aadhaar is voluntary not mandatory

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will enroll an additional 40 crore residents for Aadhaar cards by March, 2014, minister of state for planning Ashwani Kumar said on Thursday. "UIDAI was earlier mandated to enroll 20 crore residents which has been completed and enrolment of additional 40 crore residents mandated to be completed by March 2014, has commenced," the Kumar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

"There ought to be a law limiting people to one use of the term "life-changing" to describe a life event. Had a life-changing cup of coffee this morning? Well, hope it was good because that's the one use you get! If this legislation came to pass, then I would use my allotment on my decision to write about data science. This writing has led directly to 2 data science jobs, altered my career plans, moved me across the country, and ultimately made me more satisfied than when I was a miserable mechanical engineering university student. In 2018, I made a commitment to write on data science and published at least one article per week for a total of 98 posts. It was a year of change for me: a college graduation, 4 jobs, 5 different cities, but the one constant was data science writing. As a culture, we are obsessed by streaks and convinced those who complete them must have gained profound knowledge. Unlike other infatuations, this one may make sense: to do something consistently for an extended period of time, whether that is coding, writing, or staying married, requires impressive commitment. Doing a new thing is easy because our brains crave novelty, but doing the same task over and over once the newness has worn off requires a different level of devotion. Now, to continue the grand tradition of streak completers writing about the wisdom they gained, I'll describe the lessons learned in "The Year of Data Science Writing.""

"Microsoft's Hacking STEM Library is divided into activities that take multiple days to complete and activities that can be completed in one day. All of the activities in the Hacking STEM Library include detailed directions, materials lists including places to acquire materials, and lesson objectives. The homemade wave machine project is an example of a one-day project. This lesson on harnessing electricity to communicate is an example of a multiple day project."

"Coding is the ability to write step by step instructions (programs) for a computer to understand to complete a task. The Hour of Code website has tons of ready to go online activities that get students to write code that results in a number of cool outcomes, such as making a monster dance, creating avatars, remixing music or making a game. When students complete these easy tutorials they learn these important skills- logic, problem solving, fitting puzzle pieces together, selection, instructional writing, editing, revision, and creation. Below are some great websites to find engaging coding projects that take an hour or less. Most require no registration! Just provide students with a quick introduction to the task on the projector and the link for them to get started. I would highly recommend doing the activity first. In the next post I will introduce you to unplugged activities, which get students to focus on specific coding skills you will notice in these activities, which include working with puzzles, providing good instructions, problem solving and algorithms."

"This course is targeted to middle school grades 6-8 (ages 11-14 years). It is also written for teachers who may not have a Computer Science background, or who may be teaching an "Intro to Computer Science" course for the first time. This course takes approximately 14 weeks to complete, spending about 1 week on each of the first 11 lessons, and 3 weeks for students to complete the final project at the end. Of course, teachers should feel free to customize the curriculum to meet individual school or district resources and timeframe."

"The Google Home is a $130 (£130 or AU$199) smart home speaker that showcases the artificially intelligent, voice-activated Google Assistant. It lets you set timers, control lights and thermostats, play trivia games, watch YouTube videos and more -- all with simple voice commands. Google hasn't released a full list of commands for Home, so we had to do our best to assemble and test everything we could think of. If we're missing anything, make sure to leave it in a comment so we can update the list as we go. Here's the (almost) complete list of voice commands for the Google Home so far."

The Distance MBA institute provides an excellent course curriculum to complete the course and thereby get the degree which could be further used in the future to gain more success. The MBA course provides excellent carrier growth in terms of position and salary. The MBA is a master's degree course that could be completed after the undergraduate degree in various streams.

"Free Audio: Download the Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis"

"Before the advent of the uber-popular show Mythbusters or the push for more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in schools, parents and their kids were doing at-home science experiments. Now, the trend continues to blossom, although many of the experiments have remained somewhat the same…and always awesomely exciting! If you're a parent and you want to do something with your kid that isn't related to cleaning the toilets or forging through homework, check out these 20 great science projects that you can complete in the confines of your humble abode. Most of them use around-the-home items that you probably have on hand, although some will require a little bit of shopping ahead of time. To help you decide which are best for your children's needs, the 20 have been divided into projects for younger students and projects for older ones."

From the site: "I am hoping to connect our school with some other schools in a project where early elementary students share about their family and/or cultural traditions during the December holidays. This project is designed so that it does not require a lot of classroom time to complete and does not involve very complicated technology skills. It also will introduce teachers to Smilebox - which is a neat free tool for sharing images on the web and easily allows students and parents to leave comments."