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"For those of you who haven't heard of it, TED is an incredible free service that filled to the brim with informative videos from special TED conferences - sometimes motivational, sometimes de-motivational, and often about science or psychology. The TED conferences are all over the place, and if you aren't able to attend, TED makes them available for free on the Web and in a great free universal app for iPhone and iPad. When I have fifteen minutes and I want to watch something, I often watch TED videos, and very usually fill my rare days off with them. The app is a great way to experience these videos, but is it perfect? Read on to find out how TED's service could get even better after its recent update to iOS 7."

"Hear the word "unconference," and you may frown your face in confusion at the meaning of the word. Conferences themselves are quite familiar for most K-12 teachers. Conferences are essentially professional development where you go sit in a room somewhere, follow a moderator's directions, and get lectured at for a bit - whether or not it relates to your subject or grade level. But what part does the participant play? Most often that of a tacit observer."

Creating live padlet pages in iBook author ADEHow to guides April 3, 2014 - 2 comments 0 (0 votes) apple_official_ibooks_author I have been playing around with iBook author for a while and love its potential for engaging students in the classroom. I am currently creating a book to support our upcoming PE conference and wanted to use the book to support everything from signimg up to sessions to giving feedback. Padlet sprung to mind as a great way to share the feedback live and to use as a promise wall for delegates to show what they were going to do as a result of the conference. To keep things neat and tidy i wanted this process to be linked up into the book. Here is the process i used.

"I created my first Twitter account in 2008. Four years later, I finally made the commitment to using Twitter during an edtech conference, where I found myself frantically tweeting, retweeting, and refreshing my feed as I tried to take it all in. Honestly, up until I used it at that conference, I thought Twitter was just another social media blackhole. But through essentially constant use for those few days, I began to see Twitter as an excellent resource for educators and an invaluable tool for professional development - one of the best out there. So, for you teachers wondering about all the hype…I promise, Twitter is worth it."

"The maker movement was front and center at the 2015 ISTE conference-and that's a good thing for me. After following maker initiatives with great interest for some time now, I have the opportunity to design a maker space this year for 6th-12th grade students at my school, Worcester (MA) Academy. A search of this year's program at ISTE, held June 28 to July 1 in Philadelphia, using the term "constructivist learning/maker movement" resulted in 67 related sessions. The ISTE Librarians Network hosted a maker station at their Digital Age Playground and convened a panel on library maker spaces, featuring elementary and middle school librarians, a school administrator, and the coordinator of a public library maker initiative. Vendors and exhibitors demonstrated tools, lessons, and ideas for maker spaces. Meanwhile, a four-hour Maker Playground Wednesday morning drew a huge crowd of attendees. One of my goals at the conference was to gather ideas and tips to help me create my library's maker space. Here are some highlights of what I discovered at ISTE."

"After a fun, tiring first week of school, I had the privilege to attend a conference on Makerspaces hosted by ICE Indiana. This conference was well worth the drive to see a makerspace being developed by Creativity Labs at Indiana University and to connect with other educators who wanted to bring this experience into their classrooms or learning spaces. I was inspired and want to make this a reality for our students, in our building!"

"The maker movement was front and center at the 2015 ISTE conference-and that's a good thing for me. After following maker initiatives with great interest for some time now, I have the opportunity to design a maker space this year for 6th-12th grade students at my school, Worcester (MA) Academy. A search of this year's program at ISTE, held June 28 to July 1 in Philadelphia, using the term "constructivist learning/maker movement" resulted in 67 related sessions. The ISTE Librarians Network hosted a maker station at their Digital Age Playground and convened a panel on library maker spaces, featuring elementary and middle school librarians, a school administrator, and the coordinator of a public library maker initiative. Vendors and exhibitors demonstrated tools, lessons, and ideas for maker spaces. Meanwhile, a four-hour Maker Playground Wednesday morning drew a huge crowd of attendees. One of my goals at the conference was to gather ideas and tips to help me create my library's maker space. Here are some highlights of what I discovered at ISTE."

"This year's K12 Online Conference will feature a strand on Maker Ed. This strand will be keynoted by Stephanie Chang from MakerEd and will include sessions on Minecraft, etextiles, the Cardboard Challenge, STEM, and much more!"

How can your learning network help you? By helping you to sift through all the data to identify the information that will be most useful to you. By helping you to identify learning resources and opportunities. By coaching you and answering your questions as you try to apply your learning to your work. By sharing their wisdom with you through dialogue. Building a personal learning network is requires that you not only seek to learn from others, but also that you also help others in the network learn. Even when you are a novice in a field of learning, you can still make contributions. Did you read an article that might be of interest to others? Then distribute it to other in your network with a short note that you thought they might find it interesting. Did you hear of a conference on the subject? Let others know about the program and speakers and, if you attend, circulate your notes and papers you collect to other network members. A personal learning network can be your most powerful learning tool no matter what the subject.

Professional Development for Teachers & Educators Educator's Professional Development is the largest online database of professional development conferences and workshops for educators and teachers in the K-12 bracket. Painstakingly compiled by three lovers of education, EPD is a free service serving the education community. Search our database by date, education level, location or with keywords.

An inspiring first European overview A groundbreaking new European study, released today at a major EU conference hosted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, sheds light on how teachers use digital games in the classroom with their pupils for learning purposes. The conference was opened by the European Commissioner for Education and Culture, Jan Figel, underlining the importance of the study. It covers commercial as well as "serious" games. It was carried out by European Schoolnet, a network of 31 Ministries of Education, commissioned by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE).

"I am back on my soapbox… …because I continue to see great things happening in classrooms, but get blank stares, when I ask, if these things are being shared beyond the school building. …because I watch as administrators feel the need to "protect" their faculty from "one more thing to do". …because I continue to hear fear of transparency, competition, privacy and technology skills and tech phobia.  Setting up my soapbox to raise awareness of the "moral imperative of sharing" for teachers (Dean Shareski) goes back to his keynote in 2010 at the K-12 Online Conference. Since then I have stepped on that soapbox via my blog and at conferences advocating for the IMPORTANCE and NECESSITY of sharing."

GENEVA - An worldwide conference on Sunday accepted a U.N.-brokered serenity strategy that demands the development of a adjusting govt in Syria, but at Russia's insistence the bargain contract remaining the entrance start to Syria's chief professional being aspect of it. The U.S. supported away from requiring that the strategy should clearly contact for President Bashar Assad to have no part in a new Syrian govt, expecting the concession would motivate Italy to put higher stress on its long time best friend to end the aggressive attack that the resistance says has stated more than 14,000 life. But even with Russia's most specific declaration of assistance yet for a governmental changeover in Syria, it is far from certain that the strategy will have any actual impact in reducing the assault. A key expression in the contract needs that the adjusting relating to human body "shall be established on the foundation common approval," successfully providing the existing govt and the resistance veto energy over each other. Syrian resistance results instantly denied any idea of providing in a changeover with Assad, though the contract also needs protection power chiefs and solutions to have the assurance of the individuals. Assad's govt had no immediate response, but he has regularly said his govt has a liability to remove terrorists and will not take any non-Syrian style of government.

"Kathy Perez has decades of experience as a classroom educator, with training in special education and teaching English language learners. She also has a dynamic style. Sitting through her workshop presentation with like being a student in her classroom. She presents on how to make the classroom engaging and motivating to all students, even the most reluctant learners, while modeling for her audience exactly how she would do it. The experience is a bit jarring because it's so different from the lectures that dominate big education conferences, but it's also refreshing and way more fun. Perez says when students are engaged, predicting answers, talking with one another and sharing with the class in ways that follow safe routines and practices, they not only achieve more but they also act out less. And everyone, including the teacher, has more fun. "If we don't have their attention, what's the point?" Perez asked an audience at a Learning and the Brain conference on mindsets. She's a big proponent of brain breaks and getting kids moving around frequently during the day. She reminded educators that most kids' attention spans are about as long in minutes as their age. So a third-grader can concentrate for about eight minutes before losing interest. It's a teacher's job to make sure there are lots of quick, effective brain breaks built into the lesson to give children a moment to recalibrate. Perez says teachers must be prepared for a diverse cross section of learners with a large toolkit of strategies for teaching in multiple modalities, with many entry points to participation and content."

"I facilitated a workshop at Miami Device this past week. Most conference sessions feel rushed with only 45-60 minutes to share, but thanks to Felix Jacomino's  the genius mind behind the conference, scheduled my 10 Tips to Get Started with Sketchnoting workshop for 2 hours!  It gave us the opportunity to DO what we were talking about. Participants were able to practice sketching the content of the workshop as they were learning about sketchnoting! We walked, step by step, through building a sketch by remembering these 10 tips:"

"As parents and teachers, we encourage our kids to become well rounded people who love learning.   In our world of cell phones, ipads, and computers, it's easy for kids to become passive consumers of media and technology.   We, however, want are kids to be active, curious, and creative.   Since I'm a musician and a software engineer, I hope that my kids learn to express themselves emotively and become creative thinkers.   We're trying to foster a family culture where we are active, encourage tinkering, and building physical things with our hands.    With these ideas in mind, I wanted to share a great video I found by Vinnie Vrotny and Sheryl Peterson entitled "STEAM: Creating A Maker Mindset."   In this conference talk from the K12 Online Conference in 2013, they share their experiences encouraging a "maker" mindset in the Quest Academy .   Their school has a very unique class teaching design thinking to kids.    It's giving me lots of ideas for building a maker environment for our family.    In this class, Sheryl encourages her students to invent a creative design problem and solve it.   With the tools and support of the teacher, the kids are encouraged to build their design.    In some cases, the kids ask Sheryl to assign a problem to them.    The kids aren't used to having creative freedom to design and make.    In these cases, Sheryl encourages the students to keep thinking."

Last week I spent three days thinking about curriculum and all that it means to teaching and learning thanks to the Australian Curriculum Studies Association's biannual conference. It was three days of deeply thoughtful conversation and learning with just the right mix of academic research and ideas for grounded practice straight out of innovative classrooms and schools. With keynotes by Alan Reid, Dan Haesler, Bob Lingard, Robert Randall and Jan Owen combined with Masterclasses from some of Australia's leading educators there was much on offer. The biggest challenge was deciding which workshop you would attend when every session offered such outstanding opportunities.

Coding is the enemy of computational thinking," Stephen Wolfram announced during his keynote at the Building Learning Communities® Education Conference. What was remarkable about this comment were the agreeable nods from the crowd. It seemed there was a collective understanding to this notion, and perhaps one that needed further reflection. This year, the conference had several sessions focusing on computational thinking (which, I might add, is incredibly encouraging to see), and in each one I attended, a special note was added: "Coding and computational thinking are not synonymous."