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"As the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, students are coming into class with misconceptions about the outbreak-and teachers are trying to figure out how best to explain the facts and debunk rumors.   Some teachers have made COVID-19 a focus of their lessons. Discussing the origin and effects of a new virus easily lends itself to science class. But teachers in other subjects-like algebra, statistics, and media literacy-have found ways to address the topic, too.  Designing a lesson around the outbreak could be a helpful way to answer students' questions and calm fears, said Stephen Brock, a professor and coordinator of the school psychology program at California State University, Sacramento.  And if students have misconceptions about the virus or how it spreads, providing more information could help kids more accurately gauge threat, he said. "

"'It's boring', he groaned, glancing sideways beseechingly. 'Do I have to do it. Why do I need to learn to code?'  Part of the year 6 gifted and talented class, this student punched keys, slammed the laptop shut, yanked it open again. His friend offered to help. Desolately he turned back to the coding lessons. I continue cruising the classroom stepping over lanky legs harbouring slumped socks, dodging flailing arms. 'It's really easy - it's like the games we play. I'm trying to trip it up,' one boy tells me as I watch the psychedelic coloured spinning shape. It reminds me of a rapidly created multi-coloured elastic band ball. He's chuckling with glee. I am amazed. This was my first coding class as a supply teacher."

"Architectural Design is not a subject normally taught in schools. Because it presents something of a novelty to children, it often produces some very creative and exciting results. Furzedown Primary School in South West London regularly hold a sequence of lessons in its summer term focusing on this with a Year 5 class. The process starts looking at structure and continues with spacial design, materials, drawing techniques followed by model making. The children are normally given a brief and asked to design a pavilion. To conclude the sequence of lessons, a selection of projects is chosen to build full scale."

"Many of us have started our breaks. If you have a website, blog, virtual learning site or messaging system like Remind to connect with your learners then you can motivate your students to continue the learning with photo and video challenges. Learners of all ages love taking pictures and videos, especially with their mobile devices. Students are surrounded by science, math, geography, history, and literacy. Often, they just need to be challenged to take a closer look, investigate their surroundings, capture their learning, and present it to others. For any subject you can send your students on learning missions and challenges to capture the learning around them and demonstrate to others what they have learned!"

"Students in Grade 3 created their own I Spy pages. The items were gathered from yard sales, usually by the bag full, for a few dollars, and put through the dishwasher. The first class was spent exploring 'I Spy' books and arranging the items onto colourful card. I had 9 baskets of items so small groups or pairs each photographed the same designs but did their own clues. During the second class period, students cropped their photos and used PicCollage App to add clues. Image quality is an issue with closeups with our iPad 2s. Other classes will try to find the items in the images and they were included in a school assembly video.  Continue reading to see more examples."

"If you've ever used a desktop 3D printer before, chances are you're more than familiar with the Thingiverse platform. This 3D printing marketplace and community offers thousands of models that can be freely shared, downloaded, remixed, and of course, printed. The platform was launched by MakerBot back in 2008, and has been expanding ever since. Nowadays, Thingiverse boasts millions of users and uploaded 3D models, offering everything from popular torture tests like the 3DBenchy to full-fledged educational lesson plans. Intrigued by the continuous growth of this 3D printing marketplace, we decided to take a deeper plunge into this immensely popular platform. We recently chatted with Public Relations Manager Josh Snider, MakerBot Learning Manager Drew Lentz, and Thingiverse Product Manager Corey Zettler about the inner happenings of Thingiverse."

"As I wrap up my first month of consulting, I have one overarching takeaway: in every building, in every district, in every city, in every state, there are administrators, teachers, and students who are so passionate about learning that you can feel the positive energy in the room. It's humbling. It's heartwarming. It's inspiring. Yet, what I also see are lots of educators and students who frequently second guess themselves, continuously ask for permission to do anything, or who render themselves silent in large groups and appear to have "given up." However, behind closed doors, these are the same educators and students who are overflowing with enthusiasm and have a wealth of knowledge. Naturally, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the strikingly similar behaviors both adult educators and student learners demonstrate in our current educational system. What causes passionate learners to become apathetic toward their passion? Why do students and adults alike ask for permission to learn? And, I keep coming back to one simple conclusion. THE DEFICIT MODEL OF EDUCATION HAS WORN US ALL DOWN"

"As part of the Infinite Versatility of Cardboard last week, we made new cardboard pieces on the laser cutter to use with our stop motion animation stations. We found the animated shorts that resulted so surprisingly delightful that we've continued to offer these cardboard pieces at the animation station a week running! Some of the new cardboard pieces are abstract shapes, not much different than what we usually offer in wooden shapes. We also cut out silhouette objects, including planets, houses, and trees. "

"Nik Peachey continues his digital teaching series by exploring how QR codes can be used to create mobile worksheets. He provides simple steps to help you create them, plus a fun lesson activity download too! "

"rance is to impose a total ban on pupils using mobile phones in primary and secondary schools starting in September 2018, its education minister has confirmed. Phones are already forbidden in French classrooms but starting next school year, pupils will be barred from taking them out at breaks, lunch times and between lessons. Teachers and parents are divided over a total ban, however, with some saying children must be able to "live in their time". In France, some 93 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds own mobile phones. "These days the children don't play at break time anymore, they are just all in front of their smartphones and from an educational point of view that's a problem," said Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister. "This is about ensuring the rules and the law are respected. The use of telephones is banned in class. With headmasters, teachers and parents, we must come up with a way of protecting pupils from loss of concentration via screens and phones," he said. "Are we going to ban mobile phones from schools? The answer is yes." Studies suggest that a significant number of pupils continue to use their mobiles in class and receive or send calls or text messages."

"It seems like any news report shared on Twitter or YouTube is inundated with "fake news" claims: comments calling out something for being "liberal propaganda" or "paid for by Russia." Most often these claims are just a way of dismissing facts or analysis that someone disagrees with. The thing is, there are bigger, more harmful examples of bias and bad reportage. These rare but educational incidents get lost in the flurry of baseless "fake news" accusations. Case in point: Mark I. Pinsky at Poynter issued a powerful report on the shameful role Southern newspapers like the Orlando Sentinel and the Montgomery Advertiser played in normalizing and covering up injustice, racism, and violence against Black people in the decades following the Civil War, through the civil rights movement, and continuing today. Here we have an actual, high-stakes example of the news getting something wrong. It's important for students to examine cases like this -- and the political contexts surrounding them -- to build a more informed understanding of "fake news.""

"With deliberate misinformation campaigns and the continued prevalence of fake news, fact-checking sites are now more important than ever. So in the digital era, where news travels quickly through multiple channels, how do you check your facts? Here are five of the best fact-checking websites, like Snopes and PolitiFact, so that you can find the truth."

"NCTE's Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age makes it clear that the continued evolution of curriculum, assessment, and teaching practice itself is necessary. Literacy has always been a collection of communicative and sociocultural practices shared among communities. As society and technology change, so does literacy. "

"An important part of learning and teaching is the art of reflection. As teachers, we need to be reflective in our practice so that we can continue to grow, be prepared to meet our students' needs, and evaluate our own skills and growth. It is important that we model this same practice for our students so that they can develop their own reflective practices and build skills of metacognition in preparation for their future. Metacognition enables students to reflect on who they are, what they know, what they want to know, and how they can get to that point. I'm not an expert but this is a topic that I've become more interested in so I started to look into multiple resources to learn more."

Learning should always be an active process and a two-way partnership between teaching and learning. In essence, learning and its counterpart exist as a vibrant dialogue between individuals whose role in the relationship is continually transformative. I'd like to explore this thinking further.

"Two years ago, four instructional designers in the University of California System decided to undertake a research project on "mobile learning." Their first order of business: figure out what that is. "It's just so new that the researchers who have been trying to define it have found it so dynamic," said Mindy Colin, an instructional consultant at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Enjoying this article from Inside Digital Learning? Sign up for the free weekly newsletter. Continue Popular Today From Inside Digital Learning U.S. settlements with two Christian universities test limits of incentive compensation rules New data: Online enrollments grow, and share of overall enrollment grows faster The 4 Things Every Digital Learning Leader Should Know Investors bet big on the companies formerly known as MOOC providers They eventually settled on a definition from Educause: "Using portable computing devices (such as iPads, laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs and smartphones) with wireless networks enables mobility and mobile variation related to instructional approaches, disciplines, learning goals and technological tools." But they still struggled to define for themselves the parameters of their investigation."

"The week after my dad passed, I decided to come back. Bereavement time was up and I felt that getting back into my classroom would help. I was wrong. By the third day I was still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I ended taking the last two days of the week off. I came back, what I felt as "refreshed", the following Monday. Only still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. As soon as I walked into the school I immediately met with the principal and told him that I couldn't continue. I needed more time away to deal with my emotions and to understand the scope of what took place. I could hear words of my dad echoing in my ear - "take care of yourself… if you don't, you'll end up sick." While my dad's health wasn't that great, and he knew it; he always made sure that everyone else took better care of themselves. Exactly like me. I make sure that others are always put before me. I could not longer do that. I needed to take care of myself before I ended up lying on the floor unable to move, like Izzy in Grey's Anatomy. Those four extra days was what I needed. I processed his death, I cried, I slept (for nearly two whole days), and I remembered the good times. I sat on the couch catching up on missed shows, Netflix, and Days of our Lives. We stress the importance of good mental health to our students, but I wasn't heeding my own words. I knew that being in the classroom too soon after his death wasn't making me a good teacher for my students."

It is soon the start of a new school year for students in Australia. In other parts of the world, the year continues after a short break for Christmas while New Year festivities are just around the corner for those observing the lunar new year. The start of the year is considered an excellent time to reflect on key ideas that matter to our learning and potential for success. But does this equate with goal-setting?

ADI is instrumental in evolving and implementing water conservation and management strategies in most of the States across India. ADI is committed to evolving and strengthening issues about water resource development and management and sustainable development of the area. ADI has pioneered several major initiatives to replenish water in communities. ADI is partnering in planning, facilitating implementation, and monitoring the impact of Sustainable Water Resource Development & Management projects in Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, and many other States. Here, Sustainable water resources development and management deal with the practices that help ascertain continued access to good quality water, without jeopardizing the future potential or availability. It entails a methodical approach to augmentation, conservation, and utilization of water resources for a particular portfolio of activities. ADI provides a holistic development framework with an integrated approach to the management of water resources.

"Over a rushed lunch period the other day, my colleague took a much-needed breather as she described a pandemic-era staff meeting. "Everyone had masks on," she said, "but their eyes were screaming. I honestly don't know how many people are going to quit before the year is up." As the conversation continued, we discussed the increasing prevalence not just of teacher retention issues, but also of less visible gratitude from those in upper-level positions. Though administrators, department heads and team leaders are doubtless thankful for all teachers do, it doesn't hurt to be a little clearer about how much we wish to support and appreciate one another through these difficult times when everyone is beyond overwhelmed. For school leaders who already have so much on their plates, here are four simple ways to increase an overall sense of wellbeing for teachers without becoming burdened with yet another "one more thing" to do."