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"I've been playing Minecraft Education-mostly with students or other teachers-for about four years now. My experience came to a head two weekends ago, when I attended MINECON, the annual Minecraft convention and fan fest held this year in Anaheim on September 24-25. I go to a lot of educational technology conferences, but I don't have a lot of experience with "fandom conventions." Experiencing MINECON 2016 as an educator, I found it to be a melding of the two-and a clear indicator as to why the education world is obsessed with Minecraft."

"There is no end to the uses of the iPad in education. I've discussed that ad nauseum on this blog. As a learning tool, it has the potential to make a great positive change to learning. The only problem is Apple designed it for individual use. Schools are designed for ( or budgeted for) shared use. Conventional wisdom is for iPad use to occur in a 1:1 or BYOD Environment. In the best case scenario, I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately, financial realities will often dictate that sharing is the only viable option if we want our students to enjoy the benefits of the iPad. It can be done effectively - I've shared my thoughts early in the year about the pros and cons of shared iPads - but doesn't happen without some time consuming workarounds. What follows is my take on the pains (and remedies) of sharing iPads in a rather large Primary (elementary) school."

"Five years ago, Ricardo Veiga broke his tibia in a motorcycle accident. While he was experiencing the drawbacks of the ubiquitous plaster cast, he decided there just had to be a way of improving and personalizing the methods used to keep broken limbs immobile while they healed. During research conducted with Jordi Tura, Veiga came across a paper from a New Zealand student who had designed a mesh structure that overcame many of the drawbacks of conventional orthopedic casts. Here's Barcelona's cunning plan to be new heart for digital health, biotech Given its tech skills, concentration of universities and hospitals, and surge in funding, Barcelona has factors in common with Boston's biotech cluster. Read More Using that concept, they decided to create a prototype and a company to market the eventual product, which they christened Xkelet, a 3D-printed splint for helping heal broken bones."

A funny blogger who exposes poor writing ability while attending to proper writing conventions.

"To be subtle. To be true. To be original. To be on. * To sing without moving your lips. * To explore the conventions of a thousand genres and befriend a thousand tribes. * To set your love free. * To tweet and be RTed. * To convince someone to give you money. * To get better at doing hard things. "

"Netiquette ( net + etiquette) is the code of proper conduct applied to virtual online spaces. This code is dictated by common sense rules ( manners ) and social conventions. Teaching students about netiquette is just as important as teaching them to use technology in their learning. Crafting a netiquette memo for your class and informing your students about the importance of these rules will definitely help you create an engaging, respectful, and meaningful learning environment where collaboration and diversity of opinions are celebrated."

"Here is a wonderful little visual I came across through Edudemic which outlines the 8 skills students need in order to live up to the expectations of the future job market. These skills which are highlighted in the recent report "The Learning Curve"  by Pearson are a big departure from the conventional literacy skills : Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.That being said, the report also underscored the fact that for kids (in developing countries) to get a grasp of the 21st century skills, they need to first master the basic literacy skills. Developing countries must teach basic skills more effectively before they start to consider the wider skills agenda. There is little point in investing in pedagogies and technologies to foster 21st century skills, when the basics of numeracy and literacy aren't in place."

"Education-bashing has become something of a national sport in the United States. From hurling criticism about slipping test scores, socio-economic disparity, dropout rates, to raising concerns about poor teaching standards and school resources, the popular narrative is that U.S. schools are failing children. There's good reason for the pile-on: in many cases, the problems are real. While most of the conversation around education reform centers on how to address these existing issues, another point of view has been gaining momentum over the last several years. It's a point of view that is less focused on fine-tuning the current system for high performance-since the system was built in 1893 with the goal of churning out "good workers"-and more about rethinking education entirely and how it meets the world's rapidly changing economy in the information age. This topic is explored in depth in the feature-length documentary, Most Likely to Succeed, which premiered at Sundance and will appear at the Tribeca Film Festival April 24. In the film, director, writer and producer Greg Whiteley casts a light on the shortcomings of established education methods by focusing on one school that's defying convention, San Diego's High Tech High. While following two ninth-grade classes for a year, with classroom instruction unlike anything you've ever seen, the doc offers some inspirational ideas for how to help students rise to the occasion of an innovation economy that requires critical thinking."

"Kaiba Gionfriddo was born prematurely in 2011. After 8 months, his lung development caused concerns, although he was sent home with his parents as his breathing was normal. Six weeks later, Kaiba stopped breathing and turned blue. He was diagnosed with tracheobronchomalacia, a long Latin word that means his that windpipe was so weak that it collapsed. He had a tracheostomy and was put on a ventilator - the conventional treatment. Still, Kaiba would stop breathing almost daily. His heart would stop, too. Then, his caregivers 3D printed a bioresorbable device that instantly helped Kaiba breathe. This case is considered a prime example of how customized 3D printing is transforming healthcare as we know it. Since Kaiba's story, 3D printing in medicine has been skyrocketing. And the list of objects that have already been successfully printed in this field demonstrates the potential that this technology holds for healthcare in the near future."

"Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled a new 3D printing method on Friday that employs transparent glass as precursor instead of plastic. The method, called 3DGP, works basically the same way that conventional 3D printing does though the team found that they could modulate the light transmission, reflection and refraction qualities by precisely varying the thickness of the print."

"Work and productivity are the central themes of the TED Talks we are sharing with you today. The insights shared in these talks will definitely challenge the conventional and common way people conceptualize work. More importantly, 'these talks offer unconventional, and uncommonly useful, advice on leading, working and making the most of each day.'"

"As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, "Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one." As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make "smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses." From the start, we've always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have."

sitesALIVE! is an online educational series that links remote field sites with classrooms around the world. Through sitesALIVE!, students of all ages can gain access to learning experiences that cannot be found in more conventional learning tools such as textbooks, workbooks and CD-ROMs.

"If I had written this article two years ago, it would have been very different. Back then, I would have made (or felt like I had to make) a compelling case for why we should even consider the idea of incorporating video games into classroom instruction. Back then, I would have expected most readers to incredulously click to the next article. But today, Game-Based Learning (GBL) and Gamification are gaining some real traction in the teaching community. At the recent OETC conference, the organizers dedicated an entire wing of the convention center to the subject, and educators weren't shy about their interest. When I presented on the subject at Common Ground 14, I had the dreaded "last-presentation-of-the-day" spot, but I was very pleased at the turnout and interest."

"Many top educators and administrators view the idea of a paperless classroom as an inevitability in education. In today's digital age, these educators believe that a paperless classroom promotes a more efficient and organized classroom while preparing students for the practical world outside classroom walls. In other words, if every facet of life is becoming increasingly reliant on technology, then why not equip students accordingly? "We need technology in every classroom and in every student's and teacher's hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time," said esteemed author and educator David Warlick. "It is the lens through which we experience much of our world." This sentiment is shared by many educators, administrators, and parents in the educational community, and for good reason. However, implementing a plan through technological mediums still necessitates the same care and mindfulness of creating a conventional lesson plan, and transitioning to online platforms isn't without its own unique hurdles."

"My wife came home the other day and started describing a new problem arising in her school, where students were claiming to be tired of using devices for everything. The students were apparently saying "Can't we just do a lesson on paper today or you just teach us." As she told me this, my wife didn't notice that she was simultaneously picking up her iPad to check Facebook and that made me think. Photo Credit In my observations around my school, it's those same students claiming device fatigue in the classroom that are not hesitating to turn to their device for 'life updates' as they leave that very same room. I would propose that it's not fatigue caused by device use but that caused by the pain of trying to carry out conventional, 20th century classroom tasks on devices that are designed for a world that conducts itself very differently."

"How many times have you heard that "practice makes perfect?" Well, a new meta-analysis of dozens of previous studies shows that it is not always true. In this post, Alfie Kohn explains and talks about the consequences of this when it comes to education. Kohn is the author of 13 books about education and human behavior, including "The Schools Our Children Deserve," "The Homework Myth," and "The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Children and Parenting." He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org."

"If you are planning to incorporate iPad in your classroom teaching then you definitely need to work on some preliminary stuff before anything else. These are basically formalities and conventions students need to abide by when using iPad in class. Making students explicitly aware of their responsibilities behind using iPad in class will certainly help you tap into the full educational potential of this versatile gadget. I have gone through my archive and picked out these handy visuals for you to use with your students."

"From a press release: As part of a national movement called the Tech Timeout Academic Challenge, a San Francisco school will shut down their tech devices for three days beginning February 12. SAN FRANCISCO What happens when over 1,100 students in grades K-12, at a school that prides itself on ubiquitous access to technology, power down their electronic devices for three straight days? That question will be answered on February 12-14 when students at Convent & Stuart Hall in San Francisco take The Tech Timeout Academic Challenge. It will be the first school in the greater Bay Area to take the challenge and just the third in California."