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"Online teachers need practical strategies for dealing with difficult students - from rude emails to constant demands for special treatment. Here are the 4 most common types of difficult behaviors - and some practical ways of dealing with them."

"Can you imagine not being able to read printed words? What would your life be like if books, newspapers, websites, email, and even signs were all virtually incomprehensible to you? How would you get through the day? For up to one in five people like me with dyslexia these are not hypothetical questions, they are our reality. Yet, thanks to accessibility technologies built into Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it's a reality that can be challenged. Dyslexia makes reading a simple paragraph, let alone textbooks, a tedious and frustrating process. Spelling and written expression can also be very difficult. ( (Despite this, dyslexia does not impact intellectual ability. It doesn't cause people to read backwards or see words upside down. It does, however, make figuring out what sounds go with which letters difficult. Deciphering unfamiliar words on a page can be extremely difficult, if not impossible. ((So what do people who have dyslexia do when they encounter printed text? Some simply avoid it or give up. Others find methods to help them succeed."

"Brain researchers have long studied how students hear and read individual words, but it has proven difficult to parse out what happens when a reader understands a long and difficult passage of text. Now, a team of researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston,Ill., have developed a new way to view reading comprehension in the brain, and in the process highlighted a new angle for testing comprehension that isn't skewed by a student's background knowledge."

"Last year, I wrote this post on 21 Things Every 21st-Century Teacher should do and it became an instant hit (with the help of Sean Junkin's Infographic).   As tech tools come and go, I felt the need to update and refresh it for this school year.  However, I ran into a problem.  When I got done with my updated list (removing a couple of ideas, adding several more) I was up to 36 different ideas.  As luck would have it there are 36 weeks in a standard school calendar so this actually works out wonderfully.  While these aren't necessarily listed in the order you should do them, they are listed from least difficult (#1 - Selfies) to the most difficult (#36 - Creating an in-class incubator).   The last few challenges are especially geared toward real-world problem solving and will hopefully make a dent in those "Tech Problem-solving" stats in the future"

"Due to Khan Academy's popularity, the idea of the flipped classroom has gained press and credibility within education circles. Briefly, the Flipped Classroom as described by Jonathan Martin is: Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved. Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved (http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/3367)."

"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."

"If you enter the physical world and open a door-say, to walk into a store-you will intuitively hold the door open if someone is walking behind you and you see them or hear them. Even if you aren't intending to be kind, the weight of the door and the presence of a fellow human being will encourage you to do the right thing, the human thing. In the digital world, it's much more difficult to see and feel the doors we walk through, to see and hear the people walking behind us. As a result, it's also much more difficult to do the right thing, the human thing-to hold the door open for a person walking in right behind you."

Twitter is increasingly being used by journalists to make contacts and track news events, but the Twitter user-interface (UI) itself is pretty limited making it difficult to track conversations. Fortunately its open API structure and the ability to subscribe to various types of RSS feeds from Twitter means there are a number of ways to track a 'buzz' around an event or specific conversations

"You'd heard about this parent from other teachers. This parent was a handful. Rude. Combative. Aggressive. Even litigious. In response, you worry, if just a little. You have enough to deal with, and butting heads with an angry parent-especially one angry just because-doesn't sound like fun. You don't get paid enough for that hot mess. So you keep calm and hope to ride the year out. Maybe they won't call. Maybe they'll skip parent-teacher conferences. You've even considered grading their child a little easier just to avoid the hassle of it all. We've all been there. Nothing can solve this problem, but there are ways to take the edge off so that you can open up the lines of communication and deal with the parent on equal terms so that they're child has the best chance for success."

How do we prepare students for work that hasn't been invented yet? While it's difficult to predict what the social and economic climate will be like in the years to come, we can analyze trends and extrapolate future scenarios.

This method is suitable for experts in their field or those who have coped with a difficult life situation, or maybe they just know how to write stories. Sometimes a book is written by bloggers with a large audience. There are two ways to publish a manuscript: through a publisher or on your own.

This method is suitable for experts in their field or those who have coped with a difficult life situation, or maybe they just know how to write stories. Sometimes a book is written by bloggers with a large audience. There are two ways to publish a manuscript: through a publisher or on your own.

"Matchmatics is an iPad app that presents mathematics puzzles in the form of matchsticks laid out on a canvas. The challenge of Matchmatics is to move one matchstick to make an incorrect equation correct. Points are awarded based on how quickly you can correct the equation. The puzzles get progressively more difficult as you work through the app. "

"Over the past nine years I have had the pleasure of hiring (and the displeasure of firing) new hires into their teaching careers. In watching teachers come into the profession some just "have it." Some seem to be innately programmed to be teachers. For others, it is a much more difficult road to travel. Additionally, there has been much awareness brought up about "teacher burn-out" and teachers not being able to survive this profession. It has taken nine years of watching, listening, and observing to come to understand that there are two distinct differences between teachers that excel and love the profession, and those that do not excel and are prone to burn-out."

"I went to Edcamp Detroit last weekend and Erin Klein shared a free app that she has used in her classroom with a lot of success. The app is called Aurasma. The app allows individuals to create and publish their own augmented reality experiences they call "Auras." I'm sure you are thinking the same thing I was thinking when Erin was talking about this app, "Sounds cool, but what does it do?" Students and teachers can make lessons come alive with this platform. It is difficult to explain so I will explain it step by step, then show you what it looks like in action. "

"Why is it that some prefer to study with classical music playing in the background while others soothing when working on difficult Math exercises ? What is it that makes the human brain feel entertained when listening to music ? Do we have special neurons that interpret musical signals and thus fires up dopamine into different areas of our brain making us feel relaxed ?"

"Fostering digital literacy skills is one of the most difficult tasks for educators. Evaluating and analyzing online resources for accuracy is something that many adults struggle with - we've all been bamboozled before, haven't we? But digital literacy is more than just determining if something is true or false - it's intelligently and responsibly navigating online, it's putting countless pieces together to form a puzzle, it's determining what's important and evaluating bias, etc - the list goes on. So, as an educator, how do we reinforce these crucial skills in our classrooms?"

"When Apple started dropping hints about a coming "tablet PC" in 2009, it would have been difficult to see the way it might change the way we interact with digital media. The first-generation iPad was introduced in April, 2010 and in lieu of some significant hardware limitations, was a world-beater, garnering $1 billion in sales in just 4 months. The iPad 2 was released 11 months later, and the iPad 3 is currently rumored for a Spring 2012 release. While discussing the "history" of a product less than two years old may seem a bit premature technology moves at a dizzying, humming pace. Dog years have nothing on tech years."

"Current discourse on 'improving' education is a lot of "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic". We have important and difficult issues to address but ignore them. Bring up "flipping the class" or "BYOD" and experts flock to tell you why and how wrong you are, but mention the big issues affecting student learning and you're greeted by silence."

"One of the justifiable criticisms of the iPad was that it was difficult to impossible to transfer files between many apps or networks. With the addition of some apps like PocketCloud and FileBrowser, and the improvement of the Open in… function in later systems , especially iOS 6, this has become even less of an issue. Still, I'm terms of downloading files on web based apps, you were often limited to photos from the camera roll. This was the case with the Edmodo app. An Edmodo app update earlier in the year allowed access to the Camera Roll and Google Docs. This however, was still too limiting to use the Library/Backpack feature of Edmodo to upload, store and download most files. Today that changed. The latest Edmodo iPad app now adds File Sharing functionality, both uploading and downloading to Edmodo' s Library (for teachers) and Backpack (students)."