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"What is an inquiry diary? Essentially, it is a large book (or digital equivalent - but more on that later) into which the inquiry is recorded as it unfolds - one of those big, spiral bound sketch books is ideal. Some teachers construct a diary for each inquiry while others use a single diary for the whole year. Some teachers reserve the diary for documentation of the unplanned, 'spontaneous' investigations that occur throughout the year (such as the sad death of the preying mantis at St. Fidelis Primary early this year!). Entries can be made at various times throughout the process - daily, weekly, sporadic or regular. The teacher often scribes students' suggestions or invites a small group to work on an entry. Importantly, the diary gives us an opportunity to reinforce the language of inquiry and the transferable skills and strategies that are being used within it. They can be as simple or as detailed as suits. "

"Walking around and having a look at how students are taking notes on iPads it is interesting to see the different ways that it is being done. The options for note taking and working on documents on an iPad are exciting. This page will review a whole lot of options with recommendations."

"Synopsis is the new iPad app for students allows you to read any PDF document and create notes by highlighting text. You can then modify these notes and add your own. This free app helps users summarize any text effortlessly so you won't ever need to go back to the PDF document. Each individual note can be converted to it's own flashcard - a fantastic feature of the app. There is no need to buy flashcards or manually type and create them thanks to Synopsis."

"Grab your pith helmet, camera and let's go exploring with Project Noah. Project Noah is a web and mobile (iOS and Android) platform that helps students become "citizen scientists" by encouraging exploration and shared documentation of wildlife and flora. Students can discover wildlife from around the world or simply examine the living world in their own backyard. Teachers can join existing missions or create missions to build a community of explorers, who contribute content to their students' learning experiences."

"Happy New Year! I'm beginning a bunch of curriculum design work in districts this year, and I thought I'd share a few things that are emerging from the process. As I explained before the holidays, the teachers that I know are eager to get their hands on simple but powerful units for primary writers. They have little time to unpack lengthy documents, and while many appreciate the sort of tight guidance that fully articulated plans provide, others prefer to craft their own while aligning to agreed upon targets. This first unit engages K-2 writers in research and information writing. You'll find the overview, calendar, and very first lesson in the document below. I'll be adding another each day until the entire unit is complete."

"Synopsis is a completely free iPad app for students that lets users create notes by highlighting different sections of a PDF document. Students can then modify the notes they have created by adding their own text. Synopsis gives students the power to summarize any text so they won't need to go back to a PDF document to study material.  Each individual note can be converted to its own flashcard there is no need to buy flashcards or type and create your own."

"Back in April, my 10 year old daughter (Rachel) shared a Google Document with me which was her fourth completed book, and her longest finished chapter book to date. She titled it, "Mature Little Me." Inspired by Chris Simon, the STEM teacher at Independence Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, from 2011-2013, it's a fourth grade adventure story with some invention/maker flavor. Back in April I didn't set aside the time needed to help with some edits and get it published online for Rachel, both as an eBook and a print-on-demand book via Lulu.com. This evening I spent about 3 hours editing and publishing her book, and learned a BUNCH as a result. I'll attempt to document much of that learning in this post."

For searching your important files and documents, Windows 8 dynamic search option immediately displays and filters results. But, for documents located outside Libraries you can use File Explorer formerly known as Windows Explorer.

Sometimes a document created in MS Office Word can be a bit longer than you actually required. In that situation, make use of the "Shrink to Fit" option to reduce the length of your document by considerably shrinking the Font size.

Protecting a document containing sensitive information is very important. Thus, protecting it with password is a better option. This tutorial contains steps for protecting your PDF document with password before sending it to receiver.

"How do we distinguish knowledge, skills, and thinking from….learning? How do we make learning visible, so that we might surface and document powerful discoveries about the influence of our teaching on learners? These questions will guide several of my conversations with teachers on the ground this week, as we begin exploring John Hattie's work and the Reggio Emilia approach. Both concern themselves with the moves that students and teachers make as learning occurs, and both inspire teachers to commit to documentation, as the evidence captured helps teachers and students assess the impact of their efforts far better than grades do"

"Recently, we discovered a feature of Google Drive that has changed how we prepare and access materials and resources for our students. As we attempt to make all curricula digital and thus make it available to all students, the idea of using PDFs was always a problem. PDFs are just not editable in most situations, and this was an issue when it came to modifying and differentiating documents. Adobe Acrobat was our "go to" application for this type of conversion, but it was costly and often hard to come by in an educational setting. Note: We still use Adobe Acrobat for complex projects or documents that do not convert well in Google Drive. With the most recent update to Google Drive, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities are better and easier than ever."

"Google Docs is a popular word processing tool because it allows ready access to your documents and files from any internet connected device. It permits users to readily share documents and easily collaborate on materials. If you are already familiar with Google Docs, try out these 10 hacks to up your Google game!"