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"About a year ago I first heard Greg Kulowiec of EdTechTeacher talk about App Smashing. App Smashing is the process of using multiple apps together to create a single product. The power of the iPad isn't about one or two innovative apps. It's about finding creative ways to get apps to work together (smashing them together to get something new). Drawing Pad does some cool stuff. So does Chrome. So does Explain Everything. So does iMovie. So does Book Creator. But all of them have their own limitations. Each of them lack some really creative features. But at the same time, each of them does some amazing things the others don't. The power of the iPad is in getting those apps to work together to do some truly creative stuff."

"What does being a 'digitally competent' teacher mean? Does it mean using laptops, smartphones, or tablets in your classroom? Does it mean finding new and interesting ways to use those devices along with apps and web tools?  What level of expertise with technology constitutes 'competent'? Or does the concept encompass more than that? Do things like digital citizenship, acceptable use policies, digital footprints, and privacy concerns ring a bell. Just like in real life, being well-rounded is important when you're addressing technology use. Having the ability to say, use an laptop isn't really enough. The handy infographic below explores what it means to be a digitally competent teacher."

"What does it mean to read? What does it mean to think? What does it mean to solve problems? What should you be doing in your head when you translate the Spanish? In sum, what is meant to be going on inside that black box called the mind and what is actually going on in their minds? These are our Essential Questions as teachers. It is the continual addressing of these questions that moves us from the ranks of the naïve and ok teachers to skilled professionals. We move from being "teachers" to coaches of learning."

""Ability to multitask". That phrase is seen on nearly every job description that I've ever read. It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what job you're applying for - everyone expects everyone to be able to multitask. But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean being able to work on three things at once? Let's be real here, you can't write three different emails at once - multitasking usually means something more along the lines of rapidly switching gears from one project to another. But does multitasking actually help you get more done, or is it eating away at your actual productivity? "

"When students tell me about some of the things that they deal with, even at such an early age, I think about how strong they are to show up to school every single day, and how privileged we are to be able to serve them.  Not only should we have high expectations for our students, but we need to also have high beliefs in what they can accomplish.  Innovation does not happen in schools if a child does not feel loved.  This can't be the job of some teachers; it has to be all.  I will take a teacher that loves and believes in their students over one that is extremely innovative yet lacks the aforementioned qualities."

From the site: "I am hoping to connect our school with some other schools in a project where early elementary students share about their family and/or cultural traditions during the December holidays. This project is designed so that it does not require a lot of classroom time to complete and does not involve very complicated technology skills. It also will introduce teachers to Smilebox - which is a neat free tool for sharing images on the web and easily allows students and parents to leave comments."

"Saturday morning someone asked me why some of my tweets start with a period. I was participating in the New Teacher to Twitter (#nt2t) chat. A twitter chat is an hour long conversation on a particular topic. This means that I am replying quite a bit. When you reply to a tweet it starts the tweet with the @symbol. Twitter assumes that when you are replying that you are talking to that person and not all of your followers. A tweet that starts with the @ symbol does not go to the Twitter stream of your followers. It can still be publicly seen through the hashtag or on your profile, so it is not private, but it does not get as much exposure as a regular tweet does."

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"If there is one piece of advice that is drilled into you as a new parent, it is to limit screen time. Bringing home our first baby, I may have not known how to effectively swaddle or change a diaper, but I did know, "back is best" and "no screen time for children under two." Yet, screens are something we as parents are constantly interacting with. In those early days of parenting, our parents laughed as we announced that we would not expose our children to screens. Yet screens are such a piece of our world. How could I expect a child not to find interest in the screens and technology that we interact with routinely? Does this abstinence approach to teaching new parents and those who work with our youngest learners do more harm than good? Does coding and computational thinking have a place in early childhood education? Yes, it certainly does. "

Explore the website of any school, and you will undoubtedly find a page dedicated to their Mission and Vision. Here you will find carefully crafted statements of purpose couched in the vocabulary of educational excellence and reflecting the pinnacle of human possibility. A blend of educational philosophy and marketing speak designed to promote student achievement and enrolments. The question is, to what degree does the lived experience of the typical student align with the stated purposes? Does the product do what it says on the tin?

"Does being connected help in being recognized?"

"Our kids learn within a system of education devised for a world that increasingly does not exist. To become a chef, a lawyer, a philosopher or an engineer, has always been a matter of learning what these professionals do, how and why they do it, and some set of general facts that more or less describe our societies and our selves. We pass from kindergarten through twelfth grade, from high school to college, from college to graduate and professional schools, ending our education at some predetermined stage to become the chef, or the engineer, equipped with a fair understanding of what being a chef, or an engineer, actually is and will be for a long time. We "learn," and after this we "do." We go to school and then we go to work. This approach does not map very well to personal and professional success in America today. Learning and doing have become inseparable in the face of conditions that invite us to discover."

"I still focus on fluency with multiplication facts in fourth grade but fluency has a completely different meaning to me now. The way I work on fluency now does not involve timed tests. It does not involve kids being anxious or feeling unsuccessful at math. Instead I focus on developing number sense which helps kids learn and remember strategies that make them fluent with their multiplication facts. To the untrained eye, it often appears as if my fourth graders have memorized their facts when they actually know their facts from memory. "

What purposes does education serve? What needs of humanity does education serve? What might the product of our labours be like and how might our efforts contribute to the greater good? These are questions we have long struggled with but with but it seems that in the current times we might need to rethink how we answer these questions.

"There are a lot of labels that describe the ethos and characteristics of certain times in history. The Dark Ages. The Renaissance. The Age of Enlightenment. Most recently, we've browsed, texted, and Google'd our way through the Information Age. What comes next, and when does it start? Further, what causes the movement from one epoch to another, and how does that change once technology is not just a catalyst, but the foundation for social interactions?"

"Using multimedia is part and parcel of students work in the classroom. Several classroom projects now include curating resources, using images and videos. However, the use of such media materials is regulated and does require complying by certain rules and guidelines. The wrong idea that many of our students hold about using media in class must change. They need to learn that something being accessible, downloadable and free does not mean it is ok to use it with no restrictions. For instance, when using images and pictures from the web, students need to learn how to properly give credit to their owners. The graphic below is a wonderful flow chart created byddd to help teachers teach their students about how to properly credit images they use. Enjoy"

"A couple of years ago NOVA aired a program called How Does the Brain Work? The show explored what scientists currently know about the human brain and the research that will help us to know more about the human brain in the future. One of the online supplements to How Does the Brain Work? is this interactive collection of images of brain scans. The collection of images, titled Mapping the Brain, allows you to choose from six imaging methods and choose the part(s) of the brain that you want to see highlighted in the scans."

"Shifting Learning - What Did You Learn At School Today? We hear a lot these days about project based learning, inquiry based learning, etc… What does that mean? What does it look like when schools shift away from "drill and kill" learning towards big ideas, questions, and "no right answer" kind of learning? And what kind of questions can 'we' ask to support students in their learning?"

""Why does this matter?" Teachers are often called upon to answer this question about an academic subject, and computer science instructors may face this demand more frequently than most. Learning to write lines of code can seem, to many students, like a pointless exercise in tedium. But a few professors of computer science have a compelling reply at the ready. They are participants in the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software project, known as HFOSS-or, more grandly, Software for Humanity. Why does this matter? these professors might respond. Because it's helping to feed needy people in Haiti, or to deliver supplies to earthquake survivors in China, or to manage the medical care of malaria victims in Rwanda."

"Last week Why Are There Clouds? was one of the most popular posts on the Free Tech for Teachers Facebook page. A good follow-up to that lesson is found in Where Does the Smell of Rain Come From? Produced by It's Okay to Be Smart, Where Does the Smell of Rain Come From? explains why we sometimes think we smell rain before a thunderstorm. Through the video we also learn about the role of petrichor in the lives of some animals."