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"For a variety of reasons (which we'll get to shortly), the iPad is the pre-dominant technology form in K-12 environments. They dominate blog headlines, promote incredible user loyalty (you could say cultish, but you said it, not me), and make adults drool like teething infants. Walk by any Apple store and through their wide glass storefront you'll see otherwise rational human beings swoon and fawn, listening intently as Apple experts explain how a slideshow works, how to use iCloud, or how to sync their iPhone with their iPad. School districts buy them, teachers buy them, and parents even send their students to school with them on occasion. So it makes sense that this kind of popularity would carry over to the classroom. Educators have officially had their curiosity piqued. They want to know how to integrate it into activities, lessons, and curriculum in general, and judging by our traffic patterns here on TeachThought, they come bearing questions."

"There's no denying that the iPad is the dominant tablet in the lucrative education market right now. Technology, however, is an ever-evolving beast--a field where all it sometimes takes to dethrone the king is the right platform, device or combination thereof at the right time. Could other tablets soon cut into Apple's market share with help from outside marketplaces and learning platforms? Here are our picks for the top 10 tablets, marketplaces and platforms that threaten the iPad's dominance in the classroom:"

"he iPad was announced in January of 2010 to a greek chorus of 'meh's' from a tech community that was expecting something incredible, something revolutionary, something…more. Cut to almost two years later and the iPad has not only succeeded but has dominated the category that it helped redefine."

"It's often easy to get stuck into a narrow view of what a particular field of study entails, but as Dominic Walliman reveals in his impressive science infographics, there's much more than meets the eye when thinking of particular STEM subjects. Walliman demonstrates the diversity and complexity of biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, and mathematics in visual maps that explore the breadth of each field. Walliman, who also created animated videos exploring his science infographics, manages to pack all the shades of each complex field on one page. For instance, the Map of Mathematics travels from the origins and foundations of the field to the differences between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. Likewise, chemistry is divided between rules and different sub-topics like biochemistry and inorganic chemistry, with fun illustrations to clearly show what falls underneath each area. Whether you are a scientist who feels like people never quite get what you do or a student who can't put their finger on how they might use their math or science degree, Walliman's infographics will come in handy. Consider them roadmaps to possible careers or cheat sheets to figuring out how quantum physics is related to the theory of relativity. Best of all, by studying the visual maps, it becomes easy to see how all these scientific fields overlap and fit together like a puzzle."

"Catherine Good has experienced stereotype threat herself, although she didn't know it at the time. She started her academic career in pure math, expecting to get a Ph.D. But somewhere along the way she started to feel like it just wasn't for her, even though she was doing well in all her classes. Thinking that she'd just chosen the wrong application for her love of math, Good switched to math education, where she first encountered the idea of stereotype threat from a guest psychology speaker. "As he talked about students feeling that they don't really belong, I had an epiphany," Good said. She realized the discomfort she'd felt studying mathematics had nothing to do with her ability or qualifications and everything to do with a vague sense that she didn't belong in a field dominated by men. Stereotype threat is a term coined by psychologists Joshua Aronson and Claude Steele. They found that pervasive cultural stereotypes that marginalize groups, like "girls aren't good at math," create a threatening environment and affects academic achievement. Good was so fascinated by how powerful psychological forces can be on learning, including her own, that she switched fields again to study social psychology, and she ended up working closely with Carol Dweck for several years when Dweck's growth mindset work was in its early stages and not yet well-known among educators. Good now works at a psychology professor at Baruch College. Originally, Dweck and Good hypothesized that believing intelligence is flexible - what we now call a growth mindset - could protect students from stereotype threat, an inherently fixed idea."

"It's official: coding is all the rage today. We are living in a world where apps dominate every aspect of our lives and are disrupting the way we do things. And creating these apps require-you guessed it-coding know-how. With the rising prominence of 'superstar' programmers such as Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg, coding has captured the attention and imagination of many youth, who are beginning to recognise its value. According to this Microsoft study, a resounding majority of students in Asia Pacific want to see coding as a core subject in school, believing it is instrumental to helping them acquire essential 21st century skills necessary to thrive in the fast-changing world of tomorrow. While some may argue that being a programmer is not for everyone, we can all agree that coding has some life lessons that we can benefit from, especially children and young people. Here are three reasons why you should get started coding."

"There has been plenty of hand-wringing in recent years about the "overscheduled child." With after-school hours increasingly dominated by piano lessons, soccer practice, and countless other planned activities, many of us have a nagging sense that kids are missing out on something important if they have no time for unstructured play. New research from Germany suggests these fears are justified. It finds people who recall having plenty of free time during childhood enjoy high levels of social success as adults."

"Perhaps the weakest area of the typical one-to-one computing plan is the complete absence of leadership development for the administrative team - that is, learning how to manage the transition from a learning ecology where paper is the dominant technology for storing and retrieving information, to a world that is all digital, all the time."

"According to findings by the Economics & Statistics Administration, less than 25% of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) jobs are held by women - even though they make up more than half the workforce and college degrees. An undeniable glass ceiling hovers over these industries, and women and men alike do their best to start lugging stones at it. While plenty of progress has been made over the past few decades, more efforts need undertaking to ensure a more equitable place for females in these traditionally male-dominated industries-a goal the following essentials share."

"With more than 80 percent of the market and an even greater degree of mindshare, there is no doubt the Apple iPad dominates the tablet market"

"This fall, the entire British school system will embrace computer science. The UK is the first G8 country to include computer science education in its national curriculum, and the move could serve as a test case for so many other nations across the globe, including the United States. As computing comes to dominate our world, programming skills are more valuable than ever, but even the U.S.-the center of the technology universe-is still struggling to bring coding into the classroom. Part of the problem is that, before students learn how to code, their teachers must learn too. Pulling all that off is a massive endeavor."

"Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's work on growth mindsets has dominated much of the attention around how students can influence their own learning. But there are other ways to help students tap into their own motivation, too. Here are a few other important mindsets to consider."

"It's been seven years since I made my first education tweet. So- how much has changed since then? Have we all connected with each other? To illustrate this, I made this handy-dandy chart below. Based on EdSurge's headline from last April, does this seem like dominance to you? "

"As we usher in the start of a new school year, it's time to hit the ground running in your classes! Math can be pretty tough, but since it is the language in which scientists interpret the Universe, there's really no getting around learning it. Check out these gifs that will help you visualize some tricky aspects of math, so you can dominate your exams this year."

"Kathy Perez has decades of experience as a classroom educator, with training in special education and teaching English language learners. She also has a dynamic style. Sitting through her workshop presentation with like being a student in her classroom. She presents on how to make the classroom engaging and motivating to all students, even the most reluctant learners, while modeling for her audience exactly how she would do it. The experience is a bit jarring because it's so different from the lectures that dominate big education conferences, but it's also refreshing and way more fun. Perez says when students are engaged, predicting answers, talking with one another and sharing with the class in ways that follow safe routines and practices, they not only achieve more but they also act out less. And everyone, including the teacher, has more fun. "If we don't have their attention, what's the point?" Perez asked an audience at a Learning and the Brain conference on mindsets. She's a big proponent of brain breaks and getting kids moving around frequently during the day. She reminded educators that most kids' attention spans are about as long in minutes as their age. So a third-grader can concentrate for about eight minutes before losing interest. It's a teacher's job to make sure there are lots of quick, effective brain breaks built into the lesson to give children a moment to recalibrate. Perez says teachers must be prepared for a diverse cross section of learners with a large toolkit of strategies for teaching in multiple modalities, with many entry points to participation and content."

But Apps and the developers (many of who are bringing teachers onto their teams) are changing. The philosophy has changed. The products they are producing have a new focus. These Apps are gaining a vote of confidence from teachers who are downloading them. So why are these Apps dominating school App lists and gaining respect from the educational community. Quite simply they promote elements that we know have a positive impact on learning. Applications such as Book Creator and Explain Everything start with a blank canvas and lead students to use multimedia to demonstrate learning, produce digital products and make learning more visible.

"Anchor are continuing their march to podcast dominance with the launch of the new Anchor iPad app. Although you could always use the iPhone version of the app on an iPad, the experience, like most iPhone apps on an iPad, was less than ideal. The new app makes much better use of the larger screen and will of course sync all your recordings from the web and your phone. However, the iPad app also brings a collection of brand new iPad specific features, so here's a look at what you can expect."

""Wow in the World is a place where we can tap into the crazy cool things that are happening all around us, every day!" says Thomas. "We want to help spark conversations between kids and other kids and also with their grown-ups that will ultimately lead to their own big discoveries." Each episode begins with a series of questions that lead to an explanation about a new amazing scientific discovery or finding. For example, "How long would it take to get to the closest star outside our solar system?" or "How did we Homo sapiens come to dominate the planet?" or "How do astronauts poop in space?" Through comedy and conversation, along with voices from real kids, Mindy and Guy make the news fun and interesting. "