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Sadly, many students have come to expect that there will nothing of consequence addressed on the first day of an on-campus class. It's often referred to as "Syllabus Day" because that is the only content of consequence presented by the instructor.

"Many teachers have added 'digital literacy' as number four on the list of literacies their students should have (or be working towards, in most cases). Reading, writing, and math are now followed by digital literacy. Obviously, depending on the grade level you teach, your students will have different abilities in each of the four areas, so your expectations and your teaching approach may differ quite noticeably from your colleagues. But the nagging question still remains for many teachers - what exactly is digital literacy?"

"This question has attracted scientific research for more than a century. In fact, the first empirical study of this issue was published in 1835. Thus, I can offer a confident answer: not quite! At least not if creativity is assessed by productivity or by making original and valuable contributions to fields such as science and art. By that measure, output first increases in our mid-20s, climaxes around our late 30s or early 40s, and then undergoes a slow decline as we age. A person's single best work tends to appear at roughly the same age as their output peaks. But their expected creative productivity at 80 will still be about half of what it was at that high point. Whether you view that as a significant drop or not depends on whether you see the glass as half empty or half full."

"Teachers and librarians, like their students, need hands-on experience with tools and with playing to learn as that helps them build creative confidence. (https://www.edutopia.org/blog/crafting-professional-development-maker-educators-colleen-graves) Teachers, during PD, should be provided with time, resources, and materials with which to play. It sets the expectation that they will be active agents of their own learning. It gives them the message it is okay to play and experiment with the materials; that tinkering is often needed as a part of learning new skills."

"You've read about the maker movement. You've seen the posts with 3D printers, laser cutters, and three-axis mills in shiny new labs. And you want your students to start making, too. But you've got one big problem: you don't have a full lab -- or even a 3D printer -- because, like many educators, you don't have the biggest budget. Maybe you have no budget at all. But what if you could get started making tomorrow and didn't need all the fancy tools to join this movement? Making starts with a mindset, and simple materials are all that you need to get started. There are resources all around you, materials hidden in plain sight, tools just waiting to be used for a creative purpose. And with a little dose of ingenuity, you'll have your students making in no time. One perfect way start making on the cheap is through upcycling, the intentional transformation of hard-to-recycle materials into new products, thus saving them from the landfill. This type of real-world project not only teaches making skills but also helps you integrate making into your subject area. Study material science, explore industrial design, or dig into environmental education. As an added bonus, a project like this ignites your students' entrepreneurial spirit. Here's the five-step strategy that I've used to get my students making products out of hard-to-recycle materials. These steps could be done in one class period each, but if you want more time for ideas and iteration, feel free to expand the timeline as you go. Expect a beautiful mess, a bit of chaos, and a lot of fun as your students start to save the landfills -- by design."

"A new survey commissioned by Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) found that young girls in Europe become interested in so-called STEM subjects around the age of 11 and then quickly lose interest when they're 15. "Conformity to social expectations, gender stereotypes, gender roles and lack of role models continue to channel girls' career choices away from STEM fields," said psychology professor Martin Bauer of the London School of Economics, who helped coordinate the survey of 11,500 girls across 12 European countries. The survey also found that girls' interest in humanities subjects drops around the same age but then rebound sharply. Interest in STEM subjects does not recover. "This means that governments, teachers and parents only have four or five years to nurture girls' passion before they turn their backs on these areas, potentially for good," Microsoft said."

"The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement has gained unstoppable momentum. And thanks to the burgeoning mobile app market, employees have high expectations for these tools. They want an attractive user experience tailored to their devices. In other words, companies need to invest in building apps, period."

"There is a running theme on this blog - 'it's not about the device'. I expected this view to be challenged by a visit to Essa Academy in Bolton where they refer to an 'ecosystem' using Apple technology. I was prepared for technological practice that would be difficult to comprehend and a new building with an infrastructure we couldn't hope to replicate. I couldn't have been more wrong."

"Science NetLinks is in the early stages of gathering and reviewing STEM-related apps for both the iPad and the Android. Please check back often as we expect to add new app-related tools on a regular basis."

"This week's pick is Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal HD - which I'm going to shorten to Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker for most of the remainder of this post. The opening lines on its App Store page create some very high expectations:"

"Sosh, by Mark Bowers Ph.D. PLLC, has been called the "Swiss Army knife of apps," and it definitely lives up to those expectations. Based on Dr. Bowers' book, Improving Social Skills with Children and Adolescents, the mobile app also focuses on skills, tips, exercises, and strategies for effectively communicating and interacting in social situations."

"Adaptive learning means different things to different people, but adaptive learning technologies are usually designed to adapt content to the abilities and knowledge level of the user. In turn, the user is presented with a personalized learning experience. According to CEO Jessie Wooley-Wilson of adaptive learning company Dreambox Learning, "I think that in a matter of a few years, blended learning with apps is going to be so ubiquitous that people are going to expect this technology to have a place in the classroom.""

"With the rise of new trends such as a flipped classroom and whole brain teaching, there is an emphasis on getting students more actively involved in learning in the classroom. And whether or not you choose to fully embrace either of these methods, we can all agree that we want students participating as much as possible. When students are actively participating, they are learning. In math classes we typically involve students in the problem-solving side, but we don't often expect them to provide explanations."

"It should be abundantly clear to anyone with experience around classrooms, teachers or students (which is to say almost all of us), that teaching is a highly emotional craft, loaded with possibility and expectation, importance and scale. It's troubling when the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future says that 46 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years. And even worse, this turnover is also impacting the whole public education machine - learning, teacher education, teacher training, funding, public perception, and so on - in a dizzying cause-effect pattern stuck on repeat. Fixing this issue is an illusion, as it's not a single issue but rather a product of countless factors. However, there are six ways we can address it here and now."

"Every modern iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch has access to a feature called Automatic Downloads, which can be used a bit differently than intended as a means to remotely install apps onto iOS devices from a computer. All you need is iTunes on OS X or Windows logged into the same Apple ID as what's used on the iOS device, and the rest is easier than you'd probably expect."

"Recently, I wrote about the latest updates for iMovie, iPhoto and Garageband. However, the iLife apps were not the only apps to get a refresh. Pages, Keynote and Numbers also received important updates. These touch optimized office apps are default apps for a lot of iPad schools, simply because they are great for creating digital content. So, in this post we take a look at just what you can expect in the latest updates for Pages, Keynote and Numbers."

"Whether you're in a one-to-one iPad classroom or have access to a cart that you share with other teachers, it's important to establish routines early in the school year to manage these devices in your classroom. In addition to walking students through expectations and best practices, reference charts can be a helpful reminder of what students need to do when using iPads. Here are some of my favorite iPad reference charts:"

Before we begin, let's lay some groundwork. Vocabulary (or word study) isn't done in a vacuum. You don't pass out lists and have students memorize words and definitions (you don't do that, do you?). If you used to, that's changed with Common Core. Now, you are expected to integrate vocab into learning. Every time students run into a term they don't get, you need to pause and help them decode it. It may be obvious from context, its parts (roots and affixes), but always-always-pay attention so students know unfamiliar words are not skipped. With Common Core, every nuance is important. It's about uncovering knowledge.

""I thought the project was going well . . . but by the end, I felt that the work my students produced was not as good as I imagined it would be. I was a little embarrassed and almost wanted to dial back the audience's expectations on the night of the presentations!" This is a common concern of teachers who are new to project-based learning. Things can appear to be going smoothly -- students have been engaged by the project, they've been learning content and skills, they've been busy and meeting deadlines -- but their thinking is not as in-depth and their final products not as polished as they should be. If this is your experience, it's time to ask yourself some questions: "