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"FaceTime Is Making People Hate Their Faces So Much They're Getting Plastic Surgery" Ubiquitous tech provides a mirror that's always on.

"Learn to more effectively use iPads to improve instruction and productivity! This course is a blended learning program where participants learn through video tutorials, webinars, readings, and projects. Those enrolled will attend one face-to-face session and submit artifacts of their learning to a digital portfolio blog. The skills taught in this series have been designed to support the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). "

"No matter how old the profession, those who work in a particular field have always had the ability to communicate with one another to compare notes and improve services. The form of communication began with face-to-face contact in early civilization and evolved to a more digital form in today's age of technological advances. Technology has always improved communication methods by enabling all-not just professionals-the ability to consult, collaborate, and learn from others. This has progressed from the earliest printing presses to the most recent smartphones."

"This isn't just for people with traditional careers and family lives. It applies to all families regardless of how busy your schedule or important your job, In her book "The Obamas," author Jodi Kanter highlights the President's commitment to having dinner with his family five times a week. Unfortunately in the hustle and bustle of today's digital world, the art of the family dinner has been drained out of many homes with device interaction replacing face-to-face connection. During a panel discussion hosted by Common Sense Media that focused on raising caring kids in a digital world, Howard Gardner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education shared that many families are not even sure what to do at dinner time if all are free of digital devices. If this applies to your family, don't despair. Below are ideas for dinner time activities for each day of the week. These suggestions should serve as a helpful way to ensure dinner time is a valuable experience for families."

"One of my favorite films is The Emperor's Club, starring Kevin Kline as Mr. Hundert, the Western Civilization teacher at St. Benedict's Academy. In the film's opening scene, the headmaster of the school stands before the assembled student body explaining the meaning of the school motto, Finis Origine Pendet: The End Depends Upon the Beginning. "What you accomplish in life and the significance of your contribution," he counsels, "will depend largely on what you do here. How you begin determines what you will achieve." As the film unfolds, we see this poignant message revealed in the lives of the students. What they do at the school and the relationships they develop powerfully affect the kind of persons they become and the nature of the lives they eventually lead. In the end, we realize that Finis Origine Pendet is the film's central message. The same is true of professional learning for educators. What it accomplishes and the significance of its contribution depend largely on how it begins. This holds true not only for traditional forms of professional learning-seminars, study groups, workshops, conferences, mentoring, coaching, and so on-but also for "new" forms that include face-to-face or online professional learning communities, teacher exchanges, bug-in-the-ear coaching, data teams, individualized improvement plans, and unconferences. The effectiveness of any professional learning activity, regardless of its content, structure, or format, depends mainly on how well it is planned."

"My argument, here and in my book, OPEN: How We'll Work, Live and Learn in the Future, is that the discourse surrounding formal learning is becoming ever further detached from the lessons we see when learning happens outside formal boundaries. The grades that individual students receive for their school projects matter little compared to the comments found on their blogs, or their Vimeo accounts. Rising numbers of parents, frustrated by the worksheet culture of their child's classroom, are self-organizing and co-creating local home-learning networks. Learning which is "open" - outward-facing, highly collaborative, co-created and purpose-driven - offers the promise of addressing the two biggest, yet largely overlooked, challenges facing educators."

"This study guide outlines questions and discussion topics, along with additional readings and videos for a book club or study group about Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. This study guide was conceived as a 6 week online course, but it would be easy to modify for a different time frame or face-to-face group. "

"I'd like to offer up a video playlist to remind all of us about the power of empathy, kindness, and human connections. It's always a good time to practice gratitude for the relationships that sustain us all -- for the people who have taught us in a school setting and beyond, and for the young ones we are able to nurture and inspire. I was also thinking about how many of us are living out the paradox of being ever more plugged in, and ever more aware of what's happening in our community via social media platforms, while at the same time, face-to-face interactions are less frequent than ever before. We are in constant touch, but barely touching. Watching these videos made me remember the importance of re-connecting, treating people with kindness and respect, and being generous and compassionate to both loved ones and strangers. If each of us pledged to do more of that, we'd make a better world for all of us to learn and grow in."

"Summer is a busy time for many. Vacations. Family time. Housework. Yardwork. Painting. Hobbies. Reading. School book studies??? Summer is an opportunity when many educators dedicate time to read, find new ideas to implement in their classrooms, and brainstorm strategies to use the in fall. Teachers want to read, share, and learn together. There is actually now time to collaborate and share! Traditionally, book studies are done in face-to-face meetings. Teachers choose a book to read together, plan which chapters to read, and then decide on meeting times to discuss those chapters. However, with varying schedules and planned commitments, finding a common time to come together to discuss a shared book multiple times throughout the summer is quite difficult. Families take vacations, their children have camps and other commitments, and thus meeting together with everyone is infrequent and often not well-attended. So, with interest in having book studies from my staff, but dealing with tricky schedules, a different solution was necessary."

"The new visual below is intended to give teachers and students more choices of make their thinking and learning visible using the following platforms, activities, tools, Visible Thinking Routines as an option or starting off point. The suggestions include tools and platforms that are specifically suited to connect, collaborate, communicate and create, 21st century style, one's process and make it easier to amplify and to document4learning. The framework is based on REFLECTION being an integral part of the learning process the understanding that through technology tools our access to INFORMATION has exponentially expanded as well our ability to take ACTION beyond affecting people we are able to reach face to face that technology tools allow us to express and communicate in OTHER FORMS of media beyond words and text"

by Sue Waters

ooVoo is the next evolution in online communication - a remarkably easy way to have a face-to-face video chat with friends, family or colleagues, no matter where they are in the world. ooVoo Video Chat is remarkably easy to use: easy to download, easy to install, and best of all: it's FREE!

"I shared a three hour workshop for 46 Texas principals this morning at the 2011 Texas Elementary Principals & Supervisors Association Summer Conference in Austin, Texas. This face-to-face, hands-on workshop was the capstone learning event for the TEPSA eAcademy (Cohort 1) for administrators. Each administrator received an iPad at the start of the eAcademy and participated in multiple webinars (via Adobe Connect) throughout the year, learning about educational iOS applications as well as strategies for providing visionary leadership for teachers on their campuses using technology tools with students."

"A backchannel -- a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity -- provides students with an outlet to engage in conversation. Every time I think about this tool, I remember my student, Charlie (not his real name). Given his learning challenges, he struggled to keep up during class discussions. Long after his classmates grasped a concept, he would light up in acknowledgement and then become crestfallen as he had no way to share his revelation. Charlie needed an alternative means to participate, and a backchannel would have provided him with that outlet. "

"As a follow-up to that post, I am amplifying my call to action to say that I believe it is the responsibility of every educator in this era of learning to share . . . resources, ideas, success, challenges, ahas, student insights, anything education related. Sharing takes on many forms. Educators can talk to colleagues, write blogs, tweet, present at conferences - both virtually and face to face, talk to the media, and/or create a media product - video, podcast, photo essay - and post online."

A fascinating approach to the role of the parent in raising good digital citizens. "..children of limiters who are most likely to engage in problematic behavior: They're twice as likely as the children of mentors to access porn, or to post rude or hostile comments online; they're also three times as likely to go online and impersonate a classmate, peer, or adult."

"The new year is in full swing. Teachers across the world are back to work, sharing thoughts, ideas and resources...ready for what 2016 may bring. With this in mind, we thought when better than to share 16 ways to use the Thinking Kit. Using the Thinking Kit Creator (currently free), educational activities can be created on any browser. The user saves the activity, gets a code, then uses that code in the Thinking Kit App (free) to download the activity onto iPads (or get students to). This teams two really strong themes together - learning using iPads AND digital content creation, whether by teachers or the learners themselves. Activities involve one main goal/objective/question and snippets of information or images to help learners complete/answer it. The Thinking Kit App can be used individually, but works brilliantly as a group activity too. It seamlessly allows for multi-touch and engages learners in face to face collaboration as they learn. There is a dedicated Reflection Stage and lots of tools to help them become better problem solvers, critical thinkers and team players. So, without further ado, let's get started…"

"If you've been keeping up on edtech news in the past decade, you might have noticed that coding courses have been targeting younger and younger students every year. Starting in college? Lost cause. High school? Behind! Elementary school? Perfect. The younger and younger the lessons will start, until we learn how to pre-program babies to be tech geniuses. While this might seem like micromanagement of children's destinies to some, we must all face the truth: coding is the new writing. As computer programming skills become more and more crucial to future careers, coding will become more prevalent as a required skill for high school graduation. So, once we've faced the music about the need for students to start programming instruction young, where do we begin? Coding camps are all the rage right now, and well worth the expense, but not all parents can afford the additional cost of instruction. So, we took a look at a few of the more affordable coding games out there to see just what the worldwide web has to offer"