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"I'm not a gambling person, but if I had to place a bet on one sure-fire method for engaging students, increasing test scores, reaching students who fall below standards, challenging students who exceed grade-level standards, accessing students' creativity and originality, maximizing brain connections formed, applying concepts to new situations, and making the learning process more fun for the students and teacher, I would place that bet on . . . teaching the core curriculum through the arts."

"It's easier than ever to capture activity on your iOS device screen and turn it into a movie. It's just a matter of plugging your iOS 8 device into a Mac running Yosemite and then firing up a tool like Camtasia for Mac or TechSmith AppShow. But there are still a few quirky things you may encounter along the way. These tips will help you get great results the first time you dive into iOS screencasting."

"For the typical American kindergartner, unstructured free play during the school day consists of 20 to 30 minutes of recess, and perhaps some time at indoor "stations" - perhaps creating with building blocks, costumes, or musical instruments. But what if there was more? What if the answer to "what did you do in school today?" was, "I climbed a tree, played in the mud, built a fire"? That is exactly the kind of learning going on in the Swiss Waldkindergartens, or forest kindergartens, where children ages four to seven spend all of their school days playing outdoors, no matter the weather. With no explicit math or literacy taught until first grade, the Swiss have no set goals for kindergartners beyond a few measurements, like using scissors and writing one's own name. They instead have chosen to focus on the social interaction and emotional well-being found in free play."

"It lights up your brain like fireworks on the Fourth of July, spurring on complicated processes and making connections like crazy. Your synapses fire. Your neurons are in hyperdrive. This is your brain on music."

"ll ludicrous jokes aside, isn't this how some educational institutions operate? Totally unaware of students' opinions about the very aspect of their own lives that will impact them the most? What might the educators excuses be? Too little time? Too many papers to grade? Unwillingness to learn something new? Fear of being knocked off the sage-on-the-stage pedestal? An allegiance to out-dated and inflexible lesson plans? Fear of facilitating a class full of learning noise and having it mistaken by administrators as chaos? Or, plain ole professional stagnation due to a detachment from the ever-burgeoning world of the connected, 21st Century Educator? But please excuse my lack of manners. I should not be treating readers like participants in a twenty questions session. Instead, I got an idea. Let's just ask the students some questions. Got time to listen? The Questions If you could improve public education, what three changes would you make? If you were a school principal, what types of teachers would you hire? If you were a school principal, what types of teachers would you fire? Do you believe smartphones should be allowed in school? How can all teachers integrate students' passions/talents/interests into their curricula? What are your passions/talents/interests? Please describe your future plans."

"Amazon has launched a new segment of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), KDP EDU, targeted at educators and authors of textbooks and other educational content. Publicly available as a beta, Kindle Textbook Creator is designed to allow authors to use PDFs "easily prepare, publish and promote e-textbooks and other educational content for students to access on a broad range of devices," according to a news release. Once created, the resources can be uploaded to KDP for use by students anywhere in the world on Kindle Fire tablets, iOS and Android devices, Macs or PCs."

"Since a studio offers a controlled workspace, you don't have to deal with the whims of natural light or environment. Several apps feature an intervalometer for firing off shots at specific intervals, which can then be combined into a time-lapse video later. But here I want to focus on a clever app that makes the process of creating time-lapse or stop-motion videos easy on the iPad. iStopMotion for iPad by Boinx Software ($9.99) can use the iPad's built-in camera or an iPhone (or iPod touch) with the help of the iStop-Motion Remote Camera app."

"Until recently, the prevailing thought in education was that differentiation according the theory of multiple intelligences was a good thing. Then data started coming out, and the theories Howard Gardner set forth back in 1983 came under fire. Mention multiple intelligence (MI) thinking today, and you're guaranteed to rise the ire of someone on twitter telling you that it's 2014, and the 1980s are gone and there is no data that exists that proves MI does anything but waste time."

"Using simple analogies, real-life case studies, and state-of-the-art CGI, this special shows how the brain works, explains the frequent battle between instinct and reason, and unravels the mysteries of memory and decision-making. It takes us inside the mind of a soldier under fire to see how decisions are made in extreme situations, examines how an autistic person like Rain Man develops remarkable skills, and takes on the age-old question of what makes one person good and another evil. Research is rushing forward. We've learned more about the workings of the brain in the last five years than in the previous one hundred."

"Students are writing more than ever before. They are tapping out rapid-fire fingerstrokes across multiple platforms. From text messages to social media, children and adults of all ages are engaging like never before with the written word. This type of transliteracy emphasizes more than ever the need for thoughtful conversations and clear instructions that guide students in how best to express high quality feedback. Most remarks in the comment sections of Instagram and YouTube are useless. They are either crass or curt, sprinkled with emoji that do more to satisfy the ego of the commenter than to further the richness of the page. Instead, high quality comments on blogs and social media should create a dialogue that furthers the colloquy and deepens the learning. Replies on Twitter, for example, should offer suggestions or make interpersonal connections. Thoughtful comments in social media should add information, incorporate links, or most importantly, ask questions."

"Questions can fire the imagination and feed your creativity. In my research for The Book of Beautiful Questions, I found dozens of questions that can help in identifying fresh ideas, overcoming creative block, soliciting useful feedback, and getting an idea "out the door" and into the world. However, the questions we ask ourselves about creativity also can have the opposite effect. They can undermine creative confidence or cause us to misdirect our efforts. Below are five questions that can be thought of as "creativity killers." Take note of them now-so that in the future, you can stop asking them."

"I have become somewhat obsessed with the concept of automata over the past month or so.  I have seen multiple iterations of cardboard automata.  The Tinkering Studio has a FANTASTIC pdf which explains the basics as well as facilitation tips for educators. I had this on my agenda to work into my makerspace this year, but it was when I saw this video that my imagination was set on fire: "

"Staying motivated and driven is one of the easiest topics to deliberate on but truly one of the toughest to actually execute especially when the going gets tough. So what is it that keeps the fire in your belly burning.....unfazed by challenges and disappointments along the way ? "

"I never really learned how to cook. Other than scrambling eggs over a fire during Boy Scout camping trips, it just wasn't something I was taught growing up. Because I never learned how to make a healthy meal for myself, I ended up eating a lot more fast food than I should've-especially when I was young and early in my career. That's not the case for Robert Hand's students. Robert works at Mount Vernon High School, which is about an hour north of Seattle. He teaches family and consumer science-what we would've called "home economics" when I was in school. In other words, he helps his students learn how to take care of themselves after high school, including how to make a nutritious and delicious homemade meal. In just six years of teaching, Robert has had such a big impact on his school that he was named the 2019 Teacher of the Year for my home state of Washington. He was nice enough to visit my office earlier this year and show me how to make one of his students' favorite dishes: barbecue chicken."

"At the end of 2016, I found myself mentally exhausted and barely able to string together a coherent thought or formulate an original idea. As I swiped through my social media feeds for inspiration-or maybe procrastination-a nagging feeling hit. I needed a break from screen time. Pediatricians, psychologists, and neuroscientists warn of potential negative consequences associated with constant mental stimulation as a result of interacting with our devices. Without a screen-free space for my brain to relax, stop firing, and just think, I felt incapable of significant mental processing. I could blame the technology for thwarting my attempts at creative thought, or I could blame myself for taking the easy route and using my devices to constantly stimulate my brain. Though I chose to blame myself, I am finding a lot of support for the idea of blaming technology when discussing the idea of screen time. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. Mobile devices have the potential to provide amazing learning opportunities as well as great distractions. They can further social interactions to help us build stronger connections in our communities, or allow us to destroy relationships by hiding behind a screen. In the book The Triple Focus: A New Approach to Education, authors Daniel Goleman and Peter Senge describe three essential skills for surviving in a society increasingly dominated by internet-enabled devices: focusing on ourselves, tuning in to others, and understanding the larger world. While the authors apply these concepts to the broader field of social and emotional learning, these same foci also apply as we address the issue of screen time with our students and children."

"I am a big fan of music in the history classroom and I have created a number of Spotify Playlists for this purpose. Often this is merely to help create a calm and purposeful working atmosphere, when a bit of Chopin or Debussy sets the tone perfectly. Occasionally it's even possible to have calming instrumental music directly related to the topic in question: for example, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, which was inspired by the composer watching British troop ships heading off to France in 1914. However, some songs are better used to stoke up some energy during lessons, whilst the very best of all are historical sources in themselves, combining musical feeling with powerful lyrical content. What follows is a list of songs I regularly use in class, organised in broadly chronological order in terms of the topics they relate to, with a brief explanation of how you could make use of them with your own students. What follows is a list of 25 principal songs, but with links to others on similar themes or by similar artists, bringing the total up to over 50. If you have any other suggestions, please contact me (@russeltarr / @activehistory on Twitter) and I'd be delighted to add them to the list (as long as it isn't "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. Which I admit is superb, but we all know this one, surely?)."

"A matchbox-sized, programmable device launches in the US and Canada today, aimed at offering children a gentle introduction to the world of computers. Already used in schools across the UK, the BBC micro:bit is designed to make it easy for kids to write simple programs to control the board's hardware, with creations to date including basic games and animations. The device packs a 25 LED matrix display, a motion sensor, accelerometer and two buttons onto a tiny 4cmx5cm board. It can be programmed using easy-to-grasp tools, such as the drag-and-drop programming environment Scratch, or if the user is more confident, by coding in a variety of languages, including JavaScript or MicroPython."

The bushfire crisis that is currently impacting Australia is beyond devastating. The scale of these fires defies the imagination. For so long now we have lived with skies laden with smoke as a constant and inescapable reminder that this is not an ordinary summer. This is weather and drought at its most extreme. Our only salvation will be rain but this is not the season for that and the long term forecasts are not promising. Our young people, in particular, will be affected and will need special care in the weeks and months to come. What might this mean for schools and for student agency?