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"Museums and galleries may be our first port of call when visiting a new city or planning a class field trip, but they are often overlooked when it comes to their digital offerings. What tends to happen when searching for digital resources is that we focus on digital search techniques, meaning we easily miss some of the best resources created by real world institutions. These days many great galleries, museums, memorials and world famous locations want to share their mystery and wonder beyond their physical walls, and with that comes a world of free teaching resources. For students, this connection between the real word and their study not only helps cement knowledge, it can also help foster the lifelong learning we all hope to encourage in our students"

"Laura Richardson, who spent 10 years at Frog Design, has boiled it all down into one playful infographic: The Periodic Table of 21st Century Play. It nicely supplements her in-depth 2010 innovation essay for Co.Design, "The Four Secrets of Playtime That Foster Creative Kids. There are 11 play categories, from morphing to questing and from stretching to creating, and subsets of activities in each. "Play is our greatest natural resource in a creative economy," Richardson writes. "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think with their hands)."

"When I put together this list of top-rated games of 2015, I noticed that though the tools varied in target grades and subjects, they shared some key things. As Mitch Resnick of the MIT Media Lab has argued, if you want to know if a tool is good for learning, first look to see if it aids kids' creativity and expression. I think many (if not all) the tools on this list get kids there, but they don't all take the same path. Some of these tools explicitly help kids make things while others foster thinking and reflection skills that complicate and expand their understanding of themselves and their worlds. They show us how great games can be for learning and inspire others to follow their lead."

"Do you know that sinking feeling when you look at what you've created and think your work totally sucks? When you're learning a new skill, you need to realize that giving yourself permission to be terrible-for a while-will eventually foster better learning. Einstein was right about a lot of things, but in my mind this sentiment is one of his finest discoveries (okay, the general theory of relativity is pretty good, too): "Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he must burst it open." - Albert Einstein"

"Digital citizenship is an essential 21st century literacy that empowers students to navigate the digital world more safely, respectfully and responsibly. It is a set of interconnected skills that, taken together, form a holistic pedagogical framework to foster students learning in a digitally focused environment. To help teachers incorporate the ethos of digital citizenship in their classrooms, Common Sense Media has put together this interesting resource titled 'Digital Literacy and Citizenship (teacher edition)' . This is a curriculum designed specifically for upper elementary to help students  learn the basics of digital citizenship while also developing their digital literacy skills."

"A makerspace is a collaborative work space inside a school, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools.  These spaces are open to kids, adults, and entrepreneurs and have a variety of maker equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters, cnc machines, soldering irons and even sewing machines.  A makerspace however doesn't need to include all of these machines or even any of them to be considered a makerspace.  If you have cardboard, legos and art supplies you're in business.  It's more of the maker mindset of creating something out of nothing and exploring your own interests that's at the core of a makerspace.  These spaces are also helping to prepare those who need the critical 21st century skills in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  They provide hands on learning, help with critical thinking skills and even boost self-confidence.  Some of the skills that are learned in a makerspace pertain to electronics, 3d printing, 3D modeling, coding, robotics and even woodworking,   Makerspaces are also fostering entrepreneurship and are being utilized as incubators and accelerators for business startups.  There have already been some amazing success stories that have come out of makerspaces to date. "

"As a parent and an educator I strive to invite joy into my classroom and my home everyday. Joy is much more than happiness. Joy is a process in and of itself where we creatively learn to embrace all our emotions including disappointment and failure. Here I offer 5 entry points based upon the influential work of Marta Davidovich Ockuly (2015) and Catherine Camden-Pratt (2008), where we may foster and cultivate JOY in our own lives and the lives of those we influence."

"As parents and teachers, we encourage our kids to become well rounded people who love learning.   In our world of cell phones, ipads, and computers, it's easy for kids to become passive consumers of media and technology.   We, however, want are kids to be active, curious, and creative.   Since I'm a musician and a software engineer, I hope that my kids learn to express themselves emotively and become creative thinkers.   We're trying to foster a family culture where we are active, encourage tinkering, and building physical things with our hands.    With these ideas in mind, I wanted to share a great video I found by Vinnie Vrotny and Sheryl Peterson entitled "STEAM: Creating A Maker Mindset."   In this conference talk from the K12 Online Conference in 2013, they share their experiences encouraging a "maker" mindset in the Quest Academy .   Their school has a very unique class teaching design thinking to kids.    It's giving me lots of ideas for building a maker environment for our family.    In this class, Sheryl encourages her students to invent a creative design problem and solve it.   With the tools and support of the teacher, the kids are encouraged to build their design.    In some cases, the kids ask Sheryl to assign a problem to them.    The kids aren't used to having creative freedom to design and make.    In these cases, Sheryl encourages the students to keep thinking."

"Teachers are always on the lookout for ways to foster questioning skills in students. First of all, let's define our subject. At skillsyouneed.com the topic of questioning is covered succinctly in this article. It asks us to consider why we question things. So why do we? We question to gather information. It helps us learn. We communicate and understand others through questioning. It helps us explore the world we live in. We also test acquired knowledge with good questioning skills. They are skills that serve us in school and in everything beyond it. Curiosity and questioning are what keep us interested and engaged in life."

The Teachers' Guide to Global, Collaborative Teaching and Learning is a searchable database of global projects and resources to help educators foster global competence and build connection

"Our virtual reality project took shape during the 2017 iPad and Digital Education Summit [in French]. A high school geography teacher presented pedagogical examples of how to use virtual reality to visit tourist sites. One participant pointed out that virtual reality could also be used to create empathy. This idea immediately caught our attention, since our respective courses appeal to this notion and we face challenges in the acquisition and demonstration of this skill by the students."

" TWEETSHAREEMAIL Over the summer, academics debated the impact of growth mindset, the belief that one's intelligence can be developed with hard work and effort, and whether it can move the needle on academic performance. Even Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, who is often credited with the term, chimed in with additional research supporting the efficacy of mindset interventions. An Education Week survey found that the vast majority of educators believe that a growth-oriented mindset can help improve students' motivation, commitment and engagement in learning. But the study found that applying those ideas to practice, and helping students shift their mindset around learning, remains an elusive challenge. Those findings largely coincide with my observations as an administrator, coach, technology implementer, and now founder of an education company. Over the summer, my team ran a series of professional learning community sessions with dozens of educators across the country, focused on instructional practices that foster and support growth mindset. At these events, almost all teachers said they get the big ideas around growth mindset, but over 80 percent said their schools don't implement them well."

"How can you create a culture of wellness in your school or classroom? General wellness is an important concept for leading a healthy life wrapped up in a generic term. What does wellness look like and how can you encourage it in a class setting? Sketch-noter Sylvia Duckworth created the graphic above to share tips for supporting a culture of wellness in schools.  Children spend a significant amount of each week day in a classroom, making it not only a place to learn academics but also an opportunity to teach life skills that will serve them beyond the schoolyard, like self-care, community involvement, and fostering a sense of connection and belonging."

"The 2018 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration. Sites recognized are free web-based sites that are user friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover."

"The 2018 Best Apps for Teaching & Learning are of exceptional value to inquiry-based teaching and learning. Apps recognized foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover."

"Focusing on these five qualities of thriving classrooms can help foster confident young mathematicians."

"STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) is more than just an acronym or a collection of letters. Rather, it is an instructional movement that embodies cross-curricular concepts from four fundamental disciplines, as well as a research-based strategy that addresses the future needs of a technology-driven work force and sustaining a global economy. The importance of STEM is further validated by its prominence in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). One of the most effective instructional approaches toward the implementation of STEM in grade-level courses is through project-based learning (PBL). In this approach, instruction occurs through student-centered investigations focused on a specific topic driven by a set of objectives, culminating in a broadly-defined product or technique. Projects foster an environment of discussion, creativity, problem-solving, inquiry, modeling, and testing, and are applicable to students in all grade levels and subjects, but particularly within the STEM arena."

"Drexel University's ExCITe Center released Making Culture, the first in-depth examination of K-12 education makerspaces nationwide, revealing the significance of cultural aspects of making that enable learning. The research highlights how makerspaces foster a range of positive student learning outcomes, but also reflect some of the gaps in inclusion common in the STEM fields. Credit: ExCITe Center, Drexel University"

"Today's students will enter a workforce that is powerfully shaped by computing. To be successful in a changing economy, students must learn to think algorithmically and computationally, to solve problems with varying levels of abstraction. These computational thinking skills have become so integrated into social function as to represent fundamental literacies. However, computer science has not been widely taught in K-12 schools. Efforts to create computer science standards and frameworks have yet to make their way into mandated course requirements. Despite a plethora of research on digital literacies, research on the role of computational thinking in the literature is sparse. This conceptual paper proposes a three dimensional framework for exploring the relationship between computational thinking and literacy through: 1) situating computational thinking in the literature as a literacy; 2) outlining mechanisms by which students' existing literacy skills can be leveraged to foster computational thinking; and 3) elaborating ways in which computational thinking skills facilitate literacy development."

"Having a growth mindset allows you to believe that you can improve and change with practice and determination. With a growth mindset, you view challenges with excitement and look forward to the opportunity to overcome them because you know you will get something out of the process and learn from your mistakes. Those with a fixed mindset, who believe their traits, talents, and abilities are permanent and cannot be improved, are less likely to enjoy as much success in school, work, and life in general. When teachers foster a growth mindset in the classroom, it helps students understand their full potential. Teachers with a growth mindset teach their students that intelligence is moldable and expandable, which keeps students inspired to learn, even if they are facing failure."