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"We have been doing a lot of learning this year that is different than I would have imagined if you would have asked me 17 months ago. My teaching colleague, Gallit Zvi and I embarked on our own journey of discovery to team teach 2 classes of grade 6/7 students. When we started we were nervous but excited to start. We didn't know where it was going to take us because we were constantly learning new things on twitter that we could adapt, collaborate on, and make our own. We did know that we both wanted to jump into a project based model for student learning because we knew we could model a collaborative environment necessary to make it successful for our students. However we didn't know where and how to start. We saw ourselves as guides through unique learning experiences that connect learning in the classroom to their lives outside of the classroom. We were just looking for that sign on which direction we should help guide them towards."

"Computational thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution(s) in such a way that a computer - human or machine - can effectively carry out. Informally, computational thinking describes the mental activity in formulating a problem to admit a computational solution.  The solution can be carried out by a human or machine. This latter point is important.  First, humans compute.  Second, people can learn computational thinking without a machine.  Also, computational thinking is not just about problem solving, but also about problem formulation.1 The Digital Careers organisation says that students need experience and skills in computational thinking and computer programming (coding) to be successful in their future careers.2 The NSW syllabuses provide a range of opportunities to develop students' understanding of computational thinking and coding. This guide draws out the areas where computational thinking can be applied within the existing NSW K-8 syllabuses. Like the syllabuses, it is organised into stages of learning and subdivided into learning areas, with suggested activities and links to online resources. Not all resources and activities listed in this guide refer to coding explicitly, but they do aim to develop algorithmic and computational thinking skills to better enable students and teachers to reach a coding goal."

"But who will teach those students-and how they'll be taught-has emerged as a concern among some education experts.  "If Congress passes this funding opportunity, we really need to focus on how to prepare existing teachers who have no computer programming experience on how to integrate computing into math and science education," Harry Cheng, the director of the Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education at the University of California, Davis, told TakePart. "

"The Ultimate Opening Day Infographic"

"There is also a lot to like about iOS. It's a lean, mean operating system. It's use of sandboxing keeps it relatively clutter free. iOS doesn't do a lot, but it's pretty good at what it does do. That said, deploying iPads at any kind of scale is just short of maddening. While the process of tapping around to install one app on one iPad isn't too bad, installing a dozen apps on hundreds iPads isn't a particularly appealing way to spend a month. If you are going to deploy iPads at scale, you need a strategy. You need a battle plan. In addition, you will also need to stay hydrated. I don't think I've discovered the silver bullet, but I'll share some of my experiences with you in order to, hopefully, shorten the learning curve."