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"Down a locker-lined hallway at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, Zac Felli, a junior, walks to his first class of the day. He wears tortoiseshell glasses and is built like he could hit a ball hard. He has enviable skin for a teenager, smooth as a suede jacket. Over one shoulder he carries a slim forest-green and tan messenger bag that would have been social suicide in 1997. But 1997 was the year Zac was born, so he wouldn't know anything about that. A squat, taupe monolith flanked by parking lots, Lawrence Central smells like old brick and floor polish and grass. Its gleaming floors squeak if you move your foot a certain way. The school has existed on precisely this spot of land since 1963: maroon block letters over the door, tang of chlorine from the indoor pool. None of that has changed. Here's what has: After Zac turns the doorknob of Room 113 and takes his seat in Japanese III, he reaches into his shoulder bag, pushes aside his black iPhone 5S and Nintendo 3DS XL, and pulls out his Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet with purple detachable keyboard, which he props up on his desk using its kickstand. By touching a white and purple icon on his screen, he opens Microsoft OneNote, a program in which each of his classes is separated into digital journals and then into digital color-coded tabs for greater specificity. And then, without a piece of paper in sight and before an adult has said a word, he begins to learn."

"A few days ago a student approached me and said he needed to talk about something, and he wanted to meet the next day at recess. I appreciated the way he reached out to me and I looked forward to the opportunity to meet with him. He came into my office with a sheepish look on his face, spoke in a quiet voice and said that he had done something he was not feeling good about. I asked him what it was, and he informed me that he had violated the technology policy by downloading some games onto his school-issued iPad, bypassing restrictions and settings. "

"I'm one of four teacher facilitators for our Junior Coding Club. We meet once a week during second nutrition break to code. The group's made up of many beginner coders, but also a couple of advanced coders. At lunch today, one of the advanced coders came rushing into the classroom, so excited to share his news. He decided to put a hold on Code Academy, and start using Scratch. During the week, he used the computer version of Scratch to create a flight simulator. This simulator was truly incredible! This Grade 4 student was so thrilled about what he did, that it was hard not to also feel thrilled. While it was wonderful to see this student so passionate about learning, it was also amazing to hear all of the thinking behind his choices. I was honestly in awe! He thought of everything. He even researched to find out the details about planes at take-off, and used this information in his simulator. He could explain all of his choices and the thinking behind these choices. In this short video clip below you can hear just a tiny snippet of this explanation."

"No one learns without making mistakes. Quite the opposite-we learn when we make mistakes. But in the classroom, making mistakes and taking risks can be at best unrewarded, and at worst ridiculed and unnecessarily penalized. I asked my 21-year-old son the other day what high school class had made him feel safe to make mistakes. He said that he never made mistakes. Really? He explained that he only did the work if he knew he was going to succeed. That made me think about my own teaching: Do I create a classroom where students will be risk takers?"

"Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" and a New Yorker staff writer, told me how he prepared, years ago, to write his first "Talk of the Town" story. "Talk" articles have a distinct style, and he wanted to make sure he got the voice straight in his head before he began writing. His approach was simple. He sat down and read 100 "Talk" pieces, one after the other."

"Akihiko Takahashi is a professor of math education at DePaul University. Before that, he was an elementary school teacher in Japan. He first came to the United States in the early 1990s looking for all the great approaches to teaching math that he and his colleagues in Japan had learned about from American researchers. When he couldn't find these approaches being used in classrooms, he soon realized why: There was no lesson study in the United States. Lesson study is a form of professional development Japanese teachers use to help them improve and to incorporate new ideas and methods into their teaching. "If there's no lesson study," Takahashi says, "how can teachers learn how to improve instruction?""

"Last week while talking to our youngest son,( a Surveying Engineer working on surveying a gas line on the east coast), he was telling me how he purchased an ipad for his personal use, then when he began "playing around" with it, something changed and finally, he was excited that this was going to end up being a tool he could use at work."

"Dear Parent: I know. You're worried. Every day, your child comes home with a story about THAT kid. The one who is always hitting shoving pinching scratching maybe even biting other children. The one who always has to hold my hand in the hallway. The one who has a special spot at the carpet, and sometimes sits on a chair rather than the floor. The one who had to leave the block centre because blocks are not for throwing. The one who climbed over the playground fence right exactly as I was telling her to stop. The one who poured his neighbour's milk onto the floor in a fit of anger. On purpose. While I was watching.  And then, when I asked him to clean it up, emptied the ENTIRE paper towel dispenser. On purpose. While I was watching. The one who dropped the REAL ACTUAL F-word in gym class. You're worried that THAT child is detracting from your child's learning experience. You're worried that he takes up too much of my time and energy, and that your child won't get his fair share. You're worried that she is really going to hurt someone some day. You're worried that "someone" might be your child. You're worried that your child is going to start using aggression to get what she wants. You're worried your child is going to fall behind academically because I might not notice that he is struggling to hold a pencil. I know. Your child, this year, in this classroom, at this age, is not THAT child. Your child is not perfect, but she generally follows rules. He is able to share toys peaceably. She does not throw furniture. He raises his hand to speak. She works when it is time to work, and  plays when it is time to play. He can be trusted to go straight to the bathroom and straight back again with no shenanigans. She thinks that the S-word is "stupid" and the C-word is "crap." I know."

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

If you can't watch the video on Facebook you can see it on YouTube - "If you've ever seen the movie The King's Speech, you remember the incredible feeling at the end when the King finally overcame the debilitating speech impediment he suffered from since he was a boy. Musharaf Asghar is no King, he is just a young man who has suffered his entire life, like the king, with a terrible stutter. In this heartwarming video, Mushy's teacher uses the same method as in the movie - using music to overcome anxiety - to help Mushy speak. For this man, even getting a few words out felt impossible, but once he started getting the hang of it, there was no stopping him."

"Words are the primary tools we use to convey meanings , of course there are non verbal tools as well but particularly in formal educational settings like schools and classrooms, words take the lion share of our language.  Can you imagine yourself delivering a lesson with no words in it ? will it work? Well Peterson has an answer." Peterson is a guy who used to have dyslexia when he was young and he did not learn how to read till he was in grade five. As an adult now, he designed some great applications to help teachers teach students without having to say a word. These are basically interactive learning games based on formative feedback. Watch the 8 minutes video to see the revolution Peterson triggered by the use of his free-language teaching approach. Enjoy

"The breakthrough happened after the student took the Bartle's Gamer Profile Quiz and we found out that he was a "killer." Off-the-charts killer, but achievement meant nothing to this student. Just like grades. No, we haven't identified the next school shooter, and I sure wish that Bartle hadn't named one of the four gamer profiles "killer" -- but nonetheless, this student identified with this profile. Jane McGonigal mentioned it in her Gaming Can Make a Better World TED Talk when she discussed an epic meaning. My so-called "killer" student (and we really should rename this when applying it to education!) simply saw things as a battle between good and evil and wanted to fight on the side of good in an epic quest to make the world a better place. Points don't matter in gameplay, and grades don't matter, either. But when we tweaked the kinds of work he was doing in our Gamifi-ED project to focus on "world-changing games," he was suddenly engaged. Now his face lights up when he sees me. He's one of the first kids to class. He's an engaged gamer and, finally, an engaged student. "

"Watching my two-year-old nephew Dashiel interact with his mother's iPad made me realize that he was born into an era unlike any in history. As he grows up his expectations about how information should be presented and processed, and how interfaces should respond, will be profoundly different from how we experience technology today. Mobile is now the channel of choice for everyone, but even those of us who use technology with great alacrity are still digital immigrants. Dashiel represents a new age: the Mobile Born - a generation of kids that have been raised while literally gnawing on the equivalent of a supercomputer - otherwise known as mom's smartphone."

Watching my two-year-old nephew Dashiel interact with his mother's iPad made me realize that he was born into an era unlike any in history. As he grows up his expectations about how information should be presented and processed, and how interfaces should respond, will be profoundly different from how we experience technology today.

Watching my two-year-old nephew Dashiel interact with his mother's iPad made me realize that he was born into an era unlike any in history. As he grows up his expectations about how information should be presented and processed, and how interfaces should respond, will be profoundly different from how we experience technology today.

"He lost me, though, when he pushed the notion of digital immigrants and digital natives on the audience. His language was all too familiar:  Today's kids are savvy.  Today's teachers are not.  Fixing the problem depends on our willingness to put kids in charge of technology in our schools.  At one point, he even asked all of the teachers under 30 in the audience to raise their hands.  "There's your future," he said. #ouch"

"The first day of tinkering was just awesome. Within a matter of minutes, Kearn had the MaKey MaKey connected to Play Doh and was controlling a train simulator on the computer. Ludwig controlled the horn and Kearn drove the train. Kearn wanted to make a video to show what he had done, so we pulled out an iPad and made an impromptu video which he wanted to add to his Youtube channel. He also started following my blog and even left a comment about how much he loves the makerspace. Both students were completely independent and were perfectly capable of dreaming, tinkering, and making on their own. I was available for support as needed, but they really just wanted a space to explore. As they continue, I want to connect them with some experts that might mentor their ideas and curiosities, but for now, they just need to tinker. "

"Of all the apps that students have shared with me over the years, Foldify is probably my favorite. A few years ago one of my my students used it to design a bunch of characters and buildings that he then printed, colored, and folded according to the Foldify print-out. He then used those characters in a video that he made. In his video he and other students provided the voices for each character. Last year Foldify introduced Foldify Zoo for designing and printing animals. This spring Foldify released Foldify Dinosaurs for designing, printing, and constructing dinosaur models."

"Brian South is an English teacher in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb 30 miles west of Chicago. He is also the faculty advisor of the literary magazine at Naperville North. When Brian began taking steps to self-publish his own novel, he did something few teachers feel totally comfortable doing-he invited his students to be part of the process. Bringing your outside interests into the classroom is tough for many teachers because they feel like they have to compartmentalize themselves. Others feel so pressed for time that sharing personal interested and hobbies seems like a burden. However, after he read a part of his novel at his school's open mic night, students in the creative writing club had a lot of feedback for Brian, who not only listened, but also soon realized that sharing his journey through self-publishing a novel could be an important way to empower students and potentially transform their lives."

Part of the problem, he suggested, is the time it takes educators to move from learning about a piece of technology to actually integrating and manipulating its specific uses for the classroom. "If you take the five stages from the evolution of thought and practice," he said, "starting with 'entry' and moving through 'adoption' to 'adaptation' to 'appropriation,' and finally 'innovation,' research shows it takes seven years on average to go from the top of that list to the bottom. That's a long time." Too long, according to Benno. Which is why, as educators, "we have to figure out how to close the gap."

In "Grown Up Digital" he uses the results to paint a portrait of this generation that is entertaining, optimistic and convincing. The problem, he suspects, is not the net generation but befuddled baby-boomers, who once sang along with Bob Dylan that "something is happening here, but you don't know what it is", yet now find that they are clueless about the revolutionary changes taking place among the young.

"Third grader Cordell Steiner makes a pretty convincing argument for using video games in the classroom in this TEDx talk. He describes feeling more motivated to learn and master new skills because of his eagerness to beat his own high score or finish before the clock runs out. He says he used to be bored in class when his teachers had to slow down to explain concepts, but now each student plays games intended to help him or her with specific skills they're trying to master. He even gives examples!"