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"Shifting Learning - What Did You Learn At School Today? We hear a lot these days about project based learning, inquiry based learning, etc… What does that mean? What does it look like when schools shift away from "drill and kill" learning towards big ideas, questions, and "no right answer" kind of learning? And what kind of questions can 'we' ask to support students in their learning?"

Every year the New Media Consortium (NMC), in partnership with the Educause Learning Initiative, release a series of reports for different education sectors on key trends, significant challenges and important developments recognized in the fields of education. "The eleventh edition will describe annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, a more than decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. Six emerging technologies will be identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, as well as key trends and significant challenges expected to continue over the same period, giving campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning.""

""If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve," Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: "Do what you love, and don't stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…" Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) - an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness."

"For most people when they hear the words location, location, location they think real estate.  I think of school library media centers.  In almost all schools the media center occupies the largest amount of real estate on the campus.  And just like a piece of real estate, there should be flexibility in the staging, products, services, and use of the space. This place, above all others, should be a dynamic space that allows for self expression, exploration, discovery, curiosity, creativity, inquiry, critical thinking, and problem solving."

"WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which students get all information from the web. Teachers provide their students with the documents that include links to websites to use the information, according to the activity. The purpose of using WebQuest is to encourage students to use information rather than gathering it and participate in meaningful classroom discussions. WebQuest supports critical thinking through analyzing, creating, and evaluating. Also, it integrates technology into learning and foster cooperative learning. Below are examples of WebQuests in a science classroom:"

"This week's edition of Sunday Night Teacher focuses on motivation-specifically motivating students by helping them see the big picture. These videos are all charged with hyperbole, rhetoric, and emotion. While the tones, themes, sounds, and visuals make powerful cases for motivation, what you're motivating them for and towards is on you. Yes, ideally motivation comes from curiosity and self-awareness, not rah-rah speeches you show them from YouTube-so let's use both. Prime your inquiry-based learning unit with a video, offer then a basic model, then unleash them and watch them fly."

"Creating innovative inquiry-based learning spaces for our students today and tomorrow. Explore spaces that work with MakerEd, STEM, and coding and robotic programs for kids K-12. Share in this hands-on session's new tools enhancing spaces for teaching and learning!"

"I was honored to serve on the Best Apps for Teaching and Learning Committee this year. Over the course of the year we tested hundreds of contenders and selected a list of 25 apps "best of the best" for the Committee's third list. Our committee vetted apps in five categories connected to AASL's learning standards and in support of our instructional roles relating to inquiry-based teaching and learning.  The Committee recognized free and cost effective apps that foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. Here are those fabulous apps with tips for their use in your schools and libraries: Books Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Organization & Management Social Sciences Content Creation"

"I learned about the math kits from the book, Reggio-Inspired Mathematics and grateful for the power of Twitter and the opportunity to directly connect with Janice. I asked and she kindly sent the list of materials for each kit. I will be putting together a set of math kits and sharing with my students the three formats for mathematical provocations. As described by Gandini (1998) provocation is something arriving by surprise. Provocation is a means for provoking further action. I like that the book links provocations and invitations as one in the same responding to the question about "what's the difference" that I hear so often. Let's get beyond trying to define them so discreetly and get onto the task of creating them in multiple formats. "

"Putting kids to work on meaningful projects can transform classrooms into beehives of inquiry and discovery, but relatively few rigorous studies have examined how well this teaching method actually works. An encouraging new report describes preliminary, first-year outcomes from a study of 3,000 middle school students that shows kids can, in fact, learn more in science classrooms that adopt a well-designed, project-focused curriculum. "

Sheryl Nussbaum Beach"s fantastic resources on the following: Poswering Up Your PLN Project Based Learning Planning for Inquiry-based Learning\

Let us first pose a question: Is it folly to nominate 100 photographs as having been influential to world events, or is this a valid historic inquiry? LIFE will, here and in the following pages, put forth its argument. You be the judge.

"Geospatial" technologies--which include geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), and remote sensing (RS) tools--are becoming increasingly important in our everyday lives. These technologies use "smart" maps that can display, query, and analyze geographic databases; receivers that provide location and navigation; and global-to-local imagery and tools that provide context and analysis.