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"Man, it's a great time to be a note-taker. For a couple of decades-first as a student, then as a professional journalist-I filled notebook after notebook with notes, covering classes, press conferences, interviews, and more. When I was done, I'd have to find someplace to store them until (most likely) I'd throw them out. The notes I did keep? Useless. My on-the-fly handwriting is a horrible thing. The result: A lot of personal and professional history gone to waste."

"recent Gallup poll of 170,000 Americans - 10,000 of whom were teachers - found that teaching is the second most satisfying profession (after medicine). Ironically, the same Gallup poll found that in contrast to their overall happiness with their jobs, teachers often rate last or close to the bottom for workplace engagement and happiness. "Of all the professions we studied in the U.S., teachers are the least likely to say that their opinions count and the least likely to say that their supervisor creates an open and sharing environment," said Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup Education, at the Next New World Conference. This is a troubling trend at a time when schools need to continue to attract high quality educators. "If the perception in our country is that teaching is not a great profession to go into, we certainly aren't going to be encouraging really talented young people to be thinking about the profession of teaching," Busteed said in an interview with Stephen Smith on the American RadioWorks podcast."

""What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent." So said Steve Jobs in 1996 - during an interview in which the Apple co-founder claimed the bureaucratic, political and sociopolitical problems facing the education sector were beyond technology's capacity to fix. In the 19 years since Jobs uttered those words, the issues weighing heavily on the shoulders of educators, schools, universities and other educational facilities have undoubtedly multiplied. But so too have the ways in which technology can be harnessed to address some of the tensions within teaching and learning. VoksenUddannelsesCenter Syd, or VUC for short, is one of 29 adult education programmes across Denmark, situated across the four towns of Haderslev, Aabenraa, Tonder and Sonderborg. The state-funded centres use legislative frameworks issued by the Ministry of Education, and are run by principals who answer to the centre board. The programmes originally issued students with MacBooks before plumping for iPads to replace traditional textbooks and paper-based essays two years ago, in a bid to help educate those who may struggle with more conventional means of teaching."

Aman Kumar Singh, Secretary (IT & BT), Chattisgarh, in an exclusive interview with egov What initiatives is the Department taking to foster growth of IT industry in the state? Chhattisgarh recognises the importance of Information and Communication Technology as a key enabler in economic development. We are trying to improve the society at large through

"Every year, students create awesome projects for school which they and their parents are extremely proud of. Be it a media project, a class presentation, or a musical performance, these are things that any parent would want to cherish and that any student would love to revisit. They are personal documents of growth, and testaments to our kids' genius. If only they could bring their best projects with them to a job or college interview, or keep them around to show their own children. Enter student digital portfolios, a way to encapsulate all of the best of your child's work to share with anyone who might be interested. We're going to walk you through getting started with Evernote, and then once you get your feet wet, you can explore other options."

"One of the hottest new education books is The Innovator's Mindset by my friend George Couros, a division principal of Teaching and Learning with Parkland School Division, located in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. He's also a highly-sought-after teaching, learning, and leadership consultant. I caught up with George recently to talk about his book"

"This piece was actually sparked by an interview of Lady Gaga by Soledad O' Brien at the Born This Way Emotion Revolution Summit where Gaga stated, "It's time to stop telling learners what to do and start listening for we can do for them." One of those accepted practices, sadly, in most educational settings is that the teacher is the authority to be respected and listened to without question. Listening to students is not a practice that is often taught in teacher education programs. There is a current movement, in some circles, to promote and honor student voice.  But, and this is a huge but, if educators are serious about honoring student voice, they need to first learn how to listen, really listen to their students."

"Want to record a phone call from a Mac? Maybe you're interviewing someone for a podcast and want to record both sides of the conversation? Maybe you want to record a phone call for quality and training purposes? Whatever the purpose, there are several different ways to record a phone call from a Mac, but we're going to go with perhaps the easiest method that is decidedly low tech but highly reliable. "

When tech giant Amazon announced its search for a second headquarters site, cities across the country scrambled to produce persuasive pitches. In Loudoun County, Virginia, fourth-graders from Goshen Post Elementary School took up the challenge personally. To create compelling video arguments, student teams interviewed experts in economic development, researched state history and geography, and even wrote poems to sing the praises of their region. When Northern Virginia was ultimately picked as a new HQ site, students were as proud as any civic leaders from their community. The story offers a good example of how education is shifting as we wrap up two decades of the 21st century. Instead of relying on textbooks and teacher direction, these students had to think critically about unfolding events, collaborate with peers and adults, and make creative use of digital tools to communicate their ideas. In the process, they also learned plenty about social studies and civic engagement. For Loudoun County Superintendent Eric Williams, what makes such authentic learning experiences worthwhile is how they prepare students "to make meaningful contributions to the world."

"Known worldwide for her courage and clarity, Christiane Amanpour has spent the past three decades interviewing business, cultural and political leaders who have shaped history. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Amanpour discusses fake news, objectivity in journalism, the leadership vacuum in global politics and more, sharing her wisdom along the way. "Be careful where you get information from," she says. "Unless we are all engaged as global citizens who appreciate the truth, who understand science, empirical evidence and facts, then we are going to be wandering around -- to a potential catastrophe.""

"Sometimes the best way to escape from a productive rut is to switch up your tools. Whether it's a simple word processor, a smarter to-do list, or a more efficient way to transcribe interviews, downloading some new apps can help manage your time and produce better work. Here are some of the best productivity apps for phones, tablets, and computers that launched in the last year or got a substantial upgrade."

"Parents today struggle to set screen time guidelines. One big reason is a lack of role models. Grandma doesn't have any tried-and-true sayings about iPad time. This stuff is just too new. But many experts on kids and media are also parents themselves. So when I was interviewing dozens of them for my book The Art of Screen Time, I asked them how they made screen time rules at home. None of them held themselves up as paragons, but it was interesting to see how the priorities they focused on in their own research corresponded with the priorities they set at home."

"Dr. Alison Head and her Project Information Literacy (PIL) research team recently released the findings of a new national study on college students and how they consume and interact with a vast and deeply polarized news ecosystem. The News Study findings are the result of an online survey of 5,844 respondents and telephone interviews with 37 participants from 11 diverse colleges and universities. The research also included computational analysis of Twitter data associated with respondents, as well as a Twitter panel of 135,891 college-age people. In the study's press release, Dr. Head shared: News is fast, social, and visual and typically delivered to students in posts, alerts, tweets, and conversations that stream at them throughout the day. And young news consumers are left to assemble and interpret what news means, while many take this evaluative step, others do not. So what? The News Study's Executive Summary offers Five Research Takeaways as well as Six Recommendations."

"Welcome to Computational Conversations, an interview series where we talk to educators introducing computational thinking into classrooms and curricula. Whether they teach at a high school or develop programs at a university, each interviewee brings new ideas to the table on how to get students and teachers thinking computationally."

This article is republished with permission from the original interview I did with Dr. Albert P'Rayan - Professor of English & Head, Higher Education, KCG College of Technology, Chennai for the English Language Teachers' Association of India - Journal of English Language Teaching

"While many Canadian educators struggle to find the solution to students' declining math scores, there's one expert who says we may be looking at the problem the wrong way. Sir Ken Robinson - education guru, author and adviser - says relentless testing and the push for standardized scores are destroying students' imagination and talent. He argues that schools are stifling instead of nurturing kids' creativity. Sir Ken's 2006 TED talk, How Schools Kill Creativity, has had 47 million views and become one of the most popular talks in history. He was in Montreal this week for the Einstein Youth Forum, and sat down for an interview with The Globe and Mail."

"During the 2016 National Week of Making, as a part of President Obama's Nation of Makers initiative, Digital Promise and Maker Ed announced the Maker Promise. A commitment made by school leaders, in-school and out-of-school educators, and community advocates to bringing quality making experiences to all students. By signing the Promise, individuals commit to becoming champions of making, supporting spaces for making, and showcasing what students have made. As this year's Week of Making comes to a close, we are excited to publish our first annual Maker Promise report, which shares what we have learned about the state of making in schools and how this is shaping our future efforts. This year, our work focused on understanding how maker learning is being implemented at Maker Promise schools and identifying areas where the Maker Promise could offer support and resources. To develop our understanding, we interviewed K-12 school leaders who had signed the Maker Promise and surveyed the "maker champions" most responsible for integrating making into their school or district. Here are a few highlights from our findings:"

"Over the past five years, we have developed a computational thinking framework based upon our studies of interactive media designers. The context of our research is Scratch - a programming environment that enables young people to create their own interactive stories, games, and simulations, and then share those creations in an online community with other young programmers from around the world. By studying activity in the Scratch online community and in Scratch workshops, we have developed a definition of computational thinking that involves three key dimensions: (1) computational concepts, (2) computational practices, and (3) computational perspectives. Observation and interviews have been instrumental in helping us understand the longitudinal development of creators, with participation and project portfolios spanning weeks to several years. Workshops have been an important context for understanding the practices of the creator-in-action."

"Every year thousands of educators gather for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference eager to learn about the newest features in favorite apps and to glean ideas from one another about how to effectively teach in new ways. The conference seems to grow every year and there is palpable excitement from educators who finally get to commune with their "tribe" - techy teachers from around the globe. But many of the products currently being marketed to educators are firmly rooted in the current moment of education. For the most part, they focus on how to help educators do what they already do more efficiently. Or they offer flashy digital tools meant to engage learners presumed to have short attention spans, and entice teachers with the analytics under the hood. But too often the conversations around what educators can do with technology in their classrooms focus on the current moment in a system that almost no one thinks is perfect. "I'm fascinated by trying to look forward rather than looking at what schools look like now," said Alan November during a presentation at the conference. November has long been invested in education, first as a teacher and now has a consultant and speaker. He suggests that to fundamentally change, education leaders need to define a new role for learners and then hire teachers who can help nurture those qualities. With that in mind, November proposes seven questions that he thinks should become standard in the interviewing and hiring process. "

"You wouldn't use a hammer to try to cut down a tree. Try to use an axe to drive nails and you're likely to lose a finger. Different physical jobs call for different tools. So, too, do different mental jobs.  Optimism and big-picture thinking will help you sell your business idea. Keeping your books in order requires a more detail-oriented approach. Motivating employees requires more empathy than analytical thinking.  Different modes of thinking are best suited for different situations, and according to a new interview with star Wharton professor and best-selling author Adam Grant most of us don't utilize one particularly powerful mindset nearly enough. "