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"The province is drafting plans to make coding a part of the curriculum in every grade. Education Minister Karen Casey told a room of more than 600 students at the Big Data Productivity Congress in Halifax on Wednesday that learning coding will help prepare them for future careers. "We know that coding promotes problem-solving, teamwork, critical thinking, innovation and creativity," Casey said. "And we also know that those skills are directly related to industries like computer programming, manufacturing, communications and more. And those are the industries that you will be going to." The Education Department will finalize its plans over the course of the 2015-16 school year, and will introduce formal coding instruction in some grades in September."

"16Hertz, an educational electronics company based in New York City announces the release of their illustrated, graphic-novel style guide, "The Illustrated Arduino". The guide is over 75 pages long, and contains hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations that take the readers through getting up-and-running with electronics prototyping and Arduino programming.   Written by career educators and makers, Aditya Kumarakrishnan and Adiel Fernandez, "The Illustrated Arduino" is a comprehensive guide created to be easily accessible to readers of all experience levels looking for a way to jump into the world of microcontrollers. When the duo dove into the Arduino community, they had a difficult time finding a comprehensive, clear guidebook for beginners. Having taught programming, physical computing and design to students of all ages from middle schools to universities, they sought out to create a guide that is easy-to-follow, great to look at all while still being rigorous. "We set out to create the most beautiful, user-friendly, pedagogically sound and rigorous guide book for the Arduino in the world", says Aditya. They've released the guide under a Creative Commons license, encouraging the larger community to share and use its content freel"

"But in order to see results like those in Singapore, a cultural change must take place in the classroom, points out Norris. It's not enough just to introduce technology into the learning environment and expect results, she says; you must change everything, from devices to curriculum to pedagogy. "You must give them curricula with the technology activities baked in," she asserts, "so students don't have to keep going back and forth from their paper and pencil textbooks to their technology activities." "

"Last night, the culmination of six months of work took place for our AP Environmental Science students. As has been noted in the past here, here, and here, Mrs. Stainton has done a tremendous job of creating a real learning experience with her students and showed the final products to parents, students, and staff. After I introduced Haiku Deck in a Lunch N' Learn time, Mrs. Stainton felt that it was the best tech tool for vividly capturing the students' responses as it pertains to their project."

"Spark your students' curiosity in engineering and technology by introducing them to the designers, inventors, and clever thinkers featured in PBS LearningMedia. Use their stories to illustrate various themes of study like the engineering design process and the impact of technology."

"Last year I volunteered in my child's Kindergarten class daily for an hour with our family's three iPads. I learned a lot about selecting educational content (primarily early math & literacy apps) and how to set up an environment most conducive for learning. I was most impressed by the potential for mobile devices to improve the experience in class for both teachers and students. So this year I volunteered to bring our iPads into my child's First grade class once a week for 'buddy reading'. As I do more outreach and training for local teachers in my community, I am surprised at the large number of classrooms getting devices without any guidelines about how to integrate them into their existing institutional structures or curriculum. From these experiences, I have come up with the following five tips for starting a new program in any classroom …"

"When Apple started dropping hints about a coming "tablet PC" in 2009, it would have been difficult to see the way it might change the way we interact with digital media. The first-generation iPad was introduced in April, 2010 and in lieu of some significant hardware limitations, was a world-beater, garnering $1 billion in sales in just 4 months. The iPad 2 was released 11 months later, and the iPad 3 is currently rumored for a Spring 2012 release. While discussing the "history" of a product less than two years old may seem a bit premature technology moves at a dizzying, humming pace. Dog years have nothing on tech years."

"Since I wrote the controversial post, "5 Reasons Why BYOD is a Bad Idea" over the summer, and received such strong push back the concerns I noted, I've been looking forward to learning about sharing ways in which schools have addressed some of these potential issues. This week, guest writer Caroline Ross introduces us to several schools that have tackled these challenges."

"Where do we look for apps to improve things like resilience, dealing with emotions, mindfulness, empathy, gratitude, bullying, trust, self-esteem and optimism? When will iTunes and others introduce a category for these incredibly important skills? Until then, listed below are 5 top emotional learning apps for school-aged children."

" Sentence Reading Magic is a free iPad app from Preschool University. Sentence Reading Magic introduces students to simple three letter words. The app has a reading mode and a sentence building mode. In the reading mode students can read and hear words read to them by a male or female narrator. "

"ArtSet was an impressive app that I was introduced to last week. I was presenting at a conference and one of the organisers asked if a number of the presenters could go through a workflow to illustrate how a series of apps might be able to be used to deepen student learning. The idea was the the product of one app would become the input for the next. The story of The Lion and the Mouse was suggested as an idea. Each presenter was given three minutes only. There was a cross section of both primary and secondary teachers in the group."

"Around this time last year, I wrote a post about the lack of engaging Maths apps on the iPad that went beyond "skill and drill" number activities. Since then, developers have introduced a greater range of apps across all areas of the Maths curriculum that can be used to enhance the Maths teaching and learning in your classroom. Here's a selection of 20 apps that cover Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability ( these are the Content strands (CS) Australia's Mathematics curriculum has been categorized under ). They also cover the proficiency strands (PS) of Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning. I'm sure other countries' curricula are similar in many regards and you will be able to make the connections"

"Today, we're introducing Vine: a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity. Now that you can easily capture motion and sound, we look forward to seeing what you create."

"Recently, I tried to explain to a teacher from another school how we are trying to use iPads BEYOND apps. We have over 100 apps on our school iPads and introduce our students according to age level to a variety of them, but the focus of the use of the devices NEEDS to remain primarily as a tool for: exposing students to skills, characteristic of a "modern learner" critical thinking personal learning transformative learning workflow fluency anytime/anywhere/anyhow creating"

"This afternoon I introduced Wallwisher to a group of teachers at Paradise Valley Christian Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona. This evening when I got back to my hotel room I had an email from Wallwisher announcing that they are changing names to Padlet. Fortunately, the name change means almost nothing from a functionality standpoint."

""Ever wished you could bring the real world to virtual life?" As a matter of fact, this is one wish I have never had. However, tech guru Lisa Johnson (A.K.A. techchef4u) recently waltzed into my classroom, iPad in hand, to introduce me to "augmented reality". Before my very eyes, she made things appear through the "eyes" of her iPad… that simply weren't there."

"Today at the OTA / EncycloMedia 2016 Conference in Oklahoma City, keynote speaker Shannon M. Miller (@shannonmmiller) shared a wealth of apps, websites, and project ideas in her breakout session, "Igniting Innovation and Creativity in Our Makerspaces With Digital Tools and Apps." One of the apps she shared is "MusiQuest - Music & Beat Maker." The same Denver-based app developer, Edify Technology (@EdifyTechnology) has also published the amazing musical creation app, "Sketch-a-Song Kids." The tagline of this second app is, "Compose in Color." Both of these are FREE and amazing! My wife, Shelly (@sfryer) has been playing with Sketch-a-Song tonight on her iPad, and it's remarkable! Here are a couple tutorial videos which introduce some of the basic elements of both apps."

"LEGO games are widely used among young learners to help them develop key learning skills. More and more primary teachers are using them in their classrooms to help with skill development. From teaching numeracy to introducing kids to the basics of literacy, LEGO games have proved to be an essential learning component in the educational ecosystem. In today's post, we have curated for you this collection of interesting resources to help you tap into the educational potential of LEGO  in your instruction. These resources include mobiles apps and tools, printables, tips and ideas on how to use lego with students and several other materials."

"A great way to encourage girls' interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields is by sharing stories starring girls and women who love science and technology! Seeing female faces as scientists, whether in the lab or out in the field, is a powerful message to girls that these subjects are open to all. And, while introducing them to real-life women in STEM through biographies is important, fictional stories showing science-loving girls and women are another excellent way to entice girls with the unlimited possibilities before them. With that in mind, we're showcasing our favorite fictional books for both children and teens starring Mighty Girls who love science, engineering, and math. With options ranging from the fun and fanciful to the more contemplative, you're sure to discover a title to excite every budding scientist or engineer, girls and boys alike - after all, both need to learn that science is for everyone!"