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"he 21st century is challenging old notions of learning spaces. The idea that students must be seated at desks working in rows is quickly becoming archaic. Technology and collaborative work environments are changing the design of learning spaces. Experts hope that the emerging paradigm will translate into improved learning spaces and influence future architectural design."

"This may sound like a lofty title, but it's not wrong. There's an impressive presentation making the rounds dubbed "Mobile is eating the World" by Benedict Evans. In the presentation, Evans shows some staggering charts, interesting factoids, and all the other statistics you'd expect with a title so grand. It makes me think about mobile learning, mobile browsing, and mobile everything. But the real story here is about education. It's about how we're all going to be learning in the next few years and generations according to the data in the presentation below. Mobile learning is not only on the rise, it's inevitable."

"Today's topic is Google Images. This is probably among those most used services in education. Teachers and students use images for a variety of learning and teaching reasons. However, before including images in any classroom project, students need to learn about copyright issues. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has already published a post on this. Check it out here to learn more."

"If you're new to the K-12 Online Conference, please read our About page as well as as our Goals and Core Values. Since 2006, K-12 Online has hosted a free, all-volunteer online conference with 40+ free videos each year featuring some of the most creative and innovative teachers sharing their best ideas for engaging students with digital tools and effective learning strategies. All past keynote addresses are now available on our YouTube channel, and we're in the process of migrating all past presentations there too. Shannon Miller will kick off our 2013 conference with a pre-conference keynote on Monday, October 14th. During week 1 of the conference which starts October 21st, Steve Hargadon & Audrey Watters will keynote the "Open Learning" strand, while Kathy Cassidy will keynote "Outside Learning." During week 2, starting October 28th, Larry Ferlazzo will keynote "Leading Learning" while Sylvia Martinez & Gary Stager will keynote "Building Learning." Please forward and share this post on social media to get the word out about our fantastic keynoters for this year's conference!"

"In a flipped classroom, students typically interact with a short micro-video (flipped video) before class and then class time is transformed into an active place of engagement and learning. Some teachers think that students take to flipped learning quickly. However, since many students have been trained in how to learn passively, they need to have explicit instructions on how to learn differently in a flipped classroom. Below is a series of suggestions teachers may find helpful to hand out to students to prepare them for a flipped classroom."

"When you can get students talking and teaching each other, adding movement or gestures into the process, the students learn and retain more. Whether you call this process "Brain-Based Learning" or "Whole-Brain Learning," the concept is the same. The goal of brain-based learning is to "engage your learners and do it with strategies that are based on real science" (Jensen). Their learning increases because they are engaging more parts of their brain during the teaching process."

Making, Maker Centred Learning and STEAM fit neatly alongside Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) for many schools. Commonly this approach includes a constructivist view of knowledge and teachers seek to establish conditions which allow students to explore questions and ideas with greater independence than may occur in the traditional classroom.  Learning becomes a collaborative partnership between teachers and students with a clear focus on a learner centric approach.

"The gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum report New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology. Today's job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems - skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy."

"Recently SCAN journal published an article I wrote around our schools' experience in using iPads in learning and thought it would be timely to look at what was available for schools from educational journals to supplement material they find elsewhere on the web and to assist further in their decision making on whether to go with iPads as a learning tool and/or to get teaching and learning ideas."

"The Lawrence School District of Kansas, sitting right in the University of Kansas' backyard, has embraced blended learning, but not just for "college and career readiness" Last year, Barbie Gossett volunteered to turn her Kindergarten classroom into a blended learning environment. Along with 7 other teachers from elementary to high school, these pioneers introduced blended learning to their students as well as to the entire district. In a district that serves about 11,000 K-12 students, 8 teachers is just a tiny sampling. But the results of these field tests have had a powerful impact on the direction and the decision the district as a whole is making for the future of their schools."

"The idea of combining great teachers with individualized learning platforms, leveraging technology is what blended learning is all about. In the newest installment of the DLN Smart Series videos, we hear from teachers, administrators and edtech specialists who have made the leap and fully believe that blended digital learning truly makes school better for all students."

"Gaming is an amazing strategy to use in the classroom, yet few teachers use it to increase their students' learning. Generally it is used a 'reward' or dismissed as purely fun, with no learning purpose. Gaming, however, is a wonderful way to re-engage students with learning and make learning relevant to their lives. This is not to say that it should be the only teaching strategy that you should use, or that all topics would be best taught through gaming. Many learning situations, however, can be dramatically improved through introducing gaming to your classroom."

"Recently we took at look at the phases of inquiry-based learning through a framework, and even apps that were conducive to inquiry-based learning on the iPad. During our research for the phases framework, we stumbled across the following breakdown of the inquiry process for learning on 21stcenturyhsie.weebly.com (who offer the references that appear below the graphic). Most helpfully, it offers 20 questions that can guide student research at any stage, including:"

"The interest in inquiry-based learning seems to ebb and flow based on-well, it's not clear why it ever ebbs. In short, it is a student-centered, Constructivist approach to learning that requires critical thinking, and benefits from technology, collaboration, resourcefulness, and other modern learning skills that never seem to fall out of favor themselves. Regardless, St Oliver Plunkett Primary School has put together two very useful images that can help you populate your iPad-or classroom of iPads-with apps that support both inquiry-based learning (the second image below), and a more general approach to pedagogy based on Apple's uber-popular tablet (the top image)."

"Most educators who learn to use Twitter effectively say they learn more from their personal learning network (PLN) on Twitter than they've achieved from any other forms of professional development or personal learning. Unfortunately educators often dismiss Twitter, or fail to see the value of Twitter, when they're first introduced to Twitter. Our aim of this post is to provide all the information you need to learn how to use Twitter effectively as an educator."

"Wherever we are, we'd all like to think our classrooms are "intellectually active" places. Progressive learning (like our 21st Century Model, for example) environments. Highly effective and conducive to student-centered learning. But what does that mean? The reality is, there is no single answer because teaching and learning are awkward to consider as single events or individual "things." This is all a bunch of rhetoric until we put on our white coats and study it under a microscope, at which point abstractions like curiosity, authenticity, self-knowledge, and affection will be hard to pin down. So we put together one take on the characteristics of a highly effective classroom. They can act as a kind of criteria to measure your own against-see if you notice a pattern."

"The infographic we have for you today provides an excellent explanation of what Universal Design for Learning is all about. We invite you to check it out and share with us your thoughts "Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles designed to guide curriculum and lesson development to ensure that all individuals have equal opportunities to learn and can quickly engage with the instruction.Digital technologies, online resources, and mobile devices can be used to design flexible instruction with options to support all students in achieving the Florida Standards" "

""There's a huge gap between the needs and requirements of the job market of the 21st century and what the education system is delivering," said Vishal Talreja, founder and CEO of Dream A Dream, a Bangalore-based organization that prepares young people from vulnerable backgrounds to succeed in a changing world. Talreja is right -- neither employers nor education leaders (not to mention some students themselves) would argue otherwise. But it is the second point Talreja made before the 2015 LEGO Foundation IDEA Conference that educator-innovators should pay the most attention to: "Learning spaces, which could be physical spaces of learning or just safe environments for learning, are extremely critical." A learning space differs in both look and feel from the traditional classroom. In the past year, we've met social entrepreneurs with an eye on education who are creating cost-effective methods to infuse schools with the type of culture and design that students need to better develop their curiosity, creativity, and imagination, and better achieve desired learning outcomes."

I am a huge proponent of using hands-on, interactive learning activities to explore ill-defined problems as a way of teaching for all age groups. Given the spontaneity and uncertainty of these types of active learning environments, I believe educators should observe, reflect on, and analyze how learners interact with the materials, the content, the educator, and the other learners. This practice is in line with the teacher as ethnographer. In my role as a teacher as ethnographer, I made some initial observations during my first two weeks of teaching maker education for elementary age students. With half the kids under 7, I learned a bunch about young makers. Young makers are more capable than what people typically believe. Young makers need to be given more time, resources, strategies to learn how to solve more ambiguous and ill-defined problems (i.e., ones that don't have THE correct answer). Too many don't know how to approach such problems. If a project doesn't "work" during the first trial, they way too often say "I can't do this." They have a low tolerance for frustration; for not getting the answer quickly. Young makers often celebrate loudly and with extreme joy when making something work. Young makers like to work together but lack skills or desire to peer tutor one another. Young makers usually like to stand while working. Young makers are more capable than what people (adults) typically believe. During our maker education summer camp, the young makers made LED projects, circuit crafts, and simple robotics. Looking at the instructions for similar activities, the recommended ages were usually 8 and above. Yet, my group of 14 kids contained half under that age. The kids of all ages struggled a bit - as is common with making type activities but all were successful to some degree with all of the activities.

"Education in Social Studies is needed to achieve levels of civilization that the nation requires of its citizens. Teaching and learning in Social Studies is effective only when it is substantial, authentic, integrated and value-based. Its disciplines are diverse with an expanse of historical, geographical, political, civic and a lot more content. So, learners and educators of Social Studies should possess tools and resources to learn about it and acquire skills in it. Here are some worthy and free tools and resources for Teaching and learning Social Studies, available online:"