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"My students might be great with their math facts but every year long division is a struggle. If you're looking for an alternative to math videos, try out the fantastic free Long Division Touch app which teaches the steps for long division. It's a great inspiration for creating tutorials with your students!"

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Teachers have found many different ways of using digital games in the classroom. But what kind of games are these students playing? And how are teachers incorporating them in the classroom? Last year's report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, "Games For A Digital Age," made the distinction between "short-form" and "long-form" learning games. Short-form games are designed to be played during a single class period. "They focus on a particular concept of skill refinement, skills practice, memorization, or performing specific drills." Long-form games "extend beyond a single class period" and sometimes gameplay can "spread over multiple sessions or even several weeks." Often long-form games are comprehensively tied to a full curriculum. They can replace textbooks by offering an interactive experience that seamlessly blends content, practice, and assessment into a contextualized learning experience. While some programs like this already exist, it's difficult to implement well. For teachers who want to get started, short-term games can supplement their already established curricula with fresh and engaging activities. Learning Games"

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."

"A few years back (Wow! We can't believe Edudemic has even been around that long!) we wrote about an awesome video that was recorded by a classroom of students and their iPads. The song was such a huge success that it went up for sale on iTunes! Considering that when I was a kid, music class included me banging randomly on a wooden block with a small mallet, I think it is fair to say that technology has brought music class a long, long way. Store Van Music embarked on a tour of schools in the UK and help the students create outstanding music using iPads and their minds."

Thanks for caring and sharing Brian - 3 Skills for Every Student

"Now that it's the middle of summer, rubrics are probably the furthest thing from your minds. However, unfortunately it won't be long from now that we will be knee-deep in marking. ForAllRubrics is one of my best finds online in a long time. This is a free "service" for teachers that works on iPad and iPhone. Now, teachers will be able to create rubrics and easily use their iOS devices to assess all of their students. "

"Brain researchers have long studied how students hear and read individual words, but it has proven difficult to parse out what happens when a reader understands a long and difficult passage of text. Now, a team of researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston,Ill., have developed a new way to view reading comprehension in the brain, and in the process highlighted a new angle for testing comprehension that isn't skewed by a student's background knowledge."

"TED Books is an iPad app that provides TED fans with short electronic books produced once a month by TED conferences. The books are less than 20.000 words long "long enough to unleash a powerful narrative, but short enough to be read in a single sitting.""

"YouTube is definitely one of the video repositories we teachers and educators use to look for educational video resources to share with our students. But what if the video you find is 30 minutes long and the segment that you want to share from this video is only two minutes long.Would you share the whole video then forward play it to the part you want or is there another simpler way to do it?"

"When elementary school students have math worksheets to fill out, spelling tests to study for, after school activities to participate in, and chores to finish, it's no wonder that the standard daily reading homework assignment can fall to the wayside.  It may seem like a small concession necessary to prioritize a busy life. After all, parents may reason, their child can catch up on reading over the weekend, over the summer, or during a less hectic time. But the effects of regularly skipping that reading homework can have long-term effect on a child's life"

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