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"Are you a teacher looking for exciting experiments for your classroom? Or a kid who wants to see what you can build from everyday items? These experiments from "Science Scavenger" Dan Menelly are designed to inspire and excite kids of all ages, using only low cost materials and with very little setup time. "

interesting look back

"The Educational and Mobile Learning site highlighted a great step by step iPad task tutorial by the folks over at iSupport. They outline five tasks that "every modern teacher" should be able to do and use in their classrooms. It's a great list: A PDF A presentation An interactive book A podcast A movie I really like how they put together an easy way to see how using iPad tools can lead kids through low level to high levels of thinking and doing. But the list isn't comprehensive. And it might start past the point where some teachers are right now. So I've added five extra iPad basic skills that I think every teacher using iPads needs to have: Edit Photos"

"Next time you want to complain about the amount of homework you do, remember that students in Shanghai spend an average of over 14 hours per week on take-home work. A recent brief from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that American 15-year-olds spent an average of six hours a week on homework in 2012. By comparison, students from all OECD countries were spending an average of about 4.9 hours a week on homework. On the low end of the spectrum, teens from countries like Korea and Finland spent less than three hours a week on after-school work, while teens from Russia spent about 10, and students from Shanghai spent about 14 hours. Since 2003, the average amount of time 15-year-olds spend on homework per week dropped by about an hour. In the United States, the average time spent on homework remained unchanged, as shown in the graph below:"

"Hadi Partovi wants more kids to learn to code. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerber, Sheryl Sandberg, and many others agree. Partovi wants all high schools to offer computer science classes because it represents a growing cluster of job skills but one that few schools teach - particularly schools attended by low income and minority students."

"The arts have always had a secondary place in K-12 learning. If you doubt that statement, think of the first programs to go whenever budget cuts are implemented - music, fine arts and even physical fitness which includes dance. I've yet to hear of a school board or administrators discussing the way cutting math programs could help the school's bottom line. There is a hierarchy of academics in America, and arts education tends to fall pretty low on the totem pole."

"Rarely, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will become completely unresponsive and errant, leading to what amounts to a frozen device that just won't do anything. The most obvious indicator of this is when something on screen just cease up completely and the touch screen becomes unresponsive to all input, and clicking on any of the hardware buttons also does nothing. Fortunately you can almost always remedy these unusual situations by forcibly rebooting the iOS device, a low tech solution that works to remedy most of these issues, it only takes a few seconds, and which is really pretty easy."

"Tinkering activities provide a powerful way to inspire students' interest, engagement, and understanding in science. The Tinkering Fundamentals course will help educators and enthusiasts develop a practice of tinkering and making. This course will focus on key design elements of high-quality, science-rich tinkering activities, effective facilitation strategies and environmental organization. Watch Intro Video About the Course The Tinkering Fundamentals course will offer educators and enthusiasts an opportunity to develop a practice of tinkering and making.  We see tinkering as a serious endeavor -- one that is generalizable across content and especially good at interweaving disciplines in a way that leads to complex projects and individualized learning opportunities.   Tinkering has recently been introduced into the educational field as a potential driver of creativity, excitement, and innovation in science learning. It is seen by many as an effective means to engage in exploring STEM concepts, practices and phenomena. Tinkering typically blends the high and low tech tools of science along with a strong aesthetic dimension that supports children's (and adults) self expression.  For over a decade, the Exploratorium has been developing science-rich tinkering activities. Working with learning scientists, we have identified a set of design principles and indicators of learning that can help you to integrate tinkering activities into your elementary and middle school science programs. This course will focus on key design elements of high quality science-rich tinkering activities, facilitation strategies, and environmental organization. Selected  tinkering activities will be centered around circuits for this course.  We will review the ways in which tinkering supports science learning through providing opportunities to deepen engagement, intentionality, innovation, collaboration, and understanding. This course will excite you, inspire you, and get you tinkering in

" Learn the secrets to great leadership practices, and get immediate and practical solutions that address your needs. More Permissions ASCD respects intellectual property rights and adheres to the laws governing them. Learn more about our permissions policy and submit your request online. Policies and Requests Translations Rights Books in Translation Home Current Issue Archives Buy Contact Read Abstract Online June 2014 | Volume 71 Making a Difference Pages 16-21 Overcoming the Challenges of Poverty Julie Landsman Here are 15 things educators can do to make our schools and classrooms places where students thrive. Last year, when I was leading a staff development session with teachers at a high-poverty elementary school, a teacher described how one of her kindergarten students had drifted off to sleep at his seat-at 8:00 a.m. She had knelt down next to the child and began talking loudly in his ear, urging him to wake up. As if to ascertain that she'd done what was best for this boy, she turned to the rest of us and said, "We are a 'no excuses' school, right?" A fellow teacher who also lived in the part of Minneapolis where this school was located and knew the students well, asked, "Did you know Samuel has been homeless for a while now? Last night, there was a party at the place where he stays. He couldn't go to bed until four in the morning." I couldn't help but think that if the "no excuses" philosophy a school follows interferes with basic human compassion for high-needs kids, the staff needs to rethink how they are doing things. Maybe they could set up a couple of cots for homeless students in the office to give them an hour or two of sleep; this would yield more participation than shouting at children as they struggle to stay awake. This isn't the first time I've heard of adults viewing low-income children as "the problem" rather than trying to understand their lives. In a radio interview I heard, a teenage girl in New O

"Whether your library or school has a dedicated makerspace, you are experimenting with maker and STEM programming, or looking for inspiration to get started, this inaugural installment of "Mix It Up" offers a broad selection of free or low-cost apps, websites, and tools for engaging kids and teens in creative maker projects. Our field-tested recommendations are grouped into three main sections: Coding, Filmmaking, Tinkering, and 3D Printing. Making is all about trial and error; don't be afraid to experiment with these tools and encourage playful exploration by your patrons or students. As makers like to say, "If at first you succeed…you're probably doing it wrong.""

The most recent issue of the 21cif Information Fluency newsletter. Feel free to join! Low volume news letter dedicated to searching, evaluating and ethical use of digital information. Includes an invitation for free access to our new 3 hour self paced training course and online assessment: Information Fluency Investigator 3.1.

Might help create a blended classroom, even when you have to share the blender.  Common sense advise for the real world of underequipped classrooms and stretched thin teachers.

How about a wristband that glows when you get a text message or a phone call on your smartphone? EMBRACE+ is the new gadget in the market that will glow in various colors on your wrist. The wristband will be a wearable gadget made for your smart phone and will display specific colors to indicate depending on what kind of notification you have received on your phone. You do not have to even take the phone out of the pocket. As soon as you get the notification, the wristband will give a visual notification in a specific color and will let you differentiate between a tweet and text message. The wristband connects to your smartphone using Wi-Fi connection.The EMBRACE+ wristband features will includes indications for incoming calls, text messages, new emails, notifications from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and will even give you low battery levels indications. It will have a special feature that will help secure your phone. It will give notification if the smartphone goes far away from the wristband. The release date of the EMBASE+ wristband is July 2013. By-The Xpert Crew @ http://techvedic.com https://www.facebook.com/techvedicinc https://twitter.com/techvedicinc http://pinterest.com/techvedic1 http://techvedicinc.tumblr.com/

While it becomes impossible to live without your iPhone 4S, you must be a bit worried about the habit of the gadget eating up all the battery at inopportune times.there are still some vital tips and tricks you can follow to improve your Smartphones battery life. Low Down The Screen Brightness Just as it goes for your laptop devices, you need to lower down the brightness of your iPhone screen, which will enhance the battery life. Adjust the screen brightness under the Settings tab. Make Use of Wi-Fi When You Can Instead of making Voice calls, downloading apps or browsing the Web over your iPhone 3G or cellular connection, it is recommended to always find a Wifi hotspot or make use of your home network. This will help you keep away not only from data charges but also will aid you have a better battery life as your device will not be searching for the data signals. Remember, if you are in an area where there is no Wi-Fi hotspot, it is better to turn off the search and it will help save the battery life of your iPhone 4S. Do Not Use The GPS Tracking Feature If you are using apps that support the feature of Automatic GPS tagging and location such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, your iPhone is working overtime to determine your location. If you do not want to be Geo-tag your updates and posts, must keep the GPS function off. Do Not Use The 'Fetch' & 'Push' feature If you have your iPhone 4S set to 'fetch' the data after every 30 minutes time along with numerous apps to push new alerts and messages as they happen, then you need to turn off this feature on your device. This feature is going to drain your battery. Only use the facility when you really need it otherwise keep it off. Keep Your Notifications In Check To enhance your iPhone 4S battery time, you need to limit your app notifications to just the apps you make use of more often. This actually means that you have to say 'no' to the requests for all kinds of notifications you ge

"Like many districts serving low-income populations, it was fairly easy for Piedmont City School District officials in Alabama to find funds for devices. District officials wanted to leverage technology to open up opportunities for the 1,240 students in this rural community, so they started sending devices home with kids in grades 4-12 in 2009 through a program they call mPower Piedmont. However, lack of access to the Internet after school and in kids' homes became a major obstacle to learning with those devices."

"Book Trailers Assessment Rubric is a framework you can use to assess book trailers students create. This assessment rubric contains nine categories and 4 columns. You are to assess students book trailers against each of these categories with a ranking order from low performance to high performance. The major areas to focus on in this assessment are : presentation ( its duration, interest level, persuasion), storyline or plot, audio ( voiceovers, soundtracks), Images, video editing, and audience."

"The Raspberry Pi was developed and built as a low-cost board to help encourage the understanding, learning and continued study of computing in schools. You probably know this already. But how, exactly, can schools embrace the Pi and promote this sort of education?"

"Growth mindset has become a pervasive theme in education discussions in part because of convincing research by Stanford professor Carol Dweck and others that relatively low-impact interventions on how a student thinks about himself as a learner can have big impacts on learning. The growth mindset research is part of a growing understanding and acknowledgement that many non-cognitive factors are important to academic learning."