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" The Puzzled Driver The odometer of the family car shows 15,951 miles. The driver noticed that this number is palindromic: it reads the same backward as forward. "Curious," the driver said to himself. "It will be a long time before that happens again." But 2 hours later, the odometer showed a new palindromic number. How fast was the car traveling in those 2 hours?"

"Connecting with each other comes to us more easily now that we can just tap away on a keyboard and chat with a person who lives over 3000 miles away. Finding information knows no boundaries with Google on every computer in the world. Below you will find 25 social media tools for education. As educators, this means access to more, faster, which is thrilling and mindboggling. However, it can also be frustrating and confusing with so much to choose from. How do you know which platform is the best for your goals? Which social media organization has the best resources and community? Which one would help you communicate better with your students? All of these questions flutter through our minds as our eyes wander through the gallons of information we search through. So, to simplify this daunting task for teachers, the following list consists of the best social media for teachers."

"Yik Yak is an app that allows anyone to post anything without attaching themselves to a username (you don't even need a password to log in). The timeline of Yik Yak looks like Twitter or Reddit without photos or handles: Yik Yak Yik Yak It's extremely localized; anyone within 1.5 miles of a message can read it. The fact that the network is built on physical proximity is key: If you open Yik Yak in the middle of Times Square, it's unlikely that the app will be of any benefit to you. If you open it in the middle of a high-school cafeteria, brace yourself."

"Call it an industrial evolution. As the maker movement outgrows the garage and shifts into popular culture, anyone with an internet connection can click into a world full of creative possibilities. That includes kids, some of whom can code, craft, and build with the best of us by elementary school. A slew of websites, fairs, and maker's guilds are available to introduce kids to the basics of design and engineering, and tech-savvy parents often bring their children into the fold by starting with small projects. Experimental schools, such as the Tinkering School or Brightworks Academy in San Francisco, are also tailoring their curricula towards hands-on skills aimed specifically at boosting fluency in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math). But you don't need a formal program or DIY-fluency to empower your kid to chase their creativity. All they need are some interesting tools, a little guidance, and the space to pursue their passions. For the parents of some kids, like Alonzo King, 12, that means letting him tear apart cassette players and see what he can build out of the parts. For others, like the parents of Miles Hacker (yes, that's his real name), 10, that means waking up to a living-room-sized spider web that their son made from a roll of tape."

"Brian South is an English teacher in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb 30 miles west of Chicago. He is also the faculty advisor of the literary magazine at Naperville North. When Brian began taking steps to self-publish his own novel, he did something few teachers feel totally comfortable doing-he invited his students to be part of the process. Bringing your outside interests into the classroom is tough for many teachers because they feel like they have to compartmentalize themselves. Others feel so pressed for time that sharing personal interested and hobbies seems like a burden. However, after he read a part of his novel at his school's open mic night, students in the creative writing club had a lot of feedback for Brian, who not only listened, but also soon realized that sharing his journey through self-publishing a novel could be an important way to empower students and potentially transform their lives."

"In much the same way that Facebook swept through the dorm rooms of America's college students a decade ago, Yik Yak is now taking their smartphones by storm. Its enormous popularity on campuses has made it the most frequently downloaded anonymous social app in Apple's App Store, easily surpassing competitors like Whisper and Secret. At times, it has been one of the store's 10 most downloaded apps. Like Facebook or Twitter, Yik Yak is a social media network, only without user profiles. It does not sort messages according to friends or followers but by geographic location or, in many cases, by university. Only posts within a 1.5-mile radius appear, making Yik Yak well suited to college campuses. Think of it as a virtual community bulletin board - or maybe a virtual bathroom wall at the student union. It has become the go-to social feed for college students across the country to commiserate about finals, to find a party or to crack a joke about a rival school. Much of the chatter is harmless. Some of it is not."

"The space nerds at NASA have officially hopped on the Meghan Trainor parody train with their ode to the Orion spacecraft, "All About That Space." The Pathways Interns of NASA's Johnson Space Center recorded and filmed the parody song to encourage further public interest in Orion, which saw its first successful test flight on Dec. 5. The spacecraft orbited Earth twice during its flight and traveled 60,000 miles before splashing down into the Pacific Ocean as planned. NASA's parody isn't the first space-themed "All About That Bass" parody - a group of geeky ladies penned a similar, Star Wars-themed parody in November."

Suppose, you intentionally deleted some data from your system with an objective to avoid clutter, but the very next moment you found that you had done a blunder actually -indeed a bizarre situation. But don't worry. Techvedic, a leading tech support vendor, goes the extra mile to help you recover Windows XP Recycle Bin.

"Two schools are both alike in dignity. Part of our story takes place in Jersey City, NJ while the other part takes place 32 miles away in Roslyn, NY. Some would argue that this is the best of times and the worst of times in education. This case study will celebrate what is good about education today by presenting two stories that illustrate how Green Screen technology on iPad can be used to support authentic student voice in learning environments on different ends of the educational spectrum."

"Need something to keep you busy this weekend? Look no further. The Weekend Workshop is our weekly column where we showcase a badass DIY project that you can complete with minimal skills and expertise. We've dug through all the online tutorials on the Web, and gone the extra mile to pinpoint projects that are equal parts easy, affordable, and fun. So put on your work pants, grab your tool belt, and head to the garage - it's time to start building!"

"Teaching compassion, empathy, or knowing how to help someone is best learned through direct experience. Autism Discovery Tool, by Spectrum Idea Lab Inc. is one such app that promotes not only understanding, but also ways to help address an individual's needs, and gives kids and adults a chance to "walk a mile in someone's shoes". It was intended as a tool to help kids on the spectrum, their families and caretakers identify both sensory styles and compensatory techniques so that they could open up a dialogue to communicate and share experiences. This little app however, has a much more powerful impact and reach. I consider it an essential app for all classrooms and families who deal with sensory issues, and not limited to those on the autistic spectrum alone."

Every year, Time magazine gets swamped with pitches from thousands of companies, all convinced their product deserves to be included in Time's "25 Best Inventions" list. This past December, the magazine reserved its cover for a Pixar-like, 11-inch armless robot named Jibo. Jibo - a so-called "social robot" - is just the latest example of a clear phenomenon: A new generation of exponentially more intelligent and capable robots is on the way. In fact, they're already everywhere we look: over our heads, in our cars and operating rooms, next to us on the assembly lines, in our military, and on the last mile. And the prospect of exponentially more robots, crunching exponentially more data, necessitates not just a lot more computing power but also an entirely new product architecture."

"Peering up, a teacher asked me, "What are we going to use it for?" as I flew our shiny new drone up between the umbrellas on the quad, past the roof of the gym, and into the low scattered clouds. The camera projected back to my iPhone, and I could see the newly planted trees in our quad, the only green for miles in the Mondrian concrete grid that is our local community. The students and teachers in the quad all looked up too, shielding their eyes to see the drone fly. Our custodians pulled up in their cart, and my assistant principal whooped like one of the middle schoolers on my campus. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. It's my job this year to answer questions like the one above. As a teacher on special assignment currently serving as curriculum coordinator for my school, I get to learn what's coming our way and devise methods of implementation. I specialize in technology and project-based learning, and I began thinking about implementing the drone immediately upon hearing that our district had purchased it. And I'm not the only one thinking about this issue. In the book Drones in Education, the International Society for Technology in Education touts the engagement factor but also sees academic potential in using drones. To guide schools to successfully implement the technology, the book promotes the SOAR model, which stands for Safety (ethics and legal use), Operation (flight and maintenance), Active learning (engagement in problem solving), and Research (practical applications)."

"I'm always looking for new ways to encourage my students to read. If you're a primary teacher, I know you do, too. I encourage students to read alone. To read with their teacher. To read to a classmate. To read to a big buddy. To read to their parents or siblings. The more you read, the better reader you will be, so it just makes sense. Because our classroom is connected with so many people OUTSDE the four walls of our physical space, I have sometimes been able to find a pre-service teacher or someone else who is willing to listen to my students read via Skype. When this happens, I have the students choose a book ahead of time. Then, I just make a list of the students who will be reading, post it near the computer and make sure the first student is connected and ready to go. As each student finishes reading, she tells the next student on the list that it is her turn to read. I am free to work with other students while this "reading center" runs itself."

"Is math ability genetic? Sure, to some degree. Terence Tao, UCLA's famous virtuoso mathematician, publishes dozens of papers in top journals every year, and is sought out by researchers around the world to help with the hardest parts of their theories. Essentially none of us could ever be as good at math as Terence Tao, no matter how hard we tried or how well we were taught. But here's the thing: We don't have to! For high-school math, inborn talent is much less important than hard work, preparation, and self-confidence."