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"Recently, when I perused my twitter feed, I came upon a blog post titled Teacher as Learning Designer. Andrew Miller, the author, states: "If you are a teacher and you are trying to explain what you do, say, 'I am a learning designer!' Teachers need to be empowered with a variety of instructional designs to meet the needs of all students. They need to be honored for their expertise to create creative and engaging learning environments. We can re-frame the concept of "teaching" to truly encapsulate all that teachers can and should do!" The way teachers teach their students has, I believe, a direct correlation to the way in which they learn themselves. We have all read in the latest teaching journals that teachers of today have to be devoted to lifelong learning. But what does that mean, really? What elements affect teacher learning and then in turn affect how that teacher teaches?"

"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!"

"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."

"Brydon Lowey is the first to admit he doesn't care for folders, pens and paper when it comes to learning. The Grade 9 student at Miller Comprehensive High School in Regina has a new tool at his fingertips which has helped his marks skyrocket over recent months - an iPad."

"Let's get one thing straight here. I love my morning cup of joe. I'm not alone in saying my day doesn't start without it. Sixty percent of American coffee drinkers claim they need coffee to start their day. But when I came across an infographic by Ryoko Iwata, a Japanese coffee-lover with a blog titled "I Love Coffee" who followed research on the 24-hour circadian clock gathered by Steven Miller, a PhD candidate at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesada, I decided to change my ways. The infographic shows the early morning hours are the worst time to drink coffee."

"A new wave of e-textbooks is giving students more than just words and a few hotlinks on a digital page. Publishers over the last few years have been adding video, interactive maps and gamified quizzes designed to engage students more deeply in their learning. "Think of it as making the textbook a hands-on activity," says Andrew Miller, an ASCD faculty member and technology expert. "It's making the content come to life in a way that meets the needs of different learners-auditory learners, visual leaders, text-based learners." The latest e-textbooks, developed by traditional publishers as well as new players like Discovery Education, are powered by a host of adaptive features, such as adjustable levels of difficulty and instant translation into other languages. And in some districts, teachers are using platforms like Apple's iBooks to create their own digital course materials."

""Have you seen this video?" The Twitter message from my good friend and fellow thought-instigator Daniel Scibienski pointed me toward If You Build It, a recent PBS documentary about designer/educator/activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller persuading an underfunded school board to create a new kind of design-based program for the students at Windsor High School in Bertie County, North Carolina. What I saw affected me profoundly: students, confused and reluctant at first, gradually developing skills and abilities with tools they'd never used before, designing and building increasingly complex things; failing, trying again, improving, collaborating, and ultimately succeeding and celebrating. I, too, have a vision for a new kind of classroom. I, too, am building something radical, exciting, and even revolutionary. I want to tap the power of design thinking to transform learning in my classroom. We're bringing shop class back to my middle school -- but this time, it's digital."

GREATER ESTIMATIONS by Bruce Goldstone (Holt) FUN WITH ROMAN NUMERALS by David Adler, illustrated by Edward Miller III (Holiday House) SPOT THE DIFFERENCES by Steven Rosen (Scholastic)

"This is a beautiful lesson designed and presented by Rob Miller on Scrib. What I really like about this series of activities is that it allows the students or in Rob's case his teachers to articulate their own learning. It is never about a single app. It is the combination of apps that allow the learners to meet the learning outcomes. It is a great example of building a meaningful lesson around a concept and then providing the students with the tools to create content."

"The word "grit" suggests toughness and determination. The question is how do we get students to value struggle, failure and perseverance in our classrooms? ASCD recently published Thomas Hoerr's short but great book on this subject, Fostering Grit. The subtitle "How do I prepare my students for the real world?" reflects the fact that our students will encounter challenging work and problems to solve. If this is the case, our classrooms should mirror that process and prepare our students to be successful in meeting these challenges. You might consider this a critical 21st century skill, which means that we need to scaffold the related skills we're teaching our students. "

"Earlier today Shannon Miller Tweeted about a free drawing tool called Sketch Toy. Students do not have to register to use Sketch Toy and they can download all of their drawings to use in other projects. After trying Sketch Toy I decided to revisit some other drawing tools that do not require students to register in order to create and download drawings. "

Thursday Keynote - #BLC14 featuring Shannon Miller, Darren Kuropatwa, Sarah Wilkie and Shilpa Yarlagadda.