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"Gold mining has been an integral part of world conquest from the time of the explorers. Gold and silver drove the explorers and Conquistadores to decimate world populations and colonize foreign lands, bringing home vast amounts of wealth to nations during what became known as the Age of Imperialism. Europeans colonized all parts of the globe in search of gold, silver, and cash crops. Although the colonization of America started as a result of turbulence in Europe and the search for religious freedom, it wasn't long before people struck out in search of riches here, too. The fever started with the California Gold Rush at the end of the 1840's. Ten years later, gold was discovered in Colorado, and silver at Pike's Peak and Nevada. Now, everyone wants a piece of Alaska."

"Getting Started with Minecraft Improving Minecraft Performance on Old and New Computers Meet the Biomes of Minecraft Exploring Minecraft's Structures Meet the Mobs of Minecraft Exploring Minecraft Game Modes Surviving Your First Night In Survival Mode Your First Mine, Armor, and Further Exploration Advanced Mining and the Magic of Enchanting I'm a Farmer, You're a Farmer, We are Farmers All Engineering with Redstone Creating Custom Minecraft Maps Downloading and Installing Custom Maps Setting Up Local Multiplayer and Custom Player Skins Exploring Minecraft Multiplayer Servers"

"Originally posted Sept 2010. Modified June 2011 (I have struckthrough ideas I've changed, and put in purple new ideas). Modified Oct 2011 for iOS 5 update (I have struckthrough ideas I've changed, and put in green new ideas). Modified (pink) May 2012 thanks to Bryan Hughes alerting me to Air Server. Modified (orange) Sept 2012 thanks to Disp Recorder's release. Finally, a way to record your iPad screen in any app! The Apple Fairy has come to your classroom and given you some iPads and/or iPod Touches to use for learning? You and your students sure are the lucky ones. I know what you're thinking though: "So what now, technically speaking?" There are many different ways to set your iDevices up. Here is how I've done mine:"

"Conducting an extensive data mining for writing a scholarly academic paper does definitely require using online digital resources. Admittedly, a lot of the resources you want to cite in your paper can be found online and most of them through social media like Twitter. I have been experiencing this myself while working on the literature review of my thesis. I included many tweets in my paper using the APA style. To be sure my citations meet the academic standards I bought Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition . However after reading this guide, I wrote a short post on how to include citations in scholarly papers and today I am sharing with you another great resource on the same topic . This is basically an awesome chart featuring the different ways to cite social media using both MLA and APA style. I knew about this from our wonderful techy specialist Aditi Rao. "

"Kathy Cassidy was so kind to extend a copy of her new book Connect from the Start: Global Learning in Primary Grades to me. Globally connected learning is a passion of mine, as regular readers of Langwitches can attest to. I was eager to read Kathy's book, which is grounded in authentic experiences from her 1st grade classroom."

"Unchaining Dreams A network about ending human trafficking. It is a project and students are joining in. If this is your passion (like mine) then you may want to look into this. Thanks to my friend Toni Olivieri-Barton for letting me know."

"AppCrawlr mines app data scattered all across the web to learn everything about apps. AppCrawlr knows good alternatives to Angry Birds are physics based, challenging, addictive games with great sound effects, solid replay value, and super fun. "

"A good friend of mine, Mary Fraizer, is the Tech Integration Specialist in the Buhler School District. The Buhler School District is implementing iPads fast & furiously. Mary created this absolutely wonderful resource to help her teachers. I thought it might be useful to many of you, feel free to share the link with anyone you think would benefit. Our iPads Launchpad http://buhleripads.wikispaces.com/Home"

"A good friend of mine has just become an Assistant Principal (Vice Principal), which was probably one of the best jobs that I have ever had. Often you get to help guide the direction of the school but you still have many opportunities to be in the classroom and connect with kids, more so than a principal. That being said, I believe that a principal can still connect with kids in many ways, but in my experience, they have a lot more meetings and have to be out of school a lot more."

"Yesterday, I co-presented a workshop with a well respected colleague of mine on special education iPad apps that can be used for reading and writing. It was a one-day workshop that was well attended by local educators who were looking to further integrate the iPad into special education classrooms to help further Language Arts goals for their students."

"Sphero balls have become a staple part of many schools Makerspaces and mine is no different. They really do offer amazing creativity and deep learning through visual programming with strong links to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) problem solving skills and computational thinking.  CompNow ran a competition this year to promote the use of Sphero's in education and in particular how they can be included in all areas of the curriculum. It was timely that the Olympics were recently held in Rio and provided an interesting cross curricula topic."

"So, in order to model the importance of continually changing and adapting to our students' needs, we began with a dream of mine - building a Lego wall. Legos are a timeless classic for creativity, building, and fun. Kids of all ages enjoy this magnificent toy. For many, Legos come with a set of instructions and a product to build. Other times, kids have free reign on their creativity in order to build something new and different. In our school's Makerspace, Legos are a staple in our building station. Kids can create whatever they wish with Legos and even integrate those Legos with other materials for their project. With the inspiration of others online and on TV, we decided to put our Legos on the wall. Putting Legos on the wall not only is something new and different for our kids to experience, but it is also a space saver. Students can build on the wall, creating interesting artwork, simply creating anything new with Legos."

"I absolutely love all of the new robotics toys that have been coming out for elementary age learners.  I have been using them for my summer maker camp, with my gifted education classes, and for my upcoming Saturday morning program. One of my gifted girls noted, "Where do all of these robots come from?" I laughed and told her, "It's actually has become one of my passions. Collecting them has become a major hobby of mine." I usually use them for an hour per week with my two groups of gifted learners.  I am an advocate of student-centric learning and giving them choices as to which instructional activities they would like to engage. For their robotics hour each week, I am giving them the following choices with their goal of using five of the robotics to complete five of the tasks provided. My robotics-type devices include:"

"The merits of doing research and creating these reports and papers are valid. When they create them, students … Gather information Evaluate sources Organize and synthesize data Form ideas and cohesive thoughts Create a polished, finished product Cite where they got their information Here's the problem, though: the finished product just isn't very relevant to the real world, be it in the workforce or in people's personal lives. Reports and papers often end up where mine always did - in the trash. If students are going to do their best work to learn and create, shouldn't it be in a form they can be proud of - and that they want to show others? I think it's time that we turn research reports and papers on their heads. Here are 10 creative alternatives:"

"If you read my blog then you know I love all things Makey Makey!  While I was writing Makey Makey lesson plans last summer, I was super stoked to hear the announcement of their Kickstarter campaign for the super portable Makey Makey Go. Mine came just in time for Christmas, but unfortunately, I had to hold off on tinkering with it right away because Aaron and I have been busy working on projects for our upcoming book deadline. We've finally had some time to work out a few projects with the Go and I am in LOVE with it!"

"Recently, I was given the opportunity to go one-to-one in my first grade classroom with iPads. To say that my students and I were excited to do this would be a bit of an understatement. It has long been a dream of mine to go one-to-one and for the students it is, as they say, like kids in a candy shop. With Great Tools Comes Great Responsibility"

"I am conducting a series of workshops in Florida and was asked to share a rubric to help teachers evaluate educational apps as part of the workshop. In 2010 Harry Walker developed a rubric, and I used his rubric (with some modifications by Kathy Schrock) as the basis for mine."

"The school district neighboring mine recently announced a new health and fitness curriculum that emphasizes "lifetime" fitness. One aspect of the curriculum focuses on helping students make healthy food choices. That news prompted me to put together this list of resources that can help students discover new healthy foods and make healthy food choices."

"Top 20 Hidden iOS 7 Features That You Likely Don't Know About"

"With hundreds of new features to boot, iOS 7 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is a gold mine waiting to be explored to its full potential. Today, we're going to go through some of the most lesser known features and tips which we believe you should try right now."