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"You know those grammar errors that students make in second grade ... and third grade ... and are still making in high school? Here are 10 lesson ideas that just might make the grammar rules stick, by WeAreTeachers blogger Erin Bittman. This is the fifth post in the Teaching Young Writers blog series sponsored by Zaner-Bloser's Strategies for Writers."

"Not so long ago, video games in the classroom were limited to educational computer games that taught skills like multiplication or parts of speech. A growing number of teachers, however, are integrating the popular games kids play at home (such as "Angry Birds," for example) into their curriculums. What's more, researchers say that video games can be a powerful path to learning since they allow kids to grow from their mistakes, develop problem-solving skills and find internal motivation."

"The role of technology in learning isn't entirely clear-or rather, is subjective. While it clearly is able to provide access to peers, audiences, resources, and data, it also can be awkward, problematic, distracting, performing more strongly as a barrier to understand than anything else. Why this happens also isn't clear, but there are some common patterns and missteps to look for while designing or evaluating a learning process."

"Creating is important. In the West, traditional education has concentrated mainly on our heads, on filling them with knowledge. Little time and effort has been put into teaching students to be creative, to think widely (or often, deeply for that matter). In the past few decades, as our societies have advanced technologically, we have somehow arrived at the point where an education that places at least some emphasis on making actual real things with our hands and our minds is seen as second class, as "vocational." This is a mistake."

"Coding brings young children rich opportunities for language development and the "notion of learning from mistakes," says Chip Donohue, the dean of distance learning and continuing education at the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a graduate school in child development. "We actually don't do enough of that with young kids." The sequencing and patterns involved in programming reinforce skills that have always been taught in the early years, but now also create "habits of mind that are essential for the 21st century," adds Donohue, also senior fellow at the Fred Rogers Center, which provides resources and information on media use with young children. When children code together, they are also learning from each other. "In the process of learning to code, people learn many other things. They are not just learning to code, they are coding to learn," Mitchel Resnick, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, wrote in an EdSurge article. "In addition to learning mathematical and computational ideas (such as variables and conditionals), they are also learning strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas." Resnick adds that these skills are useful to everyone "regardless of age, background, interests, or occupation.""

"During my early days of teaching coding to sixth graders, my immediate reaction was to feel apologetic for a lesson that was not going smoothly for students. I would rush over and show them exactly what they did wrong. They would fix it, the code would run and there would be satisfied smiles as they moved to the next part of the project. As you can guess, this is not a sustainable or a desirable approach to teach coding. A large part of learning to code is "debugging," fixing mistakes in the code written so that it runs as desired. Debugging is difficult. It requires patience, persistence and an almost scientific approach-skills that are not easy to teach in one class. Debugging is particularly challenging for young students who are driven by the end product, such as a game. They often do not perceive the intermediate debugging stage as a learning opportunity; they just want to fix the bug and move on! "

"I love teaching! I love being a School Librarian & Technology Specialist. I love my practice, my profession, my school, my library, my students, my families, and my community! I can't imagine doing anything else that feeds my soul like being an educator. I love the seasons and the time and tide of it. * Every new school year is a do-over. Any and all the mistakes or things you didn't get to do the year before can be corrected the next year. I can't think of any other profession that gives you such a clear start and stop and a time to reflect. The great thing about summers off (other than that they are made of awesome) is the ability to step back and reflect about the past school year. "

"Part of the benefit of jumping forward with a 1:1 iPad deployment like we have tried is that we get the opportunity to impart knowledge to other districts looking to do a similar initiative. While that might not seem like a benefit, it actually also means we can make some mistakes because there is not a long history of this type of deployment in the world. "

"The Maker Movement is one of creativity and invention. Of Do-It-Yourself ingenuity. Of making things with your own hands. Building something from scratch can shift a lesson from a lecture into an experience. Students can play, diverge, tinker, make mistakes, help each other, and express themselves with the appropriate guidance of a teacher/facilitator. The end result can be anywhere from an honest try to a creative wonder. Whatever the case, consider adding the following tools to your experiential learning toolkit. Curated by elementary school technology coach Elizabeth Espinoza, this comprehensive collection contains web, desktop, and mobile apps that can help your students become makers and inventors."

"The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you're trying to teach. We still have to focus on the task at hand. Don't mistake social media for socializing. They're different -- just as kids talking as they work in groups or talking while hanging out are different. You don't even have to bring the most popular social media sites into your classroom. You can use Fakebook or FakeTweet as students work on this form of conversation. Edublogs, Kidblog, Edmodo, and more will let you use social media competencies and writing techniques. Some teachers are even doing "tweets" on post-it notes as exit tickets. You can use mainstream social media, too."

Great examples of how technology can improve the learning and parent/student/teacher relationships. Follow up post to 7 stupid mistakes teachers do with technology http://tinyurl.com/5qh76q

"Do you see that microphone button at the bottom left of the iPad screen when the keyboard appears? I always knew about the dictation feature, but I never really used it before a couple weeks ago. I'm actually writing this post by speaking it, all while in the car! The accuracy is quite good, there are rarely any mistakes if you speak clearly. I've been using it recently for a lot of things: text messages, emails, and blogging. "