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"This 'wheel' of AAC Apps by Sally Millar and Gillian McNeill of CALL Scotland, provides a categorised guide to iPad Apps for people with complex communication support needs, who may need to use some form(s) of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)."

"Even though I create nearly all of my documents online and use cloud storage services that support a multitude of file formats, there are still a few occasions when someone sends me a file that I need to convert. If your school is not using Google Drive, Dropbox, or a similar cloud service, you may find yourself and your students in need of a file conversion tool too. A more common need for a file conversion tool arises when we start to work with audio and video files. Here are file good online file conversion tools. "

"I have always believed that teachers (and people in general) MUST have an open midset; one that tolerates and celebrates mistakes and errors; one that looks at failure as an opportunity for a better beginning. It is through falling down that we stand up robust and it is through misfortunes that we gather our strength to live the life we want and pursue our dreams. If we want to raise up socially and  emotionally strong students who can face up and overcome  the hardships of life, an important key in this is to teach (and model) them about failure. We need to show them that failure is a healthy sign and a good omen for a healthy life experience. They need to view failure as an attempt for deep reflection and meditation about what work or did not work. They also need to be reminded that failure has been a common denominator behind most of the historical achievements and invention in the history of humankind."

"This recent tweet from Darren Kuropatwa has had me thinking about digital citizenship. As the Internet becomes an increasingly important part of all of our lives, children are spending more time online as well. And they are doing this largely without any guidance about what is responsible or appropriate online. While my six- and seven-year old students don't yet even understand the words "digital" or "citizenship," they also need direction and support as they explore online spaces. In fact, they need this instruction even more than their older counterparts."

" 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

A social-media guide for public broadcasters targets the skeptical and the ambitious Until now, hundreds of independent NPR and PBS affiliates have had no common resource for best practices in social media. By Andrew Phelps Even though NPR and PBS have social media policies (while other news organizations choose not to and still others debate their value), hundreds of independent public broadcasters have shared no common resource for social-media best practices. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting wants to fill that gap with a newly released social media handbook for stations, which is hosted at the National Center for Media Engagement website. CPB commissioned the marketing firm iStrategy Labs to write a guide that targets a broad audience: not just the stations who need guidance, but the stations who still need convincing of social media's value."

Just clicked a picture and want to take its print-out? Well, for this you must need a PC attached with the printer or you need to mail that photograph to yourself. Don't you think there should be an easy solution for this? No need to worry anymore as Techvedic is here with the solution. Now, printing directly from your mobiles and tablets is possible.

"There is a difference between personalized learning and differentiation. Differentiation is a kind of personalized instruction, where teachers adjust process, & product, according to a student's readiness, interest, & learning style. Planning of the learning starts with the content, and the content remains the same for all students. This is a school and curriculum-centered approach that attempts to amend the delivery of the content to match the student's needs, strengths, and general readiness. Personalized learning starts with the learner and asks the question, "What does this student need to understand, and how best can that happen?" This is a student-centered approach, and is built around the idea of recognizing the vast differences in students-not just in terms of literacy or schema, but an authentic need to know."

"Innovation… Versatility… Performance… What teacher doesn't want to provide the best technology has to offer for students? But with a plethora of choices, sometimes it's overwhelming trying to determine what device best suits the needs of all learners. So, what should educators choose-the power of a laptop or the compact, lightweight portability of a tablet? Well, it's no longer necessary to settle for one option when the best of both worlds are at your fingertips. Yep, it's true. With the latest and greatest technologies currently available on the market, students now have access to the functionality of a laptop while also having the capability of completing captivating assignments and/or creating meaningful content via a tablet. And better yet: The instruction and learning goals can dictate the type of device being used as opposed to the reverse, which typically occurs in classrooms today. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm referring to a super cool technology known as the 2-in-1. Whether your students need to generate a document or spreadsheet, transfer files, read an e-book, capture photos or create media, this hybrid does it all with just one simple twist, click or flip. Not only is this option flexible and convenient, but cost-effective as well because schools no longer need to provide students with more than one device to achieve desired outcomes. It's really all that-and much more!"

"Every day on Twitter, media outlets, and through my inbox, I am lambasted with arguments as to the essential elements of 21st century learning and teaching and its merits. Most of the skills and knowledge associated with 21st century learning begin with "C" for some strange reason, and deal with notions of creativity, collaboration, citizenship, etc. Here is a very popular framework. While I do acknowledge that we need a perpetual debate as to what learning is and what excellence in teaching might be, I think that much of our focus as educators has been diverted to thought experiments where we are trying to predict the future. We are told what skills students will need in the future as if we have a crystal ball. How can we presume to prepare young people for any kind of future? Will they need lasers are on their heads?"

" "Why are we okay that management hasn't seen innovation in a 100 or 50 years, but we demand innovation in every other aspect of our lives?" Jamie Notter As we continue to look at teachers, students, and learning becoming more "innovative", it is important that leadership changes. As administrators often set the tone for their district or their building, if they are saying the same, it is not likely that things are going to change in the classroom. Leadership needs to not only "think" different, but they need to "act" different. For leaders to be effective in changing a school or an organization, they need to change themselves first. It is way too easy to go a leadership conference and get ideas of things that you are going to do with your staff. What is important is changing your own practice first. So along the lines of what is happening within "pockets" of classrooms around the world, leaders must embody the characteristics that they seek. As my good friend Jimmy Casas says, "what we model is what we get.""

"We need to teach students about how to properly use and leverage social media. For many very good reasons, social media has been given a bad rap in the past few years. There have been far too many cases of cyberbullying with tragic results. However, social media is not going to go away. It is here to stay and we as educators have a responsibility to teach students how to use it properly. Instead of banning it from our classrooms, we need to embrace it and model the many great ways that it can be used. (Sylvia Duckworth in https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/pmate-ppmee.nsf/eng/wz02162.html)"

"This year's Hour of Code has received unprecedented coverage.  Hadi Padovi from code.org opened the Nasdaq stock exchange and celebrities came out in full force to push computer science.  We heard the same alarming statistics that 95% of CS jobs will go unfilled.  Millions of students worldwide participated in activities that resembled puzzles.  Padovi tweeted a reply to me when I asked how the popularity of HOC compared to last year: As good as the activities are, they lack some needed elements.  The Hour of Code activities are not tied into curriculum. They are a one day event centred on puzzles.  One hour is not enough.  I would draw a parallel by saying we do not host "hour of gym" or "hour of music" activities once each year. What happens now?  The need for students to learn code and computer science will not disappear over this week.   In fact, we resolved very little.  My hope is that this week will be a springboard for more coding.  If students are to benefit from Hour of Code, we need to: Bring Coding into the existing curriculum and into the classroom Push STEM and find ways to bring it to every school Ensure that every teacher and student is aware of coding, CS and STEM Work with High Schools and the job sector to facilitate these programs"

"It's no secret that students today spend a lot of time online, and that's why educators need to ensure that our students are equipped with digital citizenship and media literacy skills to help them navigate the terrain. Students need to know how to find reliable sources and spot misinformation. They need to know what information is appropriate - and inappropriate - to share. Often, educators try to instill this information via traditional instruction in a classroom. But when presented this way, it can fall flat. The key to helping students make good decisions online is to mentor them in their spaces and allow them to pursue their interests. This personalized learning approach, which addresses several of the ISTE Standards for Students, has real-world application that hooks our students and helps them internalize media literacy and digital citizenship skills. Here are five practical steps that educators can take to help graduate media literate digital citizens - those who learn, curate, collaborate and contribute thoughtfully to social media networks."

"In such a world, the last thing a teacher needs to give her pupils is more information. They already have far too much of it. Instead, people need the ability to make sense of information, to tell the difference between what is important and what is unimportant, and, above all, to combine many bits of information into a broad picture of the world."

"Never have design thinking, design practice and creative skills been as important to Canada's future as they are now. Today, competitive success is determined by the ability to understand human needs and desires and to deliver richly imagined ways of addressing them. Many organizations recognize the importance of innovation, but they don't know how to achieve it. The answer is design. Designers allow companies to stay ahead of their customers by anticipating and addressing human needs and behaviours in a complex and changing world. Technology needs to be intentionally designed for and with people. Design creates the experience of a product, system or service, the individual, social and cultural experience, and the value and the impact it has. Design is the bridge between raw invention and application. The essence of design thinking involves empathizing deeply, listening to people and observing them to identify tough problems to address or new opportunities to explore. Design thinking marries systems analysis with outcomes-oriented problem solving. It's relevant to the development and enhancement of services, products and business methods. It's as applicable to large companies as it is to startups and non-profits."

" I heard a great talk a few months ago. It was Conrad Wolfram (probably one of the world's leading mathematicians) who suggested, that we should stop teaching our kids maths. Whoah! He said, and I'm paraphrasing, we needed to teach them computational thinking instead. What is that? He said every problem needs breaking apart, exploding it into its parts - if we are to begin to properly solve them. And better still that we explain to kids how to put that idea into practice. Explain to them, for example, that to make their bike go faster they might figure out how much bigger the peddle wheel needs to be than than the one on the back wheel. According to Wikipedia computational thinking is an iterative process based on three stages: 1. Problem formulation (abstraction) 2. Solution expression (automation) 3. Solution execution and evaluation (analyses) That REALLY works for me."

"Coding is, apparently, the new language we all need to learn. It's billed as essential by the likes of Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking. General Motors CEO Mary Barra calls coding a "core skill" that you need to learn if you want a high-paying job. But what if this emphasis on coding is distracting us from teaching kids about other, more important things that they'll actually need for the jobs of the future? Marina Gorbis, executive director of the Institute for the Future, sees this obsession with coding as the equivalent of putting all our eggs into one basket."

"Do you know how to change the oil on your car? What about how to knit a scarf? Or how to make compost? If you need some help with life's little chores, the internet is full of guidance. But which sites should you head to when you need some advice? Here are 12 how-to sites that everyone needs to have saved in their bookmarks."

"Losing your job to robots is no longer a sci-fi fantasy. Some estimates say, robots may take over more than five million jobs across 15 developed countries. Machines could account for more than half the workforce in places like Cambodia and Indonesia, particularly in the garment industry. While such information has led many people to seek out higher-tech skills, others have said we need a stronger emphasis on trade skills to combat the high competition in tech fields. In one 2016 survey, 60 percent of respondents wanted more emphasis on Shop classes in high schools, while a 2015 Gallup poll found that 90 percent of parents want computer sciences emphasized in schools. The good news. There are some skills robots can't embody, and if you have them, there's no need to worry about losing your job due to robotic advancements. Better yet, many of them are transferrable, meaning they can help you advance your career, even if you need to change industries. Here are eight skills that can keep your job from being handed off to a robot."