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"If you've been keeping up on edtech news in the past decade, you might have noticed that coding courses have been targeting younger and younger students every year. Starting in college? Lost cause. High school? Behind! Elementary school? Perfect. The younger and younger the lessons will start, until we learn how to pre-program babies to be tech geniuses. While this might seem like micromanagement of children's destinies to some, we must all face the truth: coding is the new writing. As computer programming skills become more and more crucial to future careers, coding will become more prevalent as a required skill for high school graduation. So, once we've faced the music about the need for students to start programming instruction young, where do we begin? Coding camps are all the rage right now, and well worth the expense, but not all parents can afford the additional cost of instruction. So, we took a look at a few of the more affordable coding games out there to see just what the worldwide web has to offer"

Have you been spending too much of your time on social media recently? Is that making much of your internet usage wasteful? Social media can be so addictive, so much that we spend hours on it without really noticing. While social media does contribute in healthy discussions and is also our primary source of news and ideas at times, it's equally likely to encourage us to refrain from learning something useful in our lives. It's very important to keep our social media usage in check if we want to enrich ourselves with great learning experiences and upgrade our lives. Here are 25 great websites which you should check if you want to escape from the vicious trap of social media and live a life full of knowledge, joy, and inspiration.

"Kids who struggle with reading get an early lesson in one of life's more sucky realities; the earlier a person falls behind, the harder it is to even want to catch up. Their classmates move on to more interesting books, write stories that get noticed and get rewarded for finishing their work fast. Meanwhile the slower readers can barely make sense of the activity sheet in front of them. When a child can't read, school becomes either a huge, grinding drag or a very efficient confidence-removal machine. Usually both. Reading is not a natural ability. The vast majority of humans don't just pick it up; they have to be taught it quite explicitly. Until Johannes Gutenberg invented mechanical movable type, most people had little use for reading, just as now the vast majority of people have no use for weaving. And for some, acquiring this essential skill is an incredibly frustrating experience. Education experts are not of one mind about how much of the population has a diagnosable reading disorder such as dyslexia, but it's clear that while kids all read at different ages and stages, some otherwise average-intelligence people find reading an unusually hard slog."

"The students in Molly James's kindergarten classroom were tasked with creating a mathematical art gallery. They had each drawn a number and then searched for two types objects they could use to compose a visual number sentence - such as two rulers plus three scissors to equal five objects. After photographing and mounting their pictures on the wall in numerical order, the students sat on the floor with their sketchbooks and began to draw and talk. "I had expected them to learn something about number composition," James said, "but I didn't expect the remarkable observations they began to have about the photographs." For example, when one girl looked at a picture of two red scissors and three blue scissors (2+3=5), she noticed that the direction of the handles gave rise to a new number sentence: 4 scissors pointing left + 1 scissor pointing right = 5 scissors. James, who recently published a paper about creativity in the classroom, said moments like these remind her that "creativity is not fluff or an add-on, but is instead an essential part of what it means to be a mathematician."  In fact, she believes creativity is the key to helping her students become confident and skilled mathematical thinkers."

Teaching is by nature a high energy profession that demands a lot and while their is much to celebrate there is arena danger of burnout. Taking some time to relax and de-stress is important as is noticing the signs that you are reaching your limit. For all teachers understanding that a break and a change of schedule benefits not just you but your students too can be the catalyst for granting yourself permission for a genuine break.

"Most educators are aware of the "Four C's" (Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication) and their importance in schools for ensuring the development of today's skills in our students (I appreciate Will Richardson's contention that "curiosity" should be the fifth "C" and is more important than the others).  But there are other essential skills and traits that many schools teach, either through learning in the classroom or by providing extra-curricular activities, which are not as widely acknowledged, but are extremely important. From my experience being a part of schools and visiting, I have noticed that great schools teach these essentials that are timeless: "

How long do you think teachers pause, on average, after asking a question? Several studies from the 1970s on have looked into the effect that the amount of time teachers pause after asking a question has on learners. In visiting many classrooms in the United States and other parts of the world, I've found that, with few exceptions, these studies are still accurate. For example, according to work done by Mary Budd Rowe in 1972 and Robert J. Stahl in 1994, pausing for three or more seconds showed a noticeable positive impact on learning. Yet the average length that teachers pause was found to be 0.9 seconds. Wow.

"One question has fascinated me my entire adult life: what causes some people to become world-class leaders, performers, and changemakers, while most others plateau? I've explored the answer to this question by reading thousands of biographies, academic studies, and books across dozens of disciplines. Over time, I've noticed a deeper practice of top performers, one so counterintuitive that it's often overlooked. Despite having way more responsibility than anyone else, top performers in the business world often find time to step away from their urgent work, slow down, and invest in activities that have a long-term payoff in greater knowledge, creativity, and energy. As a result, they may achieve less in a day at first, but drastically more over the course of their lives."

"When you show your work, you are forced to communicate what you did and how you did it in a way that others understand. It becomes a chance to reflect on your work but also clarify misconceptions and catch any blind spots. If you look at the entire metacognition cycle mentioned in the video, you'll notice that the last part of metacognition is the reflection piece. When students are sharing their journey, they are more reflective on their process and better able to plan a new approach in the future."

"For too long, the American education system failed too many kids, including far too many poor kids and kids of color, without enough public notice or accountability. To combat this, leaders of all political persuasions championed the use of testing to measure progress and drive better results. Measurement has become so common that in school districts from coast to coast you can now find calendars marked "Data Days," when teachers are expected to spend time not on teaching, but on analyzing data like end-of-year and mid-year exams, interim assessments, science and social studies and teacher-created and computer-adaptive tests, surveys, attendance and behavior notes. It's been this way for more than 30 years, and it's time to try a different approach. The big numbers are necessary, but the more they proliferate, the less value they add. Data-based answers lead to further data-based questions, testing, and analysis; and the psychology of leaders and policymakers means that the hunt for data gets in the way of actual learning. The drive for data responded to a real problem in education, but bad thinking about testing and data use has made the data cure worse than the disease."

"Anxious, overconfident, curious, indifferent, angry, amused, lonely, hopeful, embarrassed, empowered, afraid, excited, diminished-teachers have seen all these emotions emerge from students as they engage with classroom content. Emotional responses to lessons often go through students' minds before they even begin to think about the material: This stuff is stupid/awesome/beyond me. I'm not comfortable with this. Finally, something I'm good at. Maybe somebody will notice I can't read. Let's see her find a mistake in that one-it's perfect. Does the teacher know I didn't study this last night? Some of us deny this reality and claim we aren't trained to guide children's emotional health. We think our purpose is to teach content and skills only, not to deal with the touchy-feely stuff. This attitude turns a blind eye to the developmental nature of the students we serve, and it runs afoul of how minds learn. Unless we're the most severe of sociopaths, we all have emotional responses that affect what we do. Adding to the messiness, our individual perspectives and experiences may put us out of sync with others' emotional states, even as the institutional nature of schools demands emotional synchronicity. The resulting miscommunication, blame, anxiety, and frustration are not the best ingredients for a good day at school. Teachers who deny the emotional elements of teaching and learning can become exhausted from ceaseless confrontations with students' emotional states, often blaming their personal stress and students' failure to learn on students' lack of motivation or maturity. They grow disconnected from students, creating an almost adversarial relationship with them: I need to get them to shape up. It's them or me. These students are hopeless; why should I bother? It's the parents who created this situation. This attitude can bleed into daily interactions with students and colleagues. It doesn't have to be this way. We can develop constructive responses to our own

"Coding is the ability to write step by step instructions (programs) for a computer to understand to complete a task. The Hour of Code website has tons of ready to go online activities that get students to write code that results in a number of cool outcomes, such as making a monster dance, creating avatars, remixing music or making a game. When students complete these easy tutorials they learn these important skills- logic, problem solving, fitting puzzle pieces together, selection, instructional writing, editing, revision, and creation. Below are some great websites to find engaging coding projects that take an hour or less. Most require no registration! Just provide students with a quick introduction to the task on the projector and the link for them to get started. I would highly recommend doing the activity first. In the next post I will introduce you to unplugged activities, which get students to focus on specific coding skills you will notice in these activities, which include working with puzzles, providing good instructions, problem solving and algorithms."

"Have you ever seen a movie in which a superhero flies through the sky? You can see all the skyscrapers whizzing by in the background, and it looks so cool. Have you ever WONDERed how movie makers film such shots? Well, we're here to tell you the secret. And the secret is: there are really superheroes and you just have to catch them in action! OK, not really, but the special effects professionals who work on movies are like superheroes, because they have invented some incredible ways to create special effects shots that will knock your socks off! You don't have to watch a superhero movie to see special effects in action, though. All you need to do is turn on the news and watch the local weather forecast. Have you ever noticed how the meteorologist sometimes stands in front of a map with moving graphics? Those scenes are created in much the same way that those cool movie special effects are created."

"Explicit Teaching in Problem-based Mathematics offers a re-imagining of what it means to engage in "direct" instruction. Rather than a separate pedagogical approach, explicit instruction is an integral part of problem-based learning and instruction. Animation and video are used to feature educator moves that support students to "notice things they would not otherwise see." Think uncovering. Think making visible. "

"Creatively combining the Notice Wonder strategy with a numberless word problem helps students see themselves as mathematicians."

"Have you noticed more discussion recently about Artificial Intelligence or AI? When first hearing "Artificial Intelligence" is there an image that pops into your mind? Is it something that you can easily define? Perhaps your understanding/reference point is something you've seen in the movies. For myself, being an 80s child, my initial frame of reference is Star Wars, I immediately think of R2D2 or C3PO. My mind then wanders to thoughts of "I, Robot" starring Will Smith, in which the robots developed the capacity to think like humans, to feel and to take action on their own. And more currently, I think of the Alexa, Echo, Siri and others that have gained popularity, even more so recently. But what is the true meaning of AI and how do we see it in daily life?"

It's interesting how threads emerge from the books we read. An idea springs out at you from one book and then occurs again in another or a link is found between the two. When it turns up a third time in a different place and from an alternate perspective you really take notice. I have had this experience with the concept of emotional or psychological safety.

"Bright Side has prepared illustrations for you that won't test your math skills or ability to think outside the box. Instead, they'll challenge your observation skills. Each of the following pictures has one inaccuracy in them. How quickly can you spot it?"

"I had some visitors in my library makerspace last week that were wanting to add an aspect of maker education into their own libraries. As they walked around our space, visited with my collaborating English teacher, and witnessed students prototyping for our invention literacy project, they said something surprising. "We noticed you have traditional wooden library chairs and tables, so it isn't about the furniture, is it? Maker Education? It's about the mindset?""

"When Sasha Ariel Alston pursued her love for coding, she noticed there were never many girls ― especially girls of color ― pursuing it, too. That's why she decided to write a children's book to encourage girls to learn about coding and STEM fields at an early age.  Alston is a 19-year-old Pace University student getting a major in information systems and a minor in marketing. She spent two years writing Sasha Savvy Loves to Code, a kids' book about a 10-year-old who becomes interested in coding, just like Alston. "The purpose of the book is just to get girls interested in coding and to provide basic coding terms," she said."