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"Did you receive a gift of a new iPad this year? If so, you're probably spending this holiday vacation week trying out all kinds of new apps. Here are ten that I recommend getting started with."

"Whether you're into New Year's Resolutions or not, you've probably spent at least some time engaged in end-of-year reflection, planning, and goal setting. Considering we're coming off a year of massive growth in the ed tech industry - and as a result, much exploration, experimentation, and sharing around teaching with tech, why not make a commitment in 2013 to improve your use of technology in the classroom? "

"Did you receive a gift of a new iPad this year? If so, you're probably spending this holiday vacation week trying out all kinds of new apps. Here are ten that I recommend getting started with."

"Today's topic is Google Images. This is probably among those most used services in education. Teachers and students use images for a variety of learning and teaching reasons. However, before including images in any classroom project, students need to learn about copyright issues. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has already published a post on this. Check it out here to learn more."

"If you ask a student what makes him or her successful in school, you probably won't hear about some fantastic new book or video lecture series. Most likely you will hear something like, "It was all Mr. Jones. He just never gave up on me." What students take away from a successful education usually centers on a personal connection with a teacher who instilled passion and inspiration for their subject. It's difficult to measure success, and in the world of academia, educators are continually re-evaluating how to quantify learning. But the first and most important question to ask is: Are teachers reaching their students?"

" It's one thing to use Evernote, but it's entirely another thing to master Evernote. If you're new to Evernote, I don't want to come across like it's something complicated - it's not, in fact, it's the complete opposite. But there is a lot to Evernote - more than most of its users probably don't take advantage of."

"Around this time last year, I wrote a post about the lack of engaging Maths apps on the iPad that went beyond "skill and drill" number activities. Since then, developers have introduced a greater range of apps across all areas of the Maths curriculum that can be used to enhance the Maths teaching and learning in your classroom. Here's a selection of 20 apps that cover Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability ( these are the Content strands (CS) Australia's Mathematics curriculum has been categorized under ). They also cover the proficiency strands (PS) of Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning. I'm sure other countries' curricula are similar in many regards and you will be able to make the connections"

"If you ask a student what makes him or her successful in school, you probably won't hear about some fantastic new book or video lecture series. Most likely you will hear something like, "It was all Mr. Jones. He just never gave up on me." What students take away from a successful education usually centers on a personal connection with a teacher who instilled passion and inspiration for their subject. It's difficult to measure success, and in the world of academia, educators are continually re-evaluating how to quantify learning. But the first and most important question to ask is: Are teachers reaching their students?"

"I was teaching a math class probably about 10 years ago, and I remember one of my top students (academically) goofing around and distracting others. I talked to her about her behaviour, and how although she understood the material, others were having issues and she was disturbing their work. During the same class, I remember one of my struggling students, who was often a distraction in class, doing extremely well on an assignment. I went on to praise the student for the effort and how well he worked on this particular assignment. After class, the "high flyer" in my math class came up to me and said something that has stuck to me for awhile."

"To some people, Finland isn't a whole lot more than a chilly, northern country boasting a population of around 5 million people. Whether you've been to Finland or not, you probably haven't had the chance to take an up-close and personal look at one of Finland's greatest accomplishments to date - its high-achieving education system. Students in Finland have, over the past several years, risen to the top of the academic food-chain, and they've become some of the top scholarly performers in the world. Compared to many other developed nations, including the US and Canada, Finland's high school graduation rates have continued to grow steadily and impressively. Furthermore, a huge percentage of students continue on to earn college degrees, and students at all levels perform exceedingly well on standardized tests."

"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."

"Below are 20 Google search tips that will help you better find what you're looking for-the top 10 I've taken the liberty of summarizing for you so that you can get an idea of what you'll find when you dive in."

"Cultivating an innovative culture inside your classroom and enhancing your students inquiry-based approaches to learning is not an easy task particularly in the light of all the surrounding distraction coming from digital media. It is probably one of the major challenges facing educators and teachers in the 21st century classroom. However, no matter how big the challenge is there are always ways to come to grips with it. Our colleague Mia MacMeekin from anethicalisland has designed this beautiful graphic where she featured 27 ways teachers can help their students be innovative."

"Popular mobile devices may come and go, but the iPad has remained a hit in the K-12 classroom. But even though they're in schools, our work with teachers has led us to understand that while many of them would like to use iPads meaningfully in their classrooms, they can't because of time, access, and training. So for the past year and a half, we've both been working with teachers and university students integrating iPad technology into the classroom in a controlled way. While doing this, we came across several outcomes that made us question and dig deeper into what the research actually says about using them in the classroom. Do students and younger teachers use them more effectively? Do they work better for some student populations? It's probably not giving much away to say that the most important learning outcome we found was that experience is the greatest teacher."

"Before the advent of the uber-popular show Mythbusters or the push for more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in schools, parents and their kids were doing at-home science experiments. Now, the trend continues to blossom, although many of the experiments have remained somewhat the same…and always awesomely exciting! If you're a parent and you want to do something with your kid that isn't related to cleaning the toilets or forging through homework, check out these 20 great science projects that you can complete in the confines of your humble abode. Most of them use around-the-home items that you probably have on hand, although some will require a little bit of shopping ahead of time. To help you decide which are best for your children's needs, the 20 have been divided into projects for younger students and projects for older ones."

"As Abby walked into the school building she had a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was November and she had just moved into a new community. She was nervous about starting a new school midway through the school year. This was her first day of school and she kept her eyes down, nervous, not knowing what to expect as she walked into the main office. Suddenly, the office secretary called out to her in a tone that made her skip a breath, "Where are you supposed to be?  Do you have a pass?  Move on now before the tardy bell rings and the vice principal gives you a detention for being late." Each day in school offices across the country this scenario is playing out with regularity.  Although it may come across as somewhat exaggerated, those of you who have spent any amount of time in school have probably at one time or another been witness to such an interaction in the main office area.  It is these defined interactions that has led to us to ponder this question.  Have we reached the point where we are willing to allow negative interactions to drive the level of success of our students, staff and our school? What if we were to pause, step back and view our office culture through the eyes of students, parents, guests or even staff who visit the main office? What would they say?  If we manage our interactions appropriately they will leave feeling valued and cared for and look forward to their next return trip."

"Google can be your best friend when it comes to searching for answers or information online. Millions of people use it every day, but only few can utilize Google to its full potential. In fact, this powerful search engine can offer lots of great services, apps and features that aren't on many people's radar. The Bright Side team will help you to uncover some of them. Here are 15 of the most useful Google apps that you probably didn't know existed."

"Today I'm sharing what is easily the BEST playdough recipe ever. Once you have the recipe, you'll want to find out about the 3 essential play dough tools (that you probably already have). If you've been here for the recipe before, scroll down for a July 2016 update -  you will LOVE it, I promise. My plan was to make a simple batch of play dough to replace the sparkly dried out purple stuff that happily met our cookie-making, glitter infusing, practice cutting, snowman-making needs over the past two months. I asked my daughter what color she would like this time around, and she answered with…"

"Do you sometimes find yourself thinking about how you can spice up a lesson with some engaging visuals, a pop culture reference, some humor or drama, or something else that gives it that extra "pop!"? Or … have you ever been watching a good movie and thought, "Wow! This totally relates to one of my lessons"? Well if you've experienced either of these notions, this site is for you (and even if you haven't, you'll probably want to check it out anyway). TeachWithMovies.org offers a collection of lesson plans and curriculum materials using movies to inspire, inform and motivate your students. There are subject-specific sections for English, Social Studies, Sciences, and Other Subjects (which include Math, Health, Music, and numerous other subjects). These subject areas are often broken down into sub-categories (for example, Social Sciences is broke down into US History, World History, and Civics)."

"You've probably heard of the student-led "Genius Bar", which is generally a team of student leaders that provide technical support for the technology devices and programs in their schools. What a great way to utilize and develop student knowledge and skills, right? I couldn't agree more. Busch's student tech teams have four sub-committees: the "Newcast Directors," the "iPad Consultants," the "Makerspace Mentors," and the "Cyber Squad." But what if we took the opportunity to develop young, skilled learners a step further, and asked those student leaders to support, collaborate with, and mentor teachers and their peers with in-class technology projects? What if we asked those student learners to create informative, instructional digital content that is accessible to all? After all, many of us would agree that the students are the ones who are usually the most knowledgeable, up-to-date resources for what is the latest and greatest with technology, so why not tap into their large knowledge base and cultivate their leadership potential? Our school here in Wisconsin did just that, and the results have been astounding. Here's how it happened."