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"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Similar to Google Alerts I covered in an earlier post, Google Scholar also has an "alert" feature that allows users to keep updated about the topics, news, and authors that interest them. Google scholar Alert is particularly useful for student researchers who are doing research around a topic area and want to have access to the latest and recent output about it. Creating an alert on Google Scholar will enable you to receive emails with updates and new releases about your alert. For instance, let's say your research topic is game-based learning and that one of the established authors you want to make sure to read his newest updates in this area is James Paul Gee. You can go ahead and create two alerts using the following key phrases : game-based learning, and James Paul Gee. From the time you create these alerts, anything published on Google Scholar with these two phrases in it will come directly to your inbox."

" Knowledge in Action Research Helping to Make the Case for Rigorous Project-based Learning One of the Foundation's current initiatives is a research program, called Knowledge in Action, designed and managed by a collaborative group of learning scientists, curriculum experts, teacher leaders, and Foundation staff. The research team is applying a rigorous PBL approach to college-preparatory courses, so that students can participate in authentic tasks that provide an experiential platform for learning that prepares them for college and careers."

"Recently we took at look at the phases of inquiry-based learning through a framework, and even apps that were conducive to inquiry-based learning on the iPad. During our research for the phases framework, we stumbled across the following breakdown of the inquiry process for learning on 21stcenturyhsie.weebly.com (who offer the references that appear below the graphic). Most helpfully, it offers 20 questions that can guide student research at any stage, including:"

"Working as a productive and sensitive member of a team is looked upon by STEM-based companies as being a requirement to being an effective and contributing employee: As technology takes over more of the fact-based, rules-based, left-brain skills-knowledge-worker skills-employees who excel at human relationships are emerging as the new "it" men and women. More and more major employers are recognizing that they need workers who are good at team building, collaboration, and cultural sensitivity, according to global forecasting firm Oxford Economics. Other research shows that the most effective teams are not those whose members boast the highest IQs, but rather those whose members are most sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. (http://fortune.com/2015/03/05/perfect-workplace/) In academia, the majority of research in STEM fields is conducted through collaborations and working groups, where a diversity of ideas need to be proposed and analyzed to determine the best strategy(ies) for solving a problem. In the technology sector, product development is done as a team, with specific roles for each individual but its success is predicated on each member of the team providing a different skill set / perspective. Thus, students who are interested in both academia and industry will benefit from learning how to successfully work in a diverse team. (https://teaching.berkeley.edu/diversity-can-benefit-teamwork-stem#sthash.mHRBJQtV.dpuf) What follows are some team building activities that use collaboration to explore and solve STEM-related challenges. Note that most of them require minimal supplies - costs."

"A new study conducted by TRU provides a body of research which supports the idea that students use cell phones to learn, and also that schools are not acknowledging or supporting them fully, yet. This research supports the work of innovative educators who are guiding today's generation text and will help in the effort of getting more schools to stop fighting and start embracing student use of mobile devices for learning in school. Rather than banning, the study highlights the fact that if we meet children where they are we can leverage their use of mobile devices for powerful lear ning. T"

"Can the act of making or designing something help kids feel like they have agency over the objects and systems in their lives? That's the main question a group of researchers at Project Zero, a research group out of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, are tackling alongside classroom-based teachers in Oakland, California. In an evolving process, researchers are testing out activities they've designed to help students to look more closely, explain more deeply and take on opportunities to change things they see around them."

"Ten years ago, seeing a drone zoom over a college campus would have been unusual, to say the least. Today, however, several institutions are using the technology to support learning, research and even administrative work, such as capturing footage for a marketing video. Unmanned aerial vehicles have been in use since the 1990s, primarily to support military, border security and other public operations, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Consumer adoption began to accelerate a few years ago as hobby drones became more advanced and less expensive. From 2014 to 2017, consumer drone shipments jumped worldwide by 7 million units, according to a Business Insider Intelligence analysis. That's about when higher education institutions began to realize UAVs could play a role on campus, according to Venkata Krishnan Seshadri, industry lead at market research provider Technavio. "Drones facilitate application-based, practical learning, which helps students understand and remember key theoretical concepts," Seshadri says. "Using drones significantly reduces risks and costs. For instance, in archeological-related courses, drones are used to capture aerial imagery, which increases the quality of learning without safety issues.""

"Research around the way humans learn is booming these days. Consider viral brain-based teaching trends and explorations of how the act of teaching shapes kids' brains. Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and and director of Johns Hopkins' Neuro-Education Initiative. But studying how the brain learns doesn't necessarily mean memorizing proteins and brain chemistry. Sometimes it's about empathy-or in the case of some of the latest research coming out of Johns Hopkins, it's about understanding how art plays a role in learning. One person who has closely watched, and even shaped, the coevolution of neurosciences with education is Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. The education professor is also the co-founder and director of Johns Hopkins' Neuro-Education Initiative, a center that aims to bring together research on learning and neuroscience, teaching and education. EdSurge sat down with Hardiman recently to learn about the Initiative' recent findings around how injecting art into lessons across disciplines can boost memory and retention. (This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)"

"With so many classroom research studies published daily, you can be forgiven for missing some. The techniques below are super-tactical and, for the most part, unsung strategies that you'll be excited to try tomorrow."

"Truth Decay - the diminishing role that facts, data, and analysis play in political and civil discourse - appears to result, in part, from an increasingly complex information ecosystem. Technology, in particular, offers continual access to information of varying quality and credibility, information that can blur the line between fact-based evidence and opinion. Not everyone is equipped with the skills necessary to navigate such uncertain terrain. The purpose of this report is to describe the field of media literacy (ML) education and the ways in which ML education can counter Truth Decay by changing how participants consume, create, and share information. One limitation of this research base arises from the variety of ways that literature defines and measures ML outcomes; while a multiplicity of viewpoints can be beneficial, it also presents challenges in terms of aggregating findings across studies. Despite this, the authors describe existing evidence that ML could be a useful tool for combating Truth Decay. They also provide an inventory of ML offerings available to the public. Finally, the authors make suggestions for moving forward, with the specific recommendation that professionals in ML and related fields strengthen their communication and collaboration, considering where there are opportunities for a common approach to researching ML. The authors recommend that policymakers and practitioners increase participation from diverse constituencies in scaling ML efforts"

"How can games unlock a rich world of learning? This is the big question at the heart of the growing games and learning movement that's gaining momentum in education. The MindShift Guide to Games and Learning explains key ideas in game-based learning, pedagogy, implementation, and assessment. The guide make sense of the available research and provide suggestions for practical use. The post series will evolve into a downloadable guide, and can be used as a touchstone for thoughtful consideration of best practices for teachers and parents."

"While not new, project-based learning has become a popular method to try and move beyond surface-level learning. Many teachers are trying to figure out the right ingredients for strong projects that interest and engage students, while helping them meet required learning targets. But implementing project-based learning well isn't easy, especially when many teachers are more accustomed to direct instruction, when they can be sure they've at least touched on all the topics in the curriculum. On top of the push toward  projects, some educators are also embracing maker-education, a distinct but often overlapping idea. "There's a lot of research out there about integrating making into project-based learning to ramp up what students are learning in the core content areas that they're going to be tested in," said Michael Stone, an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow, who taught high school in Tennessee."

"Project based learning (PBL) is perhaps the greatest resource hardly being used in UK schools. Teachers are increasingly being asked to do more with less, and there's never been a better time to reinvent classroom learning than now. Despite the mounting pressures on schools, a huge advantage all still hold is in the freedom to deliver the National Curriculum by how they see fit. There's also a wealth of research to support PBLs uptake in the classroom:"

"A few years ago, I began shifting to a play-based approach in my kindergarten classroom. Research extolled the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional benefits of play and called to mind Friedrich Froebel's vision of kindergarten as a place where play and learning go hand in hand.  As I made small changes in my classroom, I began to understand that play is a primary and integral mode through which children make sense of the world, and that it is essential to their development and well-being. In addition, it supports skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity. Offering play can feel challenging when mandated programs and standardized tests are requirements of many school districts, but play-based learning is an effective practice for deepening understanding and engaging children. The key is finding a balance between academic expectations and the developmental needs of young students."

"As anyone who's ever spent hours hunched over Candy Crush can attest, there's something special about games. Sure they're fun, but they can also be absorbing, frustrating, challenging and complex. Research has shown our brains are "wired for pleasure," and that games are an effective way to learn because they simulate adventure and keep our brains engaged and happy. But what exactly do we learn from them? In an era consumed with teaching 21st-century soft skills, are games any good at building critical thinking or collaboration skills? The answer is likely yes, but, much like games themselves, it's complicated. "What you'll find from the research is that it's very much dependent on, 'under certain types of conditions, certain types of skills seem to be developed,'" explains game designer and theorist Katie Salen, a former executive director at the nonprofit Institute of Play. "I never want to make claims that games writ-large for any kid-under any circumstances-teach these sort of skills.""

"The Complete Guide to Project-Based Learning "