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"In Square Peg, Todd Rose tells the story of how a high school dropout became a Harvard professor in educational neuroscience. Diagnosed with ADHD in middle school, Rose was always in trouble. From his study of complex systems and neuroscience, he makes four points: variability is the rule: perceptions and reactions are much more dynamic and diverse than previously thought; emotions are important: emotional states influence learning; context is key: circumstances affect the behavior; and feedback loops determine success or failure: small changes making a difference. In Todd's TED talk on the Myth of Average, he makes the case that schools are designed based on the average. But the problem is that no student is average on every dimension, "Every student has a jagged learning profile." Rose said, "We blame kids, teachers, and parents, but it's just bad design.""

"I believe that problem solving is one of the most important skills that our students can acquire in our classrooms today. In a recent post, entitled "Problem Solving with 'Aunt Emma'", I described an engaging activity which helps students look at problems from a variety of different perspectives. Today, I want to share with you a similar problem solving classroom activity that you can use to challenge your students to think laterally."

"On Saturday, a handmade craft rose 78,000 feet to capture the view from the edge of space. The craft, built by two Seattle youngsters, reached speeds of over 100 km/h on its journey over central Washington. Kimberly and Rebecca Yeung built their spacecraft out of wood and broken arrow shafts, but it flew twice as high as commercial aircraft usually travel. Attached to a weather balloon filled with helium was a flight computer tracking their craft, two GoPro cameras, and a picture of their cat next to a Lego R2-D2. Called the Loki Lego Launcher, the craft was named after that cat and the figurine."

"When I first saw these contraptions my initial reaction was how in the world would we incorporate these devices with our demanding academic curriculum? The last couple of months my instructional technology team and I have had a ball coming up with strong academic tie-ins for using MaKey MaKeys and programming with our elementary students. I was astonished how easily and naturally programming and incorporating MaKey MaKeys have been, even for first graders! Just the other day I was working with first graders who were learning about the four cardinal directions. We had them create interactive compass roses by programming a sprite in Scratch to move north, south, east or west depending on the arrow key they pressed. Some students were even able to add voice recordings to their script!"

A compelling historic interview with a notable figure each day, plus links to complete information about the subject. Interviews taken from renown historic sources such as The Paris Review, The Mike Wallace Interviews of the 1950s, the BBC, Charlie Rose, NPR

Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning David H. Rose & Anne Meyer ASCD, 2002 Book reveiw/summary and study notes

"I'm a student voice advocate. Fortunately, my employer supports this and as such, we have been incorporating the voice of students in the guidelines around social media (You can see the teen guidelines at schools.nyc.gov/socialmedia). Most recently I had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of elementary students about social media and which platforms they are using. Admittedly, I'm not much of a user of social media platforms for the under 13 set, so I knew I had a lot to learn. Interestingly, across the board, one platform rose to the top and I had never heard of it before."

"Online abuse directed at teachers by parents has doubled in the last year due to an increase in the use of social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. In the last year, 40 per cent of teachers said they had been the victims of cyber bullying by parents, compared to 21 per cent a year earlier, a new survey has found. Threats made by parents also rose by 8 per cent from 2014. The increase coincides with the growing popularity of social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, with abuse on both rising 5 per cent from a year earlier. Most remarks are either abusive, sexist, racist or homophobic and are made in relation to a teacher's looks, competence or sexual orientation."

"Music and dance teachers who are respected by female pupils should be trained to teach computer science to inspire more girls to pursue a career in the technology sector, educators have said. More than 150 teachers and schoolgirls recently attended an event at Microsoft's UK headquarters designed to show young women what life at a technology company was like. Speaking just weeks after the Government used its Budget to announce significant funding to support the training of Computer Science teachers, Cindy Rose, the chief executive of Microsoft UK, kicked off this year's DigiGirlz by highlighting the lack of women in the technology sector. Educators told Microsoft at the event that school leaders needed to create more positive role models in computer science and give them modern classrooms to work in if the UK was to encourage more women to pursue a career in science, engineering, technology or maths (STEM)."

"ometimes, your average tape just won't do. Sometimes you need a tape with attitude. Maybe you have a craft that needs to be more colorful, or you want to add a little bit of a pattern to that DIY project. And yes, sometimes you just want a tape that's more, well, bacon-y. Whatever the occasion, we've got a tape to match. Our new Duck Tape prints come in a wide variety of fun colors and styles, perfect for any creative project or home repair."