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"I am a bit mobile keyboard challenged. While I type like a maniac, I'm what anyone would call a slow texter.  I have trouble with tasks others find simple-finding the perfect emoji, as well as basics like copying and pasting.  So, for me Gboard is a major keyboard shift. Last week, the Official Google Blog announced Gboard. Available at the App Store for iPhone and iPad, Gboard is the essential keyboard app you didn't know you needed.  (Well, I kinda did.)"

"As the world economy shifts away from manufacturing jobs and towards service industry and creative jobs, there's a consensus among parents, educators, politicians and business leaders that it is crucial students graduate into university or the workforce with the ability to identify and solve complex problems, think critically about information, work effectively in teams and communicate clearly about their thinking. While many teachers agree with this premise, they don't often know exactly how to teach these skills explicitly, especially because many of the mandates and required curriculum seem to push in the opposite direction. Process-oriented skills are hard to pin down; teachers can see them in certain students, but developing these competencies in students who aren't already demonstrating them can be tricky. A few teachers in Ontario, Canada have been experimenting with tools they think could make the difference."

"The oft-shared John Dewey quote "Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." is one that resonates with progressive educators around the world. Our education system however, seems to have missed all of those tweets and Pinterest pins. In a recent podcast (listen below) with Getting Smart's Emily Liebtag, I mentioned moving students from consumers to creators to contributors. Justin Tarte had said this in my TeachThought Podcast with him earlier this year and I appreciated that language. It certainly is a great step to shift our teaching and learning from having students just consuming information to the top of Bloom's taxonomy where they are creating. That next step, however, where their creations are at least potentially adding value to their community and perhaps the world at large is powerful. While it's true that our students are indeed the future, there are real reasons why we need to remember that they are also a big part of our today and our teaching and learning should reflect that."

 The role of assessment has always played its part but it is a role that is changing in the present global climate and understanding this shift is important for educators.

There is a change taking place in how schools approach ICT, one that has been coming for some time but is at the point of moving into the mainstream. A subtle but powerful shift that sees ICT build connections with the Maker Movement as a tool for solving what Bronwyn Moreton speaking at the ICT Educators of NSW conference describes as the 'I wish it would . . .' moment where a learner discovers that their technology doesn't do everything they wished it would.

"In our innovative classrooms across America, students are using technology in ways that were unheard of just ten short years ago. In a small elementary school in Northwest Baltimore, students use their Makerspace to create 3D printed materials, learn to code and engage in other making activities. In another school in Philadelphia, a student fulfills his senior capstone project requirement by creating a "Smart Beehive" that uses sensors and a camera to track the health of a bee colony. While there are some schools of education that prepare pre-service teachers to excel in these types of technology-rich environments on their first day of in-service teaching, there is still room for growth in our teacher preparation programs as a whole, particularly as more schools shift towards digital learning. "Education-Creative Commons" by NEC Corporation of America licensed under CC BY 2.0" This is why the 2016 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) asks us to refine educational technology's place in teacher preparation programs. It makes the bold statement that "no new teacher exiting a preparation program should require remediation by his or her hiring district."¹"

"Jeff Cavins, CEO of Fuzebox, recently wrote in Business Insider that the explosive uptake of tablet computers is fueling the growth of what he called the new "iPad economy." Cavins said: "The iPad is shifting the way businesses function, changing how executives interact and transforming the economics of today's business operations.""

"The shift toward applying more executive function (EF) within learning and assessment will cause some discomfort in teachers and students. The transition will not eliminate the need for memorization, as automatic use of foundational knowledge is the toolkit for the executive functions. Memorization, however, will not be adequate as meaningful learning becomes more about applying, communicating and supporting what one knows. "

"The Maker Movement is one of creativity and invention. Of Do-It-Yourself ingenuity. Of making things with your own hands. Building something from scratch can shift a lesson from a lecture into an experience. Students can play, diverge, tinker, make mistakes, help each other, and express themselves with the appropriate guidance of a teacher/facilitator. The end result can be anywhere from an honest try to a creative wonder. Whatever the case, consider adding the following tools to your experiential learning toolkit. Curated by elementary school technology coach Elizabeth Espinoza, this comprehensive collection contains web, desktop, and mobile apps that can help your students become makers and inventors."

"Bloom's Taxonomy can be a powerful tool to transform teaching and learning. By design, it focuses attention away from content and instruction, and instead emphasizes the "cognitive events" in the mind of a child. And this is no small change. For decades, education reform has been focused on curriculum, assessment, instruction, and more recently standards, and data, with these efforts only bleeding over into how students think briefly, and by chance. This means that the focus of finite teacher and school resources are not on promoting thinking and understanding, but rather what kinds of things students are going to be thinking about and how they'll prove they understand them. This stands in contrast to the characteristics of the early 21st century, which include persistent connectivity, dynamic media forms, information-rich (digital and non-digital) environments, and an emphasis on visibility for pretty much everything. What does this mean for how you use Bloom's Taxonomy in your classroom? What kinds of adjustments should you make-if any-in light of these shifts in the 21st century?"

"The difference between assessment of learning and assessment for learning is a crucial one, in many ways indicative of an important shift in education. Traditionally, tests have told teachers and parents how a student "does," then offers a very accessible point of data (usually percentage correct and subsequent letter grade) that is reported to parents as a performance indicator. Class data can be gathered to imply instructional effectiveness, and the data from multiple classrooms can be combined to suggest the performance of an entire school, but a core message here is one of measurement and finality: this is how you did. This was the bar, and you either cleared it or you didn't. And it's all past tense."

"I still miss that beautiful visual presentation, but you can still use Google News to search contemporaneous news. Contemporaneous news offers students unfiltered, personal connection to the past and forces them to wrestle with issues of bias and historical perspective. Contemporaneous news focuses a media literacy lens on how news is/was reported. How many different ways is the same story reported? How does the story evolve over the course of days, weeks, years? How do stories reported at the time differ from the way a story is reported with the benefit of hindsight or without the homongenization of textbook coverage? We can engage learners in considering why a story is placed where it is placed in a newspaper, why a particular headline was crafted, how our language has shifted, and why search terms may be time-contextual. (For instance, why searches for World War I, African Americans, the Holocaust, might not be effective in contemporaneous sources.)"

"Educators, researchers, and students are discovering the benefits and advantages of cooperative, active, and engaged learning. Classroom spaces that support such a shift in teaching and learning have lagged behind. A significant opportunity exists for maximizing learning opportunities and creating meaningful experiences by rethinking the classroom experience."

"While there has been a bit of question as to the effectiveness of SAMR, a shift to move beyond SAMR, and a few proposed changes to the structure of the model floating around online, I have to say that hearing Dr. Ruben Puentedura (you may know him as the father of SAMR) speak at iPad Summit a few weeks ago still felt like a rare app-ortunity and a truly inspiring treat. As I am still collecting my thoughts and ideas from the event, I wanted to share some really great resources from the Dr. SAMR. ;)"