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"I spend a lot of time sharing the benefits of scannable technology with teachers.  QR codes and augmented reality triggers make it easy for students, teachers, and school visitors to find a web resource by using a scanning app on their device.  Another option for quick website sharing is a URL shortener like goo.gl or bit.ly."

"Have you ever needed a short Ethernet cable, but all the ones in your closet are six feet long? You could just wrap up the excess, but for a cleaner look, you can shorten the cable yourself. With the right materials, you can even make your own custom-length network cables. By crimping your own Ethernet cables, you can make them in any length you want. Pre-made Ethernet cables only come in specific lengths, and you may need a size that isn't available. Again, you can always go longer than you need to, but it's mostly a waste."

"This week's pick is Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal HD - which I'm going to shorten to Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker for most of the remainder of this post. The opening lines on its App Store page create some very high expectations:"

"In the spirit of bringing more opportunities into learning environments, more and more schools are inviting students to bring their own technology. Shortened as BYOT or BYOD for Bring Your Own Device, the concept is catching on."

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"Sitting is undeniably one of the comfiest ways to arrange your body. Almost as good as lounging, really, and just short of "dangling worry-free from hammock." But it has acquired a very bad rap over the past few years. A bad rap it doesn't quite deserve. Studies say sitting will kill us in all sorts of ways. It will kill us by heart attacks, kidney diseases, chronic diseases, and colorectal cancer. If it doesn't outright murder us, it will shorten our life expectancy and give us mental health issues. Sitting has been compared to smoking. It is the reason I panic-purchased an exercise ball chair from the internet. It is the reason fancier people buy stand-up desks and treadmill desks and have jogging meetings. New research from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings joins the pile-on. As Outside pointed out, the Mayo researchers found that every hour you sit reduces the gains of your daily workout by eight percent. Are those of us who spend our days in offices, homes, or cafes huddled in front of our computers, taking notes in lecture halls, or otherwise engaged in activities that generally require butt-to-chair contact really so screwed? "

"You either love them or hate them. Some educators feel like using QR codes are unnecessary; why not just give kids a shortened URL? Last year, I asked my high school students what they thought about QR codes as a way to access information in my Library Learning Commons. Responses varied slightly, but the general consensus was: "Nah. We don't use them." "They're lame, Sorry Miss." Then came the iOS 11 update about a month ago. This update turned the iphone camera into a QR code scanner."

"Over the past several weeks, three headlines pertaining to education have dominated my social media news feeds: screen time, fake news/media literacy, and the ethical dilemmas associated with advances in technology. When considered together, these three topics represent the unintended consequences of innovation. The inventors of television, computers, mobile devices, and social media did not intend to unleash a slew of negative consequences for children. They did not consider the potential for shortened attention spans, lack of connection to nature, or a rising obesity rate; nor did they conceive of their tools as weapons for deploying fake news, unleashing bullying, or fueling hate groups. The Mark Zuckerberg/Biz Stone/Sergey Brin/Steve Jobs/Bill Gates of the world intended to build community, increase access to a global library of information, and provide every individual with a voice."

"Last night I had an opportunity to present a free, evening webinar for the Oklahoma State Department of Education's Educational Technology Division, as part of a series they hosted to prepare teachers for Computer Science Education Week. The title of my presentation was, "Developing Computational Thinking with Scratch Coding." The webinar recording is 1 hour and 11 minutes long, and my presentation slides are also available via Google Slides. All these presentation resources are available on my presentation handouts website using the shortened URL wfryer.me/scratch."

"There is also a lot to like about iOS. It's a lean, mean operating system. It's use of sandboxing keeps it relatively clutter free. iOS doesn't do a lot, but it's pretty good at what it does do. That said, deploying iPads at any kind of scale is just short of maddening. While the process of tapping around to install one app on one iPad isn't too bad, installing a dozen apps on hundreds iPads isn't a particularly appealing way to spend a month. If you are going to deploy iPads at scale, you need a strategy. You need a battle plan. In addition, you will also need to stay hydrated. I don't think I've discovered the silver bullet, but I'll share some of my experiences with you in order to, hopefully, shorten the learning curve."

"Importantly, our early indications suggest that the least effective method of reading may be the one society has been clinging to for centuries: reading on paper."