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The opportunity we now have is to use technology to move from an event-based learning model that we know to be ineffective, to a more distributed and contextualized environment that elegantly spans the continuum from formal learning to performance support. And this is not science fiction - we have the tools we need now. Even if we didn't, we should be preparing our thinking for this capability."

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Resource Center for School Technology Solutions

"In an article published earlier this year, we said "public schools' focus on teaching to the test may be squelching students' creativity." Bright students don't want to be spoon-fed information, and teachers want imaginative students who think outside the box. Learning how to foster and unleash a creative mindset in students is one solution to this problem!"

"Video production is a favourite pursuit for students in developing project-based learning solutions to real-world challenges. But where can students get the music to flash up their videos and give them great sound? McCoy Productions has the answer!"

"There's an amazing Voxer chat group called Talks with Teachers, composed of remarkable educators who converse about best education practices, technology integration, assessment and many other subjects. We recently discussed things that make teachers' jobs difficult. The chat was not about principals, but upon further consideration, it occurred to me that school principals could easily solve most of these issues. Granted, school principals and teachers often have different perspectives, based on the worlds they live in. Still, some of educators' biggest problems have shockingly simple solutions."

"Skaffl is a free iPad workflow  app created by Rita (a former instructional technology specialist at a 1:1 iPad district).  Skaffl allows teachers to plan, teach and grade using a collaborative iPad workflow solution. It also allows  teachers to seamlessly distribute and collect assignments from students. "

"To help fill this gap in K-12 STEM education, Harvey Mudd created its first MOOC for middle and high school teachers. Middle Years Computer Science (MyCS) walks a teacher through the lesson plans, activities and exercises of a curriculum developed to appeal to students with a broad range of interests and no prior CS experience. Schools that have been using it have found it to be easy to use, accessible and engaging for their students. Our second MOOC offering, How Stuff Moves, supports students in their first course in calculus-based physics, a fundamental building block to further physics study in college. The course provides lectures, demonstrations, problem sets, worked solutions to every practice problem and concept tests- a wealth of resources to help students master the material, whether they are considering taking a high school AP physics course or their first mechanics course in college."

"A very cool solution for getting videos in the hands of students, JuniorTube (formerly YoouKids) helps parents and teachers curate and share a YouTube playlist.  Users can pick out educational videos for kids to watch remotely and safely so they can easily be viewed on children's iPads and iPhones. JuniorTube makes it simple to put quality content on their devices without worrying about navigating YouTube by themselves. Parents and teachers can suggest to each other their own YouTube playlists that they curate, so they can forward to their kids other recommended safe playlists and videos to watch."

"PhotoMath is a new iPhone and Windows phone app that will provide users with the solution to math problems. PhotoMath users can take a picture of a math problem in a book and have the problem completed for them. The "steps" button on the app will show users the steps needed to successfully solve the math problem."

"I am aware that the computer science aspects of the new computing curriculum creates extra work for some teachers as they need to learn many unfamiliar concepts. I know this can be challenging and time consuming, but I think we are very fortunate because there is a vast range of free programming environments /apps available for teachers to use for teaching computer science elements to children. What we need to remember is that the program itself doesn't just make children develop computational thinking, the context we use, the pedagogical approach we employ shapes the learning experience of our students. On the next page I have shared a simple activity which can be used as a main task or as an assessment task at the end of a coding session. The aim is to support children to design solutions for a specific purpose by selecting and using correct blocks in a sequence. These activities can encourage them to think in logical steps which is the main foundation of problem solving skills and at the same time provide opportunities for peer or whole class discussions."

"The Question Game: A Playful Way To Teach Critical Thinking Big idea: Teaching kids to ask smart questions on their own A four-year-old asks on average about 400 questions per day, and an adult hardly asks any. Our school system is structured around rewards for regurgitating the right answer, and not asking smart questions - in fact, it discourages asking questions. With the result that as we grow older, we stop asking questions. Yet asking good questions is essential to find and develop solutions, and an important skill in innovation, strategy, and leadership. So why do we stop asking questions - and more importantly, why don't we train each other, and our future leaders, to ask the right questions starting from early on? In A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, Warren Berger suggests that there are three main questions which help in problem solving: Why questions, What If questions, and How questions."

"This is number 6 in my blog series on major learning theories. My plan is to work through the alphabet of psychologists and provide a brief overview of their theories, and how each can be applied in education. In the last post we examined the work of Craik and Lockhart on Levels of Processing theory. In this post, we explore the work of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi on Flow Theory. This is a simplified interpretation of the theory, so if you wish to learn more, please refer to the original work of the theorist. There is an interesting news report on the BBC News website this morning. It is a piece claiming that children who use technology at home are finding that they are not able to concentrate in school. They are not able to focus, claims the report, because 'they're spending so much time on digital games or social media.' Yeah right. It's easy to blame lack of concentration on technology, but what about the quality of the lessons they are attending? The onus is on teachers to make lessons more interesting, and that is what they are trained to do. Part of the solution might be to incorporate these digital games and social media into some of the lessons. Just how can we engage students more effectively? Here's Flow Theory:"

"One of the biggest learning trends you should know about is project-based learning. Basically, students are given a task and allowed to work in groups to deliver solutions to a problem. This is an applicable methodology in science, technology, math, arts, etc. You name it, project-based learning could likely be used. But how do you get started with a new way to teach? That's a major question that often stops teachers right in their tracks. It's hard to switch up what's been working in the past. It's impossible to figure out how to integrate a new classroom structure in the small amount of time available to educators around the world. In an effort to help solve this issue, our friends at EdTechTeacher have created what's essentially a crash course in project-based learning. The video is about an hour long and is by Suzy Brooks, a third-grade teacher in Massachusetts."

"Rarely, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will become completely unresponsive and errant, leading to what amounts to a frozen device that just won't do anything. The most obvious indicator of this is when something on screen just cease up completely and the touch screen becomes unresponsive to all input, and clicking on any of the hardware buttons also does nothing. Fortunately you can almost always remedy these unusual situations by forcibly rebooting the iOS device, a low tech solution that works to remedy most of these issues, it only takes a few seconds, and which is really pretty easy."