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"So your district or school is planning or in the process of implementing some sort of 1:1 device initiative. Seeing as these are all the rage, seems like it's a given that your deployment will be a smashing success, right? Here's the truth…. …it will fail. It may not be monumental failure, but parts of your deployment will not work. Whether it be the MDM that manages them or the rising stack of parent concerns, you will be faced with a choice as a district: retreat or carry on. In the wake of the LAUSD story and the recent Ft. Bend ISD news here in Texas about 're-evaluating' their deployments, I thought it'd be a good time to reflect on why some deployments work and some don't work. I'll let you know that our deployment was far from flawless, as I've listed here, but we had tools in place to overcome issues before they became an "Implementation Killer"."

"Whether you're learning to code or are already an experienced programmer, this GitHub repository is an incredible resource of free programming books. Victor Felder updated this Stack Overflow list with new and corrected links and shared it over on GitHub for collaborative updating. You'll find books on professional development, specific platforms like Android and Oracle Server, and about 80 programming languages. There are also lists in other languages. Definitely worth a look for your continuing coding education. There's nothing quite like free books!"

"Our school libraries are no longer made up of the rows upon rows of stacks and hushed, immovable wooden desks. At least, not if we expect them to support the innovative learning styles of our students. The libraries of today need to be interactive learning environments that support a multitude of learning styles and modalities. While a full scale renovation would be awesome, many of us simply don't have the budgets to completely makeover our spaces all at once. But we can still pursue smaller, less expensive changes that can transform our spaces for our students. Here's five things you can do to change up your space: "

"Having a digital classroom means a few different things: 1. You have less stacks of paper 2. It is (generally) easier to keep track of student work 3. "The dog ate my homework" isn't a viable excuse anymore 4. Note taking needs to take a new form 5. You need another method of sharing work that doesn't involve handing papers from one person to another Clearly, number 5 on this list is the one that will cause you the most thought these days, unless your dog is into eating computers - and then you have a bigger problem on your hands. Lots of things need to be shared. Students need to hand in their work, teachers need to offer feedback on said work, students need to share their collaborative work, and teachers need to share classroom information and tools of all variety. Luckily, there are tons of different tools out there that can enable you to share nearly any type of file (from .doc/.docx and .ppt to .mov, .mp3/4 , .zip and more!). There's a lot of info out there on different cloud storage services - which are a great way to share files - but many of these are business focused and not as classroom friendly. We've put together a short list of some of our favorite methods of file sharing so that you, your colleagues, and your students can spend more time on the good stuff and less time trying to figure out how to get the information to one another."

"Here are some clever ways to use Styrofoam cups to teach math, English language arts, social studies and science!"

"IN THE small town of Fayetteville in northern New York, you'll find the local library in an old furniture factory dating from the turn of the 20th century. The refurbished building retains hints of its industrial past: wooden floors, exposed beams, walls lined with carefully labelled tools. But instead of quietly perusing stacks of books, many of the patrons are crowded around a suite of 3D printers. One machine is midway through a pink mobile phone case; another is finishing up a toy sword. This is Fayetteville's maker lab - and it may very well be the future of libraries."

Alto is really nice as it can sort your mails easily. This free browser-based service organizes mail into virtual stacks to let you stay hassle-free.

"There's nothing quite as satisfying as the soft, smooth roll of pen on paper. That ability to scribble, strike, crumple and tear. But what about the downsides of this ancient medium? Endless printing cycles. Lack of searchability. A desk stacked to the roof with essays and sheets to mark. It's these frustrations and a determination to streamline the classroom that have led many educators to trade in their pen for a stylus, and begin embracing the the brave new world of digital annotation."

"Stickyboard2 is a very good iPad app for creating sticky notes and mind maps. Actually, Stickyboard2 turns your iPad into a giant whiteboard with a never-ending stack of sticky notes. The regular price of the app is $9.99 but it is on sale today for free, at least here in Canada and also in the States. Not sure if it's free in other places. Taking notes and creating sticky notes on Stickyboard2 is super easy.The app supports a number of coloured markers you can use to write your notes. Arranging and organizing notes is also another powerful feature provided by this app. You can easily select a bunch of notes, then swipe with 3 fingers to instantly arrange them into neat piles or fan them out into a grid, columns, or rows. And the best thing of all is that you can export and share your stickies in text or PDF format."

"Something that bothers me so much is when I read articles that talk about how libraries are becoming makerspaces.  Our makerspace is one component of the participatory culture that runs through our space.  Anyone who knows my story knows that my point of entry into the Maker Movement was through literacy, so for me, literacy and making have always gone hand in hand.   When I began as the Library Media Specialist at New Milford High School, I walked into a library that was similar to many school libraries in older schools.  It was very traditional looking, with tall stacks and lots and lots of books that students simply did not check out, nor have an interest in.  The collection was out of date and had not been weeded in decades.  One of the tasks for me was to weed the books.  During that weeding process, I decided that traditional nonfiction that made it through the weeding process would be sent to classrooms to build up their classroom research libraries.  I decided to keep any memoirs or narrative nonfiction that we had in our collection, since those were the kinds of books I discovered so many of our students did enjoy reading and would check out.  Amongst the vast fiction collection, we did find a few gems, but mostly we either discarded books that were no longer relevant to our students, gave them to classrooms who wanted them, or to individual students who showed an interest.  In the end, I was able to preserve just a few shelves of books.  As a result, I was tasked with rebuilding our collection."