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"Creating a Twitter board is simple. Make a template with space for a profile picture, the student's real name, a Twitter-style handle, a short bio, and a list of followers. That takes about a quarter of a page, leaving room for tweets. Have students fill out profiles-some of mine drew a profile picture, but most used a photo-and slip the profiles into clear sheet protectors. When we do this exercise, I display the profiles on a whiteboard for a few days, using magnets to hold them in place. When we're done, I store the profiles in a folder-they don't take up much space and are ready for next time. Cut some paper into small slips that students can use for tweets, which they can tape onto the appropriate profile."

"how a fourth grader how to balance a checkbook and it won't be long before her eyes start to glaze over or his mind starts to wander off to more interesting things. Infuse a financial literacy lesson with terms like bitcoin or cryptocurrency, however, and the lesson gets a bit more interesting. Better yet, give the student a very hands-on, tech-centric way to experiment with those financial concepts, and suddenly you're in an entirely new learning realm. As it stands now, a high percentage of K-12 students never getting the tools and training they need to make informed financial decisions. Only a third of states require high school students to take a course in personal finance, while less than half require them to take a course in economics before graduating. So in a push to make learning more relevant-and fun-a pair of startups, BitLearn and Pigzbe, are fusing gamification with finance, propped up by digital currency tokens. Call it the 21st century piggy bank."

"If you follow my blog, you know I curate a lot of resources for teachers. This post brings together a suggested list, a curated list if you will, of 16 curation tools for teachers and students from the Shake Up Learning community. Choosing how to curate and what tools to use can be a very personal decision depending on your own needs and preferences. That's what's so great about the world wide web of tools! There is no shortage of tools. Curation is absolutely necessary in the information age! As Gayle Allen says in her book, The New Pillars of Modern Teaching, "We're assembling resources in a way that represents the ongoing story of our learning. We are the curators." Curation takes time. It can take a lot of time, and that's why I share so many curated resources on my website. Your time is valuable. Curating on your own is great. Collaboratively curating is even better. Following bloggers and feeds that deliver resources to your (virtual) door-the best!"

"Nobody said that raising an adolescent was easy, and schooling one is even more of a challenge! Parents are taking on a lot of school responsibility, and let's face it -- things are different than they used to be. How are parents supposed to know how to handle the homework load without some guidance? Take studying, for example. If you are a parent of a struggling or resistant learner, you've probably heard more than one person suggest, "She just needs to study more." Most kids think this means filling in a study guide or rereading a chapter. But many don't learn by writing or reading. Their strengths lie in the visual, kinesthetic, musical, or social realm. How, then, are we to help our children develop their studying skills? The task does not have to be daunting. In fact, it can actually be simple and effective!"

"It's possible that robots will take over some human jobs. In fact, it seems like it could be only a matter of time before they do. Increasing automation will lead to massive job displacement, and less people working means less employed citizens paying taxes. So, the question is, how will communities make up the difference if automation is inevitable in the future of employment? Co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates suggests that robots that take human jobs should pay taxes."

"If we look at our students' learning stories as shared journeys that we take an active role in, then we are more than a guide on the side. We are guides on the ride. We are active participants in this adventure, and learn just as much as our students do throughout the process. When students are empowered to craft their own learning stories and go on shared learning journeys, they'll often take the chance to dramatically impact their own life (and the lives of others) through what they make, create, design, and explore."

"t's time to take a look at the micro:bit, which is quite the impressive little device, and see what's packed onto its small surface (4.5 × 5 cm-it's been billed by the BBC as being about half the size of a credit card). I usually introduce new users to a device like this by examining each component one by one, moving clockwise around the board, and that seems like a perfectly reasonable route to take now."

"Are you curious about the idea of teacher mental health days? Have you thought about taking one yourself? Here are some questions you might ask yourself about teacher mental health to help you figure out if taking one is right for you. "

It seems that we never have enough of it and the result is a feeling of constant pressure to do things quickly. As a result, we fall into a pattern of making quick decisions, with incomplete information and then proceed to take hasty action and seek short cuts. Our busy lives, the business of those around us, the schedules we set ourselves and the constant stream of distractions and interruptions ensure we have very little time to do things well and we never seem to get things done. 

"The best writing apps for iPad, like any concept of 'best,' is subjective and further based on need and circumstance. Are you a poet drafting when inspiration strikes? A student taking notes and writing essays? A novelist that usually uses a desktop, but needs their new iPad Pro to do work on the go? While the idea of writing more than a few hundred words on an iPad may seem crazy, using the iPad as a powerful portable writing tool allows you to take advantage of inspiration whenever and wherever it strikes. And with iPad screens now approaching 13″ and capable of supporting USB connections to enable standalone keyboards, it's easier and more comfortable than ever to draft a masterpiece while away from your desk with the help of an app, an iPad, and a good idea."

"The ultimate goal of teaching is to do just that - teach, not stand up in the front of the room and talk. But sometimes it's easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. We hope students will understand, if not now then before test time, and we keep our fingers crossed that their results will indicate we've done our job. The problem is, we rely on these tests to measure understanding, and then we move on. Few of us take the time to address weaknesses and misunderstandings after the tests have been graded, and by that time it's too late for students to be interested. This means we need to rethink how we approach assessment during class. The most effective way to test student understanding is to do it while the lesson's still going on. Asking students to fill out a questionnaire and then correcting misunderstandings during the next class period won't work because students have already moved on. You've got to take advantage of the moment. If you hope to spend the majority of your time getting through to students, and not just talking, then understanding must be measured and dealt with as soon as the first frown appears on a face. "

"These new and revised lessons, based on our original K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, take on timely topics for school communities, support teachers with improved classroom tools, and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives."

"Growing up in L.A., Khalil Fuller was obsessed with basketball shoes. By age 13, he was running a sneaker company out of his closet, buying shoes low and selling them at a profit. In the process-as he calculated the profits that would eventually buy him a car-he also became obsessed with the real-world usefulness of math. By high school, it was clear that most of his friends didn't feel the same way about algebra or statistics. His two best friends, after falling far behind in math, eventually dropped out of school. Fuller started tutoring other kids and had an epiphany: If he could connect math to something that a ninth grader cared about, maybe they'd actually want to study. The idea eventually became NBA Math Hoops, a board game where kids play the part of basketball coaches, drafting players based on statistics and doing simple math to take each shot. Suddenly, math problems become interesting: Should the Warriors have Kevin Durant take a two-point shot within 15 feet of the basket, or Steph Curry pull up for a corner three?"

"Dr. Seuss is gold-whimsical and visually interesting traipses through surreal worlds, and always full of life advice. And life advice is learning advice, and learning advice-well, that's why we're all here, yes? There are themes below that apply directly to the responsibilities of a teacher. Let's face it-teaching is an emotional roller coaster, and a microcosm for life itself, full of tedium and wonder, disappointment and triumph, down days and days to celebrate. Take #11 for example-you have brains in your head and feet on your choose, you can steer yourself any direction you choose-can be both encouragement to elementary students, or high school students taking themselves-and life-too seriously."

"Over the years, many of us have personally experienced the growth of technology in today's classrooms. Instead of taking notes, students are now occupied by surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook, and messaging their friends on their smart phones, tablets, and laptops. Instead of focusing on the instruction, teachers are constantly required to interrupt class in order to remind those students again and again, that class time is for learning, not texting. However, as today's students are using more technological devices, it is imperative that teachers have access to the resources to keep pace with the growing tech culture. The use of smart phones, tablets, and other tech items in the classroom do not necessarily have to have a negative impact on student achievement. On the contrary, the increasing accessibility and growth of technology presents teachers with the unique opportunity to take advantage of those once distracting gadgets, and use them to facilitate academic achievement in new and innovative ways. In this capacity, teachers do not need to be constantly fighting for student attention, but can freely accept it, by introducing a new educational environment that will automatically encourage student participation. Below are some resources that teachers may find useful when attempting to implement technology into their classrooms, separated by 5 common areas that are increasingly important for teachers, and for an effective learning environment-Organization, Project Based Learning, Class Management, Presentations, and Assessment. "

"I was painfully bored during my K-12 education. I looked forward to college anticipating that it would be different - more engaging, more interesting, more innovative. I was wrong. My undergraduate education, except for a few bright spots, was just an extension of my K-12 education including more grill and drill with sages on the stages (literally since I went to such a large university); taking notes and taking lots of multiple choice tests. During my freshman year, I thought that if I had one wish, it would be to change the educational system (which has stayed with me ever since). One of those bright spots was being asked to read Carl Rogers, Freedom to Learn, which was published 1969 in an upper level Educational Psychology course. The big aha for me was that school systems should be focused on helping learners develop the skills for how to learn not what to learn, one that was sorely lacking in most of my K-graduate-level education and a concept and goal that as an educator I've held onto ever since."

"When it comes to productivity, humans don't come close to robots. Machines don't need sleep, won't slack off or ask for a raise and generally don't need vacation days so they can sunbathe in Bali. According to a study from Oxford University and the Oxford Martin School, 47% of jobs in the United States are "at risk" of becoming "automated in the next 20 years." PwC has similar findings, estimating that 38% of U.S. jobs are at risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence in the next 15 years. And while two-thirds of Americans believe robots will take over most of the workforce in the next 50 years, they're also in denial: 80% say their job will "probably" or "definitely" be around in five decades. Here are five robots that are coming to take some jobs from unsuspecting humans: "

"As you may remember from your own (in)glorious youth, most university students are required to take a statistics course even if they hate math and aren't in a particularly numbers-heavy major. Ellen Peters, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, heard this was driving a lot undergrads on her campus crazy. "A lot of the students are really threatened by it. They're kind of afraid of it, they dread taking it," she says. "If they do dread it, they can end up in a cycle of failure." Curious to see if she could make a positive change among math-phobic Buckeyes, Peters created an intervention that tested whether or not value affirmation could improve student's comfort and ability with numbers, otherwise known as numerical literacy or numeracy. The results, which were published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, indicate that confidence and core values have a lot to do with learning the numbers."

"As enthusiastic as I am about makerspaces in education, at some point, we have to take the training wheels off. There are thousands of maker products on the market that come with project guides, activity kits, and curriculum guides. And that is wonderful! But we're forgetting that those guides and kits are just TRAINING WHEELS. They were just meant to give you the foundation skills and confidence needed to take it to the next level. So what is the next level, you ask? YOU TELL ME.   That is the whole idea of the maker movement and sometimes I feel we are totally missing it.  "

"Many of us have started our breaks. If you have a website, blog, virtual learning site or messaging system like Remind to connect with your learners then you can motivate your students to continue the learning with photo and video challenges. Learners of all ages love taking pictures and videos, especially with their mobile devices. Students are surrounded by science, math, geography, history, and literacy. Often, they just need to be challenged to take a closer look, investigate their surroundings, capture their learning, and present it to others. For any subject you can send your students on learning missions and challenges to capture the learning around them and demonstrate to others what they have learned!"