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Practical, teacher-created ideas and resources that you can use in your classroom immediately or throughout the year.

Redefining Literacy for a New Age - Peter Johnston is a Professor at the University at Albany-SUNY. He researches the consequences of teaching and assessment practices for the literate lives of children and teachers. He chaired IRA and NCTE's Joint Task Force on Assessment Standards and is a member of IRA's RtI Commission. He was recently elected to IRA's Reading Hall of Fame.

The Money Belt is your gateway to financial learning. Here, you can build your knowledge and confidence in handling finances and situations involving decisions about money. It's the place to get practical tips and test what you know - and don't know - about managing money without the risks and consequences you would encounter in real life. Created by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, The Money Belt is dedicated to teaching financial life skills - the basics about money and the financial world in an easy-to-understand way that is relevant to you.

Asymptopia Crossword Builder is a JavaScript education application that runs in any modern internet browser but does not require an internet connection. The simple controls allow teachers or parents to create unlimited math crosswords, or supply their own word:hint pairs. Support has recently been added for French, Spanish, pt-Brasillian, Kiswahili, and special characters (accents, tildes etc), in general. Some suggested uses include: cities, countries, lattitudes and longitudes to teach geography and spherical trig, simultaneously; Periodic table word:hint pairs; Language[i]:Language[j] word:hint pairs, for foreign language learning exercise; Terminology practice with virtually any other subject.

How do we motivate students to embrace challenge? How do we encourage students to rise to challenges of their own? What is the connection between a meaningful, challenging curriculum and lasting achievement? ASCD's newest e-book, Challenging the Whole Child: Reflections on Best Practices in Learning, Teaching, and Leadership, addresses many of these questions and is available for download free of charge starting today and running through August 16, 2009.

"The main point this diagram illustrates for me is not so much the types of teachers in a school but the percentages of those types in existence. The sharp end of the pencil represents the teachers who choose to regularly update their knowledge and practice in teaching approach and use of technology and yes, it's only 10-15%. Educations biggest influencers are the majority of teachers who either expect & wait for professional development to be delivered to them (wood), feel they require no PD at all (Ferrules) or try to reverse any example of progression from that which worked 20 years ago (Erasers). My own school has been BYOD for 4 years and can still claim the same percentages displayed in the pencil above (I've only been there a year). The first question that every teacher/leader at the summit should have been asking themselves is "How do I affect genuine change in the majority of those I work with?" This was the heart of my presentation."

"It seems like the practice of professional development within schools has witnessed some radical changes throughout the years. According to We Are Teachers, there are ten main areas that have been touched by this change. Starting with the choice of topics of PDs, in the past such topics were particularly chosen by the principal or school administrators on behalf of the teaching staff. However, today, teachers are more inclined to guide their own PD through concerted efforts in professional learning networks. Also a comparison between the delivery style of PDs in the past with what it is now shows a considerable  shift from expert-centred lecture style where teachers were mere listeners to hands-on workshops that view teachers as experts."

"It's easy to take digital technology for granted these days. To students who were practically born with an iPad in their hands, it's hard to imagine a time when a world of history and knowledge wasn't just a few swipes away. But if the infographic below, entitled, "Remarkable Advances in Computer Engineering," is any indication, there are advances in the pipeline that will stretch the imagination of even the most jaded kindergarten digital savant. On this, the second day of Computer Science Education Week, we're once again celebrating these advances with a look forward. Whether you're a computer science teacher or you teach a more generalized classroom, show this infographic to your students to spark discussions about the future of technology, to stretch imaginations and student conceptions of what's possible, and to inspire your students onto the computer science track. Even students who lead less computer-centric lives will be interested in discussing applications of these shifting capabilities to their own interest areas."

"The NMC Horizon Report: 2014 K-12 Edition was released this past week, examining emerging technologies and their potential impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Part of the NMC Horizon Project, a 12-year effort, this report highlights "six trends, challenges, and emerging technologies that will affect current practice" over the next five years. Aside from being great content for your next Twitter chat, this year's iteration of the NMC Horizon Report is a must-read for 21st century educators and education policy makers alike. Following is a summary of major points."

"Consider these words from Peter Gray, author of "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life:" Free play is nature's means of teaching children that they are not helpless. In play, away from adults, children really do have control and can practice asserting it. In free play, children learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, create and abide by rules, and get along with others as equals rather than as obedient or rebellious subordinates. Peter Gray's words remind me of danah boyd's descriptions and analysis of the over-scheduled lives of teens in her recent book, "It's Complicated: the social lives of networked teens.""

"On a number of occasions I've blogged about the incredible possibilities that a large screen display brings to a PE practical classroom. With this in mind, I thought I would create a video exploring 10 ways can use a large screen display in your PE Classes. I also go behind the setup at my School and the various ways I've used it to enhance my teaching and my students learning. You can watch the video below"

"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."

"Lately I've found myself squinting a bit at some of the practices and structures in teaching and learning. This squinting is less about efficiency or performance, but rather what effect each piece has-a kind of causal analysis. This is the cause, and it might have this effect. In trying to imagine what would be different if we did this instead of that, I was surprised at how education has settled one a small handful of models in light of so much possibility. Was it because we've found the magic formula, and in 2014 we're in an era of simple refinement? That we know "what works," and now it's all a matter of tweaks? That if teachers just listened and did what they were told and used #edtech and stuck to the script and if parents just read to kids and if poverty wasn't an issue and if classrooms were more inviting and we just used the data that is staring us in the face that it'd all somehow coalesce? So, this list. Other ideas for learning. I'm not saying any of these ideas are good-or even the least bit viable. I'm not saying they wouldn't be downright destructive, curiosity-snuffing intellectual abominations that'd take education back to the dark ages. I'm just wondering what would happen."

"One of the things I love about being connected on social media is that I get new ideas for my teaching practically every day. It must have been three or four years ago, when I was on Twitter and I saw an educator (apologies for not remembering who it was!) posting about using story cubes in class and then a lot of teachers got into the Twitter discussion, talking about how there were using them in class, others said they were also discovering them then and there like me…I found it a brilliant idea and they work a treat, not only with Young Learners, but also with my teenage students - I have also used them with adults and they loved them!"

"Teaching and learning through technology is a complex thing. Learning what, from whom, and why? But in terms of pure academic preparation-practicing skills and the application of concepts for traditional classroom projects and assessments? Technology like Android and Windows tablets, iPads, and smartphones become even more useful. Why? Because they're, by nature, "me" devices-a personal screen to display exactly the content you need, exactly when you need it."

"The NMC Horizon Report > 2015 Higher Education Edition is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). This 12th edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, giving campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning. The report aims to provide these leaders with more in-depth insight into how the trends and challenges are accelerating and impeding the adoption of educational technology, along with their implications for policy, leadership and practice. View the work that produced the report at www.horizon.wiki.nmc.org."

"Mythbusting and the Nigerian Prince? From the moment you received your first email scam, the world became a different place. When it comes to truth and lies, digital means we have to be full-time critics and skeptics. Let's explore some practical ways you can teach your students to be harsh critics and mindful producers which empower them to navigate better and interact safely with digital content."

"For many schools across the country, today marks the first day of a new year. In addition to thinking about tools that help boost educators' teaching practice, this moment might be a good time to pull back and think about some big-picture ideals, too. Here are a few to consider."

"Exploring Computational Thinking (ECT) is a curated collection of lesson plans, videos, and other resources on computational thinking (CT). This site was created to provide a better understanding of CT for educators and administrators, and to support those who want to integrate CT into their own classroom content, teaching practice, and learning."