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"Those of you who live and teach in northern climes know what winter is all about. It's not about the beauty of the fluffy white stuff or the bone-chilling temperatures or even the short sunlight hours each day. In a primary classroom, it is really all about the snow clothes. Assuming that the temperature is warm enough to actually go outside (in my school division the children go outside unless the temperature-including wind chill-is below -28C), the whole putting on/taking off all those snow clothes takes up a LOT of time. For some students, it is a ten-minute process. And when you consider that it has to be done first thing in the morning, before and after two recesses, at lunch time and again at the end of the day…well, you can see a lot of time needs to go into this every day."

"On the morning of Wednesday, February 22, 2017, my cell phone rang at 5:30 a.m. The caller ID told me that the call was from our school district. Even before I swiped to answer, the pop-up notification on my phone told me the nature of the call. School had been canceled for the day. That's not such an odd occurrence in February in southwest Missouri. Snow and ice have canceled school as late in the year as early May. However, we'd been enjoying a stretch of record high temperatures, and while I wasn't really awake enough for my rational mind to rule that out, I knew something was off. There has been a lot of construction to and around a few of the school buildings in our district. In December 2016, I happened to be privy to a conversation regarding low water pressure at one of the schools due to a water main issue at a construction site near that particular school. So, non-functioning utilities was certainly a possibility for canceling school that zipped through my not-yet-awake mind. I was not prepared for what the recorded voice of our district superintendent told me. School had been canceled because of the threat of violence."

"Weather apps are a major portion of the apps offered by iPhone. There is always as a necessity to know the humidity, temperature, wind speeds, etc before starting on a journey. Here is a list of free apps that have become popular. You can also use this apps on your iPad and iPod Touch."

"One of my favorite parts about the summer is having more time to spend outdoors. Growing up in the northeast, I definitely treasured the increase in temperature and extra hours to play in the sun. If you find that your children are spending time inside glued to their tablets, they might be surprised to discover that there are plenty of apps to encourage -- and require -- students to get moving outdoors. Here's a list of iPad apps that children can use to explore on their next adventure. "

"What causes climate change? Aside from some notable skeptics, everyone knows that it's caused by greenhouse gases produced by human activity. It's common knowledge today that emissions get trapped in our atmosphere and increase the planet's temperature. But where do these gases come from?"

"When the results of today's U.S. midterm elections are tallied, people will have a clearer sense of how the American people really feel about the current administration. Or at least, how they feel based on the information they've read leading up to the election - not all of which was factual. Alas, it's not just the temperature of the U.S. political climate that will be gauged; so too will the impact and reach of online misinformation. All the major social networks have made attempts to clamp down on fake news, but the trickery has only grown more insidious and pervasive, with new derivatives of fake news, such as fake fact-checkers. Indeed, it would appear that just as we outsmarted fake news, those pushing misinformation have outsmarted our outsmarting."

"Much like cooking, computational thinking begins with a feat of imagination, the ability to envision how digitized information-ticket sales, customer addresses, the temperature in your fridge, the sequence of events to start a car engine, anything that can be sorted, counted, or tracked-could be combined and changed into something new by applying various computational techniques. From there, it's all about "decomposing" big tasks into a logical series of smaller steps, just like a recipe."

"Unfortunately, the way computer science is currently taught in high school tends to throw students into the programming deep end, reinforcing the notion that code is just for coders, not artists or doctors or librarians. But there is good news: Researchers have been experimenting with new ways of teaching computer science, with intriguing results. For one thing, they've seen that leading with computational thinking instead of code itself, and helping students imagine how being computer savvy could help them in any career, boosts the number of girls and kids of color taking-and sticking with-computer science. Upending our notions of what it means to interface with computers could help democratize the biggest engine of wealth since the Industrial Revolution."