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Thursday Keynote - #BLC14 featuring Shannon Miller, Darren Kuropatwa, Sarah Wilkie and Shilpa Yarlagadda.

After months of delays and speculation, the federal government is set to unveil its controversial update to the Copyright Act of Canada Thursday.

"More middle- and secondary-school teachers are using digital tools in their classrooms and professional lives, a new report says. A study by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project released Thursday delves into teachers' increasing technology use, but also expresses educators' concerns about the digital divide. The study surveyed Advance Placement and National Writing Project teachers across the United States, and 92% say the Internet has a "major impact" on their ability to access content, resources and materials for teaching. Teachers are becoming advanced tech users, according to Kristen Purcell, Pew's associate director for research. "

"Every Tuesday and Thursday from 11-12:30, we have an open makerspace time for students to sign up to explore the world of making.  This time supports students from many of our grades, but it doesn't support all students.  In addition to weaving makerspace into projects, I've been trying to host times for grades who can't come at our normal makerspace hours to come and explore Kindergarten is one of these grades. The Kindergarten teachers came to a maker professional learning session I did in the new year, and they really wanted to work out times for small groups of students to come to makerspace. We made a plan to have a couple of days each week where 3 students from each class came for a 30-minute maker time.  That equals 12 students.  For now, the students are different each time until we see the students who really get hooked into some of the maker tools. That means I have to offer the same experience multiple times so that all students get to try it."

"Educators see almost everything as a learning opportunity. Some of the great ones may even argue the academic value of "Draw Something" (BT). For me, this past Friday was no different, but it all started Thursday evening as I stayed up late hunting down a bunch of free iPad Apps that may be useful in several academic disciplines from Mathmatics, to English Language Arts and Français."

"Last Thursday was a great day of professional development as 30 educators from around the Northwest visited Westside's iPad Open House. This was an opportunity for IT directors, teachers and administrators to see students in action and learn about the process of deploying a 1-to-1 iPad program."

"Google announced at its annual developer conference Thursday that it's bringing Google Drive to iOS devices. Google Drive was released soon after the announcement. It's a free and universal app, designed for both the iPhone and iPad."

"Our publishing schedule for the best apps of the year will be: Sunday, December 25: 20 best iPad productivity apps Monday, December 26: 15 best iPad education and reference apps Tuesday, December 27: 10 best iPad healthcare apps Wednesday, December 28: 20 best iPad business apps Thursday, December 29: 15 best iPad news apps Friday, December 30: 20 best iPad utility apps"

"Every Thursday the Featured area of the iPad App Store gets a refresh and adds some new and often topical featured sections. This week one of these is titled 'Education Collections' and it's one of the best and most complete sections of this type that I've seen. "

"On-Call and substitute teachers face a perplexing set of planning-related problems that require each to become a proverbial Jack- or Jill-of-all-trades. On Monday, you may be filling in for an elementary school music teacher and on Thursday you could be spearheading a discussion on Dickens. Investing in a few mobile apps can save you stress and time, allowing you to have a lesson plan or the materials for students literally at your fingertips."

"Thursday I'm sharing two presentations at iPadPalooza in Austin, Texas. Here are the titles, descriptions, and slides for these breakout sessions. Both are hands-on workshops, however, so most of the time we'll be exploring and playing with the apps Hopscotch and Brushes!"

"The summer is a great time to explore new-to-you iPad apps that you might want to add to the iPads that you have in your classroom. Each day this week I'm going to share a selection of apps appropriate for four ranges of pre-K-12 grades. Yesterday, I shared 21 apps for Pre-K through 2nd grade. Today, I have apps 3rd through 5th grade students. Apps for grades six through eight will be shared tomorrow. Apps for 9th through 12th grade will be shared on Thursday. "

"Nature Works Everywhere gives teachers everything they need to start exploring and understanding nature around the globe with their students. In addition to free offerings that are always available online like, interactive games and lesson plans that align to Next Generation Science Standards and the National Geography Standards, they will be conducting a virtual field trip on Thursday, April 8th."

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

"Today I am linking with Teachers Desk 6 Teacher's Desk Six for Throwback Thursday. This is a super inexpensive activity.  The foam tubes are about 1.80 for a 7 foot tube and you can slice it in half and have two ramps out of it.  The marbles and masking tape are also inexpensive. "

"This wasn't a staff development day. It wasn't a workshop. It wasn't a conference or even a meeting. This was simply Thursday. A day in the life of an educator who happens to be connected to a virtual teachers lounge (credit to ArtGuy for the analogy). This is nothing more than daily conversation. And yet it's also miraculous in so many ways."

Maggie Tsai, co-founder of Diigo and her special guest, Jennifer Dorman, will demo and discuss the first phase of "Diigo Educator Account:" a suite of features that makes it easy for teachers to get their entire class of students or their peers started on collaborative research using Diigo's web annotation and social bookmarking technology. For reference: Peggy Steffens - "Diigo ~ 21st Century Tool for Research, Reading, and Collaboration" http://www.amphi.com/~technology/techtalks/online/nov08/bestpract.htm Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 5:00 PM Pacific / 8:00 PM Eastern / 1:00 AM GMT (on Friday)

MONTREAL - Almost all 16-and 17-year-olds in Canada have used the Internet either for doing school work, sending text messages, playing video games or listening to music, according to a study released Thursday.

So the question is, how do you ensure that students are truly taking their writing to a new level? How do you make sure that instead of just participating in low-level recall, students are moving on to the higher levels of analysis and reasoning that we want them to reach? One way is to rethink how you pose your writing topics. Here are some ideas and examples:

Thursday Sept. 11