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"Consider the following scenarios: Laurie's school is trying to individualize students' learning experiences. As a 9th grade social studies teacher, Laurie is expected to use her school's learning management system to provide texts at multiple reading levels for her units so every student can read at their level. In one corner of an elementary school library are tables with lots of "gadgets" and a sign reading "Welcome to Our Makerspace!" Fazil, a 3rd grade teacher, is curious about this area and how it can be used to support his curricular goals. Guidance counselor Shonna is concerned that Maria, a 10th grader, is using Instagram in ways that might be damaging to her in the future. But Shonna doesn't feel she has the knowledge or experience to guide Maria in using social networking tools. In these instances, a school librarian would likely have the expertise to help a teacher use technology more advantageously. As expectations for classroom teachers to use-and understand-technology tools grow, the need for assistance in using these tools effectively is growing as well. Teachers don't always realize that one powerful source of such assistance is a school-based librarian. So, as a technology director who often sees good librarian-teacher collaboration, I want to highlight how powerful that assistance can be."

ÈAs educators and curators of educational technology we know that technology is a tool that complements instruction. As such, the strength of the tool is predicated on its use by a skillful educator. There are certainly some exciting and revolutionary innovations and technology as a tool can be quite powerful if it encourages creative discovery or reinforces foundational knowledge."

"While teachers may always be the best line of defense for students falling behind, busy schedules don't always permit the special attention and feedback that students need. That's where artificial intelligence-powered teaching assistants might come in handy. "These intelligent tools can adapt pacing based on the student's ability … and provide targeted, corrective feedback in case the student makes mistakes, so that the student can learn from them," states an eSchool News report released earlier this year. "These tools also gather actionable insights and information about a student's progress and report the data back to the teacher." Understandably, there is still some hesitation at the idea of using this technology, as education professionals fear the day robots will replace teachers. However, as Thomas Arnett, a writer at the Christensen Institute, explains in his report, Teaching in the Machine Age, these advances are not meant to replace teachers but help them bring students to new heights. "Innovations that commoditize some elements of teacher expertise also supply the tools to raise the effectiveness of both non-experts and expert teachers to new heights and to adapt to the new priorities of a 21st-century workforce and education system," writes Arnett. Schools have already begun to adopt machine learning initiatives to help teachers and students fill learning gaps, and the results have been received well so far."

"Five or so years ago when it launched (way back when, in technology terms), Pinterest entered a social media market dominated by text. Quite simply, it brought an unprecedented visual aspect to social media which users enjoyed, though it was a fairly basic platform. Fast forward to today and you'll find a plethora of new features that can make it particularly useful in your classroom. Read More: How to Use Instagram In Your Classroom So how can making boards and pinning photos be a useful tool for teachers? Pinterest offers a number of different options for teachers both for professional development and for student work. Tons of teachers (and other folks, too) are using this tool  - there are countless boards devoted to lesson plans, classroom ideas, and more. There are purportedly around 100 million active users as of December 2015 - and as with many web-based tools, the more people there are contributing to a platform, the better stuff there will be for you to use (even if you have to sort through some garbage to find it!)   To get your wheels churning, we've collected a few of our favorite ideas below."

"Last week, I had the honour of keynoting a talk for The Manitoba Association of Computing Educators called Technology as the Ultimate Equalizer in which I shared accessibility tools students with learning disabilities could use to help their achievement match their potential. This included Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as Rewordify and Quillbot which students could use to simplify dense text  if they have verbal comprehension issues and Dictation.io which can be used by students with slow processing speed to help them get their ideas on paper as well as many others. But never until now, has there been such uproar about the impact of AI in the classroom as with the introduction of an open source AI tool, Chat GPT which has everyone talking about The Death of the Essay and other woes in education."

" compiled a list of technology tools focused on learning goals consistent with the CRCD framework"

Wikis are great learning and teaching tools. They have some distinctive features that you cannot find elsewhere particularly the collaborative feature they provide to its users. Several teachers from all around the globe embrace wikis in their classrooms and use them to create a student friendly environment where to enhance what is being taught in the classroom.

"I made this Webinar a few months ago…. Creation Tools for the iPad… and today I wanted to share some of the apps and ideas around Creating "stuff" on the iPad. With the camera, it's portability and some fabulous apps, it has never been easier for us to create our own resources on the iPad. And when I say "us", I don't just mean educators - teachers, therapists, parents and support staff, I also mean, our students as well. Anyone and everyone can harness the power and possibilities in the iPad to create some amazing things!"

"Homework: valuable learning tool or complete waste of time? "

"Discovering content is the easy part. Managing it all is the challenge. The gallery below by Shirley Williams is a strong collection of tools to better discover, manage, and share digital content. And with the imminent death of Google Reader, several of these apps could help fill that huge hole (though not the one in your heart)."

"Digital differentiation is a new concept I learned from our colleague Susan Oxnevad. She did a really wonderful job crafting and designing the tools for digital differentiation which I am sharing with you below in the form of interactive images created using Thinglink."

"Why It's Time To Focus On Skills (Not Just Cool Tools)"

"If you are looking for a new formative assessment tool check out Understoodit. Whether your students are on iPads or have access to the web from desktops, Understoodit is a fantastic free assessment tool that is perfect for collecting data when presenting new information to students. As you speak, students press one of two buttons on a website unique to your class: "Confused" or "Understood" You'll receive real-time data on how well your class understands your presentation."

"Over the past couple of years, I have had the awesome opportunity as a principal and teacher to be part of a school that adopted iPads on a 1:1 device to student ratio. I went into the program unsure if iPads would be as effective of a classroom device as traditional laptops, but have become convinced that the iPad offers more for classrooms than traditional desktop or laptop computers. Here are the ten reasons I why I have found iPads to be the perfect classroom tool."

"Tools That Do Not Make a Teacher's Life Easier"

"InfuseLearning.com is a free online assessment tool that is designed to let educators make fast and easy formative or summative assessments of their students. It is a relatively new service, but one that is gathering support quickly due to its versatility and ease of use."

"We all have stress in our lives. In fact, tech can often be a source of the stress. But tech can also help you to relax, offering a more calm environment and helping you to take your mind off of your troubles. When using apps or surfing the Web, you may become upset by a Facebook post, tweet, or news report. Or maybe you read an email from your boss unfairly criticizing your hard work. You may be tempted to step away from your tech, but perhaps tech can be the solution to your tension. These tech tools may help you relax and unwind from your stressors."

"As the world economy shifts away from manufacturing jobs and towards service industry and creative jobs, there's a consensus among parents, educators, politicians and business leaders that it is crucial students graduate into university or the workforce with the ability to identify and solve complex problems, think critically about information, work effectively in teams and communicate clearly about their thinking. While many teachers agree with this premise, they don't often know exactly how to teach these skills explicitly, especially because many of the mandates and required curriculum seem to push in the opposite direction. Process-oriented skills are hard to pin down; teachers can see them in certain students, but developing these competencies in students who aren't already demonstrating them can be tricky. A few teachers in Ontario, Canada have been experimenting with tools they think could make the difference."