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"Although the main goal when I proposed the Tap Into Teen Minds iPad Project was to increase engagement and student achievement in the mathematics classroom, I also wanted to eliminate items used in the traditional mathematics classroom and determine whether costs could also be reduced simultaneously."

From the site: "I am hoping to connect our school with some other schools in a project where early elementary students share about their family and/or cultural traditions during the December holidays. This project is designed so that it does not require a lot of classroom time to complete and does not involve very complicated technology skills. It also will introduce teachers to Smilebox - which is a neat free tool for sharing images on the web and easily allows students and parents to leave comments."

"Today I spent sometime reading this white paper from Educause Learning Initiative entitled "Making the Grade:The Role of Assessment in Authentic Learning". While the paper discusses at length the the concept of assessment and its relation to students learning, I particularly found the chart in page 6, see below, of particular interest. It captures the essential differences between two models of assessment : Traditional Assessment model (TA) and Authentic Assessment model."

"Is traditional reading and writing enough to be considered literate in the 21st century?I have put together my thoughts via a slide deck. Please note, that I am not advocating throwing out traditional reading and writing, but pushing the awareness that it simply might not be enough to prepare our students. We need to rethink our notion of critical literacy, develop authentic learning and assessment opportunities, upgrade and amplify our curriculum."

"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."

"Many educators and school leaders alike often wonder how students can be appropriately assessed in maker environments. One of the questions that I am asked most frequently is: How do we assess in a makerspace? In my book, Worlds of Making:  Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School, I touch upon assessment and say that a makerspace can have activities associated with the Standards and even can be assessed; however, making doesn't always have to be-indeed, I would argue, MUST not always be-tied to traditional assessment.  All too common is the mindset that traditional methods of assessment are the only valid means to measure learning.  "

"Higher education issues have been one of the hot topics of the current presidential race, with candidates touching on reducing student loan debt and improving college access. However, what has rarely come up is whether or not college is even the best option for each and every student. The general message in popular culture and political debates is that attending and graduating from a traditional four-year college is the only way to find a fruitful job after high school. However, there are a number of alternatives for students who don't necessarily want to take out loans or the academic focus of a traditional university experience, and these alternatives can still lead to fulfilling careers. Called career technical, professional, and trade or vocational training, these programs are typically offered at high schools, two-year colleges, and through other outlets."

"The gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum report New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology. Today's job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems - skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy."

"The following is an excerpt from the book The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis. Let's dive directly into the world of educational apps. Our survey suggests that the majority - one might even say, the vast majority - of educational apps encourage pursuit of the goals and means of traditional education by digital means. They constitute convenient, neat, sometimes even seductive pathways to accomplish what were already goals in an earlier era: mastering concepts, learning arithmetical operations, identifying geographical locations or historical figures or key biological or chemical or physical processes. We could dub them "digital textbooks" or "lectures" or "pre-programmed educational conversations." Decades ago, major behaviorist B. F. Skinner called for teaching machines that would automate the traditional classroom, allow students to proceed at their own rate, provide positive feedback on correct answers, and either repeat a missed item or present that item via another pathway. Those sympathetic to Skinner's brand of psychology and to its associated educational regimen would easily recognize many apps today and would likely nod in approval at their slick, seductive interfaces."

" I've spent a lot of time lately reflecting on the way I teach literacy in my classroom and about the ways that the digital text I often use to teach now is inherently different from the text I used to teach reading ten years ago. In an earlier post, I talked about some of the ways that I think using digital text in shared reading, such as when reading projected blog comments or tweets, is actually superior to the traditional text we have long used. Even if you are not convinced that digital text can work better than traditional text, it is difficult to argue that digital text is not here to stay or that it is not becoming increasingly important. It is and will be a significant part of our students' lives both now and in the future. If this will be true, it only makes sense to begin to teach children strategies for reading this new form of text."

"So what about assessment as a matter of tone and purpose? If an assessment is non-traditional and non-threatening (or even less traditional and less threatening), how might that impact what it reveals? Does the tone of an assessment matter? Is informal assessment a "lesser" form altogether?"

Mobile tech helps us reconnect with traditional ways of learning: Oral storytelling Visual literacy Gestures, dance & the body

"LetterMpress™, an app just released for the Apple iPad, gives users the hands-on experience of working with traditional letterpress wood type, art cuts, and printing press techniques. Every step of the letterpress printing process is replicated on the iPad for the authentic feel and experience of traditional printing techniques."

"In my last post I talked about the ability to transform what we do in the classroom using technology as opposed to simply substituting what we do as teachers in the classroom. Of course, students can use a word processor instead of writing out by hand, or they can use email to submit work or they can do their research using google or safari instead of a book. This is the first level where technology can play a part. However, technology can do more than just substitute and in order for it to impact more effectively we must look at how technology can augment, modify and redefine tasks in the classroom. The top level of the SAMR model calls for redesigning tasks where what can be achieved goes beyond traditional and takes tasks to a new level allowing students to go further in their studies and thought processes. The other key, in my opinion, is to remember that technology is not the star of the show but is there to enable teachers to move learning on beyond traditional expectations and help students construct knowledge in a way that they might not have been able to before."

"It's a controversial topic: do you introduce social media in the classroom or ignore it? Whether you use traditional social platforms or social-focused tools, many educators find that this technology helps increase engagement and excitement with students, many of who are already very familiar with it. "Students communicate, research, collaborate, create and publish online with or without the help of parents or educators. These same students then hop on social media to promote, discuss and share their thoughts with the world. The digital environment is offering us some of the greatest learning opportunities that young learners have ever had," says Gail Leicht, an 8th grade teacher. Bringing social networking into the classroom gives quiet students a chance to shine; sharing their voice online is often easier than speaking out in class. It also opens the doors for collaboration and communication between peers, both inside and outside of the classroom. Not to mention, it gives teachers another opportunity to connect with students. Despite the benefits, many educators still shy away from using social networking in the classroom because they are unsure about how to integrate it successfully. In fact, fewer than 20 percent of U.S. teachers use social media in the classroom, according to USNews.com. Luckily, the process isn't quite as daunting as it seems. Not to mention, you don't need to use traditional social networks to take advantage of social networking in the classroom. Follow these simple steps and watch as your students start sharing, commenting and publishing while learning important lesson material."

"For as long as I've been aware of makerspaces, I haven't quite understood them. I have seen plenty of photos on social media, with the towers made of marshmallows and toothpicks. I've walked through exhibit halls at conferences where the coding and robotics displays cause me to stop, stare, and try to look like I have some idea of what I'm looking at. I even stumbled into a Twitter chat one night where a group of school librarians was throwing around some pretty great ideas about building makerspaces in their libraries. And yet, I still feel like I don't get it. I have this picture in my mind of kids kind of messing around with Legos instead of, I don't know, reading primary source materials that would shed light on some period in history. Or taping together some cardboard strips to make them into a car. Or attaching some kind of wire to a banana. I don't know…the more traditional, stodgy, control-freak part of me says it looks like a bunch of hooey. But some of the smartest people I know are pretty into makerspaces, and the part of me that's not a stodgy control freak, the part that knows there's a lot about tradition we need to question, that part of me wants to find out once and for all what's so great about makerspaces."

"Something that bothers me so much is when I read articles that talk about how libraries are becoming makerspaces.  Our makerspace is one component of the participatory culture that runs through our space.  Anyone who knows my story knows that my point of entry into the Maker Movement was through literacy, so for me, literacy and making have always gone hand in hand.   When I began as the Library Media Specialist at New Milford High School, I walked into a library that was similar to many school libraries in older schools.  It was very traditional looking, with tall stacks and lots and lots of books that students simply did not check out, nor have an interest in.  The collection was out of date and had not been weeded in decades.  One of the tasks for me was to weed the books.  During that weeding process, I decided that traditional nonfiction that made it through the weeding process would be sent to classrooms to build up their classroom research libraries.  I decided to keep any memoirs or narrative nonfiction that we had in our collection, since those were the kinds of books I discovered so many of our students did enjoy reading and would check out.  Amongst the vast fiction collection, we did find a few gems, but mostly we either discarded books that were no longer relevant to our students, gave them to classrooms who wanted them, or to individual students who showed an interest.  In the end, I was able to preserve just a few shelves of books.  As a result, I was tasked with rebuilding our collection."

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy