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"Here is a handy visual we published awhile ago featuring some of the best   STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering ,Art, and Math)  tools to use in your classroom.  Under each category we featured four representative tools that will help students cultivate the skills involved in that category. The overall aim is to provide teachers with a handy resource to use with their students to help them develop critical thinking skills and  adopt 'an engineering or design approach towards real-world problems while building on their mathematics and science base'."

"Formative assessment strategies in the classroom provide both teachers and students with invaluable information about what students understand, and what they don't.  These ungraded assessments are valuable guides for students to help them enhance their performance. They also help teachers determine if further instruction is necessary. When formative assessments are used consistently, and effectively, neither teachers nor students are surprised by their final grades. Some formative assessments can take just a few minutes, while others require longer periods of time. The following are 5 great formative assessment strategies for teachers."

"The annual K12 Horizon Report regularly identifies and profiles six key trends, six significant challenges, and six developments in educational technology likely to impact teaching and learning. This year, especially, you will find many opportunities for connections to our own mission and practice. But while this year's K12 report practically screams school libraries to me, it does so rather quietly in PDF. This chart from page 9 presents, in summary, the 18 topics selected by the report's expert panel."

"Earlier in the school year my students created whole-class videos using our large green screen studio. While I assigned students a variety of tasks (director, camera operator, acting coach), my students spent the majority of their time on the carpet as an audience member. At the end of these units I wondered how we could increase student ownership of the production. Could I have my students create a green screen movie without having to play the audience member for large portions of the time? Could they be empowered to create a movie independently of the teacher? Could this be done by kindergartners and first graders? For most of the school year I struggled with these questions. That was until I met Brenda Windsor and Mary O'Neil of Trumbull, CT at the Fairfield University "Education Technology Collaboration Day" in March.  Brenda and Mary presented on how they have incorporated green screens in the classroom, and shared the idea of using a pizza box to make a miniature portable studio. Here is a link to the video they created.  From that moment, I was on a mission to have my K-2 students write, direct, film & star in their own collaborative group mini green screen movies. "

"Looking for a way to make learning about money fun? A family board game might be the perfect solution. Money games for kids will help them learn about money management while having a great time. Here are some ideas of games for kids about money. Most of these are best for children ages 8 and up, as they take up to several hours to play and involve complex and abstract ideas."

Jamie Forshey, geeky girl and instructional technology specialist at the Bellwood-Antis School District in Central PA, is dedicated to innovative teaching and learning through the use of technology and digital media that engages students in learning while providing them with a 21st Century educational experience.

"Last week I shared National Geographic's excellent multimedia timeline of the Pacific Theater of WWII. National Geographic offers a similar timeline of the European Theater. While the title of the timeline is World War II in Europe, it does include include events that happened in Africa and some events in the United States. The timeline World War II in Europe includes pictures, text, video, and maps of events beginning with Hitler's first violation of the Treaty of Versailles through the end of the war in Europe."

"There are lots of resources available to help students grow as computational thinkers- and many are free! Some of these platforms begin at basic levels and can be utilized by beginners as young as preschool age, while still others provide interactive experiences that utilize diverse computational thinking strategies."

I recently spent ten days in Cambodia accompanying students on a service trip where they developed their cultural understanding and spent time improving the environment of a local school. While laying pavers and digging a ditch I had a chance to reflect on the difficulties facing education in a country like this. I came away with questions, wondering and few answers. 

"Educators and parents hoping to inspire boys to excel at school now have a new tool at their disposal; Boy Smarts - Mentoring Boys for Success at School. In this book, you will find 100 imaginative and practical guidelines for authentic engagement in meeting boys' varied learning needs. The guidance offered here can help parents and teachers in the challenging task of understanding each boy as an individual while also working toward a community plan to raise boys' school achievement. The common sense approach offers to lay the groundwork for an action plan to mentor boys for school success - a manual for kick-starting boys integrity."

"I'm always looking for new ways to encourage my students to read. If you're a primary teacher, I know you do, too. I encourage students to read alone. To read with their teacher. To read to a classmate. To read to a big buddy. To read to their parents or siblings. The more you read, the better reader you will be, so it just makes sense. Because our classroom is connected with so many people OUTSDE the four walls of our physical space, I have sometimes been able to find a pre-service teacher or someone else who is willing to listen to my students read via Skype. When this happens, I have the students choose a book ahead of time. Then, I just make a list of the students who will be reading, post it near the computer and make sure the first student is connected and ready to go. As each student finishes reading, she tells the next student on the list that it is her turn to read. I am free to work with other students while this "reading center" runs itself."

"A decade ago professors complained of a growing "epidemic" in education: Wikipedia. Students were citing it in papers, while educators largely laughed it off as inaccurate and saw their students as lazy, or worse. As one writing instructor posted to an e-mail list in 2005: "Am I being a stick-in-the-mud for for being horrified by students' use of this source?" How things have changed. Today, a growing number of professors have embraced Wikipedia as a teaching tool. They're still not asking students to cite it as a source. Instead, they task students with writing Wikipedia entries for homework, exposing the classwork to a global audience (and giving students an outside edit by an army of Wikipedia volunteers). There's even a new peer-reviewed academic journal about using Wikipedia in higher education."

"The Definition Of Bloom's Taxonomy, I said, "In one sentence, Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical ordering of cognitive skills that can, among countless other uses, help teachers teach and students learn." Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is simply an update to the original taxonomy that made expanded on the vision of the original while revising the language and hierarchy of the popular Cognitive Process Dimension (what are referred to as the 'levels' of Bloom's Taxonomy)."

"It's hard to feel connected to someone who's gone through a static photo. So a company called MyHeritage who provides automatic AI-powered photo enhancements is now offering a new service that can animate people in old photos creating a short video that looks like it was recorded while they posed and prepped for the portrait. Called Deep Nostalgia, the resulting videos are reminiscent of the Live Photos feature in iOS and iPadOS where several seconds of video are recorded and saved before and after the camera app's shutter is pressed. But where Live Photos is intended to be used to find the perfect shot and framing that may have been missed the exact second the shutter was pressed, Deep Nostalgia is instead meant to bring still shots, even those not captured on a modern smartphone, to life."

Anti Asian-American hate crimes, harassment, and bullying have been on the rise nationally, and as educators we have the responsibility of having to address the recent events with our students, with our colleagues, while at the same time, we may be looking for ways to process and educate ourselves. There are many organizations that have already compiled strategies, research, and personal perspectives that we hope will help you.

"eaching about coronavirus can make learning more relevant while helping students cope with feelings of uncertainty and instability."

I spent most of my teaching career stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. While I love my job, I often felt unappreciated and taken advantage of. Well-meaning people in other professions would tell me I just needed to set better professional boundaries, but that seemed impossible. Then a friend suggested I start with just one boundary and add on from there. This was manageable and I'm now up to five teacher boundaries. It's been life-changing - inside and outside of school.

"How can we stop the spread of misleading, sometimes dangerous content while maintaining an internet with freedom of expression at its core? Misinformation expert Claire Wardle explores the new challenges of our polluted online environment and maps out a plan to transform the internet into a place of trust -- with the help everyday users. "Together, let's rebuild our information commons," she says."

"For all, you who are technology lovers, AI enthusiasts, and casual consumers with peaked interest, don't miss your chance to learn about the newest advancements in artificial intelligence and an opportunity to join the discussion on the ethics, logistics, and reality of super-intelligent machines. Explore the possibilities of super-intelligence improving our world and our everyday lives while you dive into this great list of TED Talks on artificial intelligence. We have compiled a list of the best TED Talks on AI, providing you with the information you seek on AI technological developments, innovation, and the future of AI. Here are the best TED Talks for anyone interested in AI."

" FAMILYPARENTING The Canadian Paediatric Society has released surprising new screen time rules Stop watching the clock, says CPS. But that doesn't mean parents shouldn't be heavily involved in their kid's media use BY CHRIS DEACON | JUN 6, 2019 PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) released new guidelines today for digital media use and screen time for kids aged five to 19. Today's guidelines follow recommendations set out in 2017 that focused on kids aged zero to five. But while those guidelines targeted screen time limits for kids in that age group (no screens at all for infants and toddlers under two, and less than an hour a day for kids two to five), the guidelines for kids and teens focus more on how and when screens are used rather than how long. "We really wanted to highlight that content, context and kids' individual traits are as important as specific screen time limits," says Michelle Ponti, chair of the CPS Digital Health Task Force and lead author on the statement."