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"The handy graphic below synthesizes the overwhelming to-do list of flipping your classroom into 6 easy steps that make the whole process a little less daunting. The big take home: Start small. Flip one lesson to start. Learn from what you've done, and go from there if you want to (or need to) keep trying. Once you've got the basics, there are so many resources you can draw from to refine the flipped classroom experience and add and modulate the nuances of this type of learning experience."

"At my district, the MSD of Wayne Township in Indianapolis, we have found that changing the way we think about teacher training not only benefits staff developers and administrators, but schools, the district as a whole, teachers, and ultimately students. A critical part of our revitalized PD plan has been the use of professional learning communities (PLCs), which are essentially groups of educators that work collaboratively and share ideas, often in an online format."

"Collaborative discussion is an extremely valuable exercise for students to share, challenge and debate their opinions and ideas with their peers. As a facilitator to this discussion the teacher's role is often to guide, focus and document the class conversation to ensure the discussion is shared evenly among students and that the whole class is gaining from the experience. TodaysMeet is a valuable free tool that can be used to add a meaningful backchannel to this conversation, providing opportunities to share thoughts in a live forum and gain immediate class feedback."

"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."

"Where is your first port of call when looking for the right book? Amazon? iTunes? Even an actual brick-and-mortar library??? All good options, but there is one delightfully simple place you should be trying first. Google Books. Not only can you preview a large portion of a book to try before you buy, you may even strike it lucky and get the whole thing for free! Here are five completely free eBooks to get you started, but make sure to take some time and explore, who knows what gems you might find."

"It's not hyperbole to say that we're in danger of losing a generation of children to a world that, at the moment, cannot find its way forward without violence, conflict, and despair. It's not just war and violence that threaten, but a crumbling of the infrastructure of good thinking. That sounds vague, but we witness its impact daily. What we see around us is an increasing inability to collectively define and outline a satisfying vision of the future. Fear is rapidly replacing hope-and that's not a good formula for growing up whole. The news is particularly poignant as we transition into a new year, when much of the world aims to turn love and good will from slogans into reality. So here's a question for educators to consider: How do teachers help heal the world in 2015 and beyond?"

"I am aware that the computer science aspects of the new computing curriculum creates extra work for some teachers as they need to learn many unfamiliar concepts. I know this can be challenging and time consuming, but I think we are very fortunate because there is a vast range of free programming environments /apps available for teachers to use for teaching computer science elements to children. What we need to remember is that the program itself doesn't just make children develop computational thinking, the context we use, the pedagogical approach we employ shapes the learning experience of our students. On the next page I have shared a simple activity which can be used as a main task or as an assessment task at the end of a coding session. The aim is to support children to design solutions for a specific purpose by selecting and using correct blocks in a sequence. These activities can encourage them to think in logical steps which is the main foundation of problem solving skills and at the same time provide opportunities for peer or whole class discussions."

"It's often the smallest spark that ignites the flames of inspiration and lifelong learning. The right balance between fascination and education, Star Chart is the perfect example of an app that can provide that spark for students. Overlaying a stunningly detailed view of the night sky on students' phones or tablet devices, the app can become your classes virtual telescope to explore the whole visible universe."

"The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) describes close reading in light of the Common Core State Standards.  Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately.  Directing student attention on the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details.  It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. (PARCC, 2011, p.7)"

"ome widely held ideas about the way children learn can lead educators and parents to adopt faulty teaching principles Jan 1, 2015 Credit: Kiyoshi Takahase segundo MYTH HUMANS USE ONLY 10 PERCENT OF THEIR BRAIN FACT The 10 percent myth (sometimes elevated to 20) is mere urban legend, one perpetrated by the plot of the 2011 movie Limitless, which pivoted around a wonder drug that endowed the protagonist with prodigious memory and analytical powers. In the classroom, teachers may entreat students to try harder, but doing so will not light up "unused" neural circuits; academic achievement does not improve by simply turning up a neural volume switch. MYTH "LEFT BRAIN" and "RIGHT BRAIN" PEOPLE DIFFER FACT The contention that we have a rational left brain and an intuitive, artistic right side is fable: humans use both hemispheres of the brain for all cognitive functions. The left brain/right brain notion originated from the realization that many (though not all) people process language more in the left hemisphere and spatial abilities and emotional expression more in the right. Psychologists have used the idea to explain distinctions between different personality types. In education, programs emerged that advocated less reliance on rational "left brain" activities. Brain-imaging studies show no evidence of the right hemisphere as a locus of creativity. And the brain recruits both left and right sides for both reading and math. MYTH YOU MUST SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE BEFORE LEARNING ANOTHER FACT Children who learn English at the same time as they learn French do not confuse one language with the other and so develop more slowly. This idea of interfering languages suggests that different areas of the brain compete for resources. In reality, young children who learn two languages, even at the same time, gain better generalized knowledge of language structure as a whole. MYTH BRAINS OF MALES AND FEMALES DIFFER IN WAYS THAT DICTATE LEARNING ABILITIES FACT Diffe

"Interactive Science Glossary: Earth Science and Interactive Science Glossary: Life Science are two fantastic resources for the science classroom.  These completely free interactive science glossaries are a great tool for teachers and students.  With videos, diagrams and flashcards, you'll find that these apps are great study tools.  The tutorials can also be shared with students straight from your device during whole class instruction or for small groups that need extra help."

"It has happened before, and it is happening again. Microsoft's MSDN blog has released a whole new batch of free ebooks that cover everything from Windows 8, to Office 2013, to SQL Server, and more. "

"The YMCA's Camp Combe is one of the most popular and best-known sleepaway camps in the New York Area. Serving over five hundred children a day during the summer months, the facility keeps its guests both busy and entertained with a whole host of activities including swimming, archery, high rope courses, nature walks, and...Minecraft? No, I'm not kidding. An hour outside of New York City, New York, a group of third-to-fifth graders this week dove into the camp's first ever Minecraft session. Of course, as creatively-oriented as the base game is, it doesn't really teach kids all that much as far as practical knowledge is concerned. That's why Camp Combe is using an educational variant of the title: MinecraftEdu. Deveoped by TeacherGaming, MinecraftEdu is a modified version of the base game whose sole purpose is to get its players interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. After logging in to MinecraftEdu, players are first taught the basics of the vanilla Minecraft experience - logging into a server, controlling their avatars, manipulating the environment, acceptable behaviors...you get the idea. Once they've been schooled in how to play, they're then given an objective; this task could be anything from building a bridge to creating a functional particle accelerator."

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has appealed to all citizens to enrol themselves for the National Population Register. All permanent residents of the state need to comply, and will be handed over a resident identity card with Aadhaar identification.

Turkey said Mon it would force NATO to consider Syria's drinking of a Turkish jet as an strike on the whole army partnership.

The Education Nation Scorecard allows families to navigate the education system by providing useful, easily understandable information about performance at individual schools, as well as in districts, states, and the nation as a whole. We invite you to look up your school, the school down the street, or the school you attended growing up.

"Having taught PE using iPad since it first came out in 2010 I have seen it grow rapidly as a tool to support teaching and learning. Having purchased one for personal use I could straight away see the opportunities it lent for me as a teacher with no fixed classroom.  All of a sudden I had access to information wherever I was round the school.  iPad 1 had its limitations though, namely the lack of a camera, but even without this it allowed me to make notes on learning, share videos with students about model technique and numerous other things to support my teaching, even simply planning and evaluating lessons on the go. Then came iPad 2 and the camera.  This changed everything and I knew straight away that this was the way forward for the whole of the department."

"Analogies are one of the best kept secrets in education. Often used as multiple choice question items or as warm-ups to begin a lesson, analogies are use teaching and learning strategies because of their flexibility, ease of use, and tendency to force cognitive load on students. I use them constantly in my classroom, primarily due to their grab-and-go format. Any place, any time-verbal, drawing, exit slip, discussion, one-on-one, whole class, group work, begin class, end class, abstract or concrete thinking, analogies are imminently useful. They're also everywhere-debates, commercials, sitcoms, poetry, hip-hop, video games. What's not to love?"

"According to a study conducted in the chemistry department of the Catholic University done by Diane M. Bunce, Elizabeth A. Flens, and Kelly Y. Neiles in Washington D.C., it was found that while the original belief of the 10-15 minute attention span may be true, it was not the whole truth. Here is the rest of the story. It is true that the first lapse of attention (or first break in attention) occurred at approximately the 10-18 minute mark, but after this initial break, the later attention lapses occurred more and more frequently. By the end of class, attention breaks were cycling every 3-4 minutes. In other words, in the last parts of class, students are only paying attention for 3-4 minutes at a time! So what does this mean for you? This means that introducing different elements into the routine may benefit both you and your students by helping them pay more attention so that you can be a more effective teacher. This is where the pomodoro method comes in."

"Effective leadership is extremely important in any system, but it is even more imperative in schools if we are to provide all learners with a world-class education. This education has to be relevant, meaningful, and applicable. During my tenure as Principal at New Milford High School, we worked tirelessly over the course of four years to transform the culture to one that was primed for student engagement, learning, and achievement.  Through the lens of social media, I was exposed to a whole new world that I did not know existed. My subsequent journey as a connected leader and learner resulted in small, then large, shifts in professional practice that eventually served as catalysts for transformative change. Thus I began to construct an area of practice around digital leadership."