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"Fotopedia Wild Friends is a beautiful iPad app that takes students on a photographic tour of Europe and beyond. The app features more than 2,400 images of animals. The images can be viewed on their own or as parts of slideshows. At any time students can tap an image to open a short passage of text about the animal(s) they're viewing."

View More By This Developer Open iTunes to buy and download apps. Description If you know about the movie "Dolphin Tale" or are interested in Dolphins, Marine Mammals, or Ocean Science, you will love this FREE App! Wild Dolphins tells the story behind the movie "Dolphin Tale". Interviews, videos, graphics, sounds and interactive elements provide a factual and scientific background to Winter's miraculous rescue and recovery.

"In this post-election period, there has been a lot of discussion about fake news, particularly about how it is spread and shared online, and whether it influenced the recent presidential election. On November 22, Stanford University released an influential study showing that middle and high school students-and even some in college-have trouble distinguishing which online resources are credible. The inescapable fact is that young people need to be prepared for the Wild West of information that they live in and will grow up in. It is also imperative that we, as educators, prepare young people for the important job of responsible and informed citizenship"

"Fact: Kids love Minecraft. The unique and ridiculously popular game is often compared to digital LEGO's, and at it's core, allows players to place and break blocks in a 3D world. With more than 22 million users in 40 countries, the Minecraft craze is only growing and kids can't seem to get enough. The draw of Minecraft? For kids, it's a blank slate and gives them the opportunity to let their imagination run wild. For educators, it is a perfect opportunity to fully integrate technology with learning. Minecraft is being recognized as an incredibly powerful, educational tool that acts as a medium for educators and students, alike, allowing them to unleash their creativity and fully integrate technology with learning opportunities. Because the game lives online, the multiplayer format can be utilized to emphasize digital citizenship and collaboration all through integrated project based-learning. Meet Connected Camps, an online summer camp for Minecraft that is breaking the rules in all the right ways. Yes, you read that right, Connected Camps is a virtual summer camp, that connects kids from around the country (and even the world) through a dedicated, monitored and secure Minecraft server."

"Official Chrome extensions are supports for other Google products. They come with another side benefit - they are automatically authenticated and safe. The Chrome Web Store is safer now than before, but it can still be the Wild West for malicious extensions developers. Maybe you know about some of these official extensions…maybe you don't. Either way, let's visit the little corner on the Store that holds some of the best official extensions you should use. We start with the most beautiful of them all…"

"A purple monster with wild curls spiraling out of control explains the economics of oil production in the Sudan to students in Los Angeles, Sydney, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Riyadh. That is education and animation working together to teach students everywhere, everything they ever wanted to know. Educators need only utilize the tools available, most of them for free."

"The digital natives of today are the ones who will be pressured to take all of the present technological wildness and make it make sense for the next generation. They are the starting pitchers in the game. If we can set them up for success, that will bring us one step closer to those super-digital natives who will flip this world upside-down with what they will have to offer. The rise of the super-digital native starts with how we empower the digital natives of today."

"As the collective family of social media channels grows, each adopts their own personality. LinkedIn is oldest sibling -a go-getter that wore a suit in middle school. Instagram is the playful teen that opened her own restaurant with her family's money. Facebook is the walking political argument that you know not get started. And twitter? twitter is the wild child of the bunch. Offering quick bits of information, a dynamic stream that looks great on desktop and mobile devices, and a variety of ways to communicate from #hashtags to @messaging to micro-blogging and link distribution, twitter works, and unlike facebook, blogging, and other digital tools, when something does indeed "fail" on twitter, the overwhelming number of tweets can help mitigate the loss. The best I've heard explanation we've heard for the difference between twitter and facebook is (paraphrased), "Facebook makes me dislike people I've known for years, while twitter makes me like people I've never met." I'm not sure it's quite that cut and dry, but the big idea remains the same-every social channel has its own personality."

StoryMaker is a simple tool for creating digital stories. Using audio, pictures and text you can create storyboards, slideshows and much much more. To create your own StoryMaker file, just click on the 'Create a new StoryMaker file' button below and follow the instructions that follow. You will be asked to input some data and upload your audio file. You audio file can be anything from music to conversation and your images can be absolutely anything you want. Once you do this you are free to proceed to StoryMaker and let your imagination run wild!

"Mobile learning devices are great for classroom use, but to get the most out of them, lots of educators believe in taking tablets outside. With British weather now entertaining the idea of being pleasant, teacher and outdoor learning-expert Juliet Robertson gives her thoughts on how best to get the most out of this field."

"This is a must for those teachers use the great benefits that the AppleTV can bring to the classroom. Do you see this intro screen when the Apple TV turns on? Those movies on the top? While a lot of these are the most popular movies playing though it is, they may not be the most appropriate for our students. This happened just today as I was teaching in another classroom, and it was a small distraction during my lesson. Kids were excited to see their favorite movie, in this instance, Big Hero 6. They cheered and became excited. Wild this case was harmless, I can only imagine other cases where movies that are rated PG-13 or higher can cause some concern for teachers of younger students. These can even be a distraction for high schoolers, who will likely veer off topic if they see a movie that they like or dislike."

"When you were growing up, what did you enjoy playing with? If you were like me, maybe it was Tinker Toys, an Easy Bake Oven, or Lite Brite. I liked designing and creating things. As a teenager, my imagination ran wild as my ideas turned into sketches which later covered the walls of my bedroom. (Thanks Mom, for never painting over the walls-even 25 years later!) My own children love building and messing around with things, too. It's amazing how long a few cardboard boxes or toilet paper rolls and some duct tape will keep them entertained. (We've built forts, spaceships, and garages for all their Match Box cars.) It's the nature of these learning experiences that allow young people to think creatively and use their imagination. With a focus on standards, accountability, and assessment over the last decade or so, it seemed that these opportunities disappeared from our schools. However, within the last few years, the tide is beginning to turn. I believe an exciting shift is happening in education as schools across the country are embracing the Maker Movement and returning creative, hands-on learning opportunities to their classrooms. Additionally, STEAM education has come to the forefront with an emphasis on preparing students for college, career, and beyond, focusing on the 4 C's: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. STEM has transformed into STEAM as the arts become an integral component to meaningful learning. In many schools, the STEAM and maker education are colliding. Hybrid models are being created that embrace the integration of STEAM components and the creative spirit of the Maker Movement. At the intersection between STEAM and making, powerful learning occurs. I would argue that a new movement is emerging-STEAM Makers."

Despite this being a 'thinking' conference, despite us all being advocates for structured and scaffolded models of thinking, not one group had applied any thinking routines, utilised a collaborative planning protocol or talked about applying an inquiry model or design thinking cycle. It wasn't that we didn't know about them. It wasn't that we don't know how to use them. It wasn't that we don't value them. We had all the knowledge we could desire on the how to and the why of a broad set of thinking tools and anyone of these would have enhanced the process, but we did not use any of them. Why was this the case and what does this reveal about our teaching of these methods to our students?

"Like most students at the time, I did not have access to computer science classes when I attended Wilde Lake High School in Columbia during the 1980s. I only stumbled upon the field when my high school math teacher recommended that I take a FORTRAN programming course at Howard Community College. I quickly learned that programming was like nothing I had experienced in school before. Whenever I finally solved a problem, there was a deeply satisfying "aha!" moment. As a result, I studied computer science at Harvard and received my Ph.D. in the field from the University of California, Berkeley. Nearly four decades after I took that first FORTRAN class, I'm a professor of computer science and associate dean at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I was fortunate to have found my passion, even though computer science was not taught at my school. The unfortunate fact is that most K-12 schools still do not teach computer science, and most of today's high school and college students - particularly women - have still had little or no exposure to computational thinking, coding or computer science. There are certainly many students who would make great computer scientists, or who could leverage computing skills to achieve success in any number of other fields, who never take a single related class. Even in Maryland, one of the most technologically advanced states in the nation, only 14 percent of students take a computer science class in high school, and nearly half of the public high schools do not offer any AP computer science classes."

"It's summer, which means you're most likely out of the classroom and enjoying the weather and all that comes with it. For many of us, this means either attempting to grow a few things in our own gardens or hitting up the farmer's markets for some awesome fresh produce. Others will start small school gardens with their students in the fall, which offer many learning opportunities extending way beyond just the idea of how to get something to grow. The handy infographic below takes a look at fifty cool facts about plants, many of which you may not have already known. Use them as cocktail party fodder, to get your students interested in plants, or just for fun! "