"According to the Pew Research Center, more than a quarter--26 percent--of American adults have not read even part of a book within the past year. It's a shame considering that researchers have found reading is beneficial in many ways."

"The research group that I'm a part of, Re-Making STEM, of is looking at ways that computational thinking (CT) practices intersect with creative, collaborative human activities.  This has led to some really interesting explorations in computing, cognition, and culture. Our practical goals include: discovering ways that teachers and their students can engage with and learn CT, and discovering design principles for learning and applying CT in interesting ways.  In this post, we'll look at some of those explorations and hopefully leave you with some things to think about."

"These new and revised lessons, based on our original K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, take on timely topics for school communities, support teachers with improved classroom tools, and prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives."

"In a job search, you need to know what you are good at. Which can feel daunting at first if you have been taught not to brag about yourself, right? Often the default is to talk about your degree or how many years you worked for a company. But that doesn't tell people what you are good at."

"You're probably familiar with the range of free, web-based tools offered by Google within its Google Drive service? These tools include Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Forms, and Google Slides. They've become staples in classrooms, homes, and businesses around the world. For teachers and students, Google Slides is one of the most exciting and versatile tools on offer. Maybe you've heard of Google Slides and you're wondering how you can use it in the classroom? Or perhaps, you've dabbled with Google Slides but you're not sure exactly how it can be used beyond presentations? Or are you a blogger wondering how Google Slides can complement your blog posts?"

"Remember the hype around gamification? About a decade ago, FarmVille and other Facebook games were all the rage. It led the Horizon Report, an annual attempt by a panel of experts to forecast educational trends, to predict in 2012 that gamification would be a major force in education within three years. But here we are in 2019, and people aren't talking much about gamification in education. In fact, after 2015, the Horizon Report stopped mentioning it at all. This week Educause released the higher education edition of the Horizon Report for 2019, and for the first time it looked back on how well past reports did at accurately predicting what would be on the horizon. Titled "Fail or Scale," the new section of the report includes three essays that look back at three predictions from past reports with the benefit of hindsight."

"Only 25% of eighth graders score proficient in geography on standardized tests. Some teachers are using a video chat game to engage kids in the world around them."

"As a parent and educator, I know it is super important that my kids learn how to make smart financial decisions now, before they go off into the real world.  But I know that raising money confident kids isn't always easy. It involves planning. It involves understanding ourselves how to be money confident-and that can be scary, even as adults. So when I was asked by the good people at T. Rowe Price to take a look at the Money Confident Kids® resources they have for school and home, you bet I was ready. The more I learn, the more I can help my children become financially fit. I really love the range and creativity of these resources, and you will, too."

"y TeachThought Staff What is Flipgrid? In short, Flipgrid is a free, education-focused platform to create and share short videos. Quick Overview: How Flipgrid Works The embedded guide further below provides a much more detailed overview of how Flipgrid works, but the short version is that users create videos around topics, then upload those videos to a 'Grid' for sharing, feedback, and topic-based 'response videos.' But what features make Flipgrid it unique? It's really about ease of use (through 'Topics') and privacy (through 'Grids')."

"Books play an essential role in all makerspaces, whether they are in the library or not.  Instructional books can support students in learning complex skills and tools. Project books can give ideas and inspiration for what to make next.  Art books can provide visual inspiration.   Professional development books can help teachers who aren't quite sure how to incorporate making into their classrooms and curriculum. For all these reasons and more, every makerspace should have some sort of resource shelf or section that students and teachers can access."

"Jazzy, one of our high school seniors, already has experience building homes for others. After taking specialized construction and carpentry classes through Milton Hershey School's Career and Technical Education program, she learned how to install flooring and doors, sand and paint drywall, and adjust electrical and plumbing systems. For students like Jazzy, gaining experience in the trades can lead to future success. According to The Bureau of Labor and Statistics, construction careers, along with healthcare and personal care, will account for more than 5.3 million new jobs by 2022. While the trade industry's growing demand is encouraging for students who don't plan to attend college, many students choose to pursue careers in the trades based on their interest in designing, producing, problem-solving and creating."

"Sociologist Jeffrey Lane's book The Digital Street looks at the ever-increasing scrutiny of teenagers' social-media accounts in central Harlem. "

"Since its humble beginnings as a crank newspaper put out by college students in 1988, satirical news source The Onion has been cracking Americans up with headlines like "Kitten Thinks of Nothing but Murder All Day" and "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job" (to mark the inauguration of President Obama). How has it managed to come up with so many hilarious headlines for so many years? According to fascinating recent TED Ideas post by ex-Onion staffer Brian Janosch, the answer is a really, really good brainstorming technique -- one you can totally steal."

""What do you want to be when you grow up?" When I was a kid, I dreaded the question. I never had a good answer. Adults always seemed terribly disappointed that I wasn't dreaming of becoming something grand or heroic, like a filmmaker or an astronaut. In college, I finally realized that I didn't want to be one thing. I wanted to do many things. So I found a workaround: I became an organizational psychologist. My job is to fix other people's jobs. I get to experience them vicariously - I've gotten to explore how filmmakers blaze new trails and how astronauts build trust. And I've become convinced that asking youngsters what they want to be does them a disservice."

"THE WHOLE WORLD is exhausted. And it's killing us. But particularly me. As I write this, I'm at TED 2019 in Vancouver, which is a weeklong marathon of talks and workshops and coffee meetings and experiences and demos and late-night trivia contests and networking, networking, networking. Meanwhile, I'm sick as a dog with a virus I caught from my 3-year-old, I'm on deadline for what feels like a bazillion stories, and I'm pregnant, which means I need coffee but can't have too much, and need sleep but can only lay on my left side, and can't breathe without sitting propped up with a pillow anyway, since I can't safely take any cold medication. According to neuroscientist Matthew Walker, I'm doing serious damage to my health-and life-by not sleeping enough."

" Having kids create social media profiles forced them to get in the minds of the historical figure. They had to think and post like they were them, and it forced them to go deeper than just telling me about the person. I think that's easily what makes history more than just stories.     You could get really creative with it though if you teach science and math. ELA is easy because stories are built in. Just have them be a literary character. In math, what if they treated a math concept like they were a person? You could do a social media account for the subtraction monster. I have also seen science teachers do similar things such as making certain minerals characters that they could post as.      The key is having ways to fake it. You don't necessarily want kids on the real platform because of all the problems that it could create, so you want to have tools to fake it, and that's what this post does."

"Reflection could also be described as the 'opposite' of activating prior knowledge. Reflection is functional neurologically (reinforcing learning as a 'memory), but also useful as a practice, helping students understand the scale and value of what they just experienced. Maker Education is no different-in fact, Maker Learning may benefit even more from reflection than more traditional academic experiences due to the fail-forward/try-again persistence required by this approach. (Check out our Maker Education resources for more reading.) Jackie Gerstein is one of our favorites here at TeachThought, and her usergeneratededucation site is a must-bookmark for all teachers. So, on to the questions for reflection in Maker Learning. Below, Jackie has written 23 possible reflection questions to get you started. Share any others you'd recommend in the comments."

"Many American teenagers try to put in a full day of school, homework, after-school activities, sports and college prep on too little sleep. As evidence grows that chronic sleep deprivation puts teens at risk for physical and mental health problems, there is increasing pressure on school districts around the country to consider a later start time. In Seattle, school and city officials recently made the shift. Beginning with the 2016-2017 school year, the district moved the official start times for middle and high schools nearly an hour later, from 7:50 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. This was no easy feat; it meant rescheduling extracurricular activities and bus routes. But the bottom line goal was met: Teenagers used the extra time to sleep in. Researchers at the University of Washington studied the high school students both before and after the start-time change. Their findings appear in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. They found students got 34 minutes more sleep on average with the later school start time. This boosted their total nightly sleep from 6 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 24 minutes."

"Bike to School Month is four weeks of events, workshops, and incentives to encourage students to bike or wheel to school. May 6 - June 5, 2019 Students and staff learn about active transportation, bike safety, healthy habits, clean air, and the fun of riding a bike! Bike to School Month is for everyone: students and staff can bike, walk, wheel or roll. Sign up your school to participate, and host an event for one day, one week, or the whole month! "

"I'm sure that if you've seen my blog before you've seen that I have a bit of an obsession with cardboard. We seem to have a constant stream of Amazon or Wish parcels arriving at our house (nothing to do with me I'm sure), and with them comes lovely lovely cardboard! It never gets thrown as either the 7yo or myself save it for a weekend build. Some times this can be completely low tech, others we hack it up a bit! For this project we used a Microbit."