"lu checklist: a dozen boxes of tissues, oversized sweatshirt from a college you didn't go to, an orange juice IV, three buckets (one for depositing used tissues, one full of a medley of cough drops and Nyquill, and one for when the medicine comes back up), and a general animosity toward the universe for making you feel like a sack of rotten mayonnaise. Got everything? Good. Here is exactly what's happening in your brain as you fight everyone's favorite seasonal asshole: the flu."

"There is a lot of talk of "Computational Thinking" as a new imperative of education, so I wanted to address a few questions that keep coming up about it. What is it? Is it important? How does it relate to today's school subjects? Is Computer-Based Maths (CBM) a Computational Thinking curriculum? Firstly, I've got to say, I really like the term. To my mind, the overriding purpose of education is "to enrich life" (yours, your society's, not just in "riches" but in meaning) and different ways in which you can think about how you look at ideas, challenges and opportunities seems crucial to achieving that. Therefore using a term of the form "xxx Thinking" that cuts across boundaries but can support traditional school subjects (eg. History, English, Maths) and emphasises an approach to thinking is important to improving education."

"One of the most exciting parts of my day as a resource teacher and co-teacher is to spend time with students who are in the midst of thinking through a problem and figuring something out.   One of the most effective thinking and learning environments is MIT's Scratch environment. Late last fall, I was working with students in a grade 8 class. Some of them were taking on the challenge of building a working analogue clock in Scratch. Others were figuring out multiple methods by which circles and disks could be drawn in Scratch.  "

"Welcome to the Bebras Australia Computational Thinking Challenge! This is the Bebras Australia Challenge Server. Looking for the information pages? Try www.bebras.edu.au The Bebras questions are grouped under three levels of difficulty: A (Easy), B (Medium) and C (Hard). You will find the difficulty level of each question in the overview before you click on it.  The level of difficulty of a task determines how it will be scored. "

"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."

"We have taken our time to reach this point, and are proud of our journey. The tips below are intended to be beneficial for any school on a journey of adapting their technology environment, whether you want to implement a new piece of equipment, or go the whole hog for 1:1. I hope they are useful."

"About a year ago I wrote an article about a simple exercise I created to help teams solve problems without discussion. It was called "Lightning Decision Jam" and it became a surprisingly huge hit! Since I wrote that article, people from companies all around the world have been contacting me and telling me how much it's changed how they work for the better. Lighting Decision Jam (or LDJ) was perfect for groups of any almost any size from 4 to 120. It just works! There was one glaring problem with it, though… it doesn't really work for an individual. That's right, identifying and solving your own problems in a systematic way just hasn't been possible… UNTIL TODAY!*"

""The Big Guide to STEM" is a free e-book containing resources and STEM ideas from educators on integrating STEM/STEAM into the classroom. It also contains a collection of top 10 STEM lists: * Top 10 STEM apps * Top 10 STEM tech products * Top 10 STEM blogs and online communities * Top 10 STEM websites * Top 10 STEM events * Top 10 STEM Software Solutions * Top 10 Resources for STEM Funding * Top 10 STEM Resources for Girls This is a great resource for any teacher at all, but especially those working with STEM courses or projects."

"Four tips for including the news in your curriculum while helping students cope with the abundance of negative stories."

"Valentine's Day is less than two weeks away. In middle schools and high schools everywhere there will be students who are excited about it, some who dread it, and others who are indifferent. I always fell into the indifferent category. Wherever your students stand on Valentine's Day, the following two videos make for interesting lessons about Valentine's Day."

"Microsoft's Hacking STEM Library is divided into activities that take multiple days to complete and activities that can be completed in one day. All of the activities in the Hacking STEM Library include detailed directions, materials lists including places to acquire materials, and lesson objectives. The homemade wave machine project is an example of a one-day project. This lesson on harnessing electricity to communicate is an example of a multiple day project."

"Art has the benefit of being not only enjoyable and relaxing, but of encouraging personal reflection, expression and growth. With this in mind, how can we nurture creativity across the curriculum using artistic methods? You may be surprised where and how often art can be made a feature of a lesson. Here are some school crafting ideas that allow children to enjoy all of the benefits of arts and crafts."

"Shortcuts"

"The Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies (F-10) comprises two related strands: Digital Technologies knowledge and understanding - the information system components of data, and digital systems (hardware, software and networks) Digital Technologies processes and production skills - using digital systems to create ideas and information, and to define, design and implement digital solutions, and evaluate these solutions and existing information systems against specified criteria."

"Whenever I talk about copyright I always encourage teachers and students to use their own images when they need to include visuals in a paper or presentation. If you don't own an appropriate picture then look for images that are in the public domain. While Google Docs does have a built-in image search tool, Google Images is far from the best place to find images that are in the public domain. Pixabay and Unsplash are better places to find public domain images. If you need to use images in a Google Document, both of those sources are accessible through Google Docs Add-ons."

"Benefits of Coding At the heart of computational thinking - and mathematics - is abstraction. When children write code, they come to… understand in a tangible way the abstractions that lie at the heart of  mathematics, dynamically model mathematics concepts and relationships, gain confidence in their own ability and agency as mathematics learners. Computer coding is creating a buzz in education. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently said, "We need to do a lot better job of getting young people to understand what coding is and how it's important, how to program, how to problem solve, how to create the most elegant algorithm possible."1 BC recently announced that computer coding will be added to all grades of the K-12 curriculum, and Nova Scotia has made a similar announcement. The trend of adding some form of computer coding to curriculum is an international phenomenon; in 2014, England mandated a coding curriculum for all K-12 students."

"When a school makes the decision to actively engage its diverse community of families, the benefits far outweigh the effort. Check out these eight ways to do it."