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"Down a locker-lined hallway at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, Zac Felli, a junior, walks to his first class of the day. He wears tortoiseshell glasses and is built like he could hit a ball hard. He has enviable skin for a teenager, smooth as a suede jacket. Over one shoulder he carries a slim forest-green and tan messenger bag that would have been social suicide in 1997. But 1997 was the year Zac was born, so he wouldn't know anything about that. A squat, taupe monolith flanked by parking lots, Lawrence Central smells like old brick and floor polish and grass. Its gleaming floors squeak if you move your foot a certain way. The school has existed on precisely this spot of land since 1963: maroon block letters over the door, tang of chlorine from the indoor pool. None of that has changed. Here's what has: After Zac turns the doorknob of Room 113 and takes his seat in Japanese III, he reaches into his shoulder bag, pushes aside his black iPhone 5S and Nintendo 3DS XL, and pulls out his Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet with purple detachable keyboard, which he props up on his desk using its kickstand. By touching a white and purple icon on his screen, he opens Microsoft OneNote, a program in which each of his classes is separated into digital journals and then into digital color-coded tabs for greater specificity. And then, without a piece of paper in sight and before an adult has said a word, he begins to learn."

"December has been a busy month for us!  It's a really exciting month too!  Have you heard the saying that usually things click for kindergarten kids AFTER Christmas?  Well, I can happily say that things have really clicked for our classroom AFTER Thanksgiving.  Almost all of my students know their letters and sounds and have a huge bank of sight words that they know.  They are becoming so much more independent.  I love sitting back and watching them work.  This allows me to work with small groups or to get assessments done."

"Millions of people-perhaps you're one of them-have watched viral videos of a Scottish granny collapsing in laughter while she reads to a baby. Comfortable on a sofa with her grandson, Janice Clark keeps cracking up as she tries to read "The Wonky Donkey" and, in a second video recorded a few months later, "I Need a New Bum." Her raspy burr sounds great, and she's fun to watch, but the real genius of the scene is what's happening to the baby. Tucked beside her, he's totally enthralled by the book in her hands. In the second video especially, because he's older, you can see his eyes tracking the illustrations, widening in amazement each time that she turns the page. He's guileless, unaware of the camera. He has eyes only for the pictures in the book. What's happening to that baby is both obvious and a secret marvel. A grandmother is weeping with laughter as she reads a story, and her grandson is drinking it all in-that's obvious. The marvel is hidden inside the child's developing brain. There, the sound of her voice, the warmth of her nearness and, crucially, the sight of illustrations that stay still and allow him to gaze at will, all have the combined effect of engaging his deep cognitive networks. "

"n the rush to cover standards and ensure students have learned the concepts they will need in the future, it's easy to lose sight of how fun math can be. These three TED-Ed videos offer fun, challenging riddles that can also be explicitly connected to mathematical concepts. The "Prisoner Box" problem is essentially a loop and could be a high-interest way to dive into this topic."

"You've read about the maker movement. You've seen the posts with 3D printers, laser cutters, and three-axis mills in shiny new labs. And you want your students to start making, too. But you've got one big problem: you don't have a full lab -- or even a 3D printer -- because, like many educators, you don't have the biggest budget. Maybe you have no budget at all. But what if you could get started making tomorrow and didn't need all the fancy tools to join this movement? Making starts with a mindset, and simple materials are all that you need to get started. There are resources all around you, materials hidden in plain sight, tools just waiting to be used for a creative purpose. And with a little dose of ingenuity, you'll have your students making in no time. One perfect way start making on the cheap is through upcycling, the intentional transformation of hard-to-recycle materials into new products, thus saving them from the landfill. This type of real-world project not only teaches making skills but also helps you integrate making into your subject area. Study material science, explore industrial design, or dig into environmental education. As an added bonus, a project like this ignites your students' entrepreneurial spirit."

"If you're looking to learn a little bit about Pinterest before you start pinning everything in sight (and trust me, it can get addictive!) then we have you covered. Here's absolutely everything you need to know about Pinterest!"

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"In 2006 there was a term that started to grow in the United States-- STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). The basis of the STEM movement was the growing concern that our students were not prepared for the high-tech jobs of the future. Just a year later a well-know researcher, Georgette Yakman, announced the need to include the arts in STEM programs; thus STEM became STEAM. Georgette took the inclusion of the arts and expanded on how it relates to the other STEM subjects. Her well-know quote is "Science and technology, interpreted through engineering and the arts, all based in elements of mathematics." This is a rich beginning to our dive into the 21st century job market... but! We have lost sight of one very important aspect of our education and all jobs, be they high-tech, low-tech, or no-tech. What about the importance of reading? Without the ability to read and write, there is not a job to be found for which STEM or STEAM education is going to be enough preparation. ELA, or English Language Arts, is a critical component of the core standards. There are also standards that help reference reading and writing for science and the technical subjects. The notion seems to be that reading is still a critical element in any student's success. Why not give it its proper place... STEM to STEAM to STREAM, standing for Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts and Math. "

"Smartphones and tablets, with their flat glass touch screens and nary a texture anywhere, may not seem like the best technological innovation for people who cannot see. But advocates for the blind say the devices could be the biggest assistive aid to come along since Braille was invented in the 1820s."