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"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."

"BoomWriter is a collaborative writing website that is free for teachers and allows students to create, share, and even publish stories and other original content. BoomWriter's easy-to-use and interactive group writing platform lets teachers deliver a fun and engaging personalized learning experience, while elementary, middle, and high school age students work online to develop their reading, writing, and peer assessment skills."

"Libraries have existed since approximately 2600 BCE as an archive of recorded knowledge. From tablets and scrolls to bound books, they have cataloged resources and served as a locus of knowledge. Today, with the digitization of content and the ubiquity of the internet, information is no longer confined to printed materials accessible only in a single, physical location. Consider this: Project Gutenberg and its affiliates make over 100,000 public domain works available digitally, and Google has scanned over 30 million books through its library project. Libraries are reinventing themselves as content becomes more accessible online and their role becomes less about housing tomes and more about connecting learners and constructing knowledge. Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts has been in the vanguard of this transition since 2009, when it announced its plans for a "bookless" library. A database of millions of digital resources superseded their 20,000-volume collection of books, and a café replaced the circulation desk. With this transition, not only did the way in which students consumed content change, but also how they utilized the library space. Rather than maintain a quiet location for individual study, the school wanted to create an environment for "collaboration and knowledge co-construction.""

"Learning Beyond Walls: 21 Skype Resources"

Project-based Learning for the Online Classroom http://bit.ly/fzEGq5

Last week I spent three days thinking about curriculum and all that it means to teaching and learning thanks to the Australian Curriculum Studies Association's biannual conference. It was three days of deeply thoughtful conversation and learning with just the right mix of academic research and ideas for grounded practice straight out of innovative classrooms and schools. With keynotes by Alan Reid, Dan Haesler, Bob Lingard, Robert Randall and Jan Owen combined with Masterclasses from some of Australia's leading educators there was much on offer. The biggest challenge was deciding which workshop you would attend when every session offered such outstanding opportunities.

Next week is set to be an exciting week of learning and sharing as teachers from across the globe make their way to Miami for the International Conference on Thinking (ICOT). 

When schools communicate, and share strategies they are using to develop mindsets, dispositions and competencies with parents and when parents adopt these strategies and elements of a metalanguage for learning and thinking, our students are better able to integrate the desirable attributes. 

Advanced Ecosystems Science Education via Situated Collaborative Learning in Multi-User Virtual Environment

Wikis are great learning and teaching tools. They have some distinctive features that you cannot find elsewhere particularly the collaborative feature they provide to its users. Several teachers from all around the globe embrace wikis in their classrooms and use them to create a student friendly environment where to enhance what is being taught in the classroom.

"The opportunities for learning through the use of digital gaming are diverse and massive. The speed and ease in which basic game development can be achieved using apps such as Sketch Nation can provide a platform for outstanding cross-curricular projects and really make an impact on progress, standards and pupil independence. This blog post describes one project (upper KS2) which could easily be adapted to suit Key Stage 1 or expanded to meet the needs of Key Stage 3 pupils, and to support almost any topic/subject. 1:1 use of iPods enabled maximum pupil engagement but fewer devices could have been used if pupils collaborated in groups"

"The integration of technology in learning is not new. In the 1980s, many schools had fancy calculators, Macintosh computers, and were even teaching students basic coding. This kind of integration often happened at the lesson or activity level, meaning that it was often surface-level, tacked-on, and perhaps a bit superficial. The power of technology is difficult to fully leverage without curriculum-level integration. This means choosing tools, platforms, and policies based on standards, assessment, and instruction. A side benefit to this approach is the possibility of teacher collaboration and "same-pageness.""

"The links to the assessment and collaboration apps and the hardware and utilities discussed during the presentation will be found on their respective pages within this site. Use the navigation area on the left to get to that information. This page will include links to the additional items discussed in the presentation "iPads for Teaching and Learning" as well as the slides from a recent presentation "All You Need to Know about iPads in the Classroom"."

""I want to integrate making in my classroom. Where do I start?" I see this question pop up all the time in the feeds, listservs, and blogs that I read, and I am continually surprised by the great resources that appear in response. Check out the #makered hashtag on Twitter, join the K-12 Fab Labs and Makerspaces Google Group, read about what Maker Ed and Agency By Design are up to - and then speak up! These groups are filled with generous, welcoming educators who want to share with and help each other. Ask for support fine-tuning a project prompt, invite other schools to participate in competitions and local events, or ask for advice on safe and effective ways to use a new tool. Model the collaborative, open-ended, growth-oriented approach to learning that you'd like to see in your students, and enter the conversation. "