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"Exercise has been touted to be a cure for nearly everything in life, from depression, to memory loss, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's and more. At the same time, similar to the topic of sleep, I found myself having very little specific and scientific knowledge about what exercise really does to our bodies and our brains. "Yes, yes, I know all about it, that's the thing with the endorphins, that makes you feel good and why we should exercise and stuff, right?" is what I can hear myself say to someone bringing this up. I would pick up things here and there, yet really digging into the connection of exercise and how it effects us has never been something I've done. Inspired by a recent post from Joel on what makes us happy I've set out to uncover the connection between our feeling of happiness and exercising regularly"

" "Why are we okay that management hasn't seen innovation in a 100 or 50 years, but we demand innovation in every other aspect of our lives?" Jamie Notter As we continue to look at teachers, students, and learning becoming more "innovative", it is important that leadership changes. As administrators often set the tone for their district or their building, if they are saying the same, it is not likely that things are going to change in the classroom. Leadership needs to not only "think" different, but they need to "act" different. For leaders to be effective in changing a school or an organization, they need to change themselves first. It is way too easy to go a leadership conference and get ideas of things that you are going to do with your staff. What is important is changing your own practice first. So along the lines of What is happening within "pockets" of classrooms around the world, leaders must embody the characteristics that they seek. As my good friend Jimmy Casas says, "What we model is What we get.""

"Since there's such a push to bring apps into the classroom, it's time to figure out which ones are right for you. I threw together this cheat sheet to choosing education apps that will hopefully help you quickly choose what works (and what doesn't). So what are some of the best education apps for active learning? what are the top ways to get students actively engaged and interacting with one another? There are some seriously amazing iPad apps that are terrific for project-based learning, active engagement, and even flipped classrooms. This cheat sheet will help - but first let's run through the questions you see in the visual."

What makes a team truly great? What are the qualities which allow some teams to perform at a high level while others seem trapped? One approach to this question is to consider a team as though they were a meal. Thinking metaphorically, we ask What are the ingredients that make a great team and how might we combine them to produce the best results?

The message is now unpacked for the class. The jar represents our lives, and the challenge is to decide what we will fill our lives with. The large rocks represent those things which matter most in our lives. The gravel and sand the small things which occupy our time and keep us from what matters most. - How might this help us focus on what matters for our learners?

"Ask anyone which professional skill is most in demand right now, and they'll likely say coding. But ask LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, and he'll give you a different answer. As head of the world's largest professional-networking site, Weiner presumably has access to more, and more detailed, employment information than any government. He knows what jobs people post, what jobs people have, and what jobs people want. And the biggest skills gap he says he sees in the United States is soft skills. what most employers want, Weiner says, are written communication, oral communication, team-building, and leadership skills. Never mind that salaries for coders (a median $103,560 in the US in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) indicate that it's technical chops that are valued right now. Soft skills have staying power."

"I've explored the science behind what makes kids happier, what type of parenting works best and what makes for joyful families. But what makes children - from babies up through the teen years - smarter? Here are 10 things science says can help:"

Walk into any McDonald's, anywhere in the world, and you know where you are and what to expect. For the homesick traveller, the consistency of McDonald's' design aesthetic is comforting. You know how this is going to work, you understand what to do, and you know what you are likely to get. McDonald's requires minimal cognitive load on the customer's behalf.

"Which brings me to news literacy and learners - how to distinguish what is real and what is fake? what is real information and what is misinformation?"

Our goal might be to support Deep versus Surface Learning, but what does this mean in practical terms. what are the beliefs and dispositions which support teaching for deep learning, and what are the implications of this in terms of the pedagogy we adopt?

"So, what did I do with this new scary K-5 area? I reached out online. I found teachers who were sharing what they were doing in their classes through blogs and social media and podcasts. what I realized the past year is that innovation in an elementary school revolves around many of the same concepts and topics as the secondary levels…but it's not always about technology. That is the biggest misconception we have with innovation in education. Technology doesn't necessarily lead to innovation. Instead, technology often allows for new ways of teaching and learning…but only if used for the right purpose. Here are a few of my favorite ways educators are innovating at the elementary school (with or without technology):"

"What motivates people to work? Most people would say money, and those people would only be partially correct. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, author Daniel Pink writes about radical practices implemented by Australian software company Atlassian and search engine giant Google that have taught us a lot about What really motivates human beings to work. Hint: it is not the proverbial carrot on a stick."

"What can you do with The Maker Space at the Cincinnati Library? The Maker Space is an incredibly useful resource for local makers and creatives of all kinds in the Cincinnati area. It is located at the main branch of the Cincinnati Library in downtown Cincinnati. In this podcast episode, we ask Ella Mulford (Maker Space Queen) about all the equipment available for use, What kind of preparations we need to make before using it and, What kind of cool stuff we can make there."

"I went home last week and did everything one normally does over the holidays: I got together with my family and, in the spirit of Christmas, grilled my teenage cousins about what apps they're using on their iPhones. They named two of the usual suspects, Snapchat and Instagram. They laughed in my face when I asked what they thought about Facebook. "It's for mums," one explained to me.  Insightful, but not out of the ordinary. Then my 13-year-old cousin asked me if I knew what AirDrop was. AirDrop is a feature on newer-model Apple devices. It uses WiFi and Bluetooth to let you transfer any kind of file - photos, videos, phone contacts, and even Map locations - from one person or device to another nearby."

"Can you imagine not being able to read printed words? What would your life be like if books, newspapers, websites, email, and even signs were all virtually incomprehensible to you? How would you get through the day? For up to one in five people like me with dyslexia these are not hypothetical questions, they are our reality. Yet, thanks to accessibility technologies built into Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it's a reality that can be challenged. Dyslexia makes reading a simple paragraph, let alone textbooks, a tedious and frustrating process. Spelling and written expression can also be very difficult. ( (Despite this, dyslexia does not impact intellectual ability. It doesn't cause people to read backwards or see words upside down. It does, however, make figuring out What sounds go with which letters difficult. Deciphering unfamiliar words on a page can be extremely difficult, if not impossible. ((So What do people who have dyslexia do when they encounter printed text? Some simply avoid it or give up. Others find methods to help them succeed."

"Ever seen a cool font in a magazine ad, poster or on the web and wondered what font it is? Well, now you don't have to ponder all that any longer because there's a web tool that can identify mystery fonts. what the what? Well, almost. It's actually called whatTheFont, a really swell site that assists users with discovering the names of unknown typefaces. So, the next time you catch a glimpse of some must-have text, then simply snag a screenshot of it, upload it to the whatTheFont interface and wait for the result. Yep, it's that simple-and that nifty."

"Angela Stockman, author of Make Writing: 5 Strategies that Turn Writer's Workshop Into a Makerspace, has what many creative types can only dream of-a studio. Better yet, that studio is filled with young tinkering kiddos who are lucky enough to be learning to write from a truly innovative educator. She is the owner of Western New York Education Associates and Western New York Young Writers' Studio. After reading her book, I really wanted to understand what exactly happened at her "studio." The book is important for several reasons, but one of the most noteworthy is that it is a marriage of two eccentrics: writing workshop and Makerspace."

"Teaching Kids What AI Is (and Isn't)"

"At last week's iPad site visit, a student on the panel was describing her favorite iLesson: "It was in science. It is an interactive periodic table (app). We were learning about the elements. You click on an element and it gives you the history, who made it, how you use it, what it is used for. Another cool feature is you can make them. You can keep on adding neutrons, electrons, and protons as much as you like and every time you click on the plus or minus, it tells you what element you just made. The results were really amazing. We had more interest in the periodic table than we ever had before mainly because it was fun, it was interesting, we actually got to play around with it and see what we could make with it instead of just giving us a piece of paper and telling us 'research these'.""

"Recently, when I perused my twitter feed, I came upon a blog post titled Teacher as Learning Designer. Andrew Miller, the author, states: "If you are a teacher and you are trying to explain what you do, say, 'I am a learning designer!' Teachers need to be empowered with a variety of instructional designs to meet the needs of all students. They need to be honored for their expertise to create creative and engaging learning environments. We can re-frame the concept of "teaching" to truly encapsulate all that teachers can and should do!" The way teachers teach their students has, I believe, a direct correlation to the way in which they learn themselves. We have all read in the latest teaching journals that teachers of today have to be devoted to lifelong learning. But what does that mean, really? what elements affect teacher learning and then in turn affect how that teacher teaches?"