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"Over sixty years ago, our dear friend Benjamin Bloom chaired the committee of educators responsible for delivering what we all know today as Bloom's Taxonomy (a bit rich naming it after himself, but it does have a more catchy ring than Krathwohl's Taxonomy). As a key foundation to many modern teaching philosophies, Bloom's Taxonomy gives a theoretical progression to help classify learning objectives. While this theoretical model is the backbone for many of our education systems, turning the theory it into real classroom tasks requires a more practical slant on the taxonomy. In an effort to turn a high level taxonomy into meaningful classroom learning experiences a number of educators have translated each definition into a set of actionable Bloom's Taxonomy verbs. The below chart visualizes each level of the taxonomy, offering verbs that can be used to traverse a wide range of thinking skills and provide hands-on ideas and inspiration for practical classroom activities."

"For a video game, Minecraft is unusual in that it's both hugely popular, and has a ton of educational value. But in terms of both these factors, the creative building game can't hold a candle to its real-life counterpart, good old-fashioned Legos. large_2x4brick_red_held_by_child_0Yes, Lego, the most popular toy ever made is also ridiculously educational! In fact, when coming up with this list it was difficult to limit it to just 20 activities. The educational possibilities of the humble Lego are seemingly endless."

"'Free-Range Learners': Study Opens Window Into How Students Hunt for Educational Content Online"

"A couple of days ago I shared with you here in Educational Technology an Mobile Learning a list of some useful educational web tools to use with your students to create comics. I also argued that those comics can be used to teach both writing and reading. However, today I am sharing with you a great resource where you can find tons of free comics to use in your class."

Create a free educator account at "Flickr Toys" aka Big Huge Labs and get an ad free experience for you and your students!

"They've given us a list of 90 amazing, tried and tested tools that they absolutely could not live without as education professionals. Their recommendations include a host of free, paid and free-trial options. Ready to take a look?"

"Looking for some interesting free documentaries to use in your class or probably use for your own professional and intellectual growth? This list from Open Culture has you covered. It features around 200 free documentaries spanning a wide range of topics from history to arts and science. All of these documentaries are provided with a short description about their content together with a link to the page where you can watch them and read more about the contextual information surrounding the topic they cover. It will take you awhile to sift through the entire list but we are pretty sure you will come out with some good documentaries to share with your class."

"Where is your first port of call when looking for the right book? Amazon? iTunes? Even an actual brick-and-mortar library??? All good options, but there is one delightfully simple place you should be trying first. Google Books. Not only can you preview a large portion of a book to try before you buy, you may even strike it lucky and get the whole thing for free! Here are five completely free eBooks to get you started, but make sure to take some time and explore, who knows what gems you might find."

"One of the most important skills of the 21st century - web literacy - is often overlooked in the classroom. The ability to read, write and participate online is an indispensable skill for learners, but it's curiously absent from many educators' curricula. At Mozilla, we believe web literacy should be a cornerstone of education. When students can create their own content on the Web, tinker with HTML, and understand the basics of online privacy, they're empowered to do great things. We also believe web literacy is best taught through hands-on, interactive learning. We've just wrapped up Maker Party, Mozilla's annual celebration of teaching and learning the Web through hands-on activities. But Maker Parties can be held anywhere, anytime. And our resources for teaching web literacy are free and open source, always. To kickstart web literacy learning in your classroom - or outside of it - here are six tools and activities from Maker Party for teaching critical 21st-century skills:"

"You may have heard the educational buzz about the free app Periscope. With this app, you can record a live broadcast and share it with followers or with the public. If you aren't familiar with the it, check out this Education Closet article from the fall: http://educationcloset.com/2015/09/15/up-periscope-reimagining-arts-integration-professional-development/ Many educators have jumped on the Periscope platform, broadcasting tips after school hours or live from their classrooms. While it is easy to sign up and follow broadcasts, it can be daunting to record a public broadcast yourself. After learning about Periscope, I thought this might be a useful tool for my school district to help teachers network and learn from one another. I ran the idea by my principal, and she was immediately supportive. To help with privacy concerns, we decided all of our broadcasts would be set to private. In order for anyone to see a private broadcast, though, our staff must be mutual followers of each other. Here's the plan we followed when rolling out a school-wide Periscope community."

"With more than 500,000 apps available for use on the iPad, which ones are best for education? TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) helps by testing and recommending great apps for the classroom. They regularly try out new apps and list those that make the grade in the shared document available here for iPad. Apps are categorized into 46 different subject areas and 14 different personal use areas. Apps that are free are listed in white. "

"Never been part of an online professional community or network? Already part of a community or network, but want to be more connected? The CEM Starter Kit can help you on both fronts. Written by The Connected Educator author Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Powerful Learning Practice in collaboration with the Connected Educators initiative, and loaded with helpful links and embedded videos, the kit takes a 31 days approach for this special month, giving you one simple way to get more connected every day. Please feel free to pass it along to any friend or colleague you think could benefit from getting more connected!"

"Timelines are a great way to showcase the development of a certain phenomena over time like, for instance, a historical event, an educational theory, a revolution...etc. As teachers and educators, we can have recourse to these tools to create illustrative timelines to share with our students in class. There are now several web tools that are free to use and which will let you create your first timeline in a matter of a few clicks. "

"The image-heavy social media platform Pinterest isn't just for making pretty digital tack boards filled with DIY projects and delicious food recipes. Pinterest is a great educational tool for teachers, homeschool parents, and other educators around the world. And the best thing is, it's free! With links to virtually millions of ideas, Pinterest offers a wealth of great information and learning ideas that can be applied to almost any educational environment. Everything is keyword searchable and Pinterest "pins" can be commented on and liked, similar to Facebook. Here we feature 9 great Pinterest classroom ideas that will engage and entertain both teachers and students alike."

"Social gaming has a come a long way from the days when a dozen students would squint at a 10-inch screen of Oregon Trail. The 2000s seemed to be the decade of case studies: Bold educators willing to experiment with developing technologies. But now, the involvement of major funders, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, points to an industry that is on the cusp of freeing education from its 2D textbook prison."

"When students can bring or access devices for learning, teachers want to figure out the best resources. To do that they have Graphite™. Graphite is a free service from Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers."

"One of the most versatile and easiest-to-use platforms I've used over the past several years is ThingLink. I've used the interactive poster tagging tool to create and embed media-rich image maps, to annotate and evaluate the claims infographics make, as a portfolio and as a curation tool. This summer, educator, consultant and ThingLink Education Community Manager, Susan Oxnevad invites educators to share their creativity and push the envelope with a ThingLink Teacher Challenge on a Google+ Community. In her blog post, Susan explains the rationale for this free self-paced summer challenge: This challenge invites teachers to learn to use interactive images to redefine learning in the classroom. Learn how to connect audio, video, images, and text in one cohesive presentation during this self-paced professional development opportunity. "

"Billy's history with littleBits started in 2015 when he heard about littleBits at an ISTE conference and won a free kit later that Summer at an education conference. That fall, Billy applied for a Donor's Choose grant and was able to start his small collection of littleBits which he used with his Gifted and Talented students. Billy slowly built his collection the following year with a donation from the Home and School Association. Students loved exploring and learning with the kits. Billy and I were thrilled to as being selected as one of 20 participants in the littleBits Lead Educator program that took place back in May and June of this past school year. As a result, we were one of the very first educators in the world to get the new littleBits Code Kit and had the opportunity to test the kit with their students and create resources and activities to use in the classroom."