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Tools and Practices for Autonomous Teacher Development https://t.co/OUcnKgR6vx https://t.co/s3ufAzwSXj

"When teaching with digital natives in a digital world, one question facing many educators revolves around integrating technology to help facilitate learning: How do you work technology into the pedagogy, instead of just using something cool? That task can be especially daunting in language arts literacy classrooms where reading and writing skill development is the crux of daily lessons. However, as 1:1 technology initiatives roll out, integrating technology into the classroom is our reality. With hundreds of sites, apps, Chrome extensions, and platforms available, choosing the right ones can seem overwhelming. As an eighth-grade language arts teacher, I've experienced this myself. Following are four tools that can help provide immediate formative assessment data as well as top-of-the-rotation feedback to help students develop personal learning goals."

"In a new report, 24 researchers from eight different countries gathered to create a consensus on the impact of physical activity on kids' health. They focused primarily on studies that examined the health of children aged 6 to 18, and analyzed the effects of exercise on children's fitness, health, cognitive function, motivation, and mental and social health. The report defines physical activity as "an overarching term that consists of many structured and unstructured forms within school and out-of-school-time contexts, including organized sports, physical education, outdoor recreation, motor skill development programs, recess, and active transportation such as biking and walking." In short, they found that exercise was beneficial for nearly every aspect of a child's wellbeing: physical health, cognitive ability, motivation and psychological wellbeing, as well as social inclusion. First, exercise leads to improved cardiorespiratory fitness, which in turn improves brain development and intellect, they said."

"Coding brings young children rich opportunities for language development and the "notion of learning from mistakes," says Chip Donohue, the dean of distance learning and continuing education at the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a graduate school in child development. "We actually don't do enough of that with young kids." The sequencing and patterns involved in programming reinforce skills that have always been taught in the early years, but now also create "habits of mind that are essential for the 21st century," adds Donohue, also senior fellow at the Fred Rogers Center, which provides resources and information on media use with young children. When children code together, they are also learning from each other. "In the process of learning to code, people learn many other things. They are not just learning to code, they are coding to learn," Mitchel Resnick, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, wrote in an EdSurge article. "In addition to learning mathematical and computational ideas (such as variables and conditionals), they are also learning strategies for solving problems, designing projects, and communicating ideas." Resnick adds that these skills are useful to everyone "regardless of age, background, interests, or occupation.""

A new, widely accessible Advanced Placement Course for Computer Science. The College Board oversees the development of the course and exam that will launch as AP Computer Science Principles in 2016-2017. For College Board details, see College Board's Advances in AP site. The AP Computer Science Principles Curriculum Framework (.pdf/1.42MB) was developed to serve as a fundational guide to ensure selected curricla focuses on innovative aspects of computing along with the computational thinking practices that are critical to a future-ready education.

"Critical thinking skills truly matter in learning. Why? Because they are life skills we use every day of our lives. Everything from our work to our recreational pursuits, and all that's in between, employs these unique and valuable abilities. Consciously developing them takes thought-provoking discussion and equally thought-provoking questions to get it going. Begin right here with the Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet. It's a simple infographic offering questions that work to develop critical thinking on any given topic. Whenever your students discover or talk about new information, encourage them to use these questions for sparking debate and the sharing of opinions and insights among each other. Together they can work at building critical thinking skills in a collaborative and supportive atmosphere."

The Makerspace initiative allows students and teachers access to resources to construct modern knowledge which enables them to build, explore, create and develop strong problem-solving skills. Most consider this as a purely "fun" activity, as a result guided by the teacher it naturally develops skills in many areas of STEAM. These resources are curated in "Pop-up Makerspace" units which can be flexibly used.

"2006 wasn't just the year of the world's most famous TED Talk. It's also the year that Ignite Talks-a rapid-fire presentation style-originated. These bite-sized presentations take up no more than 5 minutes each, and are starting to show up in more and more education venues-spreading virally like EdCamps, and popping up at conferences like ISTE and EdSurge's own Tech for Schools Summits. The movement has grown steadily to a total of 350+ Ignite organizing teams since the first event debuted in Seattle in 2006. Speak with educators and entrepreneurs, and there's talk of applying the Ignite Talk model to professional development, student projects, or investor pitches. Why? According to Ignite Talk co-founder Brady Forrest, it's an easily-approachable format that forces people to talk succinctly and hone their public speaking-a skill that just about anyone who presents to groups of people or students should work to develop. EdSurge caught up with Forrest and a number of Ignite Talkers to learn more."

"You've probably heard of the student-led "Genius Bar", which is generally a team of student leaders that provide technical support for the technology devices and programs in their schools. What a great way to utilize and develop student knowledge and skills, right? I couldn't agree more. Busch's student tech teams have four sub-committees: the "Newcast Directors," the "iPad Consultants," the "Makerspace Mentors," and the "Cyber Squad." But what if we took the opportunity to develop young, skilled learners a step further, and asked those student leaders to support, collaborate with, and mentor teachers and their peers with in-class technology projects? What if we asked those student learners to create informative, instructional digital content that is accessible to all? After all, many of us would agree that the students are the ones who are usually the most knowledgeable, up-to-date resources for what is the latest and greatest with technology, so why not tap into their large knowledge base and cultivate their leadership potential? Our school here in Wisconsin did just that, and the results have been astounding. Here's how it happened."

"If you're brand new to the world of web design and web development, it makes sense to get started learning to code by utilizing all the free resources available online. This way, you can discover what you like (and more importantly don't) before financially investing in a certain set of courses. However, there are so many free resources, classes, and books to pick from! It's easy to become overwhelmed. (Ever hear of too much of a good thing?!) To make things easier, I compiled a list of 64 FREE web design and development resources."

"Computational thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution(s) in such a way that a computer - human or machine - can effectively carry out. Informally, computational thinking describes the mental activity in formulating a problem to admit a computational solution.  The solution can be carried out by a human or machine. This latter point is important.  First, humans compute.  Second, people can learn computational thinking without a machine.  Also, computational thinking is not just about problem solving, but also about problem formulation.1 The Digital Careers organisation says that students need experience and skills in computational thinking and computer programming (coding) to be successful in their future careers.2 The NSW syllabuses provide a range of opportunities to develop students' understanding of computational thinking and coding. This guide draws out the areas where computational thinking can be applied within the existing NSW K-8 syllabuses. Like the syllabuses, it is organised into stages of learning and subdivided into learning areas, with suggested activities and links to online resources. Not all resources and activities listed in this guide refer to coding explicitly, but they do aim to develop algorithmic and computational thinking skills to better enable students and teachers to reach a coding goal."

"In order for students to be efficient in computational fluency, they must develop mental math skills and recall math facts automatically. Recall is a developmental process that improves computational fluency by developing efficiency, accuracy, and flexibility with numbers. The focus of instruction should be on thinking and on building number relationships. Facts become automatic for students through repeated exposure and practice. When facts are automatic, students are no longer using inefficient means, such as counting."

"Earlier today someone wrote the following in response to my post featuring a good example of a teacher and student blog, "Franklly (sic) I don't want to blog with my students. I want to talk with them face to face in class." While I appreciate that the person who wrote that comment on Facebook wants to emphasize the relationship she's trying to develop with her students, she's also overlooking the benefits of having a classroom blog. In short, it's not an "either or" proposition. You can have a classroom blog and develop face-to-face conversations with your students."

"Computer coding is becoming an increasingly popular activity for today's technology oriented kids. Even kids who do not plan to grow up and become computer programmers are enjoying the control and autonomy that coding delivers. Coding encourages kids to be creative, think logically and develop critical thinking skills that they will need throughout their lives. The skills young students develop through these early coding experiences can also help them to succeed in their education. With coding, kids get to try out new solutions to problems and tinker around with what can happen in various situations. The following seven visually oriented and child-friendly apps can help to teach even the youngest children how to code."

"The Arduino/Genuino 101 is a learning and development board which contains the Intel® Curie™ Module, designed to integrate the core's low power-consumption and high performance with the Arduino's ease-of-use. The 101 adds Bluetooth Low Energy capabilities and has an on-board 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope, providing exciting opportunities for building creative projects in the connected world. More information about the technical specifications and documentation can be found on the Arduino/Genuino 101 main page. The Arduino/Genuino 101 is programmed using the Arduino Software (IDE), our Integrated Development Environment common to all our boards and running both online and offline. For more information on how to get started with the Arduino Software visit the Getting Started page."

"This paper captures the evolution of the Mozilla Web Literacy Map to reach and meet the growing number of diverse audiences using the web. The paper represents the thinking, research findings, and next iteration of the Web Literacy Map that embraces 21st Century Skills (21C Skills) as key to leadership development. As technology becomes more ubiquitous, and more people come online, Mozilla continues to refine its strategies to support and champion the web as an open and public resource. To help people become good citizens of the web, Mozilla focuses on the following goals: 1) develop more educators, advocates, and community leaders who can leverage and advance the web as an open and public resource, and 2) impact policies and practices to ensure the web remains a healthy open and public resource for all. In order to accomplish this, we need to provide people with open access to the skills and know-how needed to use the web to improve their lives, careers, and organizations. Knowing how to read, write, and participate in the digital world has become the 4th basic foundational skill next to the three Rs-reading, writing, and arithmetic-in a rapidly evolving, networked world. Having these skills on the web expands access and opportunity for more people to learn anytime, anywhere, at any pace. Combined with 21C leadership Skills (i.e. critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, creativity, communication), these digital-age skills help us live and work in today's world. Whether you're a first time smartphone user, an educator, an experienced programmer, or an internet activist, the degree to which you can read, write, and participate on the web while producing, synthesizing, evaluating, and communicating information shapes what you can imagine-and what you can do. follows:"

"School libraries are starting makerspaces all over the world. It's an exciting time in education as we rediscover the power of creativity. But many schools rush to start makerspaces so quickly that they neglect building the maker culture. Developing a maker culture is a lot like developing a love of reading, it takes time and persistence and it's totally worth it. Here's a few ways that you can work to cultivate a love of making and creativity in your students."

"Minecraft is a "sandbox' video game that can be used in a variety of ways to support and enrich the curriculum. Through game-based learning, using Minecraft, you can support students who achieve differently, as well as foster social development and digital citizenship. Watch student intrinsic motivation explode (like those creatures called Creepers) and discover how game play and discussion helps to develop learning skills and make connections to different areas of the curriculum.   In this session you will learn the basics of Minecraft, discuss games based learning, and dispel the myths around "doing Minecraft"."

"f you're reading this on the iPad or browsing through our iPad magazine, you're going to want to read this. A new study from Belkin, Harvard School of Public Health, and Microsoft has found that tablet users may be at high risk to develop neck discomfort based on behaviors driven by the limitations of tablet designs."

"Late last week, Apple announced the launch of a new piece of software, iBooks Author, and a new version of its eBook reader, iBooks 2. It's a development that promises to accelerate the move to interactive eBooks, by radically simplifying their development."