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"Game-based learning is an educational trend that has gained so much popularity in recent years. At its core, game-based learning involves the use of the learning principles underlying games' play in learning situations. In his book " What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy", James Paul Gee mentioned a number of these principles all of which are geared towards improving learners' critical thinking skills  and  enhancing their problem solving competencies. Marc Prensky is another thought leader in this field and his book "Digital Game Based Learning" provides a very good explanation of the basics of game based learning. For those of you using iPad in their teaching, here is a set of interesting apps you can use to incorporate the ethos of game-based learning in your classroom.   These are some excellent educational games  to engage students in different learning scenarios. We invite you to check them out and share with us what you think of them. Enjoy"

"This is the third post in a series of posts covering some very good guides to help teachers make the best of emerging technologies in education. After writing about technology tips and flipped classroom, this post presents some of our favourite reads for teachers looking for ways to better use iPad in their instruction. We invite you to check them out and as always share with us your feedback. Enjoy."

"Choosing a telescope for a child should take all of those aspects in to consideration, and a few more things. A child's telescope should be easy and uncomplicated to use. An overly complicated telescope just won't be as much fun. Compact size is important. A smaller child is not going to enjoy using an enormous telescope. Durability is a necessity for kids' telescopes; lots of small, fragile pieces can easily get lost or broken. Fortunately, there are plenty of telescopes perfect for young astronomers."

"Last year I started Makerspaces in my library as a way to give my students more opportunities to be "hands-on" in their learning.  (You can read about my Makerspace beginnings here.)  I definitely learned a lot by jumping right in, and as with most things, found that some parts worked great while others needed some tweaking.  At the end of the year, I did an informal survey with mainly 3rd through 5th grade asking them "What lesson/activity did you enjoy the most in the library" and MANY of them mentioned our Makerspace activities.   I was super happy to hear that, and planned on continuing Makerspaces again this year."

"We recently received a few requests from music teachers asking for some suggestions on music accessories to use with their iPads. Here are some of our recommendations based on what some geeky music teachers are actually using in  their classrooms. If you are looking for some good educational apps to use in your music lessons, check out this page. Apple music store also features a wide range of options to choose from. Enjoy"

When you look at your kids playing video games, you might worry they're wasting time and energy passively staring at a screen and pressing buttons. But what if their play time was actually a creative outlet that fostered their imaginations? More and more games, apps, and websites are letting kids as young as kindergartners create anything they can think of -- and it doesn't have to take a ton of time. Even better, most of these tools don't require kids to be skilled programmers or computer experts to design and build creative, entertaining experiences. Whether your kids enjoy creating fun new game elements, editing existing game content, or fully designing their own games from scratch, these programs can help bring their ideas to the screen.

"Welcome to the second post in this series. Summer is a great time to check out some new edtech tools and possibilities. My goal every summer is to bring you at least 40 new tools… maybe more… that you may not know about.  I am sending out ten new ones in each post. Remember I am picking these from thousands and I am trying to find those sites that are up and coming and might just be the next big edtech hit. You might also notice I am also including a few sites that have been around for awhile.  They include ones that I feel educators might want to be a little more aware of. I hope you enjoy and try some of these out during the summer months. It is my way of saying happy summer!   "

"Let's say you want to tinker with making a robot controller on your Android device, but you don't have a lot of time to learn Java.  Perhaps you just love JavaScript and want to write Android Apps.   In our maker education programs, we enjoy introducing students to JavaScript since the language helps students go from idea to prototype quickly. Consider checking DroidScript on the Google Play Store.  DroidScript enables you to quickly build simple Android apps using JavaScript."

"If you happen to teach in a 1:1 classroom then you will definitely be concerned about the educational apps to use with your students.  There are tons out there for sure, but many of them are not worthwhile. To this end we curated this selection of some of the most popular apps and tools among 1:1 classroom teachers. Browse through the suggested titles and see what you want to adapt in your class. Enjoy"

"he two categories to be discussed in this post include Games and Back Channels. Both allow for a wonderful formative experience. There are a number of resources that can be found on the internet in these two areas. The back channel in the classroom is powerful and your LMS (Learning Management System) may serve this quite well. You also may get some added privacy which is important. While I believe kids can create games as a awesome formative experience, I will save that for a later post. In this article I wish to focus on how educational games provide a wonderful learning experience perhaps going well beyond content. As in all online tools be sure to check your district AUP along with the terms and conditions of the website you are using. Enjoy the resources and please let me know what I should add for a future post!"

"You probably are already working on your digital toolkit making it ready for the start of a new school year. Part of your preparation will definitely consist of making decision on the kind of web applications and mobil apps you will be incorporating in your teaching. This means that you need to have a fairly decent knowledge of educational web tools out there and the potentialities they can offer to your instruction. To this end and to help you make informed decisions about the technology to use in your class,  we went ahead and did some digging into our archive and curated this collection   comprising some of the best educational Chrome apps out there.  We hope you will find it useful. Enjoy"

"Build a fort! A treehouse! A fort on top of a treehouse surrounded by a moat filled with molten lava! Children are endlessly fascinated by what we adults considered mundane and their imagination truly knows no limits. Children are the best builders in the world and can use any building material in order to create the most vivid worlds. And now, there are building apps for kids so they can hone their building skills in a virtual world. Building games are a great outlet for kids who enjoy doing solitary, creative work and then wish to test their concepts in practice. Unlike a shooting or a racing game, a 3D building game rewards patience, planning and thinking ahead. Through a building game, a child gains confidence, achieves a sense of accomplishment and develops in itself a sense of pride through the development and application of its own ideas, plans and thoughts."

""Work that matters" has significance beyond classroom walls; it's work that is created for an authentic audience who might  enjoy it or benefit from it even in a small way. It's work that isn't simply passed to the teacher for a grade, or shared with peers for review. It's work that potentially makes a difference in the world."

"Our round-up list today features some interesting new educational web tools we have curated in the last couple of weeks. These tools have been emailed to us for separate reviews but we thought it would be best to feature them all in one list. As is the case with all of our Educational Web Tools series, we only include the ones that we think will be an added value to your EdTech toolkit. If you have other suggestions to add to the list, share them with us for review. Enjoy"

"The tables in bookstores can be overwhelming: Every book cover looks appealing, every blurb glows with praise. Sometimes, you just need a recommendation from a human, someone you trust. Below, 10 members of the TED community - with very different points of view - share the books they think you'll enjoy this summer. Their selections are wonderfully untethered to new releases and bestsellers, with a little something for everyone."

"I enjoy some of the TED-Ed lessons so much that I have an alert on my phone that goes off whenever a new TED-Ed lesson is published. How X-Rays See Through Your Skin is the latest TED-Ed lesson. I found the lesson fascinating because it not only explained how modern x-rays and CT scans work, but it also explained some of the history of x-ray development."

"Welcome to your new classroom. I am sure you are going to explain and teach in a way that I might never understand. You see, I come from a day of filmstrip projectors that beeped, ditto paper that left my fingers blue and the students enjoying the scent, bells that really did ring out a mechanical melody, 16 millimeter films that, if in color, amazed the kids. In fact, if these films were shown backwards it provided bonus entertainment. In recent years I have heard words that are so strange to me. These words include foreign terms such as twitter, blog, wiki, Skype, web 2.0, clickers, and interactive whiteboards. I have heard all this talk about 21st century skills and I am not even sure if I can tell you what they are. So there you have it. I am not one of those digital natives, nor am I a digital immigrant! I may not even be an analog native or immigrant. So, even though I do not know all the new terms, I thought that I might give you a list of ten items I feel just might ensure success no matter what century it is."

"Whether it is teaching Primary School pupils the basic skeleton or asking secondary school pupils to the inner workings of a vital organ human anatomy is a key component to the school curriculum.  it was an area of science I always enjoyed when I was at school.  However there were some classmates who were not so keen especially when our science teacher brought in lamb hearts for dissection. With this flashback in mind I started to think of how can human biology be made more appealing to all, not only the squeamish.  Below are three of my favourite human anatomy apps out there."

All 331 Entries to Copyblogger's TwitLit Contest all contained in a slieshow at the bottom of the page. Scroll down and enjoy.

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