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"A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context. Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual-requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student's belly to the educator's marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above. It's okay to say "I don't know." Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion. Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it's that I don't know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don't know means I'm missing information that I'm supposed to have."

"EdTech is certainly becoming more and more popular in classrooms around the world. There are many different methods of implementation, including schemes like bring your own device (BYOD), bookable class sets or a set number of devices in each classroom. For greatest impact on both teaching and learning, more devices is better: 1:1 allows learning to be more personalised and provides opportunities for teachers to transform their teaching with the aid of technology. However, due to many factors, this is not possible in every school. If you as a teacher own a tablet, can it alone have an impact in the classroom? Here I'll look to share 10 simple, yet effective ways you can make the most of having just one iPad in your classroom."

"The good thing about my school is that we do have teacher leaders who will take ownership of initiatives and run with them with little more than moral and budgetary support from me. Our Beebots are used widely in our Early Years classes with a couple of teachers taking the lead - and we have had our kids use them for learning Vietnamese! But Spheros in our school has been my own journey. I have added to the original 15 Spheros that I bought in March, bringing two Sphero SPRKs and four Ollies in as additions. I just want to reflect on what else I have learned since the last post when I was still just working with my Digital Leaders. This term, I started to work with some classes within my own building. I am line manager for four classroom teachers and my office is based in that building. I am also the self appointed Sphero maintenance person - I keep them secure, charge them prior to use and kept tabs on the apps needed on the building's squad of 10 iPads. Just prior to starting with the first class, I saw a tweet about an app called Tickle that uses a Scratch style interface to program a number of connected robots including both Sphero and Ollie. It is easier to use than MacroLab and as I was about to introduce programming robots to Year 3 and 4 students, it was the perfect tool to use to set some simple programming challenges."

"Perceptions of people and events are very much dependent upon who you are and what your experience has been. Events in Ferguson and Baltimore, among others, highlight our misunderstandings of each other, and how the same facts can be interpreted entirely differently. What's worse, people of color and underrepresented groups are defined by journalists covering these events, who themselves don't reflect the ethnic composition of our country as a whole. Recent studies have proven that stories can change perceptions and even make people more tolerant. Rather than wait to be defined by others, it's important that students learn to create understanding by sharing their story, their worldview, their concerns, and their triumphs with others. Groups like Youth Radio and Cause Beautiful are empowering teens in poor and minority-majority neighborhoods to become multimedia journalists. Kids in these programs learn how to tell and share their own stories with a local or national audience. No matter your class demographics or grade level, ELA and social studies teachers should integrate similar projects in their own classrooms, because every student will benefit from learning to craft a compelling visual story backed by persuasive facts and ideas."

"I'm often approached by educators looking for the best iPad app.  While my students have their favourite go to apps, what works for my students may not work for theirs.  In fact even my own students can't decide which app is best because each has their own preference depending on what they are trying to do. It's far less about the specific app, then what that app can do to show learning. For me, the beauty of the iPad and more specifically the apps available for it, is that it allows my students to create, and show their learning in ways that work best for them.  For this reason I have created an iTunes U course titled Show What You Know with iPad: Using an iPad to Create and Self Assess in the Early Years.  This is a free course but does require an iOS device to access it through iTunes U . It can be downloaded onto  an iPod, iPhone, or iPad."

Some statements stand out in your memory for the power with which they resonate through you mind. I recall the first time I encountered the question posed by Alan November "Who owns the learning?" on the cover of his book of the same name. In four words, Alan poses a question that strikes at the heart of education and encourages us to re-think our approach. If we believe that the learner should own the learning, what are the implications of this for our teaching? Like a stone dropped on the surface of a calm pond, the ripples from a powerful idea spread, expand and gain strength. 

"If you follow my blog, you know I curate a lot of resources for teachers. This post brings together a suggested list, a curated list if you will, of 16 curation tools for teachers and students from the Shake Up Learning community. Choosing how to curate and what tools to use can be a very personal decision depending on your own needs and preferences. That's what's so great about the world wide web of tools! There is no shortage of tools. Curation is absolutely necessary in the information age! As Gayle Allen says in her book, The New Pillars of Modern Teaching, "We're assembling resources in a way that represents the ongoing story of our learning. We are the curators." Curation takes time. It can take a lot of time, and that's why I share so many curated resources on my website. Your time is valuable. Curating on your own is great. Collaboratively curating is even better. Following bloggers and feeds that deliver resources to your (virtual) door-the best!"

"Everyone agrees that it's important for children to learn new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, and virtual reality. The challenge lies in finding the best way to teach those skills to young students. Plenty of organizations have taken on that challenge and have come up with creative ways to teach kids about technology while allowing them to have fun as they learn. One of those companies is 3DBear, a Finnish startup founded three years ago by Jussi Kajala and Kristo Lehtonen. 3DBear is an app that allows children to 3D design their own toys in augmented reality. Available for both iOS and Android, the app is simple enough for kids to use, allowing them to superimpose their own designs on their surroundings using their phone's camera. Kajala and Lehtonen wanted to capitalize on the popularity of such games as Pokémon Go and use the appeal of augmented reality to educate, not just entertain."

"A recent MindShift article highlighted some things teachers should be aware of if they're bringing mindfulness into their classrooms. Students may have experienced trauma that makes sitting silently with their eyes closed feel threatening, and teachers can't assume it will be an easy practice for every child. That awareness is important to create an inclusive environment, but it doesn't mean that teachers shouldn't cultivate their own mindfulness practice or use some techniques with students. Often mindfulness is used as a way to help students build self-regulation skills and learn to calm down when they become frustrated or angry. Cultivating those skills can be powerful for students, but many teachers say mindfulness is crucial for themselves, helping them take an extra moment before reacting to students. "The best way to practice trauma-informed mindfulness is [for teachers] to have their own practice and interpret the behavior of the youth through a trauma-informed lens, even if they never do mindfulness training with the kids," said Sam Himelstein, a clinical psychologist, trainer and author who has spent most of his career working with incarcerated youth. He's received a lot of questions about how to be trauma-informed while still using mindfulness in classrooms since the first article. He suggest nine guidelines for teachers that he uses to make sure mindfulness practice with youth is helping, not hurting."

"If we look at our students' learning stories as shared journeys that we take an active role in, then we are more than a guide on the side. We are guides on the ride. We are active participants in this adventure, and learn just as much as our students do throughout the process. When students are empowered to craft their own learning stories and go on shared learning journeys, they'll often take the chance to dramatically impact their own life (and the lives of others) through what they make, create, design, and explore."

"One of the hardest things about being a responsible sharer is to be aware of your own biases, the reasons why you might be more likely to believe something without evidence. These are aspects of the way we think that can lead us to accept false statements, reject true ones, or simply not ask enough questions.  "

"My students come from a small, rural community and lack a broad understanding of the larger world around them. This inspired me to seek out a game, or online environment, that could provide more expansive experiences for them-a place that would allow them to explore, on their own or with others, and where I could embed history content for them to discover. On Twitter I came across an exploratory discussion of Minecraft's potential for school use. I dove in and began a journey that ultimately changed my perception of teaching and how I interact with my students. Minecraft is easy to use and implement in a classroom. It promotes student independence and creativity, but it is also an immensely collaborative tool that I have witnessed being integrated across all grade levels and content areas. Students can apply their understanding in truly unique and often unanticipated ways. Previously, my kids struggled with writing. Today, they are more creative and confident writers. Instead of getting 125 essays written in the exact same style with the same details, I now get unique historical narratives, rich with sensory experiences and observations made with their own eyes."

"Parents today struggle to set screen time guidelines. One big reason is a lack of role models. Grandma doesn't have any tried-and-true sayings about iPad time. This stuff is just too new. But many experts on kids and media are also parents themselves. So when I was interviewing dozens of them for my book The Art of Screen Time, I asked them how they made screen time rules at home. None of them held themselves up as paragons, but it was interesting to see how the priorities they focused on in their own research corresponded with the priorities they set at home."

"Be more chef. It is a mantra I've adopted and taken to heart these past few months as my brother lay in a hospital, seemingly impacting the world more from that bed, then many of could do with bodies that were not full of tumors and cancer. My brother was a chef in every sense of the word. He took the circumstances that life gave him and turned them into something wonderful and new and beautiful. When my brother passed away a few weeks ago, my thoughts turned to my own four children. How could I help raise them to be chefs? How could I raise them to not follow the recipes of life, but instead make their own recipes for their life? But, it is not just my kids, it is all of our kids. The question is, "Are we raising/preparing/teaching our students/children to be chefs or cooks?""

"In some instances, research illuminates a topic and changes our existing beliefs. For example, here's a post that challenges the myth of preferred learning styles. Other times, you might hear about a study and say, "Well, of course that's true!" This might be one of those moments. Last year, Dr. Karlsson Wirebring and fellow researchers published a study that supports what many educators and parents have already suspected: students learn better when they figure things out on their own, as compared to being told what to do.  "

"Whenever I talk about copyright I always encourage teachers and students to use their own images when they need to include visuals in a paper or presentation. If you don't own an appropriate picture then look for images that are in the public domain. While Google Docs does have a built-in image search tool, Google Images is far from the best place to find images that are in the public domain. Pixabay and Unsplash are better places to find public domain images. If you need to use images in a Google Document, both of those sources are accessible through Google Docs Add-ons."

"At TeachThought, nothing interests us more than students, as human beings. What they know, might know, should know, and do with what they know. A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context. Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual-requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student's belly to the educator's marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above. It's okay to say "I don't know." Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion. Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it's that I don't know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don't know means I'm missing information that I'm supposed to have."

"Creativity and innovation are two skills that are highly coveted in today's society. People that are creative and innovative have managed to blaze their own paths and remake the world in their own image. As a result, creativity and innovation will continue to be the most sought-after skills in our global economy. Because of this, schools have to prepare students for this workforce of innovation and put them the best position to be successful. So how can educators help their students cultivate their inner creator and innovator? I am glad you asked. Below you will find a graphic that lists 27 ways that you can help your students be innovative. I hope this helps."

"No matter what you call it - chroma key, green screen or blue screen - it's the film and video technique that gives your local TV weatherperson something in common with the Avengers movies: artificial backgrounds inserted behind the action. You simply record your subject in front of a solid green or blue screen, and then add a touch of software magic to change the background. Dozens of free or inexpensive apps allow you to use the technique on your own clips. It's a great way to jazz up your presentations and other videos - or to keep children busy with a weekend project filming their own toys in action scenes. Here's how to get started."

"Students in Grade 3 created their own I Spy pages. The items were gathered from yard sales, usually by the bag full, for a few dollars, and put through the dishwasher. The first class was spent exploring 'I Spy' books and arranging the items onto colourful card. I had 9 baskets of items so small groups or pairs each photographed the same designs but did their own clues. During the second class period, students cropped their photos and used PicCollage App to add clues. Image quality is an issue with closeups with our iPad 2s. Other classes will try to find the items in the images and they were included in a school assembly video.  Continue reading to see more examples."