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"I sometimes learn more about my own practice in the classroom from the questions I am asked than I do from my own reflection. There is something about the lenses through which others see our work that helps us to see ourselves more clearly.  That was the case earlier this month at the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston. At the end of the first day of a two-day session I was leading on Building Learning Communities in elementary classrooms, I asked the participants what they specifically wanted to talk about on the second day. One of the attendees asked me to address the way I introduce the idea of digital citizenship in my classroom. What a great question! Unfortunately, I didn't have a great answer. I did though, have the evening to think about my response."

"In case you didn't know there are thousands of educators and an array of learning communities over at Google+.  The bottom line is that many people are missing out on some great content, resources, and conversation.  From my point of view educators become quickly attached to one specific social media tool as their go to source for his/her Personal Learning Network (PLN).  Take Twitter for example.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love Twitter as a professional learning and networking tool. It has been and will continue to be my number one choice when it comes to learning in the foreseeable future. Twitter has many positive attributes, but also a growing number of negative aspects.  Some examples in my opinion, include an increasing amount of negativity and disrespect, rise in social media cliques, difficulty in following chats, noise, and overbearing opinions.  Even as Twitter still works great for me and others it is not the only player out there.  Nor should it be considered the best learning option for all. At times I just need to get away from the echo chamber to focus more on my learning."

"I recently found this great Livebinder in a discussion on Google+. It has tons of resources about Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education. Some of it is specific to the school district it was created for, but there are some great resources there that work for anyone, including using Chromebooks in class, activities, lesson ideas and more."

"Reading Bear is a great tool for helping kids learn to read. Reading Bear integrates both vocabulary practice (over 1200 vocabulary items) and phonetic awareness ( covering different phonetic principles and patterns of written English) into their lessons. All of these lessons are provided in the form of narrated presentations playable either as a video or as an interactive slide show"

"Today was a great day in our grade 4-5 STEM classroom. Last year I used MinecraftEDU with my students for several different lessons, and I tried a "perimeter and area building challenge," but this year I'm much more pleased with the quality of conversations I'm having with students about these geometric concepts in a simplified and modified version of that lesson I'm calling our "Geometry MinecraftEDU Challenge." These photos of whiteboard math from today's classes may look messy, but they represent some SUPER conversations with my students who were figuring out the different ways they could build a corral in MinecraftEDU that has an EXACT perimeter of 24 blocks."

"There are lots of great learning opportunities when you use green screen effects in the classroom. I've written about some of those before, but almost all of them involved green screen movies. What about green screen photography? Is that possible on an iPad? It is, because there's an app for that. Recently I was reminded of the ability to do green screen photography when I read a blog post by Dr. Wesley Fryer. He did a green screen photo booth at the Fall Festival of the school he works at in Oklahoma. Great idea. So how do you do it? It all starts with the Green Screen app by DoInk. The rest is easy! Here's how it works."

Recently I read 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins a book that describes the processes and structures that allowed eleven companies to transition from good to great and outperform the market by a factor of three for sustained periods. One story stands out as a metaphor for a growth mindset.

"The best thing about a makerspace is making things and learning along the way!  Here are some great sites to help you find your next maker project.  Where else do you go to find inspiration for your makerspace projects?  Let us know in our Makerspace Forum and continue the discussion.  We'll start keeping a list."

"If recent predictions are to be believed, the podcasting scene will explode in 2016. For me, that's great to hear because I am a big fan of podcasts, but it is also great news for teachers who are looking for new ways for their students to communicate their ideas and reach a global audience. So, with that in mind, here are some of the best apps for podcasting on the iPad."

"Long gone are the days where video editing has to take hours and involve your Mac. Thanks to the iPhone and iPad, I've put together some awesome, professional-looking video. Depending on what your needs are, and how much control you want over the process, these are currently the best video editing apps I've found for iPhone and iPad. Before we get into my picks, I'll preface this by saying that I only considered apps that have universal support for both iPhone and iPad. Some apps, like Splice, can be great choices, but they are only available on one device or the other. Where video editing is concerned, most people only want to learn one user interface. Otherwise, things can start to get overwhelming. That's why I looked at the ease of putting together a great-looking, easily shareable video in addition to comparing features of these top apps."

"The discovery of gravitational waves that was announced a few weeks ago substantiated Albert Einstein's oracular ideas about black holes.The importance of such a discovery in scientists' eyes is that it will help shed light on many enigmatic issues about the genesis of the universe. Your students might have heard about this scientific breakthrough and though they might probably not fully understand the full concept of gravitational waves and Einstein's general relativity but their desire to learn more about space and its workings might be revived. Students can actually learn a great deal about space using iPad apps. There is a wide variety of excellent apps created specifically to help students and even young learners explore the workings of space and understand some of its topics. Below is a collection of some examples of NASA apps  students can use to learn more about space:"

"Since starting teaching with Genius Hour, we have read so many inspirational books that have changed us and our pedagogy. With the help of my GH friends and fellow contributors - Joy Kirr, Hugh McDonald and Gallit Zvi - we have compiled this list of books that we know Genius Hour teachers love. Of course we know it is incomplete, as we haven't read all the great books out there, and new books are coming out regularly. We hope you will add to this list by sharing your favorite book in the comments section. We look forward to more great GH-friendly reading!"

"I always have teachers wanting to know how they can better utilize the iPad in their classrooms. I know that it's very easy when first receiving an iPad to take a worksheet that you have done for several years, and convert it to glass. But glass can be boring too, so I created this Breakfast Club session to give my teachers some ideas on ways to better utilize this powerful tool in their classrooms. So the "activities" that I started coming up with started turning into all sorts of ideas and app suggestions.  I shared all of the ideas with the teachers that attended, but found myself particularly enjoying the conversations that we were having about some of the activities that are taking place in the classrooms at Aurora Public Schools. Our teachers are doing great things with the iPads in their classrooms and it was great to have teachers share and learn from each other!  Here are some of the activities, ideas and apps that we talked about on how to better utilize the iPad in the classroom."

Have you been spending too much of your time on social media recently? Is that making much of your internet usage wasteful? Social media can be so addictive, so much that we spend hours on it without really noticing. While social media does contribute in healthy discussions and is also our primary source of news and ideas at times, it's equally likely to encourage us to refrain from learning something useful in our lives. It's very important to keep our social media usage in check if we want to enrich ourselves with great learning experiences and upgrade our lives. Here are 25 great websites which you should check if you want to escape from the vicious trap of social media and live a life full of knowledge, joy, and inspiration.

"Lego is a phenomenal children's toy. It's little wonder then that both adults and kids enjoy playing around with it. It can help stimulate your imagination, your creative abilities, and your logical thinking. In turn, it can be used not only as a toy, but also as a great aid to learning both in the classroom and at home. School teacher Alycia Zimmerman regularly uses Lego to help develop basic math skills among her pupils. Lego blocks, she finds, offer a great opportunity to explain fundamental math concepts and calculations in a way which is immediately understandable for young minds. So for those who can't find the right words or who find they haven't got the patience to help with their kid's math homework, here are a few examples which Alycia uses. Each and everyone of them is incredibly simple, but seriously effective."

"Students and teachers alike continue to look for cool design tools to give any project that extra visual punch, and we continue to find great ones all over the Web. This post features 7 fairly unique free online creative image maker tools that are easy to learn and lots of fun to experiment with. Make things like motivational posters, memes, Keep Calm posters, Webcam pics, and so much more with these great image generators. Have fun trying them out and having students add creative flair to lesson projects of every kind."

"The Raspberry Pi is a great little machine-it's very affordable, highly portable, and user-friendly. But when you first get one, it can be a challenge to figure out which projects you should take on first. These 10 Raspberry Pi projects for beginners are great for getting an introduction to the hardware and software capabilities of the Pi, and will help you get up and running in no time!"

"Tutorial videos are a great way for teachers to provide extra learning resources for students. With these recorded videos, students are able to review the lessons learned in class and catch up from afar during an absence. Videos also provide an excellent resource for future reference. Screenshot videos are a great learning resource when used to teach computer-based lessons such as computer programming, typing, or learning various programs. But they can also be used in other creative ways to teach students. For example, math problems can be solved step-by-step. Screenshots are especially useful for complicated new concepts. In this article, we go into detail with step-by-step instructions for how to record video screenshots, as well as how to upload them to video hosting websites."

"Most educators are aware of the "Four C's" (Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication) and their importance in schools for ensuring the development of today's skills in our students (I appreciate Will Richardson's contention that "curiosity" should be the fifth "C" and is more important than the others).  But there are other essential skills and traits that many schools teach, either through learning in the classroom or by providing extra-curricular activities, which are not as widely acknowledged, but are extremely important. From my experience being a part of schools and visiting, I have noticed that great schools teach these essentials that are timeless: "