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"Since I began taking my first Information and Technology In The Classroom course (last year) and began learning more and more about 21st Century tools, I have become so passionate about exploring the idea of classroom blogging. My teaching partner, Ray Swinarchin has also become interested in blogging as a way to engage his students.  Although we know we have much to learn about it and have to work on making it more exciting and interactive for our students, we have come to believe in the benefits of class blogging through reading many other classroom blogs and by learning from many other teachers experiences."

"For an entire school year Hillsborough, New Jersey, educators undertook an experiment, asking: Is the iPad really the best device for interactive learning? It's a question that has been on many minds since 2010, when Apple released the iPad and schools began experimenting with it. The devices came along at a time when many school reformers were advocating to replace textbooks with online curricula and add creative apps to lessons. Some teachers welcomed the shift, which allowed their students to replace old poster-board presentations with narrated screencasts and review teacher-produced video lessons at any time."

"It's becoming difficult to read the news in Los Angeles these days without running across yet another article about the problems faced by the sputtering LAUSD iPad initiative. Finally, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy announced this week that they were suspending the contracts with Apple and Pearson amid increasing scrutiny and investigation of the bidding process. According to Deasy, "it will also give us time to take into account concerns raised surrounding the project". There were always valid questions surrounding a bidding process that granted enormous contracts for digital courses that had not yet been developed. It's unfortunate however that an investigation into the bidding process became the catalyst for the project's suspension when it was the planning and implementation that fell woefully short in so many areas. Hindsight may be 20-20 but many were already pointing out substantial flaws in the plan at its initial announcement. As educators we know that failure is the breeding ground for learning and adapting. With that in mind, here are 5 lessons that can be drawn from the LAUSD iPad experience."

"Education researchers are beginning to validate what many teachers have long known - connecting learning to student interests helps the information stick. This seems to work particularly well with math, a subject many students say they dislike because they can't see its relevance to their lives."

"One of the lesser know features of iOS that adds an incredible amount of functionality to the iPad is Accessibility. Unfortunately, not many people are aware of the many benefits gained with Accessibility-and even fewer are aware of how to access them on their iPad even if they wanted to.  For the sake of narrowing the focus of this post somewhat, I decided to list and give a brief overview of what I believe are the (5) most useful features found in accessibility on your iPad.  Obviously, if you have special needs that require assistance to use your iPad, you might have a very different list of features.  Luckily Apple breaks this feature into several sections that include additional help with Vision, Hearing, and Interaction with your iPad."

"The internet: Not just for first world countries anymore. While high speed, broadband access may be much more ubiquitous in more developed countries, internet infrastructure and broadband connectivity is much more widespread than you may be aware of. Over the last decade, huge strides have been made, meaning many more students across the globe are being connected to the vast network of students, teachers, and the world. The handy infographic below paints a pretty good picture of what internet connectivity looks like around the world. Take a look, and try to imagine how many more people you could be connecting with around the globe in just a few short years."

"What does 'the internet of things' mean, anyway? It is a term that I've heard periodically over the past few years but explored little and never wrote about here, as it doesn't specifically refer to education and there are so many other (specifically) relevant things to share and talk about. The short explanation is that the Internet of Things refers to the interconnectedness of devices of all types - especially 'smart' devices that can react, anticipate, and adapt as necessary. In short, this interconnectedness and advancing technology is expected to simplify automation in so many areas of our lives."

"Google Docs is a powerful word processing tool that many schools have adopted. As it's similar to Microsoft Word and other word processing tools, most of its features are intuitive to use. However, in addition to completing many of the functions of a traditional word processor, Google Docs provides even more capabilities that can be invaluable to educators. Here are ten tricks that can make your life easier with Google Docs:"

"Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. Teach coding, get girls interested in all of these subjects. However you slice it, there's a lot of focus on the logical and analytical brain functions these days. Many schools are cutting the 'extras' like art and music. While I firmly believe that students need to be well rounded and really need subjects like those to be considered more than 'extra', and while there are Many people fighting to keep these programs in schools, you can't deny that the international economy and jobs outlook is demanding more focus on STEM. But does that mean we should drop all focus on the other stuff? The handy infographic below takes a look at why focusing on the skills of half our brain is not enough. It explores the functions of all parts of the brain (however simplified) and gives some insight into how the creative skills can help you a lot."

"I spent sometime this weekend curating and working on the list of iPad apps below. These are apps that students can use to create beautiful cartoons to use in their multimedia projects or in activities that involve comic strips, digital storytelling, presentations and many more. All of these apps are easy to use and do not require any advanced technical skill. Some of the things students can do with these apps include: take pictures and turn them into cartoons, capture cartoon videos, draw cartoon sketches, customize and add different effects to pictures, convert photos into cartoon avatars, and many more."

"Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Students have a million answers: the big game is on, there is a trending hashtag to follow, there are so many people available to chat, there is a new series on Netflix, there is no way I can do that assignment, and so forth. But don't worry, there are just as many ways to overcome procrastination as there are reasons to procrastinate in the first place - these tips will get you moving so you have more time to do what you want to do."

This is a tantalizing portfolio page of infographic generators.  As a writing teacher I see many applications. As an information fluency advocate I see a way to understand data that excites the mind. many of these programs use social media sources to build visual comparisons and patterns.   What a find! 

"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."

"Schools are about learning-from peers as well as teachers. In class, students learn academic content, but they also learn about social relationships and life skills, such as the need for perseverance to complete tasks successfully. To learn something is to gain knowledge about that idea or topic. Learning can occur in formal contexts, such as in a set of experiments about photosynthesis, or, informally, as students chat with one another about favorite books. Many synonyms exist for the verb to learn, as well as numerous idioms and common phrases. There Many ways to integrate these into everyday classroom and school events."

"Many of the applications for introductory program are based on the logo turtle concept.  Even at that presentation, there sometimes is a challenging entry point.  You have to understand the concept of the stage, the mathematics of location, movement, etc. before you even get started. In the case of CodeMonkey, they've take more of a challenge / gamification approach. Yes, you work directly with code instructions like STEP and TURN but they're done in the context of solving a problem.  The video above gives a nice description of how you or your students work within the environment. As with Many of my obsessions with coding and Computer Science, it's just plain fun.  Stepping back for a moment, I had to reflect on the fact that they've introduced the concept of coding and problem solving in a very non-threatening manner.  I was quite impressed."

"This fact there are over 14 million iPads in schools illustrates how many 'decision makers' have chosen the iPad as a tool for learning. As we continue to integrate the iPad into schools, it is worth reflecting how the initial setup and training can have a real impact on the success or failure of a 1-to-1 programme. The recommendations below are borne out of a desire to help teachers without overwhelming them and to model good practice to students. There are many apps that could have been chosen, but those mentioned below are generic and able to serve a purpose across the curriculum."

"rt has long been recognized as an important part of a well-rounded education - but when it comes down to setting budget priorities, the arts rarely rise to the top. Many public schools saw their visual, performing and musical arts programs cut completely during the last recession, despite the Many studies showing that exposure to the arts can help with academics too. A few schools are taking the research to heart, weaving the arts into everything they do and finding that the approach not only boosts academic achievement but also promotes creativity, self-confidence and school pride."

"Ellyssa Kroski - June 24, 2014 In February I organized a pecha kucha style panel discussing topics related to law librarianship in the digital age and I ran a live competition looking for who could tweet the most about the panel. The prize was a copy of the book Law Librarianship in the Digital Age which was appropriate as the panel of speakers was made up of many of the contributing authors. It turned out to be a great way to get people excited and engaged with the speakers and it worked really well, resulting in many people tweeting about our discussion. Therefore, I wanted a way to display the live tweets as they were coming in to keep everyone excited about the contest. But I had a very hard time finding a good, free application which would enable me to project the display I wanted. Since then I've found four tools that will easily allow you to display a live tweet wall as the tweets come in, whether it's for an event you're hosting, for your library's flat screen TV display, or simply for following a topic."

"Wikipedia is the seventh most-popular website on the Internet and is the web's most popular and largest reference resource. Many instructors decry student reliance on this online encyclopedia open to anyone to edit, but I am part of a growing movement of teachers who integrates student editing of Wikipedia pages into our pedagogy. There are Many pedagogical reasons for this; integrating Wikipedia editing into your courses teaches students to navigate the rules and social norms of an online community of knowledge creation, trains them in developing responsible public-facing research, and introduces them to ways of dealing with a variety of responses to their work."

"Digital learning tools are seen by many people as those tools that are in some way different to other learning tools and need to be treated and discussed as such. "Let's go to the digital learning zone" or "Now it's time for class to use their iPads" are common announcements in many schools. Maybe we should stop saying digital, 21st Century and modern. I wonder if this mindset might be damaging to learning."