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Importance of design

"In my classroom over the last few years I've shown many Youtube videos to inspire resiliency, grit, hope, and discussion prior to guiding them in the creation of their inquiry questions about their passions and wonders during our weekly Genius Hour time.  This post is a follow up post to my post 23 Videos that Sparked Genius Hour Thinking, Collaboration, and Actions.  Many of those videos and the ones I am sharing now were shared with me through the wonderful connections I have made with educators learners on Twitter, Facebook, and at workshops.  I am continually inspired by the educators in my personal learning network.  Thank you to all of you who share your learning and inspirations daily.  You have helped me make sense of the ideas that are floating around in my head.  I am proud to say that students in my classes are constantly inspiring each other and their teacher.  Some of their work is shared on the list below."

"Since many people are returning to school during the next couple of weeks, I thought I would re-visit and share some of last year's more successful projects in case you want to try one. Today's post is about something I tried last year with the goal of impressing upon my students how much they matter to others - in this case, their parents. What I did not realize was that I would also develop new and deeper connections with my students and their families with this project. The basic concept was this: ask parents to secretly record videos of themselves telling their children how important they are to them and what they hoped the children would accomplish in school that year. The parents would send me the videos, and I would use Aurasma Studio (here is a link to Aurasma tutorial videos in case you need it) to attach them to still images of the parents. When my students scanned the images with the Aurasma app on the iPad, they would see and hear their parents' videos. They kept the photos in their folders all year so they could scan them whenever they wanted, and as a reminder of their parents' personal messages."

"By definition, an avatar is a figure or character that you can create and customize the way you want. You can use this character to interact with other friends online . Users have the full control of what they want to feature for example the kind of background, accessories, clothes...etc. There are several reasons why you need to consider using avatars with students some of which include: Students can use avatar images in their profiles instead of their real pictures Avatar-creation provides students with hands-on activities in identity building Using avatars can increase students engagement and keep them focused and on-task Students can use avatars in their multimedia projects Below are some very good iPad apps that you can use with students to create avatars. Here is the link to access and download the chart in Google Doc version. "

GitHub has compiled this great list comprising more than 500 free books on programming and coding. The books are organized under useful headings cover a multitude of topics.

"Surveys and polls can serve a wide variety of educational purposes. As a teacher, you can use them to initiate quick formative assessments, gather informal feedback on your students learning, run mock exams, learn about students interests and learning pace to mention a few. You can also use them to evaluate your own teaching strategies and gain an insider look into your instruction. Upon your request, we have compiled some of the best iPad apps you can use to create  surveys and polls. Check out the list below and as always, share with us what you think of it."

"BoomWriter is a collaborative writing website that is free for teachers and allows students to create, share, and even publish stories and other original content. BoomWriter's easy-to-use and interactive group writing platform lets teachers deliver a fun and engaging personalized learning experience, while elementary, middle, and high school age students work online to develop their reading, writing, and peer assessment skills."