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"The following is an excerpt from the book The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis. Let's dive directly into the world of educational apps. Our survey suggests that the majority - one might even say, the vast majority - of educational apps encourage pursuit of the goals and means of traditional education by digital means. They constitute convenient, neat, sometimes even seductive pathways to accomplish what were already goals in an earlier era: mastering concepts, learning arithmetical operations, identifying geographical locations or historical figures or key biological or chemical or physical processes. We could dub them "digital textbooks" or "lectures" or "pre-programmed educational conversations." Decades ago, major behaviorist B. F. Skinner called for teaching machines that would automate the traditional classroom, allow students to proceed at their own rate, provide positive feedback on correct answers, and either repeat a missed item or present that item via another pathway. Those sympathetic to Skinner's brand of psychology and to its associated educational regimen would easily recognize many apps today and would likely nod in approval at their slick, seductive interfaces."

"The gaming trend is gaining more and more ground within the educational landscape. Online games are being integrated into students learning strategies and while they are not a game changer, they do seem to have a promising potential in education. As Dr Jackie argued , the use of games for educational purposes have undergone three main phases and in each phase games have been repurposed in such a way as to align with the ethos of that phase. In education 1.0, online games which are nothing else but electronic worksheets were played in one unidirectional way and there was only way correct way for players to win ; in education 2.0 commercial games have made it into the educational scene and teachers and students started using them, examples of these games include: SIMs, World of Warcraft, Portal. However, in education 3.0, learners are not only using these commercial games in unique ways but they are also using several platforms to create their own games."

"My students create many different artifacts, but the most meaningful are those in which my students show their learning and their thinking in ways that are far beyond what a worksheet could do. When they make a video or screencast of what they have learned, I can hear and see their thinking. I can also hear confidence or hesitation, self-corrections or errors in perception. Consider these math examples produced by my students."

"n Mrs. Chellani's continual efforts to create an engaging learning experience for her students, she has found utilizing QR codes to facilitate collaboration to be highly beneficial. In order to review material discussed in an assigned video and in class in her Pre-Calculus and Calculus courses, she created QR codes with relevant questions on the material and its' applications. Students were placed in groups of four to five; and, using a QR reader app on their phone, they were able to view the question. Once the students worked on the problem together, they would confirm the result with Mrs. Chellani. When the solution was correct, they would be given the next QR code (i.e. question). The level of engagement increased dramatically with the use of QR codes and simply allowing students to utilize their cell phones in the learning process! "

"The difference between assessment of learning and assessment for learning is a crucial one, in many ways indicative of an important shift in education. Traditionally, tests have told teachers and parents how a student "does," then offers a very accessible point of data (usually percentage correct and subsequent letter grade) that is reported to parents as a performance indicator. Class data can be gathered to imply instructional effectiveness, and the data from multiple classrooms can be combined to suggest the performance of an entire school, but a core message here is one of measurement and finality: this is how you did. This was the bar, and you either cleared it or you didn't. And it's all past tense."

"Whether you're learning to code or are already an experienced programmer, this GitHub repository is an incredible resource of free programming books. Victor Felder updated this Stack Overflow list with new and corrected links and shared it over on GitHub for collaborative updating. You'll find books on professional development, specific platforms like Android and Oracle Server, and about 80 programming languages. There are also lists in other languages. Definitely worth a look for your continuing coding education. There's nothing quite like free books!"

"Nowadays, a lot of students study with a computer or tablet device. Access to the Web gives them a tremendous amount of knowledge, though much of it isn't actually useful, relevant, or even correct. Fortunately, art teacher Kelly Little curates a collection of classroom-tested "study buddies" to help your students filter the flood of information out there. What apps do your students use to help them study?"

I am a huge proponent of using hands-on, interactive learning activities to explore ill-defined problems as a way of teaching for all age groups. Given the spontaneity and uncertainty of these types of active learning environments, I believe educators should observe, reflect on, and analyze how learners interact with the materials, the content, the educator, and the other learners. This practice is in line with the teacher as ethnographer. In my role as a teacher as ethnographer, I made some initial observations during my first two weeks of teaching maker education for elementary age students. With half the kids under 7, I learned a bunch about young makers. Young makers are more capable than what people typically believe. Young makers need to be given more time, resources, strategies to learn how to solve more ambiguous and ill-defined problems (i.e., ones that don't have THE correct answer). Too many don't know how to approach such problems. If a project doesn't "work" during the first trial, they way too often say "I can't do this." They have a low tolerance for frustration; for not getting the answer quickly. Young makers often celebrate loudly and with extreme joy when making something work. Young makers like to work together but lack skills or desire to peer tutor one another. Young makers usually like to stand while working. Young makers are more capable than what people (adults) typically believe. During our maker education summer camp, the young makers made LED projects, circuit crafts, and simple robotics. Looking at the instructions for similar activities, the recommended ages were usually 8 and above. Yet, my group of 14 kids contained half under that age. The kids of all ages struggled a bit - as is common with making type activities but all were successful to some degree with all of the activities.

"What motivates people to work? Most people would say money, and those people would only be partially correct. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, author Daniel Pink writes about radical practices implemented by Australian software company Atlassian and search engine giant Google that have taught us a lot about what really motivates human beings to work. Hint: it is not the proverbial carrot on a stick."

"Making the ordinary extraordinary… This picture was one I picked up a couple of years ago on Twitter and it sparked a creative note. Having experimented with the approach to place value and reading numbers in this way it has very good effect. Especially when the students make the tool themselves. Younger students can get to grips with the position of numbers and the zeros prompt them to say the correct magnitude if they are a little unsure. You could write the words too underneath the numbers if necessary. Its a lovely class project for year 3 and 4 and it's cheap too. It is also great for intervention at a later stage, with older students."

"To me, the single biggest myth that we must correct is thinking that Mobile Learning is only about learning via mobile devices. It makes sense to think that Mobile Learning is only about Mobile but to me this is essentially the opposite of what is true."

"While setting up an individual iPad is really simply, configuring and managing large numbers of the devices is a little more complicated. It's important that you get your iPad configuration correct from the start to prevent loss of data and apps later on which will cost your school money and your staff time. This page gathers together all of the information we've discovered while working with iPads, and includes best practice guidelines when deploying Apple's tablet in your school. "

"Math Slicer is an iPad app that presents a fun alternative to using flashcards to practice basic mathematics skills. In Math Slicer students are shown addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems that they have to answer by "slicing" the correct answer in half. The answer choices jump up on the screen and students have to slice them before they disappear."

"littleBits are ingenious snap-together magnetic elements used to create whimsical machines and prototype complex electronic circuits. It's impossible to short-circuit the littleBits or create a syntax error in your physical "program" since they only snap together the "correct" way. Kids from 5-85 love inventing with littleBits. We recently created two "Quick Start" guides for the trickier aspects of working with littleBits. You may download them here: littleBits Quick Start Guide littleBits Arduino Bit Quick Start Guide (for programming your littleBits-based machine) littleBits Cloudbit Quick Start Guide (for Internet of Things) Download our complete 20+ page workshop kit"

"Road to Grammar is a free resource featuring quizzes, games, and lessons for English language learners. Visitors to Road to Grammar will find grammar quizzes. Most of the quizzes provide students with instant feedback. Part of the feedback that students receive on the quizzes they take includes explanations why an answer is correct or incorrect. Before taking the quizzes visitors can work through a series of practice activities."

"Habitats is a fun little game from the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The online game challenges elementary school to match animals to their habitats. The game shows students images representative of four habitats; desert, coral reef, jungle, and marsh. Students drag pictures of animals from a list to their corresponding habitats. Students receive instant feedback on each move they make in the game. Once an animal has been placed in the correct habitat students can click on it to learn more about it in the Encyclopedia of Life."