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"Looking for the best iPhone apps and Best iPad apps to help you learn a new language? No matter what language you want to learn, there are hundreds of options available in the App Store. Whether you're getting ready to travel the world or just feel it's important to know another language, it's never too late to learn. Luckily, the days of having to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for online or tape courses are long gone. However, that doesn't mean all language learning apps are created equal. These are the language learning apps for iPhone and iPad that we think are the absolute best"

"While tablet computers in the classroom are wonderful tools, they still have not reached the level of intuitive use that we often feel as we interact with our analog world.  As an example, there are lots of pictures of the moon that we can look up using our web browser, but seeing it first hand through a telescope offers a different level of engagement.  In the classroom, we often need our analog world to interact with our digital devices.  In the coming days I will be sharing ideas that allow teachers to use real world objects to interact with their digital iPad classroom"

"Whenever you get called to speak in public, do your palms sweat? Does your tongue get tied up - it's embarrassing, isn't it? Feel nervous? Not many people are natural public speakers - in order to impress your audience, you need practice and the right guidance. If you're responsible for appearing in front of a large audience to deliver speeches or talks, then work your way through this cheat sheet. It's a collaborative effort between London Speaker Bureau and datadial, and will certainly help you overcome your fear of public speaking."

"Play is positive; gaming is good; and online engagement has begun supplying a generation with the love and feelings of connection that all humans crave. Some 7 billion hours a week are being poured into to this alternate world of engagement through online games. And 25 percent of Call of Duty players call in sick the day a new version the game comes out. These amazing and concerning facts paint a picture of the new world of gaming, said Jane McGonigal, who delivered the opening keynote address Wednesday at the FETC 2015 conference in Orlando, FL. The first person to earn a Ph.D. in the study of the effects of gaming, she is director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future, a non-profit research group in Palo Alto, CA."

"I am back on my soapbox… …because I continue to see great things happening in classrooms, but get blank stares, when I ask, if these things are being shared beyond the school building. …because I watch as administrators feel the need to "protect" their faculty from "one more thing to do". …because I continue to hear fear of transparency, competition, privacy and technology skills and tech phobia.  Setting up my soapbox to raise awareness of the "moral imperative of sharing" for teachers (Dean Shareski) goes back to his keynote in 2010 at the K-12 Online Conference. Since then I have stepped on that soapbox via my blog and at conferences advocating for the IMPORTANCE and NECESSITY of sharing."

"he video does not seem remarkable on first viewing. A title informs us that we are watching Ashley Hinton, a teacher at Vailsburg Elementary, a school in Newark, New Jersey. Hinton, a blonde woman in a colourful silk scarf, stands before a class of eight- and nine-year-old boys and girls, almost all of whom are African-American. "What might a character be feeling in a story?" she asks. She repeats the question, before engaging her pupils in a high-tempo conversation about what it is like to read a book and why authors write them, as she moves smartly around her classroom. On an October morning last year, I watched Doug Lemov play this video to a room full of teachers in the hall of an inner-London school. Many had brought their copy of Lemov's book, Teach Like a Champion, which in the last five years has passed through the hands of thousands of teachers and infiltrated hundreds of staffrooms. To my eyes, the video of Hinton's lesson was a glimpse into the classroom of an energetic and likable teacher, and pleasing enough. After leading a brief discussion, Lemov played it again, and then a third time."

"Even the most grand, world-changing projects require some amount of tedious, get-it-done slogging. If you're having one of those days where you feel like nothing will come of your efforts -- and you don't have time to watch Rocky or any of these inspiring movies -- take a spin through some of the motivational quotes included in the infographic below, generated by the website SuccessStory.com."

"Do you like to have a free-flowing exchange of ideas in the classroom? Do you encourage and nurture dissenting opinions? Do your students feel empowered to voice their thoughts and critiques of research or ideas? If you answered 'YES' to all of the above questions, you're leading a fantastic classroom filled with a lot of engaging discussion. Bravo! But if you aren't satisfied with the level of discourse taking place in (and out of) the classroom, then this flowchart from Wonkblog is for you. It's designed to help anyone (not just students or teachers) engage in a discussion about a topic they don't agree with. For example, let's say a student cites some research in a project-based learning assignment that another student doesn't think is quite relevant. How would that student voice his or her opinion? Is interrupting okay? Is one opinion better than another?"

"Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a neat infographic produced by the BBC. As you scroll down the infographic you will see little pieces of information slide into the graphic from the sides. Each of these pieces of information is a fun fact like the maximum depth of a metal detector, the depths of sunken boats, the depths of the layers of the Earth, and the pressure you would feel at various depths below the Earth's surface."

"This article has been making its rounds in social media. I tend to agree with the idea that heavily-decorated, cutesy classrooms are distracting. I've never been a fan of a barrage of brightly-colored signs, Garfield posters and motivational phrases. However, I also see a real danger in district-mandated use of wall space. Here, the issue is less about bright and cutesy and more about things like word walls and anchor charts designed to create visual cues for learning. I see the point to it, but often this creates a text dump that students have to navigate (rather than having a simple notebook or website with tutorials they can access). It starts to feel like an encyclopedia had vomited on the walls. "

"With the amount of content that is shared on the Internet every minute, it's no surprise that many people feel overwhelmed by the quantity of information out there. This is why content curation is becoming an essential digital literacy skill for teachers and students. The act of curation requires critical and creative thinking, as decisions are made around what to keep, what to discard and how to connect and present ideas. Social bookmarking tools allow collaboration across the world to share and build collections. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools available to help us. In this article, I'll explain firstly the different ways in which I curate, and then describe some of the different tools I use for curation."

"The camera is one of those apps on the iPad that we sometimes take for granted. We forget it is there or don't always use it to its full potential in the classroom. This week I am presenting at iPadU: Slide to Unlock Learning, and I wanted to highlight some of the many ways that you could use the iPad camera, so I put some ideas together and added some I had seen on the web or learned from others. The result? iPadography: Photo Projects for the iPad Classroom. So, if you are looking for ideas for using the iPad camera in the classroom, take a look at some of the slides below, and feel free to share it with others who might be interested!"

"For many years, I have sent a letter to my soon to be students near the end of the summer. I do this to ease any anxiety some of them may have, to help them feel part of the class before they arrive and because…well…it's a letter. Children do not receive letters very often, so print written just to them is significant. It's a literacy thing."

"Being a student right now is difficult. There's that nagging feeling that you could always 'just Google it' and know the answer to something. It's an urge many students must fight on a day-to-day basis if they want to actually get some reliable answers. Sure, you could punch in a simple question or keyword and get millions of results. But what happens when you need to do a 'Google A Day' style level of research? An instance where you need to dive into dozens of actual books or figure out how to sort the good resources from the less-than-reliable sources? That's where figuring out some of the best Google tips comes in handy."

"Phrases like "random acts of kindness" and "pay it forward" have become popular terms in modern society. Perhaps this could be best explained by those who have identified a deficiency in their lives that can only be fulfilled by altruism. It seems that we just can't get enough of those addictive, feel-good emotions -- and with good reason. Scientific studies prove that kindness has many physical, emotional, and mental health benefits. And children need a healthy dose of the warm-and-fuzzies to thrive as healthy, happy, well-rounded individuals."

"There are plenty of new Christmas songs each year, but it's not that easy to make a Christmas song that becomes a classic holiday tune. You know, one that you can repeat each year that still feels relevant. Straight No Chaser may have just made the first Christmas song fit for this new Internet 2.0 generation. Together with Kristen Bell, they sing Text Me Merry Christmas, a catchy tune about spreading holiday cheer via text. "

"I have recently come across this beautiful visual entitled " The Science of Storytelling" and was really taken aback by some of the stats it included. These stats come in the context of highlighting the importance of storytelling in marketing but for me I view them  from an education vantage point. for instance, in comparison with words, the human brain has the ability to process images 60 times faster.This shows how much our brains crave the visual component. Also, a majority of 92% of consumers want brands to make ads that feel like a story. You probably have already noticed this trend  on YouTube, so many brands now are marketing video ads  in the form of stories narrated by a given character. But why do we tend to favour stories and how does storytelling affect our brain?"

"I'm one of four teacher facilitators for our Junior Coding Club. We meet once a week during second nutrition break to code. The group's made up of many beginner coders, but also a couple of advanced coders. At lunch today, one of the advanced coders came rushing into the classroom, so excited to share his news. He decided to put a hold on Code Academy, and start using Scratch. During the week, he used the computer version of Scratch to create a flight simulator. This simulator was truly incredible! This Grade 4 student was so thrilled about what he did, that it was hard not to also feel thrilled. While it was wonderful to see this student so passionate about learning, it was also amazing to hear all of the thinking behind his choices. I was honestly in awe! He thought of everything. He even researched to find out the details about planes at take-off, and used this information in his simulator. He could explain all of his choices and the thinking behind these choices. In this short video clip below you can hear just a tiny snippet of this explanation."

The most recent issue of the 21cif Information Fluency newsletter. Feel free to join! Low volume news letter dedicated to searching, evaluating and ethical use of digital information. Includes an invitation for free access to our new 3 hour self paced training course and online assessment: Information Fluency Investigator 3.1.