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"People use the Scratch language to create interactive stories, games, and animations. Includes an active community to share projects. In the simplest terms, the Scratch language is a free programming language where you move blocks (also called bubbles) into a set order, then configure some of the blocks to create interactive stories, games, and animations."

"There has been much focus on shifting our assessment practices in education and, particularly in BC, moving toward more Assessment For Learning (or formative assessment) in schools. This is such an important conversation and needed change but at some point along the way, Assessment OF Learning (or summative assessment) has been given a bad rap. To have sound assessment practices in a classroom and school, we need a solid balance of ongoing formative assessment (click here for more info) as well as an effective way to verify that learning has occurred (summative). Formative assessment should be where we spend most of our time but summative assessments are still very important. As we engage in dialogue in our school around assessment, I recently posed a question at our staff meeting that said: Are we marking assignments or assessing learning outcomes?"

"Teens can't control impulses and make rapid, smart decisions like adults can - but why? Research into how the human brain develops helps explain. In a teenager, the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls decision-making, is built but not fully insulated - so signals move slowly. "Teenagers are not as readily able to access their frontal lobe to say, 'Oh, I better not do this,' " Dr. Frances Jensen tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross."

"How do we distinguish knowledge, skills, and thinking from….learning? How do we make learning visible, so that we might surface and document powerful discoveries about the influence of our teaching on learners? These questions will guide several of my conversations with teachers on the ground this week, as we begin exploring John Hattie's work and the Reggio Emilia approach. Both concern themselves with the moves that students and teachers make as learning occurs, and both inspire teachers to commit to documentation, as the evidence captured helps teachers and students assess the impact of their efforts far better than grades do"

"This year, I've spent a good deal of time coaching students and teachers to make learning visible within and beyond their classrooms. This may sound easy, but it isn't. There's a difference between displaying student work and capturing the actual moves that deepened understanding or improved performance. Those who strive to make learning visible appreciate how messy and overwhelming this work can be."

"Laura Richardson, who spent 10 years at Frog Design, has boiled it all down into one playful infographic: The Periodic Table of 21st Century Play. It nicely supplements her in-depth 2010 innovation essay for Co.Design, "The Four Secrets of Playtime That Foster Creative Kids. There are 11 play categories, from morphing to questing and from stretching to creating, and subsets of activities in each. "Play is our greatest natural resource in a creative economy," Richardson writes. "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think with their hands)."

"Elementary school has always looked a little bit like training for a traditional office job: You show up at 8 or 9, sit at your desk, and fill out paperwork for most of the day. An average third grader might spend as much as six hours sitting in the classroom--only a little less time than the average office worker spends sitting at work. But as more offices realize that sitting all day long is actually pretty terrible for health and productivity, how long will it take schools to catch up? While some elementary schools no longer have recess, and people like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie argue that school days should be even longer, a few schools are already moving in a different direction. Some are testing out standing desks, and realizing that a little bit of activity can actually improve attention spans. Others, like Ward Elementary in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, are starting to fill classrooms with exercise bikes, so students can work out while they learn."

"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."

"So we thought we'd start an ongoing collection-that is, one that is updated to reflect trends and changes-of the best resources for teaching with the iPad. This will include resources from all of the best sources, from Apple's own stuff to TeachThought to edutopia to MindShift to DMLCentral to Jackie Gerstein and more. We can update it, or make it a wiki to crowdsource the process, or you can add suggestions in the comments below. Based on the activity of the comments, and the sharing of the post, we'll decide how to handle it moving forward."

"Ripped Apart is a free iPad app from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The app is a game in which students play the role of a Smithsonian intern tasked with examining documents and photographs in order to determine where they came from and what they say about the Civil War. Through the game students will learn learn about significant people in the Antebellum and Civil War eras. Students will learn about leading abolitionists, secessionists, and officers on both sides of the Civil War. As they move through the game students will add notes in the app. Those notes should help them solve the mysteries in the game."

"Essential Skeleton 4 is a great free app that lets you explore the human skeleton. The app allows you to pan and move around the skeleton, zoom in on different bones and get information about each one. The ability to hear the name of each bone being read aloud is a nice feature. Teachers will also like the annotation and notes facility."

"More and more of us work on the move these days. Whether you're a freelancer or just an on-the-go business owner who needs constant access to your accounts, there's a ton of great iPad accounting software out there to help you manage accounts. Whether it's creating and sending invoicing, tracking billable hours, managing expenses, or even handling payroll, the App Store is chock full of iOS accounting apps. The top iPad apps for accounting are generally free to download, though they are tied to a subscription model through a cloud-based accounting solution. However, if you need to track your accounts on your mobile, it's well worth it. Here are 7 of the best iPad accounting software solutions that can help you whip your accounts into shape while you're on the go:"

" Looking for a way to make something move? Choose a motion, then build it using a small set of LEGO parts. "

"It seems that everyone wants to learn how to write computer code these days. No matter what field or profession a person works in, the ability to make a computer (or mobile device) dance to your tune seems part of the basic skill set. The question is, how does a person take the first step toward gaining those skills? Once upon a time the path was simple: BASIC was where most people started before moving into Fortran or COBOL (depending on whether they were heading toward scientific or business programming). Now, though, there are far more options and rather less clarity. If you want to know how to get started (or give advice to others), then you have a number of options. Choosing the best means looking at what you ultimately want to do, what you like to do now, and how you best learn new skills."

"This past Friday, my wife (@sfryer) and I facilitated a full-day, hands-on workshop about ways to use iPads in the classroom with students to "show what they know with media." 164 teachers participated in the workshop, which was held in two adjacent ballrooms of the Alumni Center at Kansas State University. The event, iCamp iPad Day, was hosted by the College of Education at Kansas State (@ksucollegeofed) and organized by Cyndi Danner Kuhn (@cyndidannerkuhn). The workshop included many elements of iPad Media Camp (@iPadMediaCamp), a 3 day workshop I've offered in the summertime the past four years. During the planning stages for "iCamp iPad Day," Shelly and I discussed the different sharing options we wanted to model for participants and encourage them to use. We decided to use the term "INSIDE SHARING" for the private sharing we'd do during the workshop using SeeSaw. We decided to use the term "OUTSIDE SHARING" for public sharing on Twitter using our #iCampKSU hashtag and other open websites. In this post, I'll explain why both inside and outside digital sharing are important, and how we can use these terms with students, teachers, parents and others to advocate for SHARING AS A MORAL IMPERATIVE (hat tip to Dean Shareski @shareski)."

"Teaching is a matter of design. That's not new, but in an era of change and possibility, it's more apparent now than ever. The SAMR model (which acts as a kind of continuum to reflect the possibilities of technology in learning) is a helpful tool to make sense of this idea, a visual reminder that ideally technology moves beyond Substitution phase (the "S") towards a Redefinition (the "R") of what was previously impossible without it. This, among other shifts, will help fully realize the potential of learning technology. When you take a Bloom's wheel, and smash it together with 60+ educational apps that allows learners to brainstorm, collaborate, research, create, curate, and create new knowledge-well, you have the image below, courtesy of Allan Carrington of Designing Outcomes."

"Sponsored by the Intel Corporation, the K-12 Blueprint offers resources for education leaders involved in planning and implementing technology initiatives. Whether you are launching a one-to-one or BYO program, moving from print textbooks to digital content, revamping the curriculum to improve STEM learning, rethinking assessment, or embarking on (or continuing to support) any other ambitious technology-supported initiative, Intel's Blueprint model can help. "

"In this activity students will move the Sphero ball across a grid system, while describing, using math terms, the movement and location by coding the sequence."

"I had the pleasure once again to work together with Richard Wells from New Zealand. He recently reworked his website from iPadwells.com to eduwells.com. Give it a look if you haven't checked it out lately! 2016 has arrived and iPad pedagogy has moved a long way in 6 years. Having iPads in your classroom is no longer about which exciting apps you can all use but more about empowering your students to discover and share their own iPad solutions for every situation. This requires collaboration between peers and a flexible mindset held by all in the room, including the teacher. It's about building on new habits held by young people to connect, create and share their learning. It's also about keeping in-touch with new developments to ensure our young people are ready for a rapidly changing world. Think less about teaching delivery or a "one-app-fits-all" model, and more about 21st century habits, and the development of an innovative mindset. (See this book for more details on this) We hope these help! Richard & Steve"