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"Game-based learning is moving into the mainstream as more platforms become available and more educators recognize the benefits of increased student engagement and achievement. On top of that, research shows some interesting side benefits. For instance, surgeons who play video games are 27 percent faster at advanced surgical procedures and make 37 percent fewer errors than colleagues who don't play. Educators can incorporate game elements, such as rewards and engagement, into learning in two ways: games and gamification."

"What does "effective online research" even mean? Type in a search term and get going, right? While on one hand, it literally is that easy, if you want to find good quality, highly relevant materials, you need to move far beyond a quick Google search and visiting your old pal Wikipedia. We have some great, easy tips for how to make the most of online research coming your way. How do you make the most of online research"

"At CES 2016, Lego Education announced Wedo 2.0, which combines Legos, software, and real world projects to teach 2nd to 4th grade students about science and technology. Among other new features, updates include compatibility with more platforms, a move from USB to BLE connected robots, and tools for documentation and sharing. "

"Ms. Kelly's Kindergarten class has been hard at work on an animal research project that is unlike any other I've been a part of.  For the culmination of the project, students recorded an interview of an animal in its habitat using our green screen and the Do Ink app.  There were many layers to the process that students went through the create their final product. The class has been to the library throughout the project to initiate various pieces and then moved forward with the project work in class."

"Kathy Perez has decades of experience as a classroom educator, with training in special education and teaching English language learners. She also has a dynamic style. Sitting through her workshop presentation with like being a student in her classroom. She presents on how to make the classroom engaging and motivating to all students, even the most reluctant learners, while modeling for her audience exactly how she would do it. The experience is a bit jarring because it's so different from the lectures that dominate big education conferences, but it's also refreshing and way more fun. Perez says when students are engaged, predicting answers, talking with one another and sharing with the class in ways that follow safe routines and practices, they not only achieve more but they also act out less. And everyone, including the teacher, has more fun. "If we don't have their attention, what's the point?" Perez asked an audience at a Learning and the Brain conference on mindsets. She's a big proponent of brain breaks and getting kids moving around frequently during the day. She reminded educators that most kids' attention spans are about as long in minutes as their age. So a third-grader can concentrate for about eight minutes before losing interest. It's a teacher's job to make sure there are lots of quick, effective brain breaks built into the lesson to give children a moment to recalibrate. Perez says teachers must be prepared for a diverse cross section of learners with a large toolkit of strategies for teaching in multiple modalities, with many entry points to participation and content."

"To celebrate Computer Science Education Week, students around the world are participating in the Hour of Code.  This global event brings computer science into schools to allow students, for one hour, to learn basic programming and coding to nurture problem-solving skills, logic, and creativity. My class spent some time designing an Iditarod Trail course for students to travel using round Sphero robots.  What is a Sphero?  It is simply an app-enabled ball that students code or program to move.  It can jump, change colors, and roll in any direction up to 4.5mph. Our robots represented an Iditarod dog team in the 2016 race.  Students used the free Sphero app for programming its movement along the course we created.  "

"Kids who struggle with reading get an early lesson in one of life's more sucky realities; the earlier a person falls behind, the harder it is to even want to catch up. Their classmates move on to more interesting books, write stories that get noticed and get rewarded for finishing their work fast. Meanwhile the slower readers can barely make sense of the activity sheet in front of them. When a child can't read, school becomes either a huge, grinding drag or a very efficient confidence-removal machine. Usually both. Reading is not a natural ability. The vast majority of humans don't just pick it up; they have to be taught it quite explicitly. Until Johannes Gutenberg invented mechanical movable type, most people had little use for reading, just as now the vast majority of people have no use for weaving. And for some, acquiring this essential skill is an incredibly frustrating experience. Education experts are not of one mind about how much of the population has a diagnosable reading disorder such as dyslexia, but it's clear that while kids all read at different ages and stages, some otherwise average-intelligence people find reading an unusually hard slog."

"Make your very own interactive pixel pet with this Raspberry Pi Sense HAT tutorial. Learn how to program with python to make a moving pixel avatar that is triggered when you shake the Raspberry Pi. Suitable for beginner coders!"

"A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context. Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual-requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student's belly to the educator's marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above. It's okay to say "I don't know." Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion. Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it's that I don't know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don't know means I'm missing information that I'm supposed to have."

"Staying current with the latest edtech is becoming increasingly more challenging. Everything seems to move at such a rapid pace that some products appear to be here today and gone tomorrow. As K-12 administrators, it's important to remain in the know. To help, here are some of the top blogs to read and participate in a conversation."

"Down a locker-lined hallway at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, Zac Felli, a junior, walks to his first class of the day. He wears tortoiseshell glasses and is built like he could hit a ball hard. He has enviable skin for a teenager, smooth as a suede jacket. Over one shoulder he carries a slim forest-green and tan messenger bag that would have been social suicide in 1997. But 1997 was the year Zac was born, so he wouldn't know anything about that. A squat, taupe monolith flanked by parking lots, Lawrence Central smells like old brick and floor polish and grass. Its gleaming floors squeak if you move your foot a certain way. The school has existed on precisely this spot of land since 1963: maroon block letters over the door, tang of chlorine from the indoor pool. None of that has changed. Here's what has: After Zac turns the doorknob of Room 113 and takes his seat in Japanese III, he reaches into his shoulder bag, pushes aside his black iPhone 5S and Nintendo 3DS XL, and pulls out his Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet with purple detachable keyboard, which he props up on his desk using its kickstand. By touching a white and purple icon on his screen, he opens Microsoft OneNote, a program in which each of his classes is separated into digital journals and then into digital color-coded tabs for greater specificity. And then, without a piece of paper in sight and before an adult has said a word, he begins to learn."

"When Jennifer Lanier began working as a media specialist at Summit Parkway Middle School in South Carolina's Richland School District Two, the school library looked like one most of us remember from our own school days. "There were large heavy tables and chairs with shelves lining all walls," she says.  "It was a very fixed space."  After a period of intensive research, she was ready to make some major changes. "My library is now split into two main sections," Lanier explains, "with the circulation desk as the dividing point.  I focused on renovating the back half first.  This would become the Creative Commons area.  I removed the shelves from the corner, purchased six tall mobile tables, a few stools, six white boards, and twenty beanbag cubes." The idea, Lanier explains, was not to set up the tables, stools and cubes ahead of time but, rather, to leave the furniture out of the way and let users (both students and staff members) grab it and reconfigure the space to meet their needs.  "The arrangement of the space does not dictate the way collaboration is carried out; instead the collaboration can freely flow in the direction it takes.  Users can gather around on the cubes to discuss an idea.  They can break out to a project table and visualize it on a white board.  The simple act of moving allows the brain to be more creative." "

"I will be sharing about our Pinball Machine Mayhem that is happening in our Technology and Innovation class. We started with a brainstorming session on the process this week. We began with the Project Idea phase: This is where we explained that they would be making pinball machines. How they made them or what they used is completely up to them during this process. Next we moved into the Prototype Design students during this phase was given a blank piece of paper about the size of the actual pinball machines that they will make. The goal here was for them to start to apply the different pieces of their pinball machines to this document. What was incredible about this whole process was before we released the students to go work we asked them what subjects do they think will be covered throughout this process. Right away hands went up and students started sharing. Math - Area, Perimeter, Height, Length, Pythagorean Theorem to find the slope of their machine. ELA - Research, Creating a story for their pinball machine Social Studies - History of the pinball machine, Research on different pinball machines Science - Volume, Friction, Gravity, Art - Theme of their board, Creative look of their pinball machine. Tech Ed - Lights, sensors, buzzers Makerspace - Students talked about using little bits, robotic kits, makey makey board, along with legos and Knex's"

" TWEETSHAREEMAIL Over the summer, academics debated the impact of growth mindset, the belief that one's intelligence can be developed with hard work and effort, and whether it can move the needle on academic performance. Even Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, who is often credited with the term, chimed in with additional research supporting the efficacy of mindset interventions. An Education Week survey found that the vast majority of educators believe that a growth-oriented mindset can help improve students' motivation, commitment and engagement in learning. But the study found that applying those ideas to practice, and helping students shift their mindset around learning, remains an elusive challenge. Those findings largely coincide with my observations as an administrator, coach, technology implementer, and now founder of an education company. Over the summer, my team ran a series of professional learning community sessions with dozens of educators across the country, focused on instructional practices that foster and support growth mindset. At these events, almost all teachers said they get the big ideas around growth mindset, but over 80 percent said their schools don't implement them well."

"It's a sign of maturity and experience to be able to determine just where you are in a journey, and I think the time has come to put some stakes in the ground about just exactly where we all are in regards to our innovation journeys. While some companies have made tremendous strides, becoming much more innovative than their peers, the real truth is that most corporations are still at the very beginning of their innovation work, and as I've written in other places the emerging new management fads around digital transformation combined with the fact that innovation often hasn't lived up to its promises means that our innovation journeys may end before they really got started. Because while it seems many companies have been on an innovation journey for quite some time, the honest reality is that they haven't moved very far. There's been a significant amount of sound and fury, signifying not so much, to paraphrase a much more ancient bard. The reality is that right now, after almost 20 years of innovation as a corporate phenomenon, most companies are closer to the end of the beginning of innovation, rather than the beginning of the end."

"Erica is 23. She has a beautiful, neutral face and speaks with a synthesised voice. She has a degree of autonomy - but can't move her hands yet. Hiroshi Ishiguro is her 'father' and the bad boy of Japanese robotics. Together they will redefine what it means to be human and reveal that the future is closer than we might think."

"Many educators don't realize that Skype could be a valuable classroom asset that gives students lots of new opportunities to learn. When you hear about Skype, you most likely think of video calls that you might make in your spare time. However, there is an entire world of untapped resources available through Skype for your school. If you have been trying to incorporate new ideas into your classroom, signing up for a Microsoft Educator Community membership might be a smart move. You can give your students access to tons of resources and real-world experiences that will deepen their knowledge of the concepts you teach. Find out what sort of classroom activities you could plan in our essential guide to the use of Skype in your classroom."