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"I was very excited to try out this new tool from Techsmith. It's called Screenchomp and it does something that I've wanted to do for a while. It lets your create your own screencasts on your iPad. So, I eagerly downloaded it and set about to create my first screencast. I did what everyone does when they first grab this application…I doodled on the screen with my finger. It was very responsive to the touch and had a small set of tools to do the task. I did the mandatory "2+2=4″ and got excited. Maybe I could start my own educational academy…"

"Maybe you have never heard about screencasting, have not paid much attention to it and/or have never tried to create one of your own. Or maybe you have plenty of experience in creating your own screencasts and incorporated screencasting into your lessons or assessments before. Maybe you feel screencasting to be a basic, one of the most important or an essential teaching and learning skill for you as an educator or for your students to have."

The purpose of the interactive notebook is to enable students to be creative, independent thinkers and writers. Interactive notebooks are used for class notes as well as for other activities where the student will be asked to express his/her own ideas and process the information presented in class. Requirements vary from teacher to teacher and is set up according to the directions of the teacher. Some go left/right, others go right/left, and still others go sequential. It really does not matter, so keep that in mind when looking at the suggestions. The purpose of this page to give teachers a starting point for setting up their own notebooks with their classes. The links presented on this page were shared by teachers on T-Net, A to Z, and Pro-Teacher , and of course, TCI, the originators of the Interactive Student Notebook, as examples of good interactive notebooks and guidelines. Credit belongs to the creators of the individual sites. I have tried to divide the sites by subject categories, but many are inter-changable.

"Growing up in the 80's meant reading loads of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. They were fun, and a little scary, and you died pretty much every time, but they got lots of kids into books. Recently I decided to bring this idea off the page and into the 21st century by using Google Slides to create an online, interactive story. Often we think of Google Slides in terms of linear presentations, with one slide after another in order. However, Google Slides allows you to add hyperlinks to your presentation which can link to other slides within the presentation when clicked. This allows you to create a nonlinear slideshow, where the user can branch off to multiple different slides from any one slide. Linking to other slides can be used to create quizzes where each answer choice leads to a different slide to let you know if you got the correct answer. It can also be used to build an interactive "Choose Your Own Adventure" story where each slide offers choices that lead to different parts of the story. And so was born "Dragon Quest"!"

"Instagram is one of the most popular social networks for sharing photos and short videos, with official apps available for iPhone, Windows Phone and Android smartphones. But one device that still lacks a native Instagram app is the iPad, as the Facebook-owned company has yet to update the iPhone version to have universal support for the Apple tablet lineup. As you might expect, a number of iOS developers have taken advantage of this shortcoming by releasing their own third-party Instagram apps for iPad on the App Store. In an effort to save you the trouble of looking through the storefront yourself for these apps, read ahead for a roundup of four of the best Instagram apps for iPad… "

"Synopsis is the new iPad app for students allows you to read any PDF document and create notes by highlighting text. You can then modify these notes and add your own. This free app helps users summarize any text effortlessly so you won't ever need to go back to the PDF document. Each individual note can be converted to it's own flashcard - a fantastic feature of the app. There is no need to buy flashcards or manually type and create them thanks to Synopsis."

"For the last 18 months Google has allowed you to upload your own PDFs and EPUB files to your personal Google Books account. Unfortunately, you could only access those uploaded files through a web browser or on the Google Books Android app. That has changed with the latest update to Google Play Books for iPad. The latest update to Google Play Books for iPad enables you to read your uploaded files through the app."

"Thousands of schools are participating in Hour of Code, a global initiative to get more kids engaged in computer science. Tynker, a creative platform to help children develop programming skills, has launched 10 new coding activities to support the hour of code. Tynker's unique approach motivates students to learn because they can create their own characters, animate them, and rapidly build their own games and interactive stories, using visual block-based programming. The real excitement is best heard in the voices of students who previewed an Hour of Code with Tynker:"

"Please join the Alliance for Excellent Education for another webinar in its Project 24 leadership series. Project 24 is a systemic planning framework around the effective use of technology and digital learning to achieve the goal of college and career readiness for all students. This webinar will focus on one of the most important aspects of school transformation: personalized professional learning. For years, the top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to professional learning has been prevalent in schools across the nation. Educators are often brought into large group rooms and a "sit and get" model of professional learning is utilized. Quite often, educators are left feeling frustrated and districts wonder why there is little evidence of impact in a traditional model. In recent years, the concept of educators being empowered to take charge of their own professional learning has gained momentum. During this webinar, Tom Murray, Steven Anderson, and Kyle Pace will discuss the importance of personalized, professional learning; the ability for educators to connect globally and take charge of their own learning; and professional learning in a Future Ready School."

"Cue the hand-wringing about digital distraction: Fewer children are reading books frequently for fun, according to a new report released Thursday by Scholastic, the children's book publisher. In a 2014 survey of just over 1,000 children ages 6 to 17, only 31 percent said they read a book for fun almost daily, down from 37 percent four years ago. There were some consistent patterns among the heavier readers: For the younger children - ages 6 to 11 - being read aloud to regularly and having restricted online time were correlated with frequent reading; for the older children - ages 12 to 17 - one of the largest predictors was whether they had time to read on their own during the school day."

"At Branson Junior High, our amazing team of teachers and principals, along with the encouraging support of our school district superintendents to be innovative with a purpose, are on a journey to personalize learning for every child. We are starting small, but dreaming big and have already experienced some momentous transformations in our school culture. At this school year's kick-off orientation event for parents and learners, we built on the familiar analogy of a go-kart track to communicate the vision of personalized learning at BJH (Branson, MO is a big tourist destination in mid-America). Most junior high/middle school aged kids would be excited to hear their parents say they were going to the go-kart track for a night out of family fun. However, if when they arrived at the track the parent asked the attendant for a two-seater go-kart and then directed their son/daughter to climb in the passenger seat, the child's excitement level would immediately deflate. You can easily picture in your mind's eye the typical response a child would have to their parent's action: "I thought we were here to have fun?! Can't we each have our own go-kart to drive?" Likewise, if we desire fully engaged and responsible learners, then we must provide them the opportunities to drive their own go-kart. Just like a go-kart track, we set-up safe boundaries, provide some initial guidance, but then let the learner buckle-up and drive!"

"Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's work on growth mindsets has dominated much of the attention around how students can influence their own learning. But there are other ways to help students tap into their own motivation, too. Here are a few other important mindsets to consider."

"Consider these words from Peter Gray, author of "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life:" Free play is nature's means of teaching children that they are not helpless. In play, away from adults, children really do have control and can practice asserting it. In free play, children learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, create and abide by rules, and get along with others as equals rather than as obedient or rebellious subordinates. Peter Gray's words remind me of danah boyd's descriptions and analysis of the over-scheduled lives of teens in her recent book, "It's Complicated: the social lives of networked teens.""

"One of the most effective ways for Administrators to empower and encourage their faculty to use new and innovative tools is to model best practices by employing them in their own administrative duties. Google Docs, a tool within Google Drive, includes a number of robust features that can streamline teacher's administrative tasks and highlight their ability to foster collaboration among peers and students. If you need a quick tutorial on Google Drive, check out this article on Daily Genius. Here are four ways that Administrators can use Google Docs to both streamline their own administrative tasks and model effective use of technology."

"With Poetry Month right around the corner, optimize the mobile tablets that are already in the hands of your students by giving them the chance to interact with poetry. Whether they become content consumers by reading their favorite poems or content creators as they write their own, iPad and Android tablets provide students and teachers with lots of options. This list of mobile apps will help inspire young poets and give them the tools they need to create and publish their very own poems."

"I sometimes learn more about my own practice in the classroom from the questions I am asked than I do from my own reflection. There is something about the lenses through which others see our work that helps us to see ourselves more clearly.  That was the case earlier this month at the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston. At the end of the first day of a two-day session I was leading on Building Learning Communities in elementary classrooms, I asked the participants what they specifically wanted to talk about on the second day. One of the attendees asked me to address the way I introduce the idea of digital citizenship in my classroom. What a great question! Unfortunately, I didn't have a great answer. I did though, have the evening to think about my response."

"Allowing learners to struggle will actually help them learn better, according to research on "productive failure" conducted by Manu Kapur, a researcher at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education of Singapore. Kapur's investigations find that while the model adopted by many teachers and employers when introducing others to new knowledge-providing lots of structure and guidance early on, until the students or workers show that they can do it on their own-makes intuitive sense, it's not the best way to promote learning. Rather, it's better to let neophytes wrestle with the material on their own for a while, refraining from giving them any assistance at the start."

"Mobile devices as teaching tools are becoming a more and more common part of the American education experience in classrooms, from preschool through graduate school. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of U.S. teachers own smartphones - 10 percentage points higher than the national average for adults. Those teachers are building that tech-savviness into their lesson plans, too, by embracing bring-your-own-device policies and leading the push for an iPad for every student. In 2013, an estimated 25% of U.S. schools had BYOD policies in place and it's reasonable to assume those numbers have risen in the past two years. What do these mobile devices really add, though? Is there more to this tech trend than just grabbing the attention of students? Is mobile technology boosting classroom instruction, or is it all just a flashy way to accomplish the same things as analog instruction?"

"If you've always had a desire to build your own apps or create your own websites, then you can begin your coding education with nothing more than a browser, an internet connection, and some spare time. Here we've picked out six of the best resources currently available online."

"3D printing has been around for a long time, but only recently has it become available to the general public. My friends and family still think of a 3D printer as some sort of miracle device that can make whatever you want at the push of a button. Of course, we as creators know that it takes a lot of work to go from an initial idea to a final 3D printed product. There was a period of time where everyone was telling me I HAD to make prosthetic hands because I own this futuristic 3D printer and I had a social responsibility to use it for the forces of good.  I think of 3d printers like any other tool such as a table saw or lathe. Sure you can make just about anything, but what do you want to make? I've always loved the aesthetic of boy's action toys so I couldn't resist the opportunity to make my own action figures."