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"The source for innovative or creative thinking is as much as mystery as that of curiosity or particular genius. In a traditional classroom, "having a good idea" is strangely not valued as much as the ability to demonstrate proficiency with a specific assessment form. In fact, "good ideas" can often be disruptive to a tightly-sequenced and outcomes-based learning process."

"I still miss that beautiful visual presentation, but you can still use Google News to search contemporaneous news. Contemporaneous news offers students unfiltered, personal connection to the past and forces them to wrestle with issues of bias and historical perspective. Contemporaneous news focuses a media literacy lens on how news is/was reported. How many different ways is the same story reported? How does the story evolve over the course of days, weeks, years? How do stories reported at the time differ from the way a story is reported with the benefit of hindsight or without the homongenization of textbook coverage? We can engage learners in considering why a story is placed where it is placed in a newspaper, why a particular headline was crafted, how our language has shifted, and why search terms may be time-contextual. (For instance, why searches for World War I, African Americans, the Holocaust, might not be effective in contemporaneous sources.)"

"10 Go To Blogs To Make You Think"

"As an educator, I am constantly looking for new ideas to shape my educational philosophy and pedagogy. While I don't always have the time to read a book on current trends in education, I can always find a few moments each day to peruse the blogs that I follow and read a few posts to get my mental wheels spinning. Here are 10 of my favorite sources for inspiration:"

"Some of you are still probably not sure about the difference between what constitutes a copyright infringement and fair use. Well the post I have for you today might help illuminate the key differences between the two concepts. This post is based on a two days work reading a wide variety of resources pertaining to copyright and . Please check the references below to learn more about my sources."

"This hand selected set of sources will provide teachers who are new to the iPad with the information they need to get started, and offer both new and current users information they need to successfully integrate the iPad into their teaching practices. I purposely limited the list to a few resources that were the richest in content, covering a breadth of important concerns and considerations for new iPad users and teachers who want to get off to a good start with the iPad in their classrooms."

"With the thousands of educational apps vying for the attention of busy teachers, it can be hard to sift for the gold. Michelle Luhtala, a savvy librarian from New Canaan High School in Connecticut has crowd-sourced the best, most extensive list of apps voted on by educators around the country. "I wanted to make sure we had some flexibility because there's no one app that's better than all the others," Luhtala said. Some apps are best for younger students, others are more complicated, better suited for high school students. Many apps do one thing really well, but aren't great at everything. Still others are bought, redesigned or just disappear - so it's always good to know about an array of tools to suit the need at hand."

"Yesterday was a Flex Day in our district, so my teaching partner and I had a very small group of first grade students to do some very focused instruction. It was a great day, but was made even better through a mid-morning surprise! Our kiddos discovered that both classroom's praying mantis egg sacs had hatched new baby praying mantises! We were so excited, and disappointed at the same time, because not everyone was there to see it! We needed to set them free quickly because they can actually eat each other if you don't get them a food source quickly enough. I suggested that we try out the Book Creator app, since it's on my "To Purchase" list for school iPads, to document our investigation and release."

"After the publication of "9 Google  alternatives for academics and student researchers" today I am sharing with you this excellent list of academic search engines specifically curated for history teachers. Using these search engines, you will be able to look for and find resources and materials to use in your class with your students. These resources include original historical documents, maps, images, records, memorials, primary source materials, interactive timelines and man"

""Why does this matter?" Teachers are often called upon to answer this question about an academic subject, and computer science instructors may face this demand more frequently than most. Learning to write lines of code can seem, to many students, like a pointless exercise in tedium. But a few professors of computer science have a compelling reply at the ready. They are participants in the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software project, known as HFOSS-or, more grandly, Software for Humanity. Why does this matter? these professors might respond. Because it's helping to feed needy people in Haiti, or to deliver supplies to earthquake survivors in China, or to manage the medical care of malaria victims in Rwanda."

"Last night on the Free Technology for Teacher Facebook page I posted a set of resources for art lesson plans. That post reminded me of a couple of sources of free art history books that together offer nearly 700 books."

"In the Social Studies and English Language Arts classroom students can benefit from visuals and interactive text to help making meaning of the past.  The Berlin Wall HD is a free iPad app that presents informational text, primary source documents and interactive maps on the screen.  Students can tap, zoom and explore this period in history."

"I've written about a number of video, audio, and collage creation tools, with WeVideo, Audacity, and PicMonkey topping some of my lists. However, it can be a challenge for students to locate copyright-friendly media when using these tools for presentations or idea sharing. It's always best for students to create materials or use ones that are in the public domain. Here are some of the best resources I've found for the latter."

"It's now possible to display your iPad to your class by connecting it directly to your Mac using the lightning-USB cable (the same one you use to charge your iPad).  Once your iPad is connected to your Mac, launch QuickTime Player (in your Applications folder). From the File menu Choose "New Movie Recording".  This will open a movie window and show your web cam.  If you hover your mouse over the window you will see a floating recording palette.  Next to the record button, there is a small white V icon.  Clicking that will let you select your iPad as the camera source!  Of course you can record it if you want to - but you don't have to - you can just use it to show your screen to the class."

"Over the weekend I published a review of Twine, an open source program for writing choose your own adventure stories. In the past I've reviewed a couple of other tools for the same purpose. This post is a short comparison of the three."

"Tickle (Tickle Labs, Inc, free) is a free app that lets you program a wide variety of robots through a simple programming language and drag and drop visual interface, then control them from an iPad. Just some of the 'bots and systems controllable by Tickle include the Sphero robotic ball, a wide variety of flyable drones, the Arduino open-source electronic prototyping platform and Philips Hue smart home lighting. You can also program interactive stories and simple games using a library of animated characters and sounds."

"The simple truth is that turning students on to nonfiction reading - proving that articles from sources like Popular Science and Gizmodo and National Geographic can be JUST as amazing as The Hunger Games or The Lightning Thief or The Lunar Chronicles - is probably the MOST important contribution that I can make to the academic and intellectual growth of my students. Being exposed to high interest articles from a wide range of fields - space science, biology, chemistry, earth science - might just introduce kids to personal passions and future professions.  Seeing science in action turns what could be just another boring subject in school into an interesting career worth pursuing.  Just as importantly, exposing kids to high interest nonfiction text on a regular basis will build their comfort level with a genre that will increasingly define the reading that they do as middle schoolers, high schoolers and adults. So I'm trying something new this year:  I'm going to use Remind - a free service that allows teachers to send out text and/or email updates to parents and students - to share two or three interesting science current events every week."

"Below is a collection of some of the best iPad math games for young learners. These apps involve strategic use of mathematical skills in working on simulated challenges. While an entertaining source of fun, these games are also ideal for providing kids with a solid math practice to enhance their overall mathematical thinking. Check them out and share with your students."