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"Anxious, overconfident, curious, indifferent, angry, amused, lonely, hopeful, embarrassed, empowered, afraid, excited, diminished-teachers have seen all these emotions emerge from students as they engage with classroom content. Emotional responses to lessons often go through students' minds before they even begin to think about the material: This stuff is stupid/awesome/beyond me. I'm not comfortable with this. Finally, something I'm good at. Maybe somebody will notice I can't read. Let's see her find a mistake in that one-it's perfect. Does the teacher know I didn't study this last night? Some of us deny this reality and claim we aren't trained to guide children's emotional health. We think our purpose is to teach content and skills only, not to deal with the touchy-feely stuff. This attitude turns a blind eye to the developmental nature of the students we serve, and it runs afoul of how minds learn. Unless we're the most severe of sociopaths, we all have emotional responses that affect what we do. Adding to the messiness, our individual perspectives and experiences may put us out of sync with others' emotional states, even as the institutional nature of schools demands emotional synchronicity. The resulting miscommunication, blame, anxiety, and frustration are not the best ingredients for a good day at school. Teachers who deny the emotional elements of teaching and learning can become exhausted from ceaseless confrontations with students' emotional states, often blaming their personal stress and students' failure to learn on students' lack of motivation or maturity. They grow disconnected from students, creating an almost adversarial relationship with them: I need to get them to shape up. It's them or me. These students are hopeless; why should I bother? It's the parents who created this situation. This attitude can bleed into daily interactions with students and colleagues. It doesn't have to be this way. We can develop constructive responses to our own

"When I was a kid, my dad taught me how to make paper airplanes. I remember two designs in particular-a sleek 'jet' plane and a more-square stunt plane. I liked the stunt plane but was fascinated with the power and design of the jet version. It was so simple and pure. I can still remember the feel of the creases beneath my forefinger on my right hand, eyes studying my work closely, making sure the edges lined up just so. If it was off even a little, I had to start again. There's a lot more design that goes into duplicating n existing paper airplane model than you'd think. First and foremost, the aforementioned precision of the folds. If the paper isn't aligned perfectly, it won't fly perfectly-and that sort of linear cause/effect is strangely fulfilling."

"In a "post-truth" era where people are increasingly influenced by their emotions and beliefs over factual information, fact and fiction can be difficult to distinguish, and fake news can spread rapidly through mainstream media sources and social networks. Moreover, fake news is often meant to do harm, by tricking us into believing a lie or unfairly discrediting a person or political movement. Given this malicious intent, students must learn to approach news and information with a critical eye in order to identify intentionally misleading sources (although recent studies confirm that this is an uphill battle for both adults and young people). Teachers therefore play a crucial role in ensuring that their students develop the skills to decipher the many streams of information available to them."

"Integrating Computational Thinking in the Primary Grades "

"Finding new and human ways to connect and empower the next generation to play is one of the ways that Ikea says it hopes to change the world, and bringing extra life to cardboard that would otherwise end up in the recycling bins is part of that push. It's an idea that came about quickly, and was revealed at a panel at Cannes today (20 June). Wunderman, Kantar Consulting and Mini Mad Things decided to put the pedal to the metal and workshop an idea in just five weeks. The catch? The idea had to be 'prototypeable' as the final would be presented on stage at Cannes Lions, alongside Ikea's chief marketing officer. Ultimately, the brief was to come up with an idea that shows how Ikea inspires and facilitates child's play, all while helping to improve home life for parents, whole families and even communities. After evaluating 17 years-worth of online conversation with parents and analyzing 15m rows of dialogue data, the team realized that behavior and development is the most talked about topic within childcare, second only to pregnancy. Pressing further in the research, the team learned that 50% of parents surveyed struggle to find ideas to encourage creative play amongst their children. Ikea, which has been one of the largest distributors of cardboard packaging, and team were able to flip their script so the brand could see the world through a child's eyes and create an interactive mobile app that brings cardboard waste to life. By following simple instructions any piece of cardboard can be transformed into something new. The Ikea Toybox app gives cardboard waste a new lease on life and, as play doesn't require a price tag, families will see big results with small means."

"True story. The bell rang and nobody moved. They were completely focused, totally engrossed. They probably didn't even hear the bell because they were so focused on what they were learning. Amazing, right? How often are students counting down the minutes of each class? They have their eyes on the clock. They start packing up early, preparing themselves for the transition to the next class. Sometimes they are even lined up at the door, waiting for the bell to ring to move on to the next thing. But not on this particular occasion. The students were so into what they were learning, the teacher had to remind them it was time to leave. You can work more on this tomorrow. You'll be late for your next class. It's time to go."

"how a fourth grader how to balance a checkbook and it won't be long before her eyes start to glaze over or his mind starts to wander off to more interesting things. Infuse a financial literacy lesson with terms like bitcoin or cryptocurrency, however, and the lesson gets a bit more interesting. Better yet, give the student a very hands-on, tech-centric way to experiment with those financial concepts, and suddenly you're in an entirely new learning realm. As it stands now, a high percentage of K-12 students never getting the tools and training they need to make informed financial decisions. Only a third of states require high school students to take a course in personal finance, while less than half require them to take a course in economics before graduating. So in a push to make learning more relevant-and fun-a pair of startups, BitLearn and Pigzbe, are fusing gamification with finance, propped up by digital currency tokens. Call it the 21st century piggy bank."

"Step right up to see impressive iPad and iPhone tips and tricks! Learn stunts like annotating photos without an app, compelling Siri to flip a coin, conjuring up keywords on a page, hearing highlighted text, making clutter on web pages vanish, closing all Safari tabs in the blink of an eye…the magic at your fingertips seems limitless. So many secrets are unleashed below!"

"Coding or programming is the language used to talk to computers. It really is the 21st Century language being introduced into our schools' curriculum through the Digital Technologies curriculum. In the junior school coding can be so much fun as robots can be used to program and carry out instructions. This can be so rewarding for young students to engage with code and seeing the impact their code has. In this post (2 of 3), I thought I'd share some of my favourite robots which are available to suit students in Years 3 & 4."

"It's often easy to get stuck into a narrow view of what a particular field of study entails, but as Dominic Walliman reveals in his impressive science infographics, there's much more than meets the eye when thinking of particular STEM subjects. Walliman demonstrates the diversity and complexity of biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, and mathematics in visual maps that explore the breadth of each field. Walliman, who also created animated videos exploring his science infographics, manages to pack all the shades of each complex field on one page. For instance, the Map of Mathematics travels from the origins and foundations of the field to the differences between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. Likewise, chemistry is divided between rules and different sub-topics like biochemistry and inorganic chemistry, with fun illustrations to clearly show what falls underneath each area. Whether you are a scientist who feels like people never quite get what you do or a student who can't put their finger on how they might use their math or science degree, Walliman's infographics will come in handy. Consider them roadmaps to possible careers or cheat sheets to figuring out how quantum physics is related to the theory of relativity. Best of all, by studying the visual maps, it becomes easy to see how all these scientific fields overlap and fit together like a puzzle."

"Every year since 2001 we've picked what we call the 10 Breakthrough Technologies. People often ask, what exactly do you mean by "breakthrough"? It's a reasonable question-some of our picks haven't yet reached widespread use, while others may be on the cusp of becoming commercially available. What we're really looking for is a technology, or perhaps even a collection of technologies, that will have a profound effect on our lives. For this year, a new technique in artificial intelligence called GANs is giving machines imagination; artificial embryos, despite some thorny ethical constraints, are redefining how life can be created and are opening a research window into the early moments of a human life; and a pilot plant in the heart of Texas's petrochemical industry is attempting to create completely clean power from natural gas-probably a major energy source for the foreseeable future. These and the rest of our list will be worth keeping an eye on. -The Editors"

"Tell me if this sounds familiar: Your alarm goes off at 7:00 am. It's a school day. It's time to get out of bed and get ready to make that early morning bell. But in that moment, you feel as though there is no force on the planet that could make you open your eyes and surrender your comfortable position under the covers. Your mom comes into the room, already dressed for work. "You know," she says, "you wouldn't be so tired if you'd just gone to bed a little earlier." Is she right? Also, why isn't she ever tired in the morning? Most teens would agree that they're much sleepier in the morning than their parents are. There's a single molecule that's largely responsible for this difference. And no, it's not caffeine - it's melatonin!"

"As a librarian, my goal is to expose students to all forms of literacy. Coding, to me, is just another form.  Teaching coding allows me to integrate multiple disciplines together. Coding is a process just like the research process. That is why it fits so nicely in the library. Additionally, coding teaches problem solving, cooperation, and how to overcome failure. With all that being said, I do not believe in just coding for coding sake. I feel it should fit within a bigger picture. Combining coding skills with other literacy skills is always my ultimate goal. Below are a few examples of how I teach coding with early childhood students. Most of these ideas did not start with me. They are a collection of resources from amazing educators that I have learned from."

"With so many Raspberry Pi projects to choose from, it can be tricky to find the one you really want to build. Our advice is to find a way to marry the Pi with something you really love. One great example is TV and movie robots - iconic characters from popular sci-fi that can be rebuild at home with a Raspberry Pi built in. Once constructed, your robot might be able to utter commands when a condition is met (perhaps a sensor detects motion). Or it might move around, learning about its surroundings, or reading information to you from Wikipedia. Whatever you have in mind, it should be relatively straightforward to plan and execute. It may take some time, however. Here are five example projects that show how you can combine a Raspberry Pi 2 or later with your favorite fictional robot. 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do The latest edition of the pint-sized computer is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there's 5 things you can only do on a Raspberry Pi 2. READ MORE 1. R2-D2 We've all wanted our very own astromech droid, haven't we? Sure, no one on earth is (currently) operating a light speed drive, but Star Wars droid R2-D2 has far greater abilities than onboard spacecraft maintenance. For instance, he can hold torches, carry a tray of drinks, and launch lightsabers across pits in the desert. Okay, it's unlikely you'll manage to get your own R2-D2 robot to do that… but don't let that put you off. Check out this little guy, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. While this project was based on an existing R2-D2 toy, that shouldn't limit your ambition. You'll find plenty of R2-D2 builds on YouTube. There's a massive R2-D2 building community online. Finding one that has a drive unit should be ideal for integrating a Raspberry Pi (and perhaps an Arduino, which you can use the two together) and developing a more realistic R2-D2 experience. Arduino vs Raspberry Pi: Which Is The Mini Computer For You? Arduino vs Rasp

"Google's Chrome is now the biggest browser in the world, with half the world using it as their default browser. But that doesn't mean everyone is using it right. There is a lot more to Chrome than meets the eye. This guide looks at the fundamentals of Google Chrome and the advantages you get when you use its features well. It is meant for the beginner who wants to explore what the world's most popular web browser is all about. So, let's answer this first…"

"In an era of breakneck change and tech innovation, evaluating dyslexia in young students looks much the same today as it has in the past: A struggling reader's parents and teachers might sit down, gather information and assess the child on their strengths and weaknesses to determine a diagnosis and appropriate interventions. Often this is done via paper tests-despite the growing usage of predictive analytics in schools, where there are seemingly as many data dashboards as students in a classroom. All that's to say, it seems like an industry almost too tempting for deep-pocketed tech investors and an ambitious startup with an eye on using machine learning to trim the fat. "Today's methods are quite cumbersome," explains Frederik Wetterhall, the CEO and co-founder of Lexplore, a company that has devised a dyslexia screening tool that pairs eye tracking cameras with AI and algorithms. "With paper- and pen-based tests, it's quite hard to read the results and takes a lot of time. [Educators] ask, 'Who are the kids we think have difficulties?' and they miss a lot of kids.""

"How to better integrate the connected benefits of computer science in elementary STEM education."

"As society anticipates a future filled with artificial intelligence, experts are theorizing ways that we humans can outperform the computers that are being programmed to perfection. Some believe educators should focus on building soft skills like empathy and interpersonal communication so humans and robots can complement one another. However, other education thought leaders are ready to beat computers at their own game by teaching people to think like intelligent machines. Why do so many of our kids struggle with math problem-solving? Because they don't know where to start; they don't know how to decompose the problem. Heidi Williams The term for getting humans to think like computers has been coined Computational Thinking, and the idea is taking off. Author Heidi Williams can attest to its popularity after her book on the subject, No Fear Coding Computational Thinking Across the K-5 Curriculum, sold out at the International Society for Technology in Education conference. Inside the book, Williams breaks down computational thinking standards into four parts: 1. Formulating problems through data analysis, abstract models and algorithmic thinking; 2. Collecting, analyzing and presenting data; 3. Breaking down problems into parts and extracting information to understand the system in place; and 4. Using algorithmic thinking to develop sequences and testing automated solutions."

"Earlier in the school year my students created whole-class videos using our large green screen studio. While I assigned students a variety of tasks (director, camera operator, acting coach), my students spent the majority of their time on the carpet as an audience member. At the end of these units I wondered how we could increase student ownership of the production. Could I have my students create a green screen movie without having to play the audience member for large portions of the time? Could they be empowered to create a movie independently of the teacher? Could this be done by kindergartners and first graders? For most of the school year I struggled with these questions. That was until I met Brenda Windsor and Mary O'Neil of Trumbull, CT at the Fairfield University "Education Technology Collaboration Day" in March.  Brenda and Mary presented on how they have incorporated green screens in the classroom, and shared the idea of using a pizza box to make a miniature portable studio. Here is a link to the video they created.  From that moment, I was on a mission to have my K-2 students write, direct, film & star in their own collaborative group mini green screen movies. "

"Peering up, a teacher asked me, "What are we going to use it for?" as I flew our shiny new drone up between the umbrellas on the quad, past the roof of the gym, and into the low scattered clouds. The camera projected back to my iPhone, and I could see the newly planted trees in our quad, the only green for miles in the Mondrian concrete grid that is our local community. The students and teachers in the quad all looked up too, shielding their eyes to see the drone fly. Our custodians pulled up in their cart, and my assistant principal whooped like one of the middle schoolers on my campus. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. It's my job this year to answer questions like the one above. As a teacher on special assignment currently serving as curriculum coordinator for my school, I get to learn what's coming our way and devise methods of implementation. I specialize in technology and project-based learning, and I began thinking about implementing the drone immediately upon hearing that our district had purchased it. And I'm not the only one thinking about this issue. In the book Drones in Education, the International Society for Technology in Education touts the engagement factor but also sees academic potential in using drones. To guide schools to successfully implement the technology, the book promotes the SOAR model, which stands for Safety (ethics and legal use), Operation (flight and maintenance), Active learning (engagement in problem solving), and Research (practical applications)."