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Professional development in the technological age goes beyond mere skills training and software applications to encompass both formal and informal means of learning new techniques, developing new insights and transferring new skills into practice.

Twitter chats are a great resource for learning and networking, allowing academics from all over the world to come together on a regular basis to talk about what's important in education.

Twitter chats happen on a specific day and time so you are connecting to other educators 'live'.

"Every child needs to encounter frustration and failure to learn to step back, reassess, and try again."

"A teacher's role in the classroom is to supply direction, maturity and wisdom. It is to raise questions, inspire endeavour and lay down challenges. A teacher brings purpose to the lesson. But to be effective in an iPad classroom, she must relinquish control over the tools used, allowing students to share the responsibility and joy of discovering and sharing solutions to achieve that purpose. I'm not saying that teachers are absolved of their professional responsibility for learning to use the technology. But they should admit to being learners, and not let that fact stop their students from using the device in unforeseen ways, in the pursuit of the class goals."

Power Searching With Google could be a great course for teachers who want to become better users of Google search in order to teach their students better search strategies. And, of course, students can take the course on their own to learn better search strategies.

"We want a team to think about action research as a collaborative endeavor, where principals and teachers work together to improve something over time. It's not just about gathering data, it's about working hard to improve something. Maybe you see a need to improve writing in the building, and you're going to figure out whether there's a way to take a techno-constructivist approach to strengthening students' writing skills. Maybe you feel the culture of your school is very mired in antiquated approaches to teaching and learning, and you want to build a new culture of innovation and collaboration, so you're going to develop your project around that goal."

"One of the key conceptual models of the information field is the "information spectrum," the hierarchy of data - information - knowledge - wisdom. I first learned this model from Bob Taylor, former dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, and it is explained in his book, Value-Added Processes in Information Systems, Ablex, 1986, as the "Value-Added Spectrum," (p. 6). I teach this model to almost all of my classes, especially to my undergraduate students as part of developing an "information perspective" -- looking at the world through information-colored glasses. This is the way I explain the information spectrum (sometimes referred to as the DIKW hierarchy): Data = characters, symbols, numbers, signs whose meaning may or may not be apparent. Information = data with labels or definition; data that has structure or relationships. Knowledge = collected, combined, organized, processed information for a purpose. Wisdom = knowledge over time; knowledge without thinking. "

""The reality is that to survive in a fast-changing world you need to be creative," says Gerard J. Puccio, chairman of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College, which has the nation's oldest creative studies program, having offered courses in it since 1967. "That is why you are seeing more attention to creativity at universities," he says. "The marketplace is demanding it." Critical thinking has long been regarded as the essential skill for success, but it's not enough, says Dr. Puccio. Creativity moves beyond mere synthesis and evaluation and is, he says, "the higher order skill." This has not been a sudden development. Nearly 20 years ago "creating" replaced "evaluation" at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy of learning objectives. In 2010 "creativity" was the factor most crucial for success found in an I.B.M. survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries."

"Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Schema is the background knowledge and experience readers bring to the text. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and are thus able to use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials. By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Accessing prior knowledge and experiences is a good starting place when teaching strategies because every student has experiences, knowledge, opinions, and emotions that they can draw upon. "

Infographics are pretty popular. We share a lot of them on this site because they're an easy way to consume information. They're eye catching, the visuals tend to help people connect and remember the information, and they're easy to share with just about anyone, even non-experts in a field. They often boil down a lot of information into very manageable pieces, so for teachers, they're easy to check out and learn something quickly while browsing the internet during a lunch break or after school.

The SAMR (Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition) model is a framework used to evaluate the technology being employed (or that you'd like to employ) in your classroom. Basically, it offers a way for you to look at how technology integration might affect teaching and learning. Accordingly, many teachers and administrators who are in the process of choosing between classroom technology options employ the SAMR model to determine what might be worthwhile and what wouldn't.

Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

The Horizon Report 2014 K-12 edition is now available. Developed by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), this is the sixth annual K-12 edition. It describes findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing, collaborative research activity designed to identify trends and describe emerging technologies that are likely to have an impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry.

A collection of rubrics for assessing portfolios, cooperative learning, research process/ report, PowerPoint, oral presentation, web page, blog, wiki, and other social media projects.