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Practice logs can promote these helpful activities. Such logs can show how often teachers use a new practice, how it worked, what problems occurred, and what help they needed (Sparks, 1998).

Professional development for technology use should demonstrate projects in specific curriculum areas and help teachers integrate technology into the content.

Specific content can help teachers analyze, synthesize, and structure ideas into projects that they can use in their classrooms (Center for Applied Special Technology, 1996).

Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).

For example, all of us can relate to how we moved, in financial record-keeping, from paper processes to our present reconceptualized approach. First, we duplicated the by-hand processes and forms into a digital format, including all the checking and rechecking by people. Only when we had convinced ourselves that a digital world was possible, that it was reliable, and that the output was valid did we rethink the process of what needed to be done and for what purpose. Only then did we redesign the approval process, for instance, to include human checking only when required by best practice under audit standards. At that point, true reconceptualization (reengineering, disruption) occurred.

A rational number is any number that can be written as a ratio of two integers (hence the name!). In other words, a number is rational if we can write it as a fraction where the numerator and denominator are both integers. The term "rational" comes from the word "ratio," because the rational numbers are the ones that can be written in the ratio form p/q where p and q are integers. Irrational, then, just means all the numbers that aren't rational. Every integer is a rational number, since each integer n can be written in the form n/1. For example 5 = 5/1 and thus 5 is a rational number. However, numbers like 1/2, 45454737/2424242, and -3/7 are also rational, since they are fractions whose numerator and denominator are integers. So the set of all rational numbers will contain the numbers 4/5, -8, 1.75 (which is 7/4), -97/3, and so on. Is .999 repeating a rational number? Well, a number is rational if it can be written as A/B (A over B): .3 = 3/10 and .55555..... = 5/9, so these are both rational numbers. Now look at .99999999..... which is equal to 9/9 = 1. We have just written down 1 and .9999999 in the form A/B where A and B are both 9, so 1 and .9999999 are both rational numbers. In fact all repeating decimals like .575757575757... , all integers like 46, and all finite decimals like .472 are rational.

Fiction brings us the news of ourselves, as literature always has and always will. That’s “entertainment,” in its deepest and most satisfying form. That’s pleasure, meaning, passion, glimpses of profoundest truth, the salvation of art. “The Jungle” may have sparked reform, but I daresay “Mrs. Dalloway” has changed more people’s lives.

But as long as people use language, tell stories and want to know about themselves, they will read fiction. The novel is a sturdy old contraption that continues to outlive its mourners.

Make (and use) a Twitter account for one of your classes – You’ll need to provide us the link to the Twitter profile you’ve created (example: www.twitter.com/edudemic)

Use Skype (or similar service) to have your students connect with someone(s) for a project, interview, ‘pen pal’ class activity – Provide a short description of who your students connected with, and the purpose of their task (and if they used a service other than Skype, what service was it!?)

Make a Facebook page for one of your classes (and use it) – You’ll need to provide the link to the Facebook page that you’ve created (example: www.facebook.com/edudemic)

APNG Assembler 2.7 This application will create an Animated PNG from a set of static PNGs. Each frame you give it must have the same size. (you can use this sample circle.zip file to see how it works) Time to display each frame: / seconds. Don't show the first frame on APNG-aware viewers: A ZIP archive with all the frames as separate PNG files (max. size 2M): The frames will be ordered alphabetically.