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Think back to how you felt after the last day you spent at a conference or course. If things went well you probably came out feeling enthused by new ideas but also exhausted and fatigued in ways that you don't after a regular day at work. If the presenters have done their job well and you choose your workshops wisely, the day should have been full of learning that resulted from you having to think. Days like this should work our brains hard and it should be no surprise when we are fatigued by such an experience. - So how might our students be coping?

 the Inquiry Hub has deconstructed the school day, getting rid of class blocks and it also provides online blended learning opportunities that most schools simply could not duplicate. That said, much of what we are doing can be done in any classroom. So here are seven key aspects we are exploring at the Inquiry Hub that can help transform any classroom into a more engaging, and student-empowered learning space.

Minecraft is a computer game world made of building blocks where students mine resources from the environment, create their own resources, build shelters, and much more.

Chrome learning space developed by AmplifiedIT

HyperCities is a collaborative research and educational platform for traveling back in time to explore the historical layers of city spaces in an interactive, hypermedia environment. Paula R. Lupkin (independent scholar), "Mapping the Great Southw...

Open a door to the world with this intriguing site which transports users to indoor spaces from all over the world with a Google StreetMap mashup. Found via http://twitter.com/@SparkyTeaching. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

excellent articulation of the need to give people scope and space as part of leadership

"The first thing that stands out upon arrival at Hellerup School, where 640 students between the ages of 6 and 16 study on the former site of the Tuborg brewery in Denmark, is the absence of a fence separating the school from the street. Inside, there is no office to greet visitors. Instead, small shoes litter the floor and children of all ages sprawl on couches doing homework, play foosball or run about the open space that substitutes for classrooms. "

The 21st Century is now. David Jakes on getting with the times and creating the kinds of digital learning spaces our students need and deserve. 

Interesting statement about the role of questionging in acquiring new infomation. Your mind has to ask the question in order for your brain to have a place to hold onto the information.....interesting perspective. 

I frequently say a similar thing when I talk about having students share their questions after a first reading. Their questions are such a great diagnostic of what they are ready to learn! Having students ask and answer their own questions not only gives them the info. they need now, but teaches them to be self-directed learners for a lifetime.

Laura Hilliger blog zythepsary.com here discusses the mozilla Teach the web" MOOC to start may 2. content to include: Introduction to Webmaker is all about community, openness and collaboration. Remix and Contextualize is all about putting web literacy skills into other types of learning plans. Do and Share is about experimenting with collaborative, participatory learning spaces and using the online community to improve your practice. Within each topic are 3 subtopics - Those are the themes we'll be focusing on weekly. 9 themes, 9 week MOOC - nice how that worked out, don't cha think? For each theme, we'll be MAKING things to explore ideas because, you know, you learn lots when you make. We'll have a chance to look at each other's makes, give feedback, and hack on ideas throughout the 9 weeks. There will be several ways to follow along. Here's what we're thinking for communication channels: Sign up to the webmaker.org/teach list to participate Keep your eye on hivenyc.org/teachtheweb Submit your blog for aggregation Join G+ Webmaker Community Use #teachtheweb on Twitter Bookmark the Big Blue Button link for May 2nd, 23rd, and June 13th, 4pm UTC Check the calendar for Twitter chats and Big Blue Button sessions

GETideas.org is the incubator where education leaders can develop their professional learning networks. Think of this space as a professional idea generator - a place where education leaders can be inspired to make change happen in their school, district, or university. Our goal is to bring people together to exchange ideas toward solving education challenges.

Computer game for learning about the planets.

"Formative feedback is instrumental in the learning experience of a student. It can be effective in promoting learning if it is timely, personal, manageable, motivational, and in direct relation with assessment criteria. Despite its importance, however, research suggests that students are discouraged from engaging in the feedback process primarily for reasons that relate to lack of motivation and difficulty in relating to and reflecting on the feedback comments. In this paper we present Online FEdback System (OFES), an e-learning tool that effectively supports the provision of formative feedback. Our aims are to enhance feedback reception and to strengthen the quality of feedback through the way feedback is communicated to the students. We propose that an effective feedback communication mechanism should be integrated into a student's online learning space and it is anticipated that this provision will motivate students to engage with feedback. Empirical evidence suggests that the developed system successfully addressed the issues of student engagement and motivation and achieved its objectives. The results of using the system for two years indicate a positive perception of the students which, in turn, encourage us to further explore its effectiveness by extending its functionality and integrating it into a an open source learning management system"

A great flash game where players must shoot a ball into a hole and use the magnets to help you. There is lots of science to learn in this game including about magnets, gravity and the orbits of space objects. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

A wonderful collaborative real-time drawing space which connects to your Google Plus account, allowing you to illustrate, explain and teach remotely across the world. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Behind the rhetoric and politics, education is about the outcomes it achieves for its learners. More than being about the nuances of technology, learning space design, curriculum structures and pedagogical practices schools should have effective answers to questions that focus on what they hope to achieve for their learners. How we answer this question should then dictate the measures we utilise to achieve these goals and it is to these ends that we must apply our efforts.