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As teachers we hope our lessons are engaging and that our students are engaged. We understand that positive learning experiences are more likely to occur when we are engaged cognitively and affectively by what we are doing and that when we are, new ideas and skills are more likely to stick. Engagement is an important consideration in learning and as such it is worth taking time to consider what it means to be engaged and perhaps how we bring the benefits of engagement to our teaching and our learning. 

If you consider the day to day life of many of our students today, you see that they have very little time that is free from some form of programmed activity. Indeed, it is increasingly the norm for families to fill their children's time with the maximum number of learning, sporting and co-curricular activities. Schools naturally are happy to facilitate this and many see the breadth of programmes that they offer as a measure of success. But is there a consequence to all this activity and constant state of engagement?

This is not a story about the evolution of the world-wide-web. It is not about an evolutionary process of learning or a desire to engage in life-long learning. It is instead about the importance of purpose and engagement as factors in our learning.

Powerful learning begins with the perfect provocation. Creating, refining and skilfully presenting the perfect provocation is an essential capability for teachers hoping to engage their class in rich dialogue. Claims that the percentage of students engaged by their learning declines from 75 percent in fifth grade to 32 percent by eleventh grade suggests a need for a more provocative environment. 

Pedagogy and curriculum that engages students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and is deemed personally relevant to the lives they live, are seen as important factors towards equality of outcome by Wrench, Hammond, McCallum and Price (2012). Their research involved designing a curriculum and pedagogy that would be highly engaging to students of low-socioeconomic status. 'The interventions involved curriculum redesigns that set meaningful, challenging learning task(s) (culminating in high quality learning products); strong connection to student life-worlds; and a performative expectation for student learning.' (Wrench et al 2012 p934)

Dojoit's online whiteboard for education makes remote and in-class learning easy, engaging, and fun.

Dojoit's online whiteboard for education makes remote and in-class learning easy, engaging, and fun.

Change is something that we fear or embrace. It is widely considered as the one constant in our lives. For education at present we face a deluge of reports that the pace of change shall only accelerate and its scale become more absolute. No wonder then that many teachers feel now is a good time for a move out of the profession. For others the changing face of education is seen as bringing exciting new possibilities wrapped in engaging challenges. Regardless of how reliable predictions for change may prove to be it is worth considering how individuals and groups respond to it.

For students engaging in creative personalised learning projects such as a 'Genius Hour' or 'Personal Passion project it can often be difficult for them to uncover the right project. Students have become so reliant upon their teachers to pose them problems that when they are given the option to explore one of their own design they don't know where to start. This is indeed a significant challenge as we know that our students will enter a workforce and world of learning beyond school where they must be active problem finders. How then might we provide the support they require without removing the opportunity for truly personalised exploration.  

Increasingly we aim to teach dispositions but some care in the use of the term is required as it is easily oversimplified. While teaching for dispositions is encouraged it will have little effect if it means doing little other than engaging with the terminology. If we are to encourage the expansion of the desired dispositions, we must be sure to adequately unpack them and understand the implications in store for our culture of learning. 

'Ideas to Inspire' is a collection of Google Docs presentations, which offer a large number of ideas for engaging lesson activities in a range of curriculum areas.

Developing Interactive Teaching Styles using an IWB is a collection of presentation notes on a forum post. Good ideas

he following Seminar on IWBs was delivered at IST in Toulouse 2006 by Roy Huggins One of the questions posed by several delegates at the E-Help Conference in Toulouse is what is the role of ICT in the classroom? The main thrust of my seminar was that teachers need to move away from seeing IWBs and ICT as a teaching or presentation tool to using it as learning tool to engage learners through interactive teaching styles.

Strategies and techniques are presented for incorporating interactive technology for connecting lesson concepts and engaging students in the learning process.

These interactive whiteboard games are a great way to review units of study in the classroom. All are based on popular TV shows and are fun and engaging for the whole class. Download the templates, customize them to your own needs, and you will be ready to play these great games on an interactive whiteboard or LCD projector.

he Redistricting Game is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting.

Hello and welcome to Mr. Wylie's Educational Games Site. Here you will find links to some of the best educational games online today. They are engaging, exciting, and designed to meet all your curricular needs. Best of all, they are free, require no site registrations, and are available to play right now!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day! We think the following site is a wonderful share for today! So, If you are looking for a great site that offers a ton of free

Powered by the number 1 non-fiction media brand in the world, Discovery Education transforms classrooms and inspires teachers with engaging content and services that measure and improve student achievement.

Edusim is a 3D multi-user virtual world platform and authoring toolkit intended for your classroom interactive whiteboard. - Edusim has been tested and works on the Smartboard, Activeboard, Interwriter, Polyvision, Mimio, eBeam, and even the Wiimote Whiteboard. Allows multiple classrooms to connect their interactive whiteboards for collaborative learning session. Edusim as a concept seeks to model a new way to engage student through "immersive touch" by leveraging 3D virtual environments on the interactive surface or classroom interactive whiteboard.