OZ/NZ educators

You can find inspirational ideas on the Pinterest site. Listed in this post are a few good Pinterest ideas for teachers: best apps, websites, virtual fieldtrips and classroom ideas.

"Addressing the challenges unique to students with ADHD will help these students find ways to handle their condition effectively and even use it to their advantage. Their unique perspective can be channeled into creative writing, finding new solutions to problems, and most of all, finding, reaching, and even exceeding their goals and fulfilling their full potential."

A interesting post about the place and value of formative assessment. It includes a long, printable list of assessment strategies will help identify new ways to check for understanding and verify what students have learned.

"In this post Kathy Schrock provides the reader with some ideas on how to infuse civic and global skills into the curriculum."

Good questions are great learning tools. The 8 strategies discussed here offer useful ideas for classroom techers

"This option provides a useful way to build rubrics, mark assignments and send out marks to students. Also, because you can collaborate using Google Spreadsheets, this option could provide teams of teachers with a way to collaborate on the development of rubrics. It also provides an opportunity to share in the responsibility of scoring assignments."

"Ten tips for successful technology integration in the classroom - the Sketch and Canva versions"

"Get your hashtags ready: Twitter is a far more effective source of CPD than more traditional approaches, research has found. Indeed, teachers believe they derive more from the 140 characters of a tweet than they do from several hours of seminars or lectures. Academics from two US universities surveyed 755 members of school staff about Twitter. They found that the most popular use of the social media website was for CPD, with many praising Twitter's advantages over more traditional methods. Twitter, many teachers told researchers, allowed them to create a virtual staffroom, filled entirely with their own choice of colleagues. Indeed, a middle school English teacher explained: "I have learned so much from other teachers. It has transformed my teaching. And this is my 18th year [in the profession].""

"These aren't single tools to "try," but news ways to think about how learners access media, how educators define success, and what the roles of immense digital communities should be in popularizing new learning models."

"Rachel Langenhorst helps teachers in her district find solutions for those issues. She used to teach social studies, but is now the K-12 Technology Integrationist and Instructional Coach at Rock Valley Community Schools in Iowa. "Really be cognizant of the digital tools you're picking and why you are picking them." She put together a list of favorite digital tools for the social studies classroom and shared them during an edWeb webinar. She emphasizes that, as with any classroom technology, teachers need to be careful not to just substitute a tech tool for an analog one. Instead, technology should be used to enhance classroom learning in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise, including expanding learning beyond the classroom walls."

This post on Edutopia offers a list of resources that includes tips and guides on classroom design and layout to help maximize the possibilities of the learning environment.

"Formative assessment is useful tool assist teachers assess the learning needs of their students. Such knowledge allows teachers to modify their teaching to meet the needs of their students. The digital formative assessment tools listed here offer a range of approaches to help teachers undertake this task. "

"Post that makes the case for including social media into learning in schools. Taking advantage of social media as a learning platform is an idea that has been met with some great success. There are three ways described here about how teachers are using social media to engage their students."

"Lego has launched its very own Minecraft-like video game. Called Lego Worlds, the surprise game is available through Steam "early access," essentially a paid beta program where you can purchase games still in development."

"Ingrid Sundberg, a writer and children's book illustrator, created a very useful infographic chart for anyone struggling with color names. The writer says that she loves to collect words that can help give her stories variety and depth."

"Blended learning is the foremost trend in education. While millions of elementary through high school students are participating in blended learning, it is a method, not a goal. The How to Choose Digital Curricula for Blended Learning Infographic provides answers to ten crucial questions educators should ask themselves when selecting digital curricula for Blended Learning:"