OZ/NZ educators

"The annual Horizon report, released June 29 by the nonprofit New Media Consortium, examines the trends and technologies that will shape primary and secondary education over the next five years. It references libraries as being at the forefront of maker spaces, which are among 18 major trends that include the rise of STEAM education: the intersection and importance of science, technology, arts, engineering, and math. The Horizon Report broke down challenges to school technology adoption into three categories: "solvable," "difficult," and "wicked," representing a range of difficulty to implement over the next five years. The "solvable" problems reflect what many libraries are already doing, like focusing more on blended learning and STEAM. The "wicked" problems were far more dramatic: shifting toward deeper learning approaches and rethinking the role of school itself."

"A picture's worth a thousand likes. Or at least more likes than a post without one. Numerous studies have shown that including a profile picture is essential to garnering more page visits, and picture posts are more visible on social media. There's an active online discussion around the perfect avatar or cover photo, but there is no comprehensive guide to visual engagement for your brand's entire social media profile."

"In education, most of the talk around disruptive innovation revolves around education technology, owing to the potential scale of these technologies, and desperation of education to revise itself. But innovation doesn't necessarily have to be a matter of economics, as Christensen originally thought of the term, nor of technology, which is the most tempting angle. It can, but there are other disruptors that can lead to innovation that have little to do with either. What might be more interesting than the disruptors, then, might be the process itself. "

"Students who self-assess are the best? That's what Alan November says. Research shows that students who self-assess their work become top students. What does this mean? Any school can improve with these three things."

As always Kathy has Some great advice. First the infographics that set up the ideas and then offers some ideas for apps to assist teachers to use with students

"For decades, schools have attempted to build and maintain this crucial bridge to lasting learning. Research shows that the stronger the connection between home and school, the greater the academic achievement can be for students. There are some new tools listed here that all educators can leverage to easily maximize parent-teacher-student communication"

"A new study is the latest to support the use of video games, in particular the popular children's game Minecraft, in classroom learning"

From Dept of Ed & Child Development, SA. "We have thought deeply about what we value for our students' learning, how this is represented in the learning areas through the essence, and how this essence helps us work with all the components of the learning area. In this section we work with our colleagues using the BitL tool to ensure our pedagogy brings the essence of the learning areas to life in the classroom. It helps us engage our learners as scientists, as mathematicians, as historians, and as great communicators - so that they not only know about the important understandings and develop the skills within each learning area, but can bring this understanding to bear in their everyday contexts in powerful ways."

"Google Chrome is actually much more than just a web browser. Google has tucked away a lot of hidden functionalities into the Chrome browser. Jotting notes on a built in notepad, playing a dinosaur themed browser game when the wifi is out, and even finding your lost cell phone on a Google map, are just a couple of the cool things most people can do. These are six of our favorite hidden Chrome tricks you can try out right now"

"Over the past year more and more schools across the globe have embraced the concept of making to learn.  This phenomenon trickled into schools as the Maker Movement became more popular and natural connections to learning became quite evident.  To begin to understand the educational value of making we must look at the roots of this movement."

The BBC have come up with what they think are the 25 Biggest Turning Points in Earth's History. Our planet has existed for 4.5 billion years, and a lot has happened but these turning points shaped our world significantly. They include leaps forward in evolutionary leaps, devastating asteroid collisions, mass extinctions and finally the coming of man

"In four small schools scattered across San Francisco, a data experiment is under way. That is where AltSchool is testing how technology can help teachers maximize their students' learning. Founded two years ago by Max ­Ventilla, a data expert and former head of personalization at Google, AltSchool runs schools filled with data-gathering technology. Information is captured from the moment each student arrives at school and checks in on an attendance app"

"OneNote is a unique tool that makes it easy to gather lots of information in one place, and is great for collaboration, sharing, projects, group work, and much more. It is free for use in education, and is often included with MS Office "