OZ/NZ educators

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

"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."

"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. "

"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."

"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."

"Minecraft is more than a game. It's like having a blank canvas to do and be anything. It's like having a master key to your greatest adventure. The worst thing that can happen if we let kids play is that they will learn much more than our standards sometimes allow. Those who play minecraft know this but the problem is that most people in charge of schools and curriculum do not. So, how can we change that?"

"According to Churches on his wiki Edorigami, "Bloom's Revised Taxonomy describes many traditional classroom practices, behaviours and actions, but does not account for the new processes and actions associated with Web 2.0 technologies …" This means the revised Digital Taxonomy verbs listed below are applicable to you facilitating technology use in the modern classrooms. We hope you find this infographic of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy verbs useful in your classroom practices. Please feel free to share it with colleagues you feel may benefit from having a list of taxonomy verbs!"

"Microsoft, which bought the game's developer Mojang for $2.5bn in 2014, has launched a site aimed at teachers, aiming to foster a community of educators swapping lesson plans and other tips based on Minecraft. This site was announced (2015) by Microsoft's vice president of worldwide education Anthony Salcito, complete with a list of some of the ways schools are already incorporating Minecraft into their lessons"

"PicCollage is one of my favorite Android and iPad apps. It is a free that allows you to quickly arrange pictures, video, text, and stickers into collages. From the app you can share your collage to Google Drive, Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, and many other file sharing services. In the video below I demonstrate how to use it without creating a PicCollage account."

Useful how-to

A great article about using podcasts for assessment of yr 10 students to demonstrate their understanding of literary concepts

"Making your notes more interesting doesn't have to be a huge undertaking. If you think sketchnoting looks fun, Some tips in this post to get you started."

"An infographic created by Mentoring Minds in which they featured 25 ways to develop 21st century critical thinkers"

Some useful tools for educators discussed here

Some good ideas worth exploring here. Includes video and many links .

"Are you creating a learning space where your students have ample voice, engage frequently with each other, and are given opportunities to make choices.Some guiding Questions to help you reflect on the learning environment you design for students:"

"Collaborative, socially-enabled tools can provide excellent opportunities for practice, assessment, better writing, and better communication. In this post are some good collaborative web apps and resources, with social functionality, that can play a valuable role in classroom lessons and assignments:"

"Ask A Biologist began in 1997 in the School of Life Sciences as a biology learning resource tool for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. The site continues to be developed, and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers. Ask A Biologist is visited by over 15,000 people every day and has answered more than 34,000 biology questions. This is a SafeSurf site."