"explores learning, education, digital technologies, books, poetry, literature, teaching, photography & the impact of social media. Your commentary, collaboration and participation is encouraged & highly valued!"

"Quest to Learn "builds on the best of what we know about how kids learn but does it with a 21st-century twist,"

"The use of robotics as an educational tool is growing in popularity. Advances in technology have resulted in the development of generic robotic construction kits for use in grade school (K-12) environments."

"Social media has several effects on academic work - some more positive than others. But what is social networking's overall impact on college students' performance?"

"he facilitator attempts to provide circumstances that will enable students to engage with the learning opportunities and construct for themselves their understandings and skills"

Ipad Mobile Perspectives: On iPadsWhy Mobile?

"Flipping Your Classroom with Online Tools"

"Students today have instant access to information through technology and the web, manage their own acquisition of knowledge through informal learning, and have progressed beyond consumers of content to become producers and publishers. As a result, traditional teaching and learning methods are becoming less effective at engaging students and motivating them to achieve."

Education Arcade zooms in on games in the classroom Sarah H. Wright, News Office

Games and learning

Games to teach

Erica McWilliam's afternoon keynote neatly brought these themes together. Taking us on a short journey through the history of pedagogy, she argued that the era of the teacher as the 'sage on the stage', the great man (usually) at the front of the classroom imparting his knowledge, has passed into the 'guide on the side', a more nurturing role where the teacher is facilitator. But she argued compellingly that too much rigour has been sacrificed in the name of protecting students' self-esteem, and made the case for the teacher as 'meddler in the middle': a provocateur who knows their stuff and challenges students to rise up to meet them. Dylan Wiliam opened his talk by sharing evidence that intelligence is partly inherited and partly environmental: education can make people smarter. When students are allowed to duck answering questions or get away with sloppy thinking and incomplete work, we are limiting their life chances - and limiting our capacity to cope with the challenges of the 21st century. As Erica put it, we've left the children of today hard problems to solve. They need to be capable of higher order thinking, so we must help them to experience to the pleasure of the rigour of learning

hybrid schools - not a blended school - not a virtual school

Lateral thinking to remove change resistance

"Summative assessments, or high stakes tests and projects, are what the eagle eye of our profession is fixated on right now, so teachers often find themselves in the tough position of racing, racing, racing through curriculum. But what about informal or formative assessments? Are we putting enough effort into these? What Are They?"

Authentic assessment videos

"5 Different Ways To Generate Ideas Using Brainstorming Apps"

"How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century"

"In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time," says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. "That hasn't been the case for teaching." This month, Gates is sounding the alarm about public education in Waiting for "Superman," a new documentary from An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim. "He has this amazing capacity to drill really, really deep," Guggenheim says of Gates. "He has an infectious curiosity." PARADE sat down with the software mogul turned philanthropist to talk about the movie, the American education system, and his own school days.

"How to Accelerate a Reader"