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"Referred to variously as technopanic, predator panic, cyberbullying panic, etc., a lot of fear and anxiety has developed around the intersection of youth and the Internet." " He defined juvenoia as "the exaggerated fear of the influence of social change [including the Internet] on youth." This week, the first of a two-part series on Dr. Finkelhor's talk: why the fear is unsupported by the evidence and (next week) why all the fear.

"Would you like to develop an iPhone or Android application? If so, it just got much easier with the Buzztouch content management system. Visitors don't need to know any coding, and after creating a Buzztouch account they can get started building their own application. Visitors should look over the "How Buzztouch Works" area to get acclimated to the program and they should also check out the "FAQ" section. This version is compatible with all operating systems and users will need to have access to an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone to test their application's functionality. "

"From personal experience blogging is one of the most beneficial professional development activities I have ever engaged with. I learn more from blogging than I do from almost any other activity I participate in."

"Here are five benefits that I would consider you would have in starting up your own teacher blog this year to assist you in your professional development as a teacher:"

Editor's note: An extraordinary number of species-from squid to lizards to humans-engage in play. But why? In this article, adapted from Dr. Sam Wang and Dr. Sandra Aamodt's book Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College (Bloomsbury USA, 2011; OneWorld Publications, 2011), the authors explore how play enhances brain development in children. As Wang and Aamodt describe, play activates the brain's reward circuitry but not negative stress responses, which can facilitate attention and action. Through play, children practice social interaction and build skills and interests to draw upon in the years to come.

One of the most powerful things I have learned is how amazing young children are in their thinking around mathematical concepts.  In Kindergarten I began developing a culture that not only had examples and artifacts of our learning, but ways for children to begin to use "math talk", which is the language I began modeling in explicit ways for children to see and began to practice in their own understanding of the concepts we are exploring. Through daily, explicit modeling through our daily number corner, math dyads and other mathematical work stations the children began to apply their understanding in meaningful ways throughout the day which has helped to build self-confidence in all of the children. What is important to understand here is that I did have to add something new onto my already full plate, but rather this was an opportunity to learn some new tools and a different way of thinking about what I was already teaching. This is one example of  where I started to see how rigor and relevance applied in my teaching and how vital it is and has become in my daily teaching practice.

"Is traditional reading and writing enough to be considered literate in the 21st century?I have put together my thoughts via a slide deck. Please note, that I am not advocating throwing out traditional reading and writing, but pushing the awareness that it simply might not be enough to prepare our students."

"Please note, that I am not advocating throwing out traditional reading and writing, but pushing the awareness that it simply might not be enough to prepare our students. We need to rethink our notion of critical literacy, develop authentic learning and assessment opportunities, upgrade and amplify our curriculum."

Over the last few years K-12 schools and districts across the country have been investing heavily in iPads for classroom use. EdTechTeacher has been leading iPad professional development at many of these schools and we've seen firsthand how they approach iPad integration. While we've witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we're struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We're sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn't have to make them.

measuring creativity.... "A metric that we have applied is originally based on the famous Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). We compared 437 ad campaigns from 90 leading brands in 10 different FMCG categories in Germany. Using an advertising creativity scale developed from communications researchers at Indiana University in 2007 we evaluated and indexed each campaign's creativity levels. Specifically, we measured five dimensions of advertising creativity: (1) originality (was the ad original, rare, surprising, unique?); (2) flexibility (does the ad link the product to different ideas, concepts, or subjects?); (3) elaboration (does the ad contain intricate or numerous details?); (4) synthesis (does the ad blend normally unrelated objects or ideas?); and (5) artistic value (does the ad excel visually, verbally, or graphically?). "

Girls and Games: What's the Attraction? Games are increasingly recognized by educators as a way to get kids excited about learning. While the stereotype of a "gamer" may evoke the image of a high school boy holed up in a dark room playing on a console, in reality 62 percent of gamers play with other people either in person or online, and 47 percent of all gamers are girls. Game developers and academics who have been studying the elements that go into making games more attractive to girls found that those very same qualities are also important components of learning. For instance, girls are more drawn to games that require problem solving in context, that are collaborative (played through social media) and that produce what's perceived to be a social good. They also like games that simulate the real word and are particularly drawn to "transmedia" content that draws on characters from books, movies, or toys.

a summary of how connected educators volunteered "on a tweet" to stream into our school and provide a LIVE professional development opportunity

Good for any class doing a character study The ever clever Russel Tarr has developed a new neat tool for creating fictional text message exchanges between fictional and or historical characters. The Classtools SMS Generator is free to use and does not require students to log-in. To use the SMS Generator just click the left speech bubble icon and enter a message. Then to create a reply just click the right speech bubble icon and enter a new message. You can make the exchange as long as you like.

increases a child's memory capacity, computer and simulation fluency, helps with fast strategic thinking, hand eye coordination, benefits children with attention disorders, helps particular skill development 

This tutorial shows you how to: Import data into your Maps application. Display that data on a map using simple markers. Use symbols and heatmaps to improve the appearance and legibility of your map, and to represent secondary information. At the end of this tutorial, you will have created a map that displays real-time earthquake data, including magnitude. You can use these same techniques with your own data source to help you tell a more powerful story with the Google Maps API.

"At Sammamish High School, our staff has dedicated our professional development to building expertise in the key elements of problem-based learning. Previous blog entries by my colleagues have given an overview of this process, as well as exploring how we include student voice and work with authentic problems. Another crucial element of successful problem-based learning is using authentic assessment throughout all stages of a unit to constantly evaluate and improve student learning. "

For centuries, becoming an "inventor" has been a hard gig to crack. Complexities relating to financing, engineering, distribution, and legalities have stood in the way of brilliant people executing on their great ideas. Since launching in 2009, Quirky has rapidly changed the way the world thinks about product development.

UNESCO is developing a number of initiatives for the promotion of mother tongue instruction and bilingual or multilingual education to enhance quality education.

Coaching is a highly sophisticated form of reflective practice. When done well, it can transform a person's professional, and often personal, life, and provides many benefits to the employer in sustaining high performance and morale. The question is, however, whether it's the coaching itself that produces the results, or if it's down to an enlightened management team, which believes in people's development and so encourages coaching, which in turn produces results. When coaching is done badly, though, it has the power to decimate a person's sense of professional worth for years into the future and to incur substantial cost while returning no benefits, or worse, significant professional damage. Leadership can become cynical about the coaching process.  Money is wasted.  Time and attention are frittered away.  Ineffective coaching is counterproductive and should be stopped as soon as it is recognized.

If we value coaching, and we do, the question then becomes: "what are the elements of effective coaching that we can train, support, measure, and improve" - especially those that have the highest leverage for shifting those being coached perspectives and practices. The more I come to understand the power of coaching the more I appreciate that the best leaders see their primary role within an organisation as an influencer and coaching as the structure behind the myriad of interactions. I think an enlightened management team would not only be encouraging coaches but utilizing coaching strategies themselves on a regular basis.

I like the Colour Theory one for our kids...