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Common Sense Media's ON for Learning Award is given to the very best in kids' digital media. Our learning ratings program is designed to help educators surface the apps, games, and websites that truly deliver experiences that enrich and delight kids, helping them thrive with media and technology. We are excited to recognize these apps, games, and websites for earning the highest learning rating from Common Sense Media in the past year.

"Over the past few years I have read a fair collection of winners, a fair collection of losers and far too many mediocre education technology books. The aim here is to share the ones that have been so highly recommended they are considered must reads. Each of these has been a recommendation from someone within my PLN and so comes from very good authority and credibility. And of course, to continue learning from this PLN please do add your own suggestions and must-reads in the comments below."

Play the Election is a free, collaborative, online tool that teaches students about the 2012 Election and the election process through a series of games, resources and competition. Students predict the election winners for each state on an interactive election map, and compare their predictions to their class and the country to see where they rank.

This a self-paced, scaffolded technology integration course for educators. This course was the collaborative effort of school districts all over the nation- and the content for this course was created by technology integrators, classroom teachers, Google Apps Certified Trainers and Teachers, and ISTE award winners. All of the suggestions we give are grounded in practice- they are techniques we actually use and we know work! We've flipped this course so that you can learn when you have time, and we've created templates, videos, and resources so that you can start using those tools right away.

A child's ability to become a strong reader is the single greatest key to his/her future educational success. For 9 months of the year, teachers and parents work tirelessly to acquire and improve their students'/child's reading skills only to take a 3-month summer break before moving to the next grade level. During this time, many students are preoccupied with summertime play and often lack the discipline to continue to build or even maintain their acquired reading level through daily reading, often resulting in summer reading loss/setback. Readers Are Winners, Inc. is a non-profit literacy organization with the mission of creating reading events, motivating elementary children to become strong readers, and rallying organizations on behalf of reading.

Winner of this year's Edublog Award for best informational blog, this has OOODLES of info, tricks, tips, resources, etc for using smartboards in the classroom.