In Paul Tough’s new book, he writes that the people who are best at engendering “noncognitive”—or character—abilities like grit in students hardly ever mention these skills in the classroom. It’s an observation that has won attention and admirers such as New York Times columnist David Brooks. But what has been left unsaid is how our…
I then asked them about using Google Sheets and they looked at me that they didn’t know it could work that way. I asked them if they knew how to share a Google Sheet. They told me yes and I even asked if they knew how to embed a link. Which they were shocked to…
The Google Cast for education app is now available. To try it out, teachers need to install the Google Cast for Education app, and the students need to install the Google Cast extension. There are three caveats right now: The Chromebooks must be in the Beta channel, running ChromeOS 52 or newer. This won’t be the…
Sure enough, 45 minutes into the 2016 WWDC keynote, Tim Cook—not an SVP, but Tim himself!—unveiled Swift Playgrounds for iPad, “a new way to learn to code.” Because I’d been thinking about it, I had my tweet ready: “I personally think a way to learn Swift is not what the iPad needs—it needs a 21st Century…
Here is a short visual we created for teachers explaining the core notions behind the concept of Blended Learning. We have also included a collection of what we believe are some essential web tools for classrooms that adopt a blended learning model of instruction. You can share, print and use the visual the way you…
Draw.io is a free web application (with a few pay options) which can be used for mind maps, diagraming, flowcharts and more. It works like Visio or Lucid chart, where the user drags items onto the canvas and then connects them. Once connected, they stay connected, and the objects can be moved or resized, depending…
Literacy Is More Than Just Reading-Another important theme from our panel discussion was, that while the literacy skills of reading, decoding and comprehension are all important, literacy is more than that. We’ve entered an age where the definition of what actually makes a person literate is shifting and evolving. The introduction of technology into learning…
Thus far this is what I’ve found: The Future of Learning is going to be exciting and empowering for students, teachers, administrators, and parents. The Future of Learning is going to be scary for teachers, administrators, and parents (not students). Not sure what I mean? The classic technology paradox here is easier to understand with a…
Trying to find a perfect rhyme for that text message? What about a witty pun to post to Twitter? Well, the Hemingboard keyboard can help you with that. Hemingboard allows you to find the perfect word, whether you are looking for a pun, synonyms, or rhyme, it’s all there. It’s a pretty cool app! The keyboard for…
Up until just a few years ago, I got around 350 emails a day, which presented me with an exhausting, time-consuming daily task that I grumbled about plenty. Now, because of social media and messaging services, that number has been cut by more than half. But things are actually worse. These days, messages come at…