It’s distressing to think that the sound of a baby crying reduces our mental agility just at the moment when we most need it. But it helps to take the long view of parenthood and its effects on our intellectual capacities. In her wonderful book The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter, journalist Katherine Ellison reviews…
Today, open educational resources (OER) are an increasingly common feature in the K–12 education ecosystem. As one example, consider the popularity of Khan Academy, whose library of practice activities and videos are accessed each month by over 10 million users around the world and in many schools across the United States. Similarly, as school systems…
Booktrack is a service that adds a soundtrack to ebooks. As you read the book, there can be added music and sound effects to enhance the immersion level of the book. Once you sign up, you can select one of their books to read, which is pretty cool in itself. The magic happens when you…
Having worked with almost 500 school districts and 3,000 school leaders over the past year, I’ve often been asked, “What type of devices should we buy?” The problem with this question, is that quite often this is the leading question – the initial area that the district is investigating. Districts that are working to purchase…
Best defined by the research and work of Carol Dweck, Jo Boaler and Eduardo Briceno, growth mindset is the recognition of the brain as a muscle that—with practice, effort, and nurturing—can continue to grow and develop. When you think of an inventor or innovator, past or present, what descriptors come to mind? Creative. Persistent. Curious….
Although I’m a little torn on the name, Buncee offers a drag and drop interface for creating multimedia. The projects can then be view-able on the web or on the iOS apps. The gallery has some great examples of seeing how you could use the tool in your classroom. While there is a free tier,…
Brainstorming has developed a fraught reputation, perhaps deservedly so. When groups of people are thrown together and expected to come up with original ideas, there is often too much pressure to be creative—resulting in ideas that are anything but. But what if brainstorms were designed to generate questions, not ideas? It’s an approach that’s being…
Connecting globally is really powerful, but how do we use this medium in a way to enhance professional learning and empower the voice of teachers in our own building. Sometimes seeing the impact of using Twitter on a global level brings ideas back into our classrooms, but perhaps using Twitter locally could push people to connect others…
Window management can be somewhat of a pain, but there are some extensions to help alleviate the issue with Chrome. Once such extension is Dualless. After installing, a new icon shows up in your toolbar. Clicking on the Dualless icon allows you to select the size of the two windows that it is going to…
PinterestAdd Animated GIFs to your Google Presentations and Google Docs! In case you haven’t noticed, animated GIFs, those moving pictures that are almost like videos, are ruling the world. It’s not enough anymore to just have a cool image in your presentation; you need to engage them with a little animation. Better yet, GIFs…