Edutopia – Six Tips for Brain-Based Learning

Edutopia always has great stuff. Every once in a while, they’ll put out a teacher’s guide to help us do our job better. A recent guide focuses on ways to help you integrate brain-based strategies into your instruction. In this resource guide, you’ll get practical tips across the K-12 spectrum, a reading list, and a [...]

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How to Focus

I’m torn. Is social media, Web 2.0, and technology good for us? Or can it be so distracting that we (and our students) are unable to focus long enough to think and deliberate on important issues? Can we use mobile devices and Edmodo and Twitter and all sorts of other tech tools to encourage learning, [...]

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10 Great Ways to Make Your Kids Smarter

I’ve always been a Newsweek fan. And in the last year or so, I’ve gotten really hooked on their digital offering, The Daily Beast. A recent Beast article caught my attention that I think we as teachers need to look at. Written by Sharon Begley, Buff Your Brain: 31 Ways to Get Smarter in 2012 [...]

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Gamification in the Social Studies

What are the characteristics of a highly effective learning environment? Yeah, I know. It sounds like the sort of question you’d find on your last college ed final. But it’s still something that’s good to think about, no matter how long we’ve been teaching. And here’s the answer: The characteristics of a highly effective learning [...]

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Tip of the Week – Readability cleans up web pages

Ed tech folks often talk about the powerful impact that appropriate use of technology can have on learning, especially with online tools. The assumption is that web use by kids increases brain wiring – that being online makes students smarter. But we need to be careful with those sorts of assumptions. A Wired article from [...]

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