The Sharing Tree

We’re proud to introduce you to a new set of resources we think you’ll enjoy. It’s a curated list of the best education technology resources. But it’s not just organized by us. It’s now YOUR turn to share, vote up, and learn about all the best education technology out there. Got a favorite app? Add it to the list! See a particular laptop you think is awesome for teachers? Vote it up! It’s all thanks to a new collaboration with Listly where we showcase the best resources in an easy-to-use format.

via A Crowdsourced List Of The Best iOS Education Apps | Edudemic.

Since at least the 1990s, when personal computers first became commonplace, public policy experts have worried the ill effects of a Digital Divide. That is, a learning, socialization and economic gap across socio-economic status, race and gender caused by unequal access to computing resources.No need. The Digital Divide has now been bridged by smartphones – the most advanced personal computing devices ever. While personal computers were disproportionally used by the rich, the white and the male, smartphones are more likely to be used by Blacks and Hispanics than Whites, and by girls as equally as boys.

via Smartphones Have Bridged The Digital Divide – ReadWrite.

Here are three popular statements about teacher quality. Would you say they are fact or fiction?1. The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. 2. The most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers. 3. If any children had three or four great teachers in a row, they would soar academically, regardless of their racial or economic background, while those who have a sequence of weak teachers will fall further and further behind.

via for the love of learning: 3 Myths about Teacher Quality.

Hadi Partovi wants more kids to learn to code.  Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerber, Sheryl Sandberg, and many others agree.  Partovi wants all high schools to offer computer science classes because it represents a growing cluster of job skills but one that few schools teach–particularly schools attended by low income and minority kids.To fix the problem Hadi launched Code.org.  The initial strategy is inspiration and advocacy.His site is packed with stats that make the case for coding including the video below.  For example, did you know that coding jobs aren’t just in tech?  In fact, almost 70% of them are in other sectors–most businesses need people that can code.  However, there are fewer schools, teachers, and computer science students in the US than 10 years ago. By contrast, every high school graduate in China must take 4 credits of Computer Science–and yet in the US it’s not even on the menu in most schools.The next step is to find a place on the master schedule of high schools around the country.  He’d like to see computer science added to list of math and science classes kids can take  to satisfy state graduation requirements.

via Teaching Kids to Code: An Economic & Social Justice Issue | Getting Smart.

Aligned to national standards, these exciting inquiry-based lessons address key areas of life science, physical science, earth science, and technology/innovation using common materials you can find in your classroom. Help students make real world connections to science and ignite the spark that may eventually lead students to a scientific career!

3M Science of Everyday Life – Discovery Education.

Yesterday at Google I/O the company’s annual developer conference, Google released a major new education program called Google Play for Education that organizes and manages the way teachers share apps, books, and other learning content with their classes.  The new store is scheduled to launch this fall and it aims to simplify content searching for schools, and to give teachers and students access to the same tools that are now native to the Google Play experience.While much of the technology news that is presented at these large companies’ conferences may seem unimportant until the products are actually released – and in many cases, completely irrelevant to classrooms – this is one of the most education-relevant announcements that has been made in recent memory. It also marks the first big push into the tablet classroom by a company that is not Apple. In classrooms, iPads currently dominate the landscape, so it will be interesting to see how the Google Play For Education will play into that dominance.

via What To Know About Google Play For Education | Edudemic.

In many schools, project-based learning happens in isolated cases: in certain teachers’ classrooms here and there, or in the contexts of specific subjects. But for students to benefit from project-based learning, ideally it’s part of a school’s infrastructure — a way to approach learning holistically.For one quickly growing network of schools, project-based learning is the crux of the entire ecosystem. New Tech Network, which was founded 15 years ago, is taking its school-wide project-based model to national scale. The organization, which offers a paid program for schools to use its model, began with a flagship school in Napa and has grown to 120 schools in 18 states, most of which are public schools.The network has not only grown in size, but also in notoriety. President Obama visited Manor New Tech High School in Texas last week, as part of an effort to promote an education agenda focused on producing graduates that can compete in today’s global economy.

via What It Takes to Become an All Project-Based School | MindShift.

The problem with Public Education is not low test scores. Poverty is the single largest problem that plagues most education systems.

via for the love of learning: The problem is poverty.

There is a myth, perpetuated for little more reason than it’s sellable-fallacy, that kids are gravitating to Twitter and Facebook. From this point, numerous arguments have been made in the sub-culture Alan Lavine brilliantly described as “Edlandia” – a sharp and humurous hat-tip to Portlandia the TV show relates to MOOCS.There is pervasive notion that the issues today are the same as those even three years ago. They might continue to sell this obsolete rhetoric to Edlandians, but kids are using very different networks – and here’s why.Kids are being given hand-held devices. iPod touch, low end Androids and so on. They are no using desktops, laptops or TABLETs. If Edlandians paid attention to advertising data and sales data as much as they do their Twitter feed-bowls they’d know this.Kids are heading to Instagram and Kik because they are essentially the two messaging services that appeal.

via Twitter and Facebook are not where kids are heading. Meet Kik and Oink. | Playable.

Studies on motivation theory have taught us that the most effective feedback for any learner is that which actually helps a student get better. Value judgments and labels both affirming and negative do nothing to help the learner long term and are often counterproductive. Overwhelmingly research argues that learners acquire improved self-efficacy and make greater achievement gains when their adult advocates focus feedback on things the student can control rather than on their innate talent, skills, or other externally controlled factors.

via Tips for Improving Feedback at the Middle Level | LFA: Join The Conversation – Public School Insights.