iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

The need to prepare students for the future of work is now imperative. To address essential 21st-century skills in our nation’s K-12 school system, educators are turning toward a new framework for problem-solving: computational thinking.

Computational thinking enables us to solve any given challenge through an analytical and methodical approach. Put simply, computational thinking teaches students to process information like a computer would. It guides students through a series of steps, similar to an algorithm, to solve open-ended problems.

While computation governs the world around us, computational thinking as a teaching and learning framework is a new concept for many educators. As part of the Ignite My Future In School initiative, I’ve identified 10 credible, online resources to jumpstart your lesson plans.

Some of these platforms begin at basic levels and can be utilized by beginners as young as preschool age, while others provide interactive experiences that utilize diverse computational thinking strategies suitable for middle school and high school grade levels.

Here are 10 resources to bring computational thinking to your classroom:

Over the past several years, artificial intelligence transitioned from the movie screen to reality, and soon it will be everywhere.

The ubiquity of AI across industries leads to two key points for K–12 schools. 

First, K–12 schools should use current AI solutions to help with everything from classroom performance to network safety and monitoring. Second, students need to start learning how to design, manipulate and work alongside AI machines in order to build the foundation they need as they prepare to enter the workplace.

Organizing a successful AI integration and education plan will take collaboration and proper planning on the part of school decision-makers.

“AI may hold the potential to personalize instruction and learning. Yet its use in educational settings will require educators and school leaders to develop an understanding of how it can be implemented safely and smartly,” Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking said in a recent statement. 

“Shift our efforts in space from low to high gear,” was a sentiment given weight in President John F. Kennedy’s Moon Speech at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962. Over a half of a century later, on April 16, 2018, the White House gave NASA a new direction to refocus exploration efforts on the moon with international and commercial partners on three core domains: low Earth orbit; lunar orbit and surface; and Mars and other deep space objectives.

As space exploration is currently being refocused, it is also a good time for education to refocus its approach to space exploration. Space exploration could be linked to almost every subject in K-12 education. For example, Public Policy and Law in relation to asteroid mining, moon and Mars colonies (who owns/controls what), politics of satellites (sensing, warfare, etc.), and space debris. Connections could also be made in Biology through rapidly evolving cell and molecular biology technologies, and Material Science through 3D printing. Below, I share a few recent announcements from the last week or two that demonstrate just how many new programs, products and projects are being created that are increasing access to space exploration as an academic subject.

The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report > 2017 K-12 Edition is a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and made possible by mindSpark Learning (formerly known as Share Fair Nation).

The preview provides summaries of the trends, challenges, and important developments in educational technology which were ranked most highly by the 2017 expert panel and will be featured in the official NMC/CoSN Horizon Report > 2017 K-12 Edition set to be released in August, 2017. View the Panel of Expert’s work and discussions in the 2017 Horizon.k12 Workspace.