5 benefits of learning to play musical instruments

Music lessons offer children many benefits including aiding mental, physical, emotional and social development. Does your child’s school support this?  If not, you may want to share the following benefits of learning to play music.  

1. Boosting Brain Power - Taking lessons to learn to play an instrument significantly improves brain power.  Research from the University of Kansas suggests that learning at a young age will have an impact on a child’s cognitive skills as they grow older.
2. Improving Memory - Young people that learn to play a musical instrument have been shown in studies to have an improvement in behavior, memory and intelligence. All types of lessons for music stimulate multiple patterns of brain development, which is what helps to increase memory.

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Verizon Innovative App Challenge for Secondary Students

Created to ignite interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), The Verizon Innovative App Challenge opens student's eyes to exciting new possibilities for their futures, opening doors they may never have known were there. The Challenge is a collaborative competition that offers $10,000 grants and Samsung Galaxy Tabs for winning secondary schools and students.

Here's how it works:

• Working with a faculty advisor in teams of 5-10, students will develop an original concept for a mobile app that incorporates STEM and addresses a real need or problem in their school or community. While designing their apps, students will consider marketplace need, usefulness, audience and viability. Teams will submit their design concepts online through a visual presentation accompanied by an essay.
• One middle school and one high school team from each state will be judged “Best in State” and team members will be invited to participate in a live webinar hosted by Verizon Foundation featuring industry experts who will share how they use STEM skills in their own careers.
• A distinguished panel of STEM educators and corporate innovators will then judge the top Best in State teams and provide feedback on their design concepts to each team via a live webinar. The 10 overall winning teams will then be selected and announced.
• Each of the 10 winning schools (5 middle school and 5 high school teams) will receive $10,000 cash grants plus professional support and training to help them bring their designs to life by building their apps and bringing them to the marketplace. Students on each winning team will receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab and be invited to present their developed apps in person – on their new tablets – at the 2013 National Technology Student Association Conference in Orlando, Florida in June.

The Verizon Innovative App Challenge offers a rich, project-based learning experience that fosters teamwork among students with a wide variety of academic interests and strengths.

It’s a unique opportunity for students around the country to explore new ideas and potential careers in STEM that will serve them well in the future.

Registration is open. Submissions accepted: December 1, 2012 - January 18, 2013

Download the Verizon Innovative App Challenge flyer

Find out more here.

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7 ways cell phones become a lifeline to staff, students & parents during a disaster #Sandy

During the recent Hurricane Sandy Disaster, many people lost their homes, their power, phone service and internet, but one thing most didn't lose was their cell phones. Cell phones became a lifeline to those affected by the disaster. In fact in New York City, cell phones were delivered to relocation host school sites as well as schools that reported no phone service.

Here are some ways cell phones are being used in recovery efforts.
1) Facebook - 
Though many people didn't know the extent of the disaster or how friends and family fared, the Facebook app on cell phones brought the reality of loved ones to life where words, pictures, and videos could be viewed and shared. Schools with Facebook pages or groups made this resource particularly useful enabling a community to connect in one spot.
2) Twitter - 
Knowing hashtags like #SandyNYC as well as district, school, and educator Twitter accounts enabled parents and their children to stay abreast of and share the latest updates. Schools using a Twitter hashtag enabled the school community to easily check in and share.
3) Robo-calling - 
Schools and districts used Robo-calling services to automate the distribution of information to staff and families with the latest updates on school openings, closures, evacuation sites, warmth shelters, food banks, etc.
4) Donations - 
Organizations like the Red Cross set up text donation services. For example, by simply texting REDCROSS to 90999 you can donate $10 to help those affected by disasters.
5) Cell phone calls - 
When businesses and residents found their phone service was down, many turned to cell phones to communicate.
6) Texting - 
Texting became the go to form of communication to quickly connect with students, parents, and staff.
7) Group Texting - 
Schools and teachers who set up group texting with a service like Cel.ly enabled the school or class community to stay in touch, connect, and help those in need.

One of the many lessons learned during the recent Hurricane Sandy disaster is the importance of having a crank radio, flashlight, cell phone charger like the one below.

This enabled people to stay informed and in touch about important issues. After all, having a cell phone does you no good if it's not charged.

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7 ways innovative educators use Twitter during a disaster #Sandy

Innovative educators who experienced Hurricane Sandy this past week turned to Twitter to communicate, connect, and share information.  

Here are some ways Twitter was used as a resource.

1. Teacher Account - A teacher can have an account to stay in touch with students. If the teacher has a webpage or blog she can embed her Tweets there.
• “‏@franasaur: Power is back on at the iSchool! Planning to meet staff + students there on Monday morning. The alternate location was Laguardia HS.”
2. Principal Account - School leaders can keep staff, students, and parents informed via their Twitter account. These Tweets can be embedded on the school website.
• Example: “@PrincipalBrown: School will reopen for students and staff tomorrow, Monday, November 5th, 2012. Can't wait to see everyone!”
3. School Twitter Account - Use your school Twitter account to share information for your school community.  Embed these Tweets on your website.  
• Example: “@HudsonHSLT: School will be session Monday, November 5, 2012 @ 8:15 am. See you soon!”
4. Create an Account - Create an account that is dedicated to information related to the disaster.  
• Example: "@prepare4monday: Good! Developing plan for where to send kids who need supplies, clothing, or support. This is productive as long as it actually happens."
5. District Account - Ensure your school community is aware of the district Twitter account that can provide instant updates.

• Example: “@NYCSchools: We just launched a search tool on our website to help you find out the status of a specific school for next week: http://on.nyc.gov/QZNRGy”

6. Education News account - Know who covers the local education news and see what they’re Tweeting.
• Example: "@gothamschools: For teachers who are parents: "Individual principals have discretion over whether to allow their staff to bring children to work" on Friday"
7. Know the hashtag for your area - Not only is it important to know the hashtag being used during a disaster, but it is also important to find out if there is a tag particular to where you are. For example during Hurricane Sandy this was the hashtag used for NYC residents: #SandyNYC .
• Example: @MikeBloomberg: 80% of the subway system is back online. @MTAInsider expects that to be 90% tomorrow #SandyNYC

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Family Learns Together Through App Creation

Guest post by Kevin Scritchfield

My family’s dream of creating apps for the App Store began over 3 years ago when our kids were involved in the National Bible Bee when it first began. The Bible Bee organization would send you all of the materials - mainly specific verses on different sized cards - for you to study and memorize in preparation for the local competition in order to work your way up to the National stage. My son had the idea of creating a specific type of memorization app that would have helped in the process of memorizing the hundreds of required verses. That conversation grew into talking about other apps that we might be able to create and how we could go about doing that.

Even though my son was only 13 at the time, he had already gone through (at home) a couple of the courses that I teach at my school called Web Page Design (where he learned HTML - the programming language that is at least the shell for all web pages) and Introduction to Computer Programming in C (the programming language than many other languages are based on). He had also played around with the iPhone SDK which is what Apple provides to app developers to create iPhone apps in, as well as Corona SDK which is a third party application that is very similar to Apple’s. With all of this knowledge under his belt, we thought he would be able to create the code for these apps that we had been thinking of  developing. We thought we would start with the one that we pictured doing the best in terms of potential sales within the App Store and to the widest possible potential audience. So our goal was to become an app-developing family!
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The hottest posts that everyone's reading!

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see the top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you.  If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired, share it with others and/or leave a comment.

Entry	Pageviews
4 things to help students maintain their online reputation... Oct 29, 2012, 1 comment	2043
5 Reasons to Allow Students to Use Cell Phones  ... Jul 8, 2012, 14 comments	2007
Free digital citizenship materials for innovative ... Oct 30, 2012	1758
Common core ignores the power of the interests and... Oct 25, 2012, 2 comments	1243
Mobile devices can help us take the necessary step... Oct 28, 2012	995

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Group work doesn't have to suck

Guest post from  diana laufenberg | Cross posted at Living the Dream

Editor's note: Group work can suck because teachers sometimes do a poor job of giving credit where credit is due.  Innovative educator Diana Laufenberg has some thoughts on how to make group work better.  

I will be working with a group of roughly 65 professors at West Chester University.  I am thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to the about PBL and the pedagogical foundations that support such learning.  The organizers of the event did a survey and asked if the attendees had any requests or questions.  One consistent theme ran throughout the submissions:  How do we create functioning, collaborative groups?  So I did a little thinking about the pieces of the puzzle the I consider when to facilitate effective collaboration and searched for some reputable sources for more ideas.

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