Atomic Learning provides superintendents and principals a resource that enables the entire school community to support students in becoming college and career-ready through technology-empowered classrooms.

By partnering with Atomic Learning, you can help bridge the gap between school and home by providing common language on 21st Century Skills that all can embrace as well as help educators plan and transform teaching to align to the Common Core State Standards.

Atomic Learning offers the professional development tools to train teachers, and assessment tools to measure achievement of the skills needed.

Create a successful 21st century skills professional development program that will empower educators with the knowledge, training and resources needed to integrate these skills into the classroom and ultimately impact students. Learn more about the Atomic Learning solution.

What is meant by "21st Century Skills?" How do they relate to what I should be teaching in my classroom? These are just some of the questions that you might be asking when you hear the term "21st Century Skills."

Watch this online presentation by Brad Flickinger, technology teacher at Bethke Elementary School in Timnath, Colorado, as he shares the tools he's used to introduce 21st Century Skills to his students and the impact he has seen.

Don’t miss your chance to participate in the Atomic Catalyst course — Integration Strategies for 21st Century Teachers — starting on April 16th! Each Atomic Catalyst six-week course includes a 1-hour weekly instructional webinar led by a highly-qualified facilitator, as well as online resources, collaborative discussions and facilitator feedback to help teachers build and apply new strategies and skills. Keep reading to learn more about the upcoming Integration Strategies for 21st Century Teachers course.

This past weekend, a group from Atomic Learning joined hundreds in support of the Pacer Center’s Run, Walk, Roll Against Bullying event to commemorate National Bullying Prevention Month. As a part of the group, I found it inspiring to see so many people out in support of such an important cause. The Pacer Center is a great organization which helps children with disabilities; Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center focuses on ending the various forms of bullying all children face.

What can you do to support bullying prevention?

·         Sign the online “The End of Bullying Begins With Me” petition.

·         Share a story of how bullying affected you.

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted a technology-rich school which had stagnated test scores. The premise of the article was that technology does not increase test scores, therefore it has little benefit to the classroom. What the article does not explore is the impact of professional development in the use of technology in the classroom.

Without instruction, most tools are less effective. Atomic Learning has recently partnered with SEG Research to complete a year-long study to determine the effects of technology in the classroom when teachers have been given access to professional development on technology integration and the infusion of 21^st Century Skills. A full research report will be released soon, but the preliminary data has reflected significant improvement in students test results when their teachers receive additional professional development on technology integration.

In the last year, a major change happened in education. The change is not one which grabbed headlines, but it did strongly influence education throughout the United States. Everyone involved in education knows of the Common Core State Standards, but very few understand how the new standards will influence classrooms on a day-to-day basis.

Six states have not adopted the Common Core State Standards, but all students will be influenced through text book changes, professional development planning and shared curriculum resources. For the first time, an eighth grade student in Tennessee will be required to learn the same curriculum as a student in California, Wisconsin, or Florida. As a result of this change, curriculum directors throughout the U.S. will be searching for ways to integrate the new standards into the classroom.

For years, Atomic Learning has been helping align standards and technology for easy classroom implementation. Our Tech Integration and 21^st Century Skills projects not only help integrate technology into the classroom, they also align with each state’s standards.

Atomic Learning projects align to:

Brad Flickinger has been an elementary, middle, and high school teacher, as well as the director of technology which gives him a perspective of teaching all ages of students and what it is like at both the classroom and district levels. Working with Atomic Learning as his partner, in this video he discusses the importance of assessing 21st century skills to prepare students for the future.

Schools around the world are struggling to keep up with social challenges in fully digitized youth. Kids and adults alike are up to their elbows in social media - from Twitter to Facebook and everything in between. These schools and educators are chasing the kids who are sprinting ahead into the cyber-abyss, sometimes encountering situations they're not prepared to handle. Sometimes they're actually the cause of shame and depression, or worse, causing ill feelings with other kids.

Atomic Learning offers a number of 21st Century Skills Projects addressing digital citizenship. Our project entitled "Cyberbully? No Way, Not Me" tackles this very challenge. It includes a guide and the resources necessary to hold an interactive conversation with students about the harm caused by insensitive remarks online, and how to deal with them when they're encountered.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama met with students, parents and teachers from the Conference on Bullying Prevention at the White House last week.

"The President smiled when he said his large ears and funny name once made him a target of school-yard harassment. But he was all seriousness last Thursday when he told a White House conference on bullying that torment and intimidation must not be tolerated."

Read more.

Such bullying is not only happening on the school yards, it happens online as well. The term "cyberbullying" refers to the use of digital tools, such as email or instant messaging, to send or post text or images that have the effect of intimidating, frightening, or embarrassing another person. Teach your students to be good digital citizens, check out our tech integration project "Cyberbully? No Way, Not Me".

Failure to integrate technology is being blamed for the lack of preparedness of K-12 graduates when entering college and the workforce.

"Even if all students mastered core academic subjects, they still would be woefully under prepared to succeed in post secondary institutions and workplaces, which increasingly value people who can use their knowledge to communicate, collaborate, analyze, create, innovate, and solve problems."

Are you doing your part to teach technology skills? Read more.

This weekend PBS is airing an education-focused documentary entitled Digital Media: New Learners of the 21^st Century. The documentary will present five success stories of how digital media, games, smartphones and the internet are changing education. The following video is an extended interview of Dr. Nicole Pinkard, founder of Chicago’s Digital Youth Network.