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"At first, I was not sure how to introduce elements of the Maker philosophy into my English classroom. Much of the conversation around this movement focuses on technology and STEM subjects, but I see value in getting students to design and create in all subject areas. Since I don't have any actual technology in my classroom, I had to get creative in my approach. We were reading (performing is more accurate) Shakespeare's play, Othello. I usually do a mini-lesson on the Globe Theatre to introduce its design, layout, symbolic spaces, and genius construction. That's when I had an idea! Why not ask students to build replicas of the Globe Theatre? To build a model of the Globe, they would have to complete research, get creative with their materials and work collaboratively in groups. I realized that through the act of making their replicas they would probably learn more and have more fun."

"If you work in education, then the chances are you work with a number of people yet you're never in the same room. It might be because your fellow educators are in classrooms and otherwise engaged; you might work with a large, disparate group of people, spread across the city, the country or across timezones, or you might be trying to coral together a bunch of parents, students or community workers. It could be anything - how am I supposed to know? But what is known is that there's a whole bunch of tools which help you organise, talk to, share with and otherwise connect with people in ways which would have been utterly impossible even 2 or 3 years ago. So have a look at some of the better ones."

"The myth about social media in the classroom is that if you use it, kids will be Tweeting, Facebooking and Snapchatting while you're trying to teach. We still have to focus on the task at hand. Don't mistake social media for socializing. They're different -- just as kids talking as they work in groups or talking while hanging out are different. You don't even have to bring the most popular social media sites into your classroom. You can use Fakebook or FakeTweet as students work on this form of conversation. Edublogs, Kidblog, Edmodo, and more will let you use social media competencies and writing techniques. Some teachers are even doing "tweets" on post-it notes as exit tickets. You can use mainstream social media, too."

"Last week, I spoke at a TEDx event hosted by the Upper Perkiomen School District. It was an unforgettable experience and I was honored to be a part of it. Once the video is edited, I'll share my talk on this blog. So, one of the things I loved about the event was the STEM-related, maker projects they showcased. Students demonstrated their apps and games they had created. We got the chance to tour a design space with 3D printers, CNC routers, and, more importantly, a group of empowered students who were owning the creative process. I found myself gushing about this space -- about how cool it was to see kids going through the design process actually testing out prototypes. I remember, at one point, saying to a student volunteer, "Don't you wish more of school was like this?" He shook his head. "Not really. It's not really my thing." "But you get to make stuff." "I get to make stuff all the time. Have you ever been a part of a theater production?" he asked. "It's called a production for a reason.""

"As with many schools in the United States, the shop program at Analy High School in Sebastopol, California, had become largely irrelevant. The main shop room had become little more than a glorified storage room. The school's priorities were firmly focused on college readiness and success at standardized tests, and vocational programs had taken a backseat. Sebastopol is also the home of Make magazine, one of the leading voices of the maker movement, a community of inventors and do-it-yourselfers that has blossomed on YouTube and shows up in the tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands at Maker Faires all over the world. Make proposed that a group of students from Analy come to their offices to explore the possibilities involved in creating things with 3-D printers, computer-aided design, and more. The program was so popular that soon Make could no longer accommodate it in their offices, so they agreed to donate equipment to Analy if the school would ramp up their vocational program."

"My colleague and I walked into a room filled with a dozen fifth-grade girls snacking on pretzels and huddling around a LEGO robot they had named Kitty. Two of them were laughing about the goggles they had made out of robot wheels, while another small group crowded around a laptop to program wheel rotations. The rest attempted to drive Kitty through what looked like an obstacle course. It was our first glimpse into life as mentors for the Girl Scouts of Western Washington's LEGO League, a competition that combines programming LEGO Mindstorms robots, team project planning, and creative problem solving to get kids excited about science and technology."

"It sounds very high brow - however, it's not! Bloom is simply the name of the person who devised this idea and taxonomy simply means to categorise or classify So what is being categorised or classified? 'Thinking' is the quick and accurate answer! Bloom researched what really made people think and what didn't require much of the grey matter to be engaged. These thinking skills were further grouped into two categories, lower order thinking skills and higher order thinking skills. I'll start with the first of the lower order thinking skills, a familiar term called…"

"Forming and supporting professional learning groups can be particularly important in maker-centered contexts, as maker-based activities often occupy a precarious space in the structure and curriculum of traditional schools. That maker education is not yet a formal discipline and does not have the backing of a professional and organized network makes it especially important to develop learning communities that scaffold and connect educators who often work in isolated siloes."

"This year, I'm excited to start using Ignite Teaching with my class.  This is one tool I know we can use throughout the year, across all subjects, in a variety of creative ways.  Any tool that allows students to create, collaborate, and share is always a favorite in our class.  One of my favorite parts is that I will also be able to see their work in progress as they collaborate with one another, and I'll be able to offer feedback along the way.  "

" As someone who primarily taught math and science when I was a classroom teacher, I associated robots, robotics curriculum, and robot apps as things that were only used in those subjects. However, this past year my school received a robot grant that provided ten robots for us from the company Sphero. Sphero emphasizes the power of play in education and has a variety of lessons that are aligned to the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards on their website. They also have a number of STEM challenges in the form pre-designed engineering projects designed for collaborative group work with students and are helpful for teachers using the robots in their classes."

"It should be an easy question: What's Canada's geographic centre? But groups in Manitoba and Nunavut say they're right."

"One of the things I was keen to do this year in setting up an in-house research centre at Wellington College was to have a small number of students partner with us on our project with Harvard faculty on Growth Mindsets and Grit. A key point for me was what does this research actually look like in the classroom and and at the level of the student? Another goal was to have them help us in designing a survey by having them pilot test some of the more problematic questions so we could get as reliable data as possible. We asked the students to read some of the literature and research in these areas and then had a series of group discussion with them where we discovered a huge range of things that was really helpful in helping us understand Growth Mindsets from multiple perspectives. "

Formative assessment is a process that takes place during the learning experience. When it is done right, the findings immediately inform feedback and instruction. Grades are never taken, and the stakes remain very low. I see formative assessment as the ultimate best practice, but I may be part of a small group of educators who feel this way. It's not uncommon, after all, for some teachers to sandwich formative assessment into their already packed lesson plans simply because someone else has expected them to do so. Some just "get it done" because they're afraid of "getting dinged" on their teacher evaluations."

"One of my favorite parts of being a part of Maker Faire is sharing all our amazing Makers with teachers who come from all around the Bay Area-really from all over the world!-and then hearing from the teachers why this is such a special part of their year. We're delighted to welcome teachers to the event, whether they are coming with a whole classroom to our special open hours during the new Friday@MakerFaire, riding in style to Maker Faire on one of the buses generously sponsored by Google, or just attending on their own on Friday, Saturday, and/or Sunday. (Click on the flyer at right to print a poster to get your school to come Friday 1-5pm. Parent-organized groups of 10 or more coming after school are very welcome too!)"

"As someone who primarily taught math and science when I was a classroom teacher, I associated robots, robotics curriculum, and robot apps as things that were only used in those subjects. However, this past year my school received a robot grant that provided ten robots for us from the company Sphero. Sphero emphasizes the power of play in education and has a variety of lessons that are aligned to the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards on their website. They also have a number of STEM challenges  in the form pre-designed engineering projects designed for collaborative group work with students and are helpful for teachers using the robots in their classes. Sphero is a robotic ball that can pair with an iPad, tablet, iPhone, or smartphone through Bluetooth, and getting started is relatively easy. Once you are ready to use Sphero, you take it off the charger stand and give it a "tap-tap" to "wake it up." When the robot wakes up, it starts to flash three different colors until it pairs with the device you are using it with via Bluetooth. Once it turns blue, then you know that it is paired and ready to go. There are at least 14 different education related apps that are available with Sphero: some of them use augmented reality technology, some of them teach the basics of coding, while others allow students to draw on a tablet to manipulate the color and movement of the robot. During the last week of June, I did a presentation at the ISTE conference with many other educators from all over the country who also received the robot grant. What amazed me was that people who taught subjects like language arts and social studies found incredible ways to integrate robotics into their curriculum to create some really engaging lessons for their students."

""Makerspaces are too complicated for elementary students.  You can only get in depth with middle and high school students" "High schoolers are too jaded for making.  They'll roll their eyes at you if you give them LEGOs" I've heard variations of these criticisms so many times.  Placing some kind of age restriction on when students are capable of/will be interested in making seems to be one of the most popular excuses educators have for not even considering creating a Maker environment in their school. We need to smash these notions and assumptions.  That creativity is tied to a certain age group.  That we outgrow our desire for play.  That young children aren't capable of serious making.  That adults will never have an interest in expressing themselves."

"Filmmakers are using virtual reality to make the problems of the developing world seem more ... real. But how can you see their work? You could buy a headset, but you might end up in virtual debt. Prices range from $200 to $500 for devices from big players like Oculus Rift, Sony and Samsung. And forking over that much cash is a problem since there's not a lot of content yet. MindMaze Software Engineer Nicolas Bourdaud demonstrates a virtual reality system at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. All Tech Considered Developers Continue Push To Make Virtual Reality Mainstream An attendee at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles plays Sony's Project Morpheus London Heist video game with a virtual reality headset and Move controllers. All Tech Considered Gaming Industry Pushes Virtual Reality, But Content Lags "You're in a store ... and here's all the head-mounted displays and then it costs $200 or $300. Why would you ever buy it when you don't know why you're buying it? You wouldn't," Tony Christopher, CEO of Landmark Entertainment Group, told NPR last month. But there are inexpensive options that require only your smartphone and some cardboard. Google Cardboard, a project of the tech giant, offers instructions and templates to build your own cardboard virtual reality headset. Grab a pair of scissors, X-Acto knife and some glue. Then find some cardboard at home, print out the templates, trace and cut out the different pieces and assemble your goggles. The instructions can get confusing, so our multimedia editor Ben de la Cruz suggests following a how-to video like this one from the tech site, CNET."

"For more than six hours each day, we aim to seize every teachable moment. Our schedules, carefully crafted and refined, often resemble a flight schedule at a busy airport: whole-class math lessons here, reading groups there, and one-on-one conferencing/counseling/cheerleading sessions squeezed in everywhere else. But we all know learning isn't confined to the school day. Extracurricular activities, from soccer to chess club, have been around as long as school itself. When I was young, few after-school activities appealed to me, so hosting an after-school club as a teacher didn't occur to me until a few years ago when I began to look at after-school learning through a new lens. Having started two after-school clubs in the past three years, I now realize I can create rich learning opportunities that would have appealed to me when I was a student, and simultaneously appeal to the teacher I am now."

The time between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next is a season for reflection and renewal. It's important to celebrate student successes and recall challenging times when things just didn't go as planned. This season between school years is an opportunity to plan for new and modified instructional approaches to increase learner success. What follows are suggested readings and resources for developing and deepening your practice to meet the diverse needs of all learners. The readings are grouped from easy starts to deeper complex implementation. Like Steve Jobs, feel free to choose what captures your passion.