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" ANJALI MULLANY 03.30.16 8:20 AM Two years ago, model Karlie Kloss enrolled in Flatiron School's two-week pre-college coding course and caught the programming bug. She started taking regular private coding classes with Flatiron dean and cofounder Avi Flombaum (who she already knew socially) and enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to underwrite 21 Kode with Karlie scholarships so other young women could take the same two-week pre-college coding course at Flatiron that had kicked off her own programming education. This summer, Kloss is taking it up a notch by launching her own Kode with Klossy coding camps for young women aged 13-18 in Los Angeles, New York, and her hometown of St. Louis, using Flatiron's Learn.co curriculum and learning platform. Unlike last summer's Kode with Karlie program, this year's 80 scholarship recipients will participate in their own program, separate from other Flatiron School students. By the end of the camp, which is being taught by independent instructors, students will have learned the fundamentals of Ruby on Rails and built their own web app. Kloss is not underwriting this latest round of scholarships herself but instead, in partnership with Flatiron School and CSNYC, has pulled together a number of partner brands as fiscal sponsors for the program."

"For as long as I've been aware of makerspaces, I haven't quite understood them. I have seen plenty of photos on social media, with the towers made of marshmallows and toothpicks. I've walked through exhibit halls at conferences where the coding and robotics displays cause me to stop, stare, and try to look like I have some idea of what I'm looking at. I even stumbled into a Twitter chat one night where a group of school librarians was throwing around some pretty great ideas about building makerspaces in their libraries. And yet, I still feel like I don't get it. I have this picture in my mind of kids kind of messing around with Legos instead of, I don't know, reading primary source materials that would shed light on some period in history. Or taping together some cardboard strips to make them into a car. Or attaching some kind of wire to a banana. I don't know…the more traditional, stodgy, control-freak part of me says it looks like a bunch of hooey. But some of the smartest people I know are pretty into makerspaces, and the part of me that's not a stodgy control freak, the part that knows there's a lot about tradition we need to question, that part of me wants to find out once and for all what's so great about makerspaces."

"The 10 best free graphic design courses online"

"Essential Skills Today's Students Need for Jobs in Tomorrow's Age of Automation"

It is almost precisely eighteen years since Donald Rumsfeld uttered his now well-regarded commentary on the danger of "unknown unknowns". At the time his remarks brought more confusion than clarity and reinforced for many a belief that politicians use words to conceal the truth. Somehow though, Donald's words from 2002 seem to fit the world of today, and the challenges confronting educators all too well.

It's interesting how threads emerge from the books we read. An idea springs out at you from one book and then occurs again in another or a link is found between the two. When it turns up a third time in a different place and from an alternate perspective you really take notice. I have had this experience with the concept of emotional or psychological safety.

"I agree with Brene Brown about developing "shame resilience" and have found the usual tug of war between with teaching and mistake making diminishes when we introduce students to a mindset in which they appreciate the importance of recognizing our errors and strive for constant improvement. When I think about design thinking, I believe it could be a powerful way for students to experience their vulnerability and develop perspective taking, all the while creating real cool stuff-whether it is a piece of writing, a t-shirt, a rollercoaster, an app or, in my Early Year's classroom, a garden. They learn how to fail forward and create another prototype. This design sprint is not a destructive but constructive element because, although they spent a lot of time developing their idea, the focus shifts from the product itself to the user-who will reap the benefits of this redesign. It gets the kids to detach from what they are making to who they are making it for. This nuance has a relatively big impact on the process of improvement."

Excellent design suggestions across a range of contexts.

"The guide can be used in a variety of settings (classrooms, clubs, museums, libraries, and more) with a variety of learners (K-12, college, and beyond). No prior experience with computer programming is required, only a sense of adventure!"

Great resource for all manner of things related to Film. From camera angles and shots to plans for running film clubs, this is a site worth diving into.

A wealth of information can be found on this site for the exploration of film. Do check out the comprehensive Film Club section if you are thinking of running an ECA on film.

Through any lens schools are complex places. A melting pot of human, social, political, economic, technological, physical and philosophical tensions. At once the stronghold of our cultural traditions and facilitators of our future wellbeing, schools serve as pillars of stability constructed at the event horizon between our now and our tomorrow. Perhaps at this point in time more than ever is this tension between the role that schools play in indoctrinating our youth into the ways of society at odds with the imperative to prepare them for their futures.

"Last night I had an opportunity to present a free, evening webinar for the Oklahoma State Department of Education's Educational Technology Division, as part of a series they hosted to prepare teachers for Computer Science Education Week. The title of my presentation was, "Developing Computational Thinking with Scratch Coding." The webinar recording is 1 hour and 11 minutes long, and my presentation slides are also available via Google Slides. All these presentation resources are available on my presentation handouts website using the shortened URL wfryer.me/scratch."