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"In the above illustration, what is the student doing? Here are some possibilities… conducting research creating a project texting a parent, friend, or teacher watching a video playing a game reading a news article As educators, we could argue the instructional merits of what is happening with the smartphone that the student is holding. Many of our initial thoughts and concerns are framed by our own perceptions and experiences of how we personally use technology. I read a heavily circulated article this week that detailed some research from the UK on the banning of students personal technology tools. This research revealed that students perform better on standardized tests when their schools ban the use of personal mobile devices. Apparently, this improved performance was due to the lack of distractions. Obviously, I can't argue with the research, but I do have several questions and thoughts related to the focus of this study and the topic of banning students' technology tools."

"I cringe when people ask me, "Are you handy?" Partly because I don't consider myself to be the best with tools, but also because it is asking me to judge whether or not I'm capable of fixing, making, or crafting something. Here's the thing, I didn't know how to put new shower tiles in and patch up my existing dry wall with cement board when we had a leak last year…but I had a friend help get me started, I watched a few DIY Youtube videos, looked at some articles online, and now I know how to do that (although not too well). The same thing happens in high schools all the time. The "handy" kids go to shop class, the "artsy" kids go to art class, the "business" kids go to business classes, the "techy" kids go to web design classes and so on… It's got to stop. We can't continue labeling kids as one thing or another thing. What we know about the future workforce is that creativity, making, and innovating will be at the center of most jobs…and that will require students to be all of the above: 'Experts predict that 50 per cent of occupations today will no longer exist by 2025 as people will take up more creative professions,' said Martin Chen, Chief Operating Officer of Genesis."

"T-Charts Pros and Cons is a free iPad app designed to help you organize your thoughts about a question or dilemma. This simple app provides a clean layout in which you can write your pros and cons lists. Each thing that you write on your lists can be given a different weight. For example, if you're trying to decide if you should study or go to a party you can give extra weight to "will probably do better on the test if I study" in your chart. Within T-Charts Pros and Cons you can create and manage multiple lists. All of your lists can be emailed to friends for their input and feedback."

"People were amazed at how inexpensive it was to acquire the materials needed for the activities.  Trust me, folks, the dollar store is a makerspace's best friend.  95% of the supplies I brought were from the dollar stores around me, with just a few items purchased at Radio Shack and Lowes.  I've had requests for a breakdown of the items I had in the makerspace, so here we go:"

"True STEM classes, which are NOT "regular" science or math classes in which teachers have been asked or have chosen to offer STEM-focused lessons to students, are very rare today in most schools. I was blessed the past two years to teach STEM to 4th and 5th grade students as a separate "specials class" where STEM was treated like PE, Music and Art. All students went to STEM class. It wasn't reserved just for the GE/Gifted Education kids. Everyone went to STEM and participated, including many "special friends" who were not mainstreamed for other classes during the day. They went to STEM class, however, because they could succeed in collaborative environments which emphasized hands-on learning."

"Looking for some fun and engaging ways to have kindergarten kids participate in problem solving (and creating), I turned to my trusty friend, Lego. Like many division one teachers, I use Lego often because it has so many applications. But as the 2014-15 school year came to a close, I was looking for a challenge. So, what I did was created a maze with Lego that a marble would travel to and showed this to the kids. I then challenged the kids to make a maze that would fit the marble (there had to be three empty spaces for width at all times)."

"I've always found a sense of peace in the creative process. It's a time when I feel like I don't have to stick with the rules in place for all the different parts of my life. That freedom helps me come up with some of my most creative ideas and exciting projects. This has been true my entire life. When I entered the classroom, I wanted to give my students as many chances as possible to be creative. Over the years, I've seen amazing projects from students who dared to take creative chances. Until very recently, I thought these creative opportunities were the best way to engage kids in this process. It wasn't until I dove into the maker movement that I realized how much more is possible. I always come up with some big projects for my own students, but what about the rest of the building? I'd never been supported in larger school or district ideas, but this past year was different. With the support and challenge to do something for students outside of my classroom, I decided to go for it. After talking with some friends and our amazing media specialist, a makerspace in the library made the most sense. Here are some tips and tricks for putting together a makerspace in your school, and some thoughts on how it can be beneficial to your students."

A few years back a dear friend introduced me to the concept of Augmented Reality and I have been fascinated by it ever since. Augmented reality is when technology is used to create a  live view of an alternative, augmented world by generating sensory information through a computer or tablet. (This was the first video I saw that demonstrated Augmented Reality and I was awed by it!)  I have found it to be an effective tool to encourage deeper thinking and maximise instructional time in my classroom. The kids love it, other teachers are awed by it and you will have fun experimenting with it. There are many ways you can approach the application of Augmented Reality in you classroom. I have found the simplest to be Aurasma. Aurasma is an app for iPhone or iPad that can allow for augmented experiences to be embedded simply in your day-to-day teaching. 

"I have a confession to make: I'm addicted to online quizzing games regardless of the topic or content. I get enthralled trying to outwit my Facebook friends and move up the leaderboards, spending more hours than I'll admit here trying to do so. I'm not the only one either. Millions of people share this same addiction, which got me to wondering: is there a way that teachers could tap into the quizzing craze, ideally using questions related to course content, to teach material and greater life lessons all at once?"

"Are  your students texting in class? Of course they are. A better question is, are you allowing your students to send text messages? If not, why? The picture above is what happens in most classes. Students hide their mobile devices and surreptitiously send text messages to their friends. In many cases they may be texting peers in the same room. Teachers fear this secret texting in class and, in many cases, ban the use of mobile devices entirely. A better practice is to embrace the mobile devices and the text messaging."

"My cat is pretty unflappable, given that she shares a house with four children. But when a three-wheeled robot trundles into the living room, even Lola can't belt out of the cat-flap fast enough. Perhaps it's the barking that spooked her. The robot is called Dash, and like its smaller, stationary friend Dot, it's the work of technology startup Wonder Workshop. It's excellent at yapping cats off the sofa, but its real goal is teaching children to code."

"t started my first year of teaching, and although things have improved dramatically over the last two decades, I've never completely overcome Sunday night stress. I deal with it far more often than I'd like to, and I know that many of my teacher friends do too. One of them just happens to be my neighbor, and when I tiptoe downstairs in the wee hours of a Monday morning to read myself back to sleep, I often notice the glow of lights in his living room too. It's good to know I'm not alone, but I'd rather be sleeping. If you're reading this post, I'm thinking you would be too. Perhaps these ideas will help you."

"Today we're joined by TinkerLab reader and friend, Aricha Gilpatrick Drury who's offered to show us how to build with box rivets. Aricha is a mom to four children and has a knack for tinkering. When she shared this uber-tinkering activity on our Facebook wall, we asked Aricha if she'd be so kind to share with us today. Lucky us, she said, "yes!" If you've never built with box rivets before (we haven't), you're in for a treat. They're simple plastic connectors that enable you build almost anything you can think of from cardboard: castles, theater sets, play structures, and more."

"Instagram will have you believe that anyone can be a photo editing expert by just applying a filter and cropping your image into a square. But my friend Abbie Morrison, a professional photographer, will remind me that being able to use Instagram and being a good photo editor are not the same things. A good photographer and photo editor will take advantage of more than just a few default filters in a photo editing tool. To help people understand photo editing terminology and functions, Polarr has published an interactive guide to photo editing terminology. The guide defines twenty-four terms and provides visual examples of each in practice."

""Contraption Maker promotes STEM learning by engaging students with a series of Rube Goldberg-esque puzzles. Students choose from hundreds of parts like hamster motors, balls, and conveyor belts to fix broken contraptions. Not only do students use logic and critical thinking skills to solve puzzles, they can also create their own contraptions and share them with friends, family or even the world. For advanced students, JavaScript modding gives kids the opportunity to make the game into anything they can imagine. It's a zany digital sandbox for project-based learning." - Contraption Maker Education Page"c

"I'm in Minecraft, of course-the phenomenally popular, open-ended game that places players in a world in which they can live and build things infinitely. Marcus "Notch" Persson, the Swedish creator of Minecraft, started out by creating a simple game, allowing players to construct whatever they wanted, using a few different colored blocks, each equivalent to one cubic meter. Released in 2009, it has evolved into a massive, world-building video game in which players uses those blocks to create anything they can think of, from houses, caves, and machines to a scale version of the Death Star. Microsoft purchased Minecraft from Notch and his team for $2.5 billion in November 2014. There aren't any express objectives or any real way to win in Minecraft. It's a "sandbox," in gaming speak-offering free play without a specific goal and currently used by more than 18.5 million players, with some 20,000 more signing up every day. Users may choose between Creative Mode, in which they can build using unlimited resources by themselves or with friends, with no real danger or enemies, and Survival Mode, where they fend off enemies and other players and fight for resources and space. They can trade items and communicate using a chat bar. Modifications (or mods) can add complexity by creating things like economic systems that let players buy and sell resources from in-game characters using an in-game currency system. These downloadable mods can also add computer science concepts and thousands of additional features."

"In much the same way that Facebook swept through the dorm rooms of America's college students a decade ago, Yik Yak is now taking their smartphones by storm. Its enormous popularity on campuses has made it the most frequently downloaded anonymous social app in Apple's App Store, easily surpassing competitors like Whisper and Secret. At times, it has been one of the store's 10 most downloaded apps. Like Facebook or Twitter, Yik Yak is a social media network, only without user profiles. It does not sort messages according to friends or followers but by geographic location or, in many cases, by university. Only posts within a 1.5-mile radius appear, making Yik Yak well suited to college campuses. Think of it as a virtual community bulletin board - or maybe a virtual bathroom wall at the student union. It has become the go-to social feed for college students across the country to commiserate about finals, to find a party or to crack a joke about a rival school. Much of the chatter is harmless. Some of it is not."

"reaching out to share their own tough truths and a bit of hope as well. "You need to tell new teachers how it gets better," one of them suggested. "You need to leave them with a bit of light." Point taken, and thanks for the feedback. I loved reopening this conversation! Veteran teacher friends: I'm wondering what you would add."

"Imagine spending every day in a physical space designed for people much bigger than you. To wash your hands or get a drink of water, you'd have to drag a chair over to the sink or ask a friend for a boost. Your feet would dangle in mid-air when you sat down and you'd have to crane your neck and stand on tiptoe to read the bulletin board. After the novelty wore off, it's likely that you'd end up feeling uncomfortable, insignificant, and out of place. Unfortunately, this is how many children feel every day in their classrooms. Whether it's because the chairs are too big or too small, the aisles too narrow, the tables too low, or the displays too high, the message is clear: "This room was not made for you." The sad fact is that most classroom spaces are far from ideal. Perhaps they were originally designed and built with little or no consultation with the teachers who would be working in them. Or maybe they were designed for another purpose, or with tight budgetary restrictions. And while teachers probably won't be able to transform an inadequate classroom space into an ideal one, they can make dramatic improvements. So, where to begin? The most obvious place is by thinking about the students. Before moving a single piece of furniture or clearing a wall for a display, learn as much as you can about the particular needs of the children you'll be teaching by talking with families and former teachers. Below are some general guidelines to help you create a physical environment that makes children feel comfortable and significant and that best serves their needs."

""Have you seen this video?" The Twitter message from my good friend and fellow thought-instigator Daniel Scibienski pointed me toward If You Build It, a recent PBS documentary about designer/educator/activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller persuading an underfunded school board to create a new kind of design-based program for the students at Windsor High School in Bertie County, North Carolina. What I saw affected me profoundly: students, confused and reluctant at first, gradually developing skills and abilities with tools they'd never used before, designing and building increasingly complex things; failing, trying again, improving, collaborating, and ultimately succeeding and celebrating. I, too, have a vision for a new kind of classroom. I, too, am building something radical, exciting, and even revolutionary. I want to tap the power of design thinking to transform learning in my classroom. We're bringing shop class back to my middle school -- but this time, it's digital."