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"The maker movement and maker education, in my perspective, are such great initiatives - really in line with what student-centric education should be in this era of formal and informal learning. Maker education (often referred to as "Maker Ed") is a new school of educational thought [at least in terms of having an "official" educational label - JG] that focuses on delivering constructivist, project-based learning curriculum and instructional units to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as full high school workshops with high-tech tools, or as small and low-tech as one corner of an elementary classroom. A makerspace isn't just about the tools and equipment, but the sort of learning experience the space provides to students who are making projects. (9 Maker Projects for Beginner Maker Ed Teachers) Social media has helped me gain a more global perspective and become aware of some of the problems associated with the maker movement. The two I discuss in this post are: Maker movement initiatives are often driven by more affluent white males. The maker movement is too often being associated with the tech stuff - Arduinos, Littlebits, Makey-Makeys - stuff that less affluent schools and community programs can afford."

"Perfect Storm: an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically.  The term is also used to describe an actual phenomenon that happens to occur in such a confluence, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude. "

"In line with reflecting on experiences, I developed a list of questions and a board game (I love using board games in my classrooms of all ages from elementary to graduate level!) to help with reflecting on the maker process following the completion of maker projects. The purpose of these tools is to increase the possible learning and insights that learners extract from their maker projects."

"All of my classes, regardless of student age or demographics - elementary gifted students or graduate students, begin with ice-breakers and team-building activities.  I recently developed a passion for using students' mobile devices to do so as this devices have become natural and personalized extensions of students' "selves." What follows are several of the mobile-driven ice-breakers I recently used in an undergraduate course on Interpersonal Relations.  I also include some student reactions to these activities."

"Due to Khan Academy's popularity, the idea of the flipped classroom has gained press and credibility within education circles. Briefly, the Flipped Classroom as described by Jonathan Martin is: Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved. Flip your instruction so that students watch and listen to your lectures… for homework, and then use your precious class-time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, working in groups, researching, collaborating, crafting and creating. Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved (http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/3367)."

"Whole Child Learning is a thing; Whole Teaching should be a thing too, no? Here at TeachThought, Jackie Gerstein's usergeneratededucation is at the top of our reading list, in large part for her thinking about the human side of formal education. Much of our content-that is, the content here at TeachThought, and that on her site-overlaps because of our shared perspective on teaching and learning: self-directed learning, the role of play in learning, the idea of citizenship, student-centered learning (and student-centered teaching), and more."

"This coming summer I am getting the opportunity to teach a maker education camp for three weeks, half-days at a local elementary school.  The descriptions for the three one-week workshops are: Circuit Crafts: Build glowing, sensing, and interactive circuit projects; make electronic stickers, circuit sketchbooks, circuit cards, and sewn circuits. Sweet Robotics: Make simple robotics using Popsicle sticks and LED lights; play with and build some robots with Makey Makey, littleBits, Hummingbird, and Modular Robotics. Toy Hacking: Take apart simple electronic toys to see how they work & then put them back together again creating a new toy; make an operation game."

I am doing full day workshops on The Maker Educator both at ISTE 2016 and EduTECH in Australia. What follows is both the description-goals and an overview of the workshop's learning activities. Workshop Description, Goals, and Outline Description Being a maker educator requires developing a new mindset; a new set of skills and roles. Discover, through this workshop, first, a process for reflecting on making through creating circuits and hacked toys, and second, through a self-assessment, the mindset characteristics of an educator who is embracing making education. This workshop is designed for educators who are and want to integrate maker education into their instructional settings."

"One of my end of year rituals is finding and posting the years' best videos. Given my current interest in maker education, I decided to locate and post 2015 videos related to maker education, STEM, and STEAM."

"I had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop on design thinking for educators at the New Mexico Association for the Gifted Fall Institute. Here is a round-up of what we did."

"Cardboard Creations Maker Education Camp utilized no technology (except for projecting images of example projects on the whiteboard) and low/no cost materials. Many of the discussions about and actions related to integrating maker education into educational environments center around the use of new technologies such computer components (Raspberry Pis, Arduinos), interactive robots for kids (Dash and Dot, Ozobots, Spheros), and 3D printers. These technologies are lots of fun and I facilitate Robotics and Computer Science with my gifted students and at one of my summer camps. The learners engaged in these high tech learning activities with high excitement and motivation. Such high excitement, engagement and motivation, though, were also seen at my low tech/low cost maker education camps: LED crafts, Toy Hacking and Making, and Cardboard Creations."

"I wrote a post earlier this year entitled, Authentic Learning Experiences. Some of the characteristics of authentic learning I identified are summarized in this graphic:"

"This is my third summer offering maker education summer camps as part of a bigger program at a local school.  During mornings (9 to 12 with a half hour recess), campers, grades Kindergarten through 6th grade, can choose from one of four enrichment classes: art, drama, games, foreign languages, computers, and in my case, maker camps. During the afternoons, all campers get together for typical camp activities - fun and games, field trips, water sports, silly competitions. Each camp lasts a week. This summer I am offering: Cardboard Creations, Circuit Crafts, Toy Making and Hacking, and Robotics and Coding. I often discuss the need to implement maker education programs with minimal cost materials and ones that offer the potential to tap into diverse learners and their diverse interests:"

"There have been complaints leveraged against out of the box robots like Dash and Dot, Ozobot, Hummingbird, Sphero. The complaints usually revolve around the canned and prescriptive nature of their uses and programs, that they lack creative engagement by the younger users. I personally love the excitement my learners have using these robots. As with all tools and technologies and with creative framing, though, they can be used in creative and imaginative ways. Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. (How Robots in English Class Can Spark Empathy and Improve Writing) This past term, I had my 2nd through 4th grade students work on their robot-enhanced creative writing and stories. In small groups, students were asked to create a fictional storyline and use StoryboardThat.com to create both the physical scenes and the accompanying narrative. As part of their directions, they were told that they were going to create a 3D setting out of cardboard boxes, foam board, LED lights, and other craft materials; and that they would use Wonder's Dot with the Blocky App and Ozobot as the characters in their stories. Preparation time was divided between storyboarding, creating the scene, and learning how to use/code the robots. Because of all of the preparation and practice, the recording actually went quite quick and smoothly. Here is a break down of the learning events that learners were asked to complete:"

"In order to support interest and passion driven learning (all - I mean all - of my students play video games) as well as address cross-curricular content area integration of language arts, science, and technology standards, I had my gifted elementary learners, grades 2 through 6, do a semester long project on video game design."

"Recently I wrote a blog post about Intentional Creativity. Here is the graphic created for that post. Below the graphic are specific ideas I am using with my gifted elementary students this school year."

"I work part-time with elementary learners - with gifted learners during the school year and teaching maker education camps during the summer. The one thing almost all of them have in common is yelling out, "I can't do this" when the tasks aren't completed upon first attempts or get a little too difficult for them. I partially blame this on the way most school curriculum is structured. Too much school curriculum is based on paper for quick and one shot learning experiences (or the comparable online worksheets). Students are asked to do worksheets on paper, answer end-of-chapter questions on paper, write essays on paper, do math problems on paper, fill in the blanks on paper, and pick the correct answer out of a multiple choice set of answers on paper. These tasks are then graded as to the percentage correct and then the teacher moves onto the next task. So it is no wonder that when learners are given hands-on tasks such as those common to maker education, STEM, and STEAM, they sometimes struggle with their completion. Struggles are good. Struggles with authentic tasks mimics real life so much more than completing those types of tasks and assessments done at most schools. Problems like yelling out, "I can't do this" arise when the tasks get a little too difficult, but ultimately are manageable. I used to work with delinquent kids within Outward Bound-type programs. Most at-risk kids have some self-defeating behaviors including those that result in personal failure. The model for these types of programs is that helping participants push past their self-perceived limitations results in the beginnings of a success rather than a failure orientation. This leads into a success building upon success behavioral cycle."

"This month I started a maker-enhanced writing workshop with a group of gifted 3rd through 6th grade students. As with all of my lessons, I strive to practice what I preach in my blog posts - being interdisciplinary; using technology to enhance their work; and making, creating, innovating, and inventing."