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"A few years ago I blogged about the concept of Video Tagging and how I was using it to improve performance in my PE Classes. Back then the process was much more involved and required a tremendous level of setup and expensive dedicated hardware and software. This ultimately led to minimal take up within the PE community regardless of the massive benefits to learning. Flash forward to 2013 and we are now in a position easily tag video with a couple of mobile apps, which have a combined price of $8.48. Not only is this price a mere fraction of the cost involved in the 2011 example, it is without a doubt a much more accesible option for the masses. Check them out below;"

""I recently learned, for the first time, about Aristotle's belief that there were three basic activities of humans: theoria (thinking), poiesis (making), and praxis (doing). Corresponding to these activities were three types of knowledge: theoretical, the end goal being truth; poietical, the end goal being production; and practical, the end goal being action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)).... All of this led me to think about how this would translate into a full spectrum of making in the context of maker educator. Having such a framework would help insure that learning from the making experience is more robust, not left up to chance. I believe a fuller spectrum or framework would including the following elements:"

"Luckily, I realized (sooner rather than later) that I was part of their reading problem, not the change in their reading lives I hoped to be. This aha! moment led me to dig deep, talk to my boys about their reading experiences and help them unpack what was really going on underneath the surface. My ultimate goal was to figure out what was blocking boys from reading for pleasure and most importantly, how to open them up and let it into their lives. After lots of conversations with 9- to 14-year-old boys, here's what I discovered."

"Popular mobile devices may come and go, but the iPad has remained a hit in the K-12 classroom. But even though they're in schools, our work with teachers has led us to understand that while many of them would like to use iPads meaningfully in their classrooms, they can't because of time, access, and training. So for the past year and a half, we've both been working with teachers and university students integrating iPad technology into the classroom in a controlled way. While doing this, we came across several outcomes that made us question and dig deeper into what the research actually says about using them in the classroom. Do students and younger teachers use them more effectively? Do they work better for some student populations? It's probably not giving much away to say that the most important learning outcome we found was that experience is the greatest teacher."

"A paper circuit is a low-voltage electrical circuit that is created on paper or cardboard using conductive copper tape, LEDs and a power source such as a coin-cell battery.  Creating paper circuits is a good way to teach the basics of electricity and how circuits function.   In addition to being educational, they can also be a fun makerspace project that helps to bring artwork and paper craft to life.  By adding sensors, buzzers and motors to your circuit, you can also add another dimension of interactivity.  These simple projects are great for all ages and all makerspaces."

"BRISTOL, England-Any child in England who has turned 3 by Sept. 1 is guaranteed 15 hours a week of free childcare or preschool for 38 weeks a year, or 570 hours total, paid for by the national government. "We don't think of it as socialism at all," said the Oxford University professor Edward Melhuish, who studies child development and was instrumental in conducting the research that largely led to England's current policies. "We think of it as common sense.""

"In our #bigmakerbook, I suggest crafting with paper circuits to learn about simple and parallel circuits before delving into sewing circuitry. Last year, my GirlsinTech campers had a great time with paper circuits, but when we began to explore sewing circuits, they ran into many roadblocks. Some had never sewn before, some couldn't thread the needle, some had pre-conceived ideas about sewing that led to disastrous short circuits, etc. (Note: I did have great success with teaching a parallel circuit bracelet at the DPL, but I also had 3 extra helpers for that workshop!)  So I wanted to try something new this year to get students started sewing and creating circuitry knowledge, but still keep the project simple. I wanted to share that project with you, and give you a list of some of my favorite sewing electronics books that aided me in my own journey to learning about creating and debugging soft circuits."

Society confronts educational change in an odd, entirely counter intuitive manner. On one hand we acknowledge that education can and should do a better job of preparing our children for the future while on the other we cling to the models of education that we knew. This led educational writer Will Richardson to state that 'the biggest barrier to rethinking schooling in response to the changing worldscape is our own experience in schools'. Our understandings of what school should be like and our imaginings of what school could be like are so clouded by this experience that even the best evidence for change is overlooked or mistrusted.

"As Abby walked into the school building she had a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was November and she had just moved into a new community. She was nervous about starting a new school midway through the school year. This was her first day of school and she kept her eyes down, nervous, not knowing what to expect as she walked into the main office. Suddenly, the office secretary called out to her in a tone that made her skip a breath, "Where are you supposed to be?  Do you have a pass?  Move on now before the tardy bell rings and the vice principal gives you a detention for being late." Each day in school offices across the country this scenario is playing out with regularity.  Although it may come across as somewhat exaggerated, those of you who have spent any amount of time in school have probably at one time or another been witness to such an interaction in the main office area.  It is these defined interactions that has led to us to ponder this question.  Have we reached the point where we are willing to allow negative interactions to drive the level of success of our students, staff and our school? What if we were to pause, step back and view our office culture through the eyes of students, parents, guests or even staff who visit the main office? What would they say?  If we manage our interactions appropriately they will leave feeling valued and cared for and look forward to their next return trip."

"The messaging app Snapchat allows motorists to post photos that record the speed of the vehicle. The navigation app Waze rewards drivers with points when they report traffic jams and accidents. Even the game Pokémon Go has drivers searching for virtual creatures on the nation's highways. When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep drivers' hands on the wheel. Innovations since then - car Wi-Fi and a host of new apps - have led to a boom in internet use in vehicles that safety experts say is contributing to a surge in highway deaths."

"I'm not sure of the way most people learn the complicated process of programming Arduino projects because I only know my own convoluted journey. I started the hard way following projects from the Arduino Starter Kit by building photo sensor theremins and electronic magic 8 balls. Here is one of my first Arduino projects I created at a class at the Denton Public Library. (The tweet below is a flashback to the Coding Bonanza I led at Lamar Library in 2014.) I quickly found that I wanted to do things OTHER than what the projects outlined, but I just didn't have the code knowledge to hack projects and make them my own. I continued following projects and attempting to tinker with code. For someone with absolutely no background in coding, it was quite an arduous journey. Imagine my surprise when I found out about the ScratchX extension from Kreg Hanning at SXSWedu in 2015!"

"This coming week is  Computer Science Education Week, an annual event dedicated to inspiring students to take an interest in computer science. It may start with an 'Hour of Code' in some schools, but the goal is to reach "Computer Science for ALL." That means planning for more than a couple of programming exercises, and thinking deeper about how to create programs that teach computer science to every student. Where can schools start? Here are three guiding principles that have led to the success of the computer science programs at Los Altos School District (LASD) where I work as a teacher and computer science integration specialist. At our K-8 district in Northern California, all 4500 students learn computer science through programs that have been growing over the past seven years."

"BROOKLYN, New York - I'm sitting on the floor at The Academy of Talented Scholars (PS 682) in Bensonhurst, watching kindergarteners create robots on an iPad. It's one of the cutest things I've ever seen, and I don't even like children. The exercise is part of the curriculum led by co-teachers Stacy Butsikares and Allison Bookbinder, focused on helping the 5- and 6-year-old students come up with ways to solve problems. The first step is to identify a problem happening in the school. The kindergarteners come up with ideas like kids horsing around in the lunch line, or not throwing trash away properly, or making too much noise at recess. Students are instructed to create a robot that could solve the problem, and draw the robot on a piece of paper. Once the robot is sketched out, the real fun begins. Using the app The Robot Factory, these pint-sized problem-solvers bring their robot ideas to life."

"Last week I led a 3 day iPad Media Camp at my school in Oklahoma City for K-12 teachers. I introduced participants to green screen videos and a production workflow including: the iPad Camera app the Green Screen app by Do Ink iMovie for iPad"

"My school is a STEM magnet school and unfortunately, that leads to a disproportionate number of male students.  This year the ratio was 65% male, 35% female, which led to many of my female students feeling disenfranchised.  I wanted to do something to help create a safe environment for my girls to explore STEM and to build a community with one another, so this year I partnered with several science teachers to start a STEMgirls club at our school.  At our first meeting, we talked about possibilities of projects and activities that we would like to do.  When I mentioned a workshop I had seen others do where you could sew light up bracelets, my students got really excited.  Thus, our Circuit Bracelet Workshop was born."

"Too often teachers are passive recipients of professional development rather than being active agents of their own development and change. Several recent reports have indicated that teacher professional development, as it is being implemented in most schools, is ineffective and a waste of time and money. Several studies over the past few years that have found professional development to be largely ineffective or unhelpful for teachers. Only 30 percent of teachers improve substantially with the help of district-led professional development, even though districts spend an average of $18,000 on development for each teacher per year, according to a new report. Most professional development today is ineffective. It neither changes teacher practice nor improves student learning. The hard truth is that the help most schools give their teachers isn't helping all that much. When it comes to teaching, real improvement is a lot harder to achieve-and we know much less about how to make it happen-than most of us would like to admit. (New report reveals that teacher professional development is costly and ineffective)"

"I've led a couple of Twitter chats on makerspaces, and one of my favorite ways to get started is to ask the participants how they define makerspaces. One of my most popular posts on Renovated Learning focuses on how various publications define makerspaces, so it's always great to see what everyone's perspective is. The definitions of March's TLchat varied, but I noticed a lot of common threads throughout the conversation. I took the text of everyone's answers and put them into a word cloud generator, and the final results are pretty striking:"

"At GeekDad we are big fans of apps that actually use mobile devices in innovative ways to support children's learning. Motion Math Games are one of those developers who have led the way in thinking about how they can design digital learning environments that provide ways for children to learn math with their hands and minds. Their first fraction/decimals app called Motion Math has become one of the benchmarks against which others should be comparing themselves."

"ISTE's Special Interest Group for Mobile Learning (SIGML) hosted a forum at ISTE 2012 to share educational apps vetted by actual educators. "We planned this event because educators do not have a clue how much these apps can do," said Robbie Melton from the Tennessee Board of Regents who led the SIGML forum. During the fast-paced session, panelist and attendees described their favorite apps in brief five-minute presentations. Here is a selection of the most innovative and useful tools from the SIGML forum:"

"Today, I led a workshop on iPad Apps for Science as a part of The Frisch School Summer Technology Boot Camp. Below is my presentation which I quickly created using my favorite iPad presentation app, Haiku Deck."