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"There's a new book available it's packed with practical ideas for teachers from teachers: Meaningful Making: Projects and Inspirations for FabLabs and Makerspaces. And even better it's available as a free download. You can't beat that for a bargain. The book is an initiative from the FabLearn Fellows who are part of a larger project sponsored by the National Science Foundation entitled "Infusing Learning Sciences Research into Digital Fabrication in Education and the Makers' Movement". The FabLearn Fellows initiative brings together experienced educators from all over the world to create an open-source library of curriculum and contribute to research about the "makers" culture and digital fabrication in education."

"I am excited about the current trend towards maker education but I believe it needs to embrace a full cycle of learning including engaging in reflection. Reflection within the maker movement and maker education can occur through a process of documenting learning."

"I had some visitors in my library makerspace last week that were wanting to add an aspect of maker education into their own libraries. As they walked around our space, visited with my collaborating English teacher, and witnessed students prototyping for our invention literacy project, they said something surprising. "We noticed you have traditional wooden library chairs and tables, so it isn't about the furniture, is it? Maker Education? It's about the mindset?""

"Are you an educator who would like to try Contraption Maker in your classroom or after school program? Then email Deborah Fike (deborah@spotkin.com), Spotkin's Director of Educational Outreach, to receive free copies of Contraption Maker for your school-owned devices. You can also subscribe to our educator mailing list for up-to-date news."

"As Kristin Berbawy packed projects into her car, she lingered over one in particular. Two 3D-printed Makerbots with wire hooks-a pair of earrings. They matched the white braces on her teeth and the white strands in her hair. Her students had made them-as they had all the projects in her car-in their high school makerspace. She was proud of them. She was going to display their work to other teachers. Smack in the middle of AP exams, a growing group of teachers is pouring time, creativity and energy into activities for which there are no standardized tests: makerspaces. The movement is avowedly grassroots and candidly quirky, and its main gathering is the Maker Educator Convening in Oakland, CA, where Kristin Berbawy was headed with a trunkload of laser cut wood and 3D printed objects. "

"Ahead of the official launch of our Resource Library's Professional Development category in fall 2016, we are excited to offer a preview of three professional development modules around maker education. Each module is centered around a video and contains prompts to consider and comment on in the Professional Development section of our online Google+ community and on Twitter with #makered and @MakerEdOrg. Dive in and join the conversation!"

The maker movement and with it maker-centered learning brings new possibilities and challenges into the classroom. It has spawned makerspaces and students are busy designing and making products. The danger with all this frenzied making is that it is very easy to miss the point, to focus on the product and not the journey.  

"Are you looking for a fun, hands-on activity to teach basic programming and maker skills at home or in the classroom? Arduino, and specifically, Arduino UNO are an excellent tool to teach and apply basic electronics and robotics skills."

"Think about dreaming, like building stilts. Think about designing, like collaborating in a flexible space from funky-colored chairs on wheels. Think about testing, like crafting conductivity testers needed for your classmates. Think about making, like programming and assembling a security card system for the space. Above all, think. Schools now are thinking a lot about maker spaces, and the term can mean many things, as shown in the examples above, from Brandywine High, St. Elizabeth, Newark High and Tatnall schools, respectively."

"Juan Carlos Galindo, a Wheaton High School ninth-grader with attention-deficit disorder, always had difficulty managing academic demands when he was younger. His mother, Virginia Munoz, a single mother of four, regularly found her son asleep with homework in his lap. She knew he was struggling, and she worried he would become a checked-out, rebellious teenager. In seventh grade, however, Juan Carlos was invited to participate in a maker learning partnership between Parkland Middle School in Rockville and the KID Museum in Bethesda. The maker philosophy emphasizes hands-on, self-guided projects to build kids' technical skills and confidence through tinkering, inventing and designing."

"We are excited to launch the Maker Space at NIST International School!  But what exactly is making, design thinking and Maker Spaces anyway? How do they relate to the NIST mission and values, and how do we integrate them authentically into learning? Who are they appropriate for? What does the research say? There are many questions which surround this hot topic-  which is a good thing!! This website was designed to help students, parents and teachers answer some of those questions and act as a guide as we go on this journey together.  So grab your goggles and tool belt, and come on in..."

Making is as old as learning itself. While the maker movement may only be about a decade old, the human desire to create dates back to the earliest forms of human activity, from making stone tools to drawing on cave walls (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Martinez & Stager, 2014). Thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Montessori, and Papert helped paved the way for the maker movement by stressing the importance of hands-on, student-centered, meaningful learning. Instead of viewing learning as the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student, these thinkers embraced the idea that children learn best when encouraged to discover, play, and experiment. More recently, maker education is being used as a way to connect do-it-yourself informal learning to classrooms. Driven by new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, and kid-friendly coding, making is emerging as an effective way to introduce students to STEM, particularly women and minorities. By incorporating elements of making into the classroom, educators can bridge the gap between what students are passionate about and what they're learning in school.

"One of the most important skills of the 21st century - web literacy - is often overlooked in the classroom. The ability to read, write and participate online is an indispensable skill for learners, but it's curiously absent from many educators' curricula. At Mozilla, we believe web literacy should be a cornerstone of education. When students can create their own content on the Web, tinker with HTML, and understand the basics of online privacy, they're empowered to do great things. We also believe web literacy is best taught through hands-on, interactive learning. We've just wrapped up Maker Party, Mozilla's annual celebration of teaching and learning the Web through hands-on activities. But Maker Parties can be held anywhere, anytime. And our resources for teaching web literacy are free and open source, always. To kickstart web literacy learning in your classroom - or outside of it - here are six tools and activities from Maker Party for teaching critical 21st-century skills:"

"Maker Party is Mozilla's global campaign to teach the web. Through thousands of community-run events around the world, Maker Party unites educators, organizations and enthusiastic web users with hands-on learning and making."

"As the Maker Movement has gained steams schools and educators alike have begun to incorporate makerspaces as exploratory centers for students to invent, tinker, create, and make to learn. A makerspace can best be defined as a physical place where students can create real-world products/projects using real-world tools. "

"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."

"You see it everywhere in K-12. Kindergarteners design toys for their friends to practice empathy, while learning to use a saw and glue-gun along the way. Second graders deepen their understanding of character traits while designing and sewing puppets to represent a character in a folk-tale. In high school physics, students make wind turbines in order to internalize an understanding of how magnetism can create electricity. The "it" I'm referring to is "Making," and simply put, Making is any activity where people create something, often with their hands. I often define Making by looking at what people bring to the Maker Faire, which does include more technical aspects like 3D printing, physical computing and programming. But Making also includes woodworking, growing food, making art and crafts."

"I get caught up in things. Informercials. New gadgets. New shades of Sharpie. Every kid I've ever taught has said, "You say EVERYTHING is your "favorite thing." It's true. Life? It's my favorite. I grew up, but my internal excitement level has stayed at a five year old's level. So, I'll just preface this post with that. I will also say that I've held off on writing this. Long enough to figure out if this whole "maker movement" was another "thing I love," or more. It's more. So much more."

"Our guest says that the maker movement is neither something old or something new. The maker movement represents a fresh opportunity to help kids learn in compelling and real-world ways."