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"As you can see, our Maker Mondays is loosely based on the concepts inspired by the Cincinnati Public Library's MakerSpace. We had already purchased the Little Bits and Legos. The Ellison and Accucut dies were also something we had on hand (and taking them from the top floor to the basement for our Maker Mondays only took 3 trips). Inpsired by CPL, we did purchase a couple of American Button Machines, which I blogged about here. Our goal is to eventually add in a few additional items so that we can rotates some of the various features. So here's some of what we learned in researching and setting up our first Maker Monday:"

"In this four-part series, we are using the Someday/Monday concept to explore four dimensions of using tablets, such as iPads, in educational settings. We will do this by examining how teachers can take students on a journey from the consumption of media to curation, creation, and connection. In the first part of this series, we used the Someday/Monday template to explore Consumption. During the second, we examined Curation and the evolving role of the teacher as a curator of learning objects. This week, we will address Creation, examining what is possible when we empower students and teachers as innovators with iPads and other mobile devices."

"Over 20 fliers ranging from Visible Thinking and Formative Assessment to Make and Do for the iPad Crew, Tracy creates and curates relevant topics and resources using the web tool Smore***."

"Again this summer MAKE magazine and Google are hosting a virtual Maker Camp for teenagers (students under 13 can participate with adult supervision). The virtual camp starts on Monday, July 7th at 11am PST. Maker Camp is a series of Google+ Hangouts featuring new DIY projects that students can do at home or at school as individual projects or as group projects. A new project is posted each day. Daily Google+ Hangouts will offer tips for completing each project. Students can share their projects in the Maker Camp Google+ Community. Maker Camp runs for six weeks. Learn more in the video below or jump to the outline to read about the focus of each week of the camp. "

"Sesame Workshop's Best Practices Guide for Children's App Development is now available for download. In addition to insight from the organization's more than 40 years of children's media testing, the paper, highlighted on Monday by All Things D, includes more than 50 touchscreen studies conducted by Sesame Workshop."

"If you're new to the K-12 Online Conference, please read our About page as well as as our Goals and Core Values. Since 2006, K-12 Online has hosted a free, all-volunteer online conference with 40+ free videos each year featuring some of the most creative and innovative teachers sharing their best ideas for engaging students with digital tools and effective learning strategies. All past keynote addresses are now available on our YouTube channel, and we're in the process of migrating all past presentations there too. Shannon Miller will kick off our 2013 conference with a pre-conference keynote on Monday, October 14th. During week 1 of the conference which starts October 21st, Steve Hargadon & Audrey Watters will keynote the "Open Learning" strand, while Kathy Cassidy will keynote "Outside Learning." During week 2, starting October 28th, Larry Ferlazzo will keynote "Leading Learning" while Sylvia Martinez & Gary Stager will keynote "Building Learning." Please forward and share this post on social media to get the word out about our fantastic keynoters for this year's conference!"

""If you're doing all that, who's doing your job?" "People only present because they think it looks good on their resume." "She's obviously all about herself, I mean, look at what she does." IMG_5438These three statements literally were shared with me this year, along with a couple others. Some to me, some with me…all about me. It's hard to hear statements like this and NOT feel as if they are attacking you personally, even though I doubt that was the intention. (er…I hope.) Last Monday at #ISTE13 I was able to go to George Couros's sesson on "Leading Innovative Change". I'm not sure what I thought this was going to be about, but I knew I wanted to see the Couros show, :) His intent was to share how his school division created a powerful vision for innovation and share the steps to guarantee success. What I heard was a defense for all that I believe in and have tried to convey as a teacher, as a technology facilitator, and as an assistant principal. What I heard was the reason I blog, tweet, and share."

"Now that we finally have the Oculus Rift's Touch controllers, VR gaming on the platform is about to get a lot more interactive. However, based on a video released by Oculus on Monday, the best use of the Touch controller may turn out be Medium, a software tool from Oculus that allows you to sculpt with digital clay in virtual reality."

"On the night of Monday, June 13, someone stole my 12.9-inch iPad Pro from my bag during the annual Beard Bash event. I won't go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say my valuables (as well as those of my colleague Serenity Caldwell) were in a secure location. Unfortunately, secure doesn't always mean nothing bad will happen, and in this case, something bad did happen: My iPad Pro was removed from my bag, Serenity's belongings were stuffed into my bag to make it look full (I guess), and the iPad Pro went bye-bye. The night of the theft, long after Serenity and I had stashed our belongings, she approached me and asked why I'd put her coat inside my bag (which, of course, I hadn't done). After a minute or two of self doubt: "Had I put her coat in my bag? Maybe I just don't remember," I was certain I hadn't misremembered. I ran to our belongings to check out what happened and flew into a bit of a panic when I realized my iPad was definitely gone. I took a minute to pull myself together and got to work tracking down my missing iPad Pro."

"Our publishing schedule for the best apps of the year will be: Sunday, December 25: 20 best iPad productivity apps Monday, December 26: 15 best iPad education and reference apps Tuesday, December 27: 10 best iPad healthcare apps Wednesday, December 28: 20 best iPad business apps Thursday, December 29: 15 best iPad news apps Friday, December 30: 20 best iPad utility apps"

"Last Monday I lead a training in Hollywood for how to use your iPad to teach math. The assumption was that the teacher had an iPad and the students did not. This has been my reality ever since the iPad came out, I got the iPad 1 the first day it came out. Just yesterday all the students at my new school were issued iPads so now I am in a 1-1 situation. I'm excited for the change in dynamics in my classroom. I've decided to do a blogging series on using the iPad to teach, drawing from my experiences. Here are some of the suggestions I gave at the Hollywood training"

"On Monday past, I emcee'd a Film Festival for students in Junior and Senior High. The festival was a huge hit thanks to my amazing team of colleagues and dozens of talented teens. But my proudest moment of the evening was one video in particular - created by a kindergarten class."

"CHICAGO - By the time they reach eighth grade, according to federal tests, half of all African-American schoolboys have not mastered the most basic math skills that educators consider essential for their grade level. A new paper being released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests a promising approach for helping the most challenged students, who often arrive in high school several years behind their peers."

"On-Call and substitute teachers face a perplexing set of planning-related problems that require each to become a proverbial Jack- or Jill-of-all-trades. On Monday, you may be filling in for an elementary school music teacher and on Thursday you could be spearheading a discussion on Dickens. Investing in a few mobile apps can save you stress and time, allowing you to have a lesson plan or the materials for students literally at your fingertips."

"The summer is a great time to explore new-to-you iPad apps that you might want to add to the iPads that you have in your classroom. Each day this week I'm going to share a selection of apps appropriate for four ranges of pre-K-12 grades. On Monday I shared 21 apps for Pre-K through 2nd grade. Yesterday, I shared apps 3rd through 5th grade students. Today's list features apps for grades six through eight. "

"Global Education Conference, a free week-long online event bringing together educators and innovators from around the world, held Monday, November 18 through Friday, November 22, 2013"

"We are about to launch our Maker Space in our school library media center - it is going to be what is referred to as a 'soft launch.' Our technology facilitator and one of our classroom teachers are really the driving force behind this initiative, and much more familiar with the items we have purchased. While I'm more than happy to house the materials and provide space for them to be used, I know almost nothing about them. So, I'm hopeful that I will be able to form a team of interested students to help manage the project. Tomorrow after school we will have our 'Maker Team Interest Meeting.' From the students who show up, we're planning on forming a team to rotate being on hand when the maker space is open. They'll be in charge of answering questions, helping students figure out directions, and keeping everything orderly.  Wish us luck!"