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"Tissue paper hot air balloons are one of those powerful STEM learning experiences that lend themselves so well to being cross-curricular."

"Our foundational belief is that teachers teach how they are taught. If we want teachers to teach from a foundation of learning by doing, then we want to provide professional learning in that same, or a very similar, way. STEAMmaker Camp is intentionally designed to replicate the highs and lows teachers might encounter with students over a year­ long program. Therefore, each camp is best­ designed as a multi-­day event with each day running longer than the typical school day. This causes students to "hit the wall" that typically surfaces in the third quarter of school and teachers can experience how to remain positive and supportive in this type of environment, especially when they are also very tired. A trainer balances the fine line of guiding, role modeling, and directly instructing the participants, based on their individual and unique needs."

"Contraption Maker provides a set of puzzles that are reminiscent of Rube Goldberg cartoons. Children use hundreds of parts like hamster motors, balls, and conveyor belts to fix broken contraptions. Moving down our knowledge funnel, kids can create their own contraptions and share them with the world. It's a digital sandbox that promotes creativity by experimenting with logical cause and effect consequences. A key component of excelling in a STEM career is learning via experimentation, which often means testing an idea, failing, reviewing the idea, and trying a new idea. Traditional teaching methods don't often have the latitude to encourage failure. However, experimentation and failure are key components in Contraption Maker. You learn by "failing" and testing new theories, and it is meant to be fun, not discouraging."

"This year's K12 Online Conference will feature a strand on Maker Ed. This strand will be keynoted by Stephanie Chang from MakerEd and will include sessions on Minecraft, etextiles, the Cardboard Challenge, STEM, and much more!"

" President Obama announced the "Week of Making" the week of June 12 - 18, 2015, and eleven educators from the Pittsburgh region were invited to the White House on June 15, 2015 to discuss what great makerspaces look like in schools and how we can scale this movement across the country in schools. But not everyone can visit Obama to talk about Making--so how does one lead professional development when introducing a makerspace? EXPERT "MAKER" EDUCATORS FROM PITTSBURGH AT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S "WEEK OF MAKING." At Elizabeth Forward High School, the 2015 Pittsburgh FAB Institute was held June 15 - 18, 2015. Sponsored by the Grable Foundation, the 2015 Pittsburgh FAB Institute provided a rich professional development to 75 teachers across the country focusing on digital fabrication. These educators ranged from beginners to experts, elementary, middle and high school teachers, educators from museums, college professors and school administrators and these educators were interested in what aFABLab looks like in schools."

"When educator Lynn Koresh hears from kids that they want a career doing something with computers, she asks, "To do what with computers?" Adults often encourage kids to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills, and computing classes are usually a first stop. But Koresh knows it's the real-world applications of computational thinking and coding language skills that bring such knowledge to life. She reasoned that most middle school students are already playing video games and might respond well to a unit on how to design, create, test and promote video games. Along the way, she's also teaching them about digital citizenship and entrepreneurship. "I wanted to give kids exposure to what it means to have a career using computers," said Koresh, technology coordinator at Edgewood Campus School in Madison, Wisconsin."

""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

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

"Any room in the school can be transformed into a legitimate spot for an innovative makerspace and the implications of student-made projects foster great power, complexity and creative play in each of them. Like all STEM-focused areas of education, the Maker Movement is an extremely useful method for advancing child education due to some of the skills it promotes and develops. The inclusive environment that makerspaces provide results in a sense of community for participating students and functions as a safe place for gathering feedback."

"Since I first started my Makerspace at Stewart Middle Magnet School in January 2014, I have received a lot of positive feedback. I've given talks, presented at conferences, and shared about our experiences through my blog and through social media.  Some of the questions I am most frequently asked are: Why should makerspaces be in the library?  Why not just convert a classroom into a STEM lab? In a similar vein, I often hear from librarians who are struggling to get their administration/teachers/community to understand the rationale for having a Makerspace in their library.  Aren't those kids just playing?  Shouldn't libraries be quiet and clean?  How does this tie in with the curriculum? How we react to these types of questions are crucial in our advocacy for our spaces.  Here's some ways to respond."

Lessonwriter creates lesson plans and instructional materials for teaching English language skills from any reading passage How it works- Copy & paste any text you choose into LessonWriter; LessonWriter analyzes text for vocabulary, grammar and usage, pronunciation, and word roots and stems; Then, LessonWriter writes a lesson plan and a lesson that teaches the skills you chose in the context of the passage - automatically.

OVIEDO, FL -- July 14, 2008 -- InfoSource Learning announces that all school districts, state departments, and educational organizations can receive the SimpleAssessment for Student Technology Proficiency free of charge for all students. What started as a promotion at this year's National Educational Computer Conference (NECC) has blossomed into a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of students' technology proficiency.  This campaign also stems from the goal to assess 25 million students during the 2008/2009 school year as a means of celebrating the Company's 25th anniversary.

The Coalition for Science After School envisions the day when young people from all backgrounds have access to high quality science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning experiences during out of school hours.

Helping tween girls stay interested in STEM with a place all their own. - Chris Ludwig

Teresa Penedo posted this item in the #change11 Facebook group. The one-hour video tells us "most of what we think we know about technology in general is false." According to Andrew Feenberg, "Our error stems from the everyday conception of things as separate from each other and from us. In reality they belong to an interconnected network the nodes of which cannot exist independently qua technologies." This leads to ten 'paradoxes of technology': "1. The paradox of the parts and the whole: The apparent origin of complex wholes lies in their parts but in reality the parts find their origin in the whole to which they belong. 2. The paradox of the obvious: What is most obvious is most hidden. 3. The paradox of the origin: behind everything rational there lies a forgotten history. 4. The paradox of the frame: Efficiency does not explain success, success explains efficiency. 5. The paradox of action: In acting we become the object of action. 6. The paradox of the means: The means are the end. 7. The paradox of complexity: Simplification complicates. 8. The paradox of value and fact: Values are the facts of the future. 9. The democratic paradox: The public is constituted by the technologies that bind it together but in turn it transforms the technologies that constitute it. 10. The paradox of conquest: The victor belongs to the spoils." from Stephen Downes OL Daily