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Welcome to the library. Say goodbye to the books. Cushing Academy embraces a digital future

"3D printing really does sound more like a plot point in a science fiction film than an implementable educational tool, but it's swiftly becoming an accessible option to educators everywhere. In fact, MakerBot, a leading manufacturer of 3D printers, has recently announced the MakerBot academy, which is seeking individual investors to fund an initiative to get 3D printers into every public school in the United States. Other 3D printing start-ups have followed in other parts of the world as well."

"Science teachers looking for fun videos to show how shockingly exciting science can be, look no further. Molly Michelson, who produces the Science in Action videos for the California Academy of Sciences, has seen a lot of videos explaining the science in everyday life. She's put together her top five favorite science videos."

"A challenge of raising a connected generation of students is figuring out how to be a connected learner yourself. This requires learning about the tools that support connections and connected learning, and to accomplish this goal you may want to consider Google Certification. Which one is the best option? Here are two great ways you can accomplish this task. First you need to know what the difference is between a Google Certified Teacher and a Google Certified Trainer? Since there are some Google Teacher Academies coming up soon, it is time to break down the difference from both a Google Certified Teacher and Trainer. I will start with a quick overview and then give you five reasons why you would want to become either a Google Certified Teacher or a Google Certified Trainer - or both!"

"The Franklin Academy High School implemented a 1:1 iPad deployment a the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year. Over the course of the next two school years, the pilot was expanded to include all grades 9-12 in the high school. This deployment has reached 475 high school students and all teaching staff. Our K-8 program deployed iPads across the grade levels in the form of class sets and mobile carts. This study targeted our 1:1 deployment at the high school to investigate the impact the device has had on teaching and learning. The survey used to gather the student data was administered in April of 2014. Students included in the survey used the device anywhere from 1 to 4 years. The students use the iPad while at school and home. Results of the survey hope to shed light on the impact the use of the iPad has had on academic gains as well as the development of the most important non-cognitive skills our program is founded upon."

"You keep hearing about this hour of code thing, but you're not a "hacker," and aren't real comfortable with teaching what you don't know. Especially when it relates to technology and its fundamental programming. You know this is some kind of "coding week." You've seen our tips for integrating coding into the classroom. Now what to do? Turn students loose with Scratch or Codea or Kahn Academy? Well, maybe. Self-Directed Learning is a core learning fluency in an age of access."

"Don't bring your iPad to bed with you if you value your sleep. Researchers at the National Academy of Science published a study on Monday that concludes the "short-wavelength light" (light that's closer to the blue end of the spectrum) messes up the circadian rhythms that govern sleep and suppresses the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. The result? People reported feeling less tired, and took longer to fall asleep. They were also more tired the next day."

"Teachers interested in trying the flipped classroom model often ask me for recommendations for video creation tools. They also often ask me for ideas on sharing videos without using YouTube. One answer to both of these questions is to use eduClipper. On the free eduClipper iPad app you can create instructional videos on a whiteboard in the Khan Academy style. You can also use the app to create a video in which you annotate an image or document while talking about it. After creating your video you can save it to an eduClipper board that you have shared with your students through the eduClipper classroom setting. Your students can view the videos on their iPads or in the web browsers on their laptops."

"I'm one of four teacher facilitators for our Junior Coding Club. We meet once a week during second nutrition break to code. The group's made up of many beginner coders, but also a couple of advanced coders. At lunch today, one of the advanced coders came rushing into the classroom, so excited to share his news. He decided to put a hold on Code Academy, and start using Scratch. During the week, he used the computer version of Scratch to create a flight simulator. This simulator was truly incredible! This Grade 4 student was so thrilled about what he did, that it was hard not to also feel thrilled. While it was wonderful to see this student so passionate about learning, it was also amazing to hear all of the thinking behind his choices. I was honestly in awe! He thought of everything. He even researched to find out the details about planes at take-off, and used this information in his simulator. He could explain all of his choices and the thinking behind these choices. In this short video clip below you can hear just a tiny snippet of this explanation."

"What do you think is causing pollution in the city?" "Factories." "Which factories are causing pollution?" "Coal Factories." "So to reduce pollution, what would you do?" "Close 'em down." "But then you have to think about, how are you going to get energy?" Seventh grade engineering teacher Petrut Ababei is helping his student Danny Jimenez think his way through an early attempt to figure out SimCityEDU, an educational video game designed by the non-profit GlassLab. Ababei is beta testing the game at Lazear Charter Academy in Oakland, California."

"The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reports that children spend an average of seven hours a day consuming various types of media. This data illustrates that society's voracious appetite for media makes media literacy more important than ever. How can you teach your students to interact responsibly with the media? The following resources can help you plan thought-provoking lessons on the subject."

"Libraries have existed since approximately 2600 BCE as an archive of recorded knowledge. From tablets and scrolls to bound books, they have cataloged resources and served as a locus of knowledge. Today, with the digitization of content and the ubiquity of the internet, information is no longer confined to printed materials accessible only in a single, physical location. Consider this: Project Gutenberg and its affiliates make over 100,000 public domain works available digitally, and Google has scanned over 30 million books through its library project. Libraries are reinventing themselves as content becomes more accessible online and their role becomes less about housing tomes and more about connecting learners and constructing knowledge. Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts has been in the vanguard of this transition since 2009, when it announced its plans for a "bookless" library. A database of millions of digital resources superseded their 20,000-volume collection of books, and a café replaced the circulation desk. With this transition, not only did the way in which students consumed content change, but also how they utilized the library space. Rather than maintain a quiet location for individual study, the school wanted to create an environment for "collaboration and knowledge co-construction.""

"Technology is critical for innovation, yet schools struggle to get students interested in this area. Could teaching robotics change this? The Queensland government has just announced plans to make teaching robotics compulsory in its new curriculum - aimed at students from prep through to year 10. Robotics matches the new digital technologies curriculum, strongly supported by the university sector and states, including Victoria. But while, worldwide, there are increasing initiatives such as the Robotics Academy in the US to teach robotics in schools, Australia isn't doing enough to get it taught in schools. To explain why we should teach children how to program robots in schools, we first need to understand what a robot is. "

"Forget the cat videos, YouTube has matured into one of the biggest resources for educational content ever. While it may not be as organized as Khan Academy, it's likely got what you need if you do a little digging. You can find videos that make the subject of your lesson more applicable to students' everyday lives. You can teach students video production and editing skills through projects and upload the videos to your classes YouTube channel. There's tons of reasons YouTube should be a part of most classrooms:"

"One thing it doesn't mean, or it really shouldn't mean, is that we replace any existing teachers with engineers or computer science specialists. "Learning how to code is certainly not an easy task, but it pales in comparison to learning how to teach," says Adam Enbar, cofounder of the Flatiron School, a coding academy in New York. Indeed, it doesn't matter how well you know your way around a line of code if you can't impart that information clearly to a pupil, a lesson Gina Sipley, a former English and social studies teacher, experienced firsthand when she herself was learning to code through a General Assembly course. "The teacher we had was a brilliant programmer, that was clear, but had never taught before," she explains. "So as the course went on, people sought out the teachers in the room and said, 'This doesn't make sense. How would you present the information?' I don't have a deep content knowledge at all, but I know how people learn best and how to structure lessons so people are going to get the most out of it." So, what's the smartest, most effective way to go about teaching our 3.1 million existing public school teachers to code, so they're prepared to teach our students?"

"As parents and teachers, we encourage our kids to become well rounded people who love learning.   In our world of cell phones, ipads, and computers, it's easy for kids to become passive consumers of media and technology.   We, however, want are kids to be active, curious, and creative.   Since I'm a musician and a software engineer, I hope that my kids learn to express themselves emotively and become creative thinkers.   We're trying to foster a family culture where we are active, encourage tinkering, and building physical things with our hands.    With these ideas in mind, I wanted to share a great video I found by Vinnie Vrotny and Sheryl Peterson entitled "STEAM: Creating A Maker Mindset."   In this conference talk from the K12 Online Conference in 2013, they share their experiences encouraging a "maker" mindset in the Quest Academy .   Their school has a very unique class teaching design thinking to kids.    It's giving me lots of ideas for building a maker environment for our family.    In this class, Sheryl encourages her students to invent a creative design problem and solve it.   With the tools and support of the teacher, the kids are encouraged to build their design.    In some cases, the kids ask Sheryl to assign a problem to them.    The kids aren't used to having creative freedom to design and make.    In these cases, Sheryl encourages the students to keep thinking."