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"The maker zeitgeist has evolved far beyond the day when an educator might set objects-say, a box of robotic LEGOs-in a library corner and call it a "maker lab." Educators are now focusing on how the maker movement can be truly meaningful: it's not about where making is happening, but about how creating, experimenting, and collaborating impact education. In addition, some high schoolers tinkering their free periods away can discover a passion-sometimes leading to a future educational focus or even scholarship money. "The maker movement…encourages a growth mind-set, which tolerates risk and failure and maybe even encourages it," says Laura Fleming, library media specialist with the New Milford (NJ) High School. "It has been the great equalizer within, and in some ways against, our modern education system by allowing opportunities for creativity and innovation to take place through informal learning.""

"arlier, I wrote about four activities teachers and school leaders can use to jump-start creative problem-solving in teams. Given the increased pressure on educators to innovate, the goals for each activity were to build or deepen skills associated with that work. Readers expressed particular interest in one of these activities, so I wanted to do a deep dive and provide additional information. This activity grew out of my work with teachers and school leaders to identify effective solutions to school problems. Over time, I became curious about how schools might make pain points visible, in order to tap into educators' collective wisdom to solve them. I wondered, too, if we could structure this problem-solving in such a way that everyone's voice would be heard. Finally, I wondered if there might be a way to make it a fun and creative game. That's where a set of index cards comes in."

"It's no secret. We're not all brought up to be dual-lingual in England. Learning a language is not as integral to us as it may be in many other countries. Of course, English is an additional language for some and many schools do incredible work to help EAL pupils. However, grasping another language is simply not a necessity for many children. With that over riding fact ringing in their ears, some pupils do not place importance on indulging this area of the curriculum. This is coupled with the fact that most teachers have limited linguistic skills. The lack of enthusiasm from the children, mixed with a teacher's own knowledge gaps can make MFL become MF-hell to teach."

"Imagine being able to connect with one hundred million people anytime you want. With that many people on Twitter each day (and that's not counting the additional 184 million users who are on Twitter at least once each month), a great deal of knowledge, perspective, and news is accessible to you, just by clicking a few buttons. It's no wonder educators are harnessing the power of Twitter to bring cutting edge ideas, trends, research, and best practices to use in their schools and classrooms. But just as Twitter can be a treasure trove of information, it can be overwhelming for new users to figure out how to use it effectively. We've compiled this list of the best ways to make Twitter a social media tool that works for you."

"Fresh wallpaper is always a welcome addition to Mac desktops and iOS device backgrounds, and photographer Radoslav Holan, who provided us with some amazing bokeh wallpapers before, has offered us a new fantastic collection wallpapers to share. These twelve beautiful high resolution images are of green grassy fields, grass blades, some with flowers, some with dew, and all equally gorgeous, making them perfect for any device screen."

"This study guide outlines questions and discussion topics, along with additional readings and videos for a book club or study group about Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. This study guide was conceived as a 6 week online course, but it would be easy to modify for a different time frame or face-to-face group. "

"Video games get a bad rap. They are often portrayed as violent, addictive, and a mindless waste of hours that encourage laziness and make us fat. But that's not the full story. Most virtual games can be designed to have educational and physical benefits for players. Games that use repetitive actions, such as the swinging of a bat or targeting a moving object, train the brain and muscles to perform better in real-life activities. Video game brain training has the same effect as reading a book or riding a bike - when the brain is learning, thousands of new connections are being formed. The addition of a reward system motivates players to continuously improve their skills."

"Mathspace is another great math resource we want to draw your attention to in this post. This award-winning platform combines three useful functionalities: an online maths textbook, workbook and mark book. Students can use Mathspace to get help with their math problems. It allows them to work on online math exercises and get instant feedback at each step in the process. Mathspace also provides 'a bank of over 15,000 interactive questions covering everything from addition to algebra, geometry to graphing, probability to statistics.'"

""Spaces and Places" encompasses tours and descriptions of makerspaces, schools, libraries, and museums through video, images, and multimedia content. These examples may inspire anyone looking to jumpstart or organize his/her own makerspace. In addition, "Spaces and Places" links to articles and guides with concrete tips for those who are planning or improving a youth makerspace. Maker Ed has also created several of its own resources around youth makerspaces, including but not limited to Youth Makerspace Playbook and Makerspaces: Highlights of Select Literature, all accessible at MakerEd.org/makerspaces and included among the resources below."

"How many schools and how many classrooms allow student choice? And, in adult-centered spaces, how often do young people have the opportunity to make important decisions? Our mainstream educational machine is fueled by the idea that adults know best-that adults must impart their knowledge to prepare students for a demanding world. Our responsibility as teachers is to teach students for their own good…a "good" that more and more of us are having difficulty understanding. We teach students addition and multiplication facts because some day they will need to calculate very quickly…a tip at a restaurant or a bill at the grocery store in case their smartphone runs out of batteries. We teach them to write a five paragraph essay on the theme of a book because they will need those writing skills when…writing an argument to dispute a lawsuit. We teach them how to conjugate "to be" in Spanish because it might save their life…at a fruit stand in South America. While we are preparing them for possible situations, should these situations define the entirety of the direction of their education? I propose that we introduce some choice and some unknown into the situation of school. What if we allow students to make choices about what they learn, how they learn, and when they learn? In a way, 1:1 iPad programs are sparking choice whether we're OK with it or not."

"Math Slicer is an iPad app that presents a fun alternative to using flashcards to practice basic mathematics skills. In Math Slicer students are shown addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems that they have to answer by "slicing" the correct answer in half. The answer choices jump up on the screen and students have to slice them before they disappear."

"With the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), students from anywhere with an Internet connection, can access free courses facilitated by some of the top educators and experts in every subject area. From mathematics, to computer science, to philosophy, to business design, MOOCs give learners unprecedented access to some of the most valuable knowledge, from some of the most prestigious universities, for free. Though most of the courses do not offer actual credit towards a degree, some MOOCs are beginning to offer certificates, additional credit options, and other enhanced learning services for nominal fees. Students have also been able to submit course work done through MOOCs to their own universities and be granted credit or research units. Additionally, students may use completed courses as a way to build their qualifications by highlighting their work on resumes, cover letters, and social media."

"Our weekly picks for Best iPad App of the Week are published here every Saturday. Check out all out picks below and you'll soon have a collection of stellar apps for your favorite tablet. This week's pick is Flickr.  A classic iPad app that recently went through a major update.  With Flickr you can upload, access, organize, edit, and share your photos from any device, from anywhere in the world.  Flickr has always had a special place in my heart as I initially used it to share all of our baby photos with family members when our first son was born over 12 years ago.  Since then, there have been so many other resources available to store your photos, especially in the cloud, that I haven't used it in years-that was until the recent version 4.0 update caught my eye.   The newest update brings with it a welcomed addition of features to an already powerful app."

"As I look back, it has been a crazy and wonderful learning experience in CEP 811 over the last few weeks. With a focus on the Maker Movement and maker education, I have read articles, blog posts, sections from books, and even watched videos to learn more about the Maker Movement. I even had a chance to try my hand at making by creating a Lego robot using the NXT program and then turning my project into a great lesson about slope I can use with my math students. In addition, I considered what inspires a maker and how I might be able to turn my own classroom into an inspirational and supportive makerspace. This week, I organized all of the ideas I have gathered about the maker movement and maker education into a helpful infographic using easel.ly that addresses two important questions: What is the Make Movement? Why should math teachers start incorporating it into their classrooms? "

"As a female middle school STEM teacher, leveling the playing field among my boys and my girls in both their love of science and their beliefs about their potential success as scientists has always been one of my highest priorities and one of my biggest anxiety-inducers. Now, while developing a school-wide makerspace for every preschool-through-8th-grade child in my school, I feel a great responsibility to create both a physical space and a program that is welcoming and encouraging for all students. Coming from my roots in molecular biology research and learning sciences research, I of course turned to the scientific literature as I crafted my plan (in addition to my extensive visits to existing makerspaces). Following are some of my plans followed by the research supporting each plan."

"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:"

"s a professional artist, deepening the ways in which seemingly disparate objects and processes are interconnected through locating, and mapping their intersections has been one of the main elements of my studio practice. The Fab Lab tools and working processes create an environment that is well suited to investigating those types of intersections. In an effort to integrate Fab Lab tools centered on craft, and studio-based processes into the classroom, I have been working to implement a Mobile MakerCart at a project-based K-8 charter school. In addition to introducing craft-based physical computing projects to the children, a guiding principle behind the MakerCart is to give teachers the opportunity to develop familiarity with the MakerCart's tools and processes in order to be able to envision the ways in which they might be able to develop their own curriculum for use in the classroom."

"Google Forms is a powerful tool with huge educational potential for teachers and educators. Besides being free and easy to use, Forms works across different devices and is seamlessly integrated with other Drive services such as Docs and Spreadsheets. As a teacher, you can use Forms for a variety of purposes including: planning an event, making surveys and polls, creating quizzes, collecting feedback and other information from students and many more. We have already posted a step by step guide on how to create a form from scratch but since then Google Forms has witnessed some major updates with the addition of some amazing features most important of which is the last update a few days ago. Therefore, we deemed it important to revisit this guide and update you on the different features you can use to create a form in the Google Forms."

"Just in time for the school year, Google's added new features to Docs, Sheets and Slides, its online productivity tools. But you don't have to be a student to use these cool new features, since they're available to anyone with a Google account. Here are our favorite additions."