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"The summer break is winding up and many teachers are getting ready to head back to work for another school year (and many IT staffers in those schools are trying to make sure everything's ready when those teachers return)"

"When I first started my makerspace at Stewart Middle Magnet School back in January of 2014, I was figuring everything out as I went along.  The term was still brand new, I couldn't find any maker sessions at conferences, and there were only a handful of other school libraries sharing about their makerspaces.  Armed with a couple of books on the growing Maker Education Movement and a dream to create an engaging environment in my library,  I gathered some supplies, put them out there, and waited to see what would happen.  My ideas and philosophy were constantly growing and evolving as we tried new activities and formats at my school.  Some experiments worked; some failed miserably.  But I learned from each and every one as our makerspace grew into an integral part of our library culture.  Looking back on the last year and a half, I've realized that there's several essential lessons I've learned in getting our makerspace going. Hopefully they can help save you some stress (and reassure you that everything will be awesome)."

"For some students the summer holidays are almost over and if you are looking for some great apps to ease up your way back to school here are some great science apps! Apps for Science can help students learn in a different way. The iOS technology is bringing new tools for students that can really help and support learning. Thanks to a group of students from Best College online, Fun Educational apps is happy to share their findings on some of "40 Most Awesome iPad Apps for Science Students.""

"I am a procrastinator-to say the least-so as school was quickly approaching, I began to scramble to put together our first few days. I combed Pinterest, retweeted ideas, organized my Pocket with a BTS category. But still nothing stuck out for me. Thankfully, in mid-July I was part of a grant process that included two days of design thinking. My friends and I loved the process so much, that we thought "Why don't we start the school year with design thinking?" So we did. And it was the best first days I have had in twelve years.  I'm not even exaggerating."

"While the Maker Movement continues to grow, it hasn't yet gained its greatest traction, which currently sits untapped in the minds of the students in front of us. Through forming partnerships with community makerspaces or building a school makerspace, educators and decision makers everywhere have the rare chance to help bring this truly all-inclusive learning experience into their schools, districts, and communities in order to help all students. Here are four ways that the "new industrial revolution" will help your students succeed and help breathe life back into your craft."

"The new school term is well under way and the early efficiencies are slipping and bad habits are slipping in. Homework is already being completed late and stuffed into heavy schoolbags before the kids stagger off again. In my own case, I seem to spend way too much time each day trying to persuade my son to take a day's worth of kit to school, rather than a week's. The problem is that the sanctions that come with forgetting sports kit or books is worse, in a child's mind, than the possibility, long hence, of back pain. But there's things that parents and teachers could do, which help take those damaging decisions out of the childrens' hands:"

"Traditionally as students come back to school, it is important to establish a positive classroom culture. Today, more and more districts are following the lead of places like New York City where schools are empowered to support students in the responsible use of cell phones and social media. That means that not only must we support the establishment of a positive classroom and school culture, but we must also ensure our students are engaging positively and responsibly as digital citizens.  While students are all familiar with the "social" aspect of social media, teachers have an important new role. That is to help students consider the "power" of social media for academic and career success. If our students want to run for office, run a business, or change the way things are run where you live, work, or play they must be savvy in the use of social media. "

"At back-to-school night parents usually end up with collection of papers that they may or may not be saved for reference throughout the school year. Use QR codes to put the odds in your favor of the information in those papers being saved. I figure that if parents and or students scan and save information on their mobile devices, they are far more likely to retain it that way than if I gave them pieces of paper. So create QR codes and paste them on the door to your classroom or on a bulletin board in your room"

"The week after my dad passed, I decided to come back. Bereavement time was up and I felt that getting back into my classroom would help. I was wrong. By the third day I was still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I ended taking the last two days of the week off. I came back, what I felt as "refreshed", the following Monday. Only still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. As soon as I walked into the school I immediately met with the principal and told him that I couldn't continue. I needed more time away to deal with my emotions and to understand the scope of what took place. I could hear words of my dad echoing in my ear - "take care of yourself… if you don't, you'll end up sick." While my dad's health wasn't that great, and he knew it; he always made sure that everyone else took better care of themselves. Exactly like me. I make sure that others are always put before me. I could not longer do that. I needed to take care of myself before I ended up lying on the floor unable to move, like Izzy in Grey's Anatomy. Those four extra days was what I needed. I processed his death, I cried, I slept (for nearly two whole days), and I remembered the good times. I sat on the couch catching up on missed shows, Netflix, and Days of our Lives. We stress the importance of good mental health to our students, but I wasn't heeding my own words. I knew that being in the classroom too soon after his death wasn't making me a good teacher for my students."

"Forget Sharpies and highlighters, the new back to school essentials this fall are apps for your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. While cellphones used to be classroom contraband, the burgeoning market of educational apps means iOS devices are as welcome as loose leaf and pencils. This school year, free iOS apps can replace your pricey graphing calculator and clunky dictionary. Inexpensive planners will organize your homework, grades and finances. "

"Maker education (often referred to as "Maker Ed") is a new school of educational thought that focuses on delivering constructivist, project-based learning curriculum and instructional units to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as full high school workshops with high-tech tools, or as small and low-tech as one corner of an elementary classroom. A makerspace isn't just about the tools and equipment, but the sort of learning experience the space provides to students who are making projects. Maker Ed places a premium on the balance between exploration and execution. Small projects lend themselves to indefinite tinkering and fiddling, while larger projects need complex, coordinated planning. Often, small projects can organically grow into larger and larger projects. This deliberate process strengthens and enriches a learner's executive functioning skills. Additionally, communication and collaboration are two of Maker Ed's fundamental values. Making allows learners to practice their social communication skills in a variety of groupings, whether affinity-based, role-specific or teacher-assigned. It's important for all different groups to be present in student learning spaces so that all students can practice their social skills in multiple settings. Lastly, Making presents unique opportunities to generate flow learning and allow the teacher to leverage high-interest projects and activities and turn them into learning objectives within a curriculum. Maker education provides space for real-life collaboration, integration across multiple disciplines, and iteration-the opportunity to fail, rework a project and find success. The benefits of a cooperative learning environment are well documented in a makerspace. If you are wondering how to connect these projects back to the Common Core Standards, check out PBL Through a Maker's Lens and Woodshop Cowboy."

"For many years New Milford High School was just like virtually every other public school in this country defined solely by traditional indicators of success such as standardized test scores, graduation rates, and acceptances to four year colleges. These indicators have become so embedded in the minds of those judging our schools and work that we, like everyone else, worked hard to focus only on initiatives that would hopefully produce favorable outcomes in those areas. If we were doing well we continued down the same path allowing the status quo to reign supreme. The mentality of if it ins't broke than why fix it resonated so profoundly with us that we would not have even considered changing our ways. If results were not what our stakeholders wanted this would then trigger meetings leading to the development of action plans to get us back on course. "

"Since I wrote the controversial post, "5 Reasons Why BYOD is a Bad Idea" over the summer, and received such strong push back the concerns I noted, I've been looking forward to learning about sharing ways in which schools have addressed some of these potential issues. This week, guest writer Caroline Ross introduces us to several schools that have tackled these challenges."

"As with many schools in the United States, the shop program at Analy High School in Sebastopol, California, had become largely irrelevant. The main shop room had become little more than a glorified storage room. The school's priorities were firmly focused on college readiness and success at standardized tests, and vocational programs had taken a backseat. Sebastopol is also the home of Make magazine, one of the leading voices of the maker movement, a community of inventors and do-it-yourselfers that has blossomed on YouTube and shows up in the tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands at Maker Faires all over the world. Make proposed that a group of students from Analy come to their offices to explore the possibilities involved in creating things with 3-D printers, computer-aided design, and more. The program was so popular that soon Make could no longer accommodate it in their offices, so they agreed to donate equipment to Analy if the school would ramp up their vocational program."

"It's no secret that Apple products go hand-in-hand with education. In fact, for many Generation Xers, an Apple was the first computer ever seen in their classroom (shout out to the IIe!). With regular discounts for teachers and students, Apple products are the perfect back to school gift. And once you get back to school, time to hit the books and keep up that GPA. And here's some apps to help you do just that."

"Jacqueline Prester was a self-proclaimed hustler in middle school. Mowing lawns, babysitting-she took the initiative to earn her own money. But she was also a responsible moneymaker, using the envelope system to budget every cent before she knew it was an actual budgeting strategy. Back then, her friends rolled their eyes when she tried to share her financial savvy. Fast forward two decades and Prester is a popular business and technology teacher at Mansfield High School in Massachusetts, working to give students real-life financial skills. Only this time her audience is keen to learn. (Her Personal Finance classes always reach their 28 student capacity.) Students are learning about personal finance, but not just because that's the name of the class. They're making it personal. Prester's passion is infectious, and the content she chooses-like Pathway To Financial Success created by Discovery Education and Discover-immerses students in authentic lessons with videos, interactive modules and real-world connections. Pathway To Financial Success Video: Being Financially Responsible EdSurge caught up with Prester to find out how she packs her classes with willing learners and to uncover her secret to finding compelling financial literacy content. She also shared how and why she helped pass a new Massachusetts bill focused on financial literacy."

"That's the question that was posed to me this week by the faculty at a wonderful school on Manhattan's upper east side in preparation for some upcoming PD work. I think it's an outstanding question that's worth reflecting on in-depth as we all start to think about what our goals and direction are for the next school year. What does 21st century learning look like? is an essential question and overarching topic that I hope to come back to again and again as I think about what works in real classrooms. "

"Excerpted from Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies For Joyful Classrooms (c) 2017 by Timothy D. Walker. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton.  Schedule brain breaks Like a zombie, Sami*-one of my fifth graders-lumbered over to me and hissed, "I think I'm going to explode! I'm not used to this schedule." And I believed him. An angry red rash was starting to form on his forehead. Yikes, I thought, what a way to begin my first year of teaching in Finland. It was only the third day of school, and I was already pushing a student to the breaking point. When I took him aside, I quickly discovered why he was so upset. Throughout this first week of school, I had gotten creative with my fifth grade timetable. If you recall, students in Finland normally take a fifteen-minute break for every forty-five minutes of instruction. During a typical break, the children head outside to play and socialize with friends. I didn't see the point of these frequent pit stops. As a teacher in the United States, I'd usually spent consecutive hours with my students in the classroom. And I was trying to replicate this model in Finland. The Finnish way seemed soft, and I was convinced that kids learned better with longer stretches of instructional time. So I decided to hold my students back from their regularly scheduled break and teach two forty-five-minute lessons in a row, followed by a double break of thirty minutes. Now I knew why the red dots had appeared on Sami's forehead."

"Even after teaching for a decade, Pamela Baack found herself battling the calendar as she tried to keep her students on track. She's the first to admit it wasn't easy to change the way she had been teaching for a decade. "We were always on someone else's pace, not our kids' pace," says Baack, who teaches at the Bella Romero Academy of Applied Technology, a K-8 public school in Greeley, Colorado. Most lessons were taught to the entire class, requiring Baack to constantly search for opportunities to help the students who struggled. "It was hard to differentiate, because it was hard to find the time to go back," she says. Today, students in Baack's third-grade classroom work through addition, multiplication, and division activities at their own pace. Some progress through lessons quickly, while others get the opportunities they need to relearn and practice key concepts until they are ready to move forward. Importantly, Baack says, even the students who struggle the most are at grade level. "They're still doing what every else is doing, but at a different pace," she says. "They're exposed to grade-level standards and content and will be able to move up." "

"It's that time of year when both teachers and students are looking forward to time away from the classroom. The sun is out, and the days are long. We enjoy our quiet time, but at the same time, we know that soon we will be thinking about the ringing of bells throughout crowded hallways. I once heard a principal explain the summertime like this: Teachers think of July as one big Saturday. They wake up with an excited energy and spend each day enjoying every possible moment. However, teachers think of August like a Sunday. They start to become more focused on the upcoming year. They work on lesson plans, purchase school supplies, and look to see what is new in the world of education to make sure they are prepared for their incoming students. If this describes your typical summer routine, I would like to share some tips and tricks to stay updated throughout the summer and make your back-to-school prep as smooth as possible."