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"The Maker Movement is one of creativity and invention. Of Do-It-Yourself ingenuity. Of making things with your own hands. Building something from scratch can shift a lesson from a lecture into an experience. Students can play, diverge, tinker, make mistakes, help each other, and express themselves with the appropriate guidance of a teacher/facilitator. The end result can be anywhere from an honest try to a creative wonder. Whatever the case, consider adding the following tools to your experiential learning toolkit. Curated by elementary school technology coach Elizabeth Espinoza, this comprehensive collection contains web, desktop, and mobile apps that can help your students become makers and inventors."

"Audioboo is a free tool for creating audio messages to share on the web. Using Audioboo you can record messages on your mobile device using Audioboo's free Android or iPhone apps. You can also record messages directly on the Audioboo website. Messages that you create can be shared by embedding your recording into a blog or website. You can also share messages by posting them to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr."

"For the last couple of years Vimeo has offered free music to download and re-use in your video projects. Now YouTube is offering the same thing through the YouTube Audio Library. This library is slightly different than the free music available when you use the YouTube slideshow creation tool. The music in the YouTube Audio Library is music that you can download to use in projects online and offline. You can search the library of music according to genre, mood, instrument, or duration. You can listen to the tracks before downloading them as MP3 files."

"Pearltrees is a service that combines social bookmarking with mind-mapping. Using Pearltrees you can bookmark websites and arrange your bookmarks into webs or mindmaps of related topics. Recently, Pearltrees added the option for users to upload files use in their mindmaps. Users can arrange and share their files just like they can with any other Pearltrees mindmap. Pearltrees can be used in your web browser or through the free Pearltrees iOS and Android apps."

"In New Haven, Connecticut, where I live with my husband and two sons, we are lucky to have nearby the Eli Whitney Museum. This place is the opposite of a please don't touch repository of fine art. It's an "experimental learning workshop" where kids engage in an essential but increasingly rare activity: they make stuff. Right now, looking around my living room, I can see lots of the stuff made there by my older son: a model ship that can move around in water with the aid of a battery-powered motor he put together; a "camera obscura" that can project a real-world scene onto a wall in a darkened room; a wooden pinball game he designed himself. (You can view an archive of Eli Whitney Museum projects here.)"

"School is a time in a students life where they are learning as much about how to be students and operate successfully in a school as they are about how to read, write, and think. But oftentimes, the demand for pure academic instruction and practice can fly in the face for a student's need-at any age-to play, build, interact, explore, and construct their own learning experience. Issues like these can make mobile technology like tablets a boon to learning, as they can allow individual access to the right app-and the right content, creative opportunity, game, or learning simulation-at the right time. It is the collision of the need for interaction, personalization, creativity, and constant feedback that can make video games powerful tools for learning-and the following 38 games, curated by Sam Gliksman-and excellent place to start. "

"Nowadays, kids want to use smartphones. Of course, most parents aren't willing to actually buy their kids a device, but plenty have no problem letting them play with one. Of course, when a child uses a cell phone they can potentially be exposed to all kinds of dangerous things that aren't meant for young eyes. But the risks aren't just for the children, but they can affect you, the parents, too. Kids could make unwanted in-app purchases, make calls to people you don't want to talk to, they could even share photos you don't want the world to see, and they can do plenty of other bad things. So what can you do? Check out the infographic below for the answers."

"In the U.S., and increasingly abroad, students of high school and college age require a smart phone as a standard part of their lifestyles. In fact, the pervasiveness of these devices can be a real distraction for teachers, who often have to ban the use of them in classrooms. Of course, it is also possible to embrace these ubiquitous gadgets, and put students to work on them! There are many types of assignments and tools that can be used to engage students using their beloved devices. Here we examine many tools and techniques that can engage students using smartphones. Many of these can also be completed on a tablet or computer as well, to help provide for students who do not have the luxury of a personal cell phone."

"Learning is about reaching your full potential and can help you achieve self-actualization, the highest need identified by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. However, traditional education generally has a beginning and an end which culminates in taking tests. Lifelong learning preserves an individual's desire to obtain new knowledge outside of the formal education system. Developing an attitude where you constantly learn is the only way to succeed in the dynamic environment which we live in today. There is so much technology at your fingertips which you can take advantage of to help you learn throughout your life. This means you can follow your passion for languages, improve your craft skills and even develop a mobile app using resources you can find online."

"Curation, as many of you know, is near and dear to my heart. (Heck I even wrote a book on the subject!) And especially now, for teachers, its becoming increasingly important as more and more digital devices begin to enter the classroom. Finding the right apps, videos or other digital resources can be tough. And keeping it all organized can be even tougher. I was excited to learn about appoLearning. This is a great resource where educators can find and share all the digital resources they are curating. All of the resources found there are vetted by other educators so you can trust that what you are search for will be the best of the best. Recently they unveiled Collections. And this is something I am really excited about."

"With iOS 9, Apple has introduced a new feature called Multitasking that takes the iPad to the next level. By running two apps side by side, you can be more productive (or have more fun) than ever before. While this feature is only fully compatible with the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4 and iPad Pro (and in limited ways on some older iPads), it's an incredibly powerful feature that might be worth the upgrade. (Note that Multitasking does not work on any model of iPhone.) Multitasking comes in three forms: you can have two apps running fully side by side in Split View mode; you can peek at an app and use it in limited ways with Slide Over; and you can run a video in a window all its own in a mode called Picture in Picture."

"Instructional rigor is a concept we can agree is important, despite the debate about the use of the word itself. Rigor is "creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels; each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels; and each student demonstrates learning at high levels (Blackburn, 2008)." But how does technology relate to rigor? As with any instructional tool, educational technology is critical to increasing rigor in the classroom.  There are five ways technology can be used to increase rigor."

"You know, my brand is sometimes a lot to live up to. I'm not always daring. I won't buy a 3D printer until I know I can get projects kiddos create cranked out in a timely fashion or that we can reliably afford the materials and upkeep supplies. You don't ALWAYS have to be daring in BIG ways, but you can dare everyday something. Dare to keep smiling to that kid who never smiles back. It's easy to smile to the kiddos you adore & have a connection with. But try to smile consistently, to that kiddos who is all prickles and burs. You will be surprised at the results. It took me 8 months once to get a reluctant grin back. When thinking about the next school year -I'd like to suggest we keep in mind that we should be ready to try new things without letting fear stop us. To go beyond our comfort zone. Even if you choose only one thing that makes you squirmy inside, that's good for your practice and our profession. This way, we can truly say to our kiddos that we are pushing ourselves to fail/win and try again just like we ask them to do every day!"

"Getting students started creating videos can seem like a daunting task. There isn't enough time in the day to get your regular subjects done, how are you supposed to give students time to create videos? I am here to tell you it can be done. I hope that this post/presentation will provide what you need to get started.  Students can create videos on a variety within the context of what they are learning right now. Video story problem for math, a how to science experiment, or a book trailer that covers important story traits are all good ideas. Here is a list of apps, PDF Templates, and equipment that can be helpful when creating movies. "

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

SnagFilms.com is a website where you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we're also a platform that lets you "snag" a film and put it anywhere on the web. With a library of 250 films, and rapidly growing, you're bound to find films that resonate with your interests. We make it easy for you to find a film that shines a light on a cause you care about. You can then open a virtual movie theater on any web site, so any one can watch your favorite SnagFilms for free. SnagFilms can be summed up in four words: Find. Watch. Snag. Support.

"Growing up in the 80's meant reading loads of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. They were fun, and a little scary, and you died pretty much every time, but they got lots of kids into books. Recently I decided to bring this idea off the page and into the 21st century by using Google Slides to create an online, interactive story. Often we think of Google Slides in terms of linear presentations, with one slide after another in order. However, Google Slides allows you to add hyperlinks to your presentation which can link to other slides within the presentation when clicked. This allows you to create a nonlinear slideshow, where the user can branch off to multiple different slides from any one slide. Linking to other slides can be used to create quizzes where each answer choice leads to a different slide to let you know if you got the correct answer. It can also be used to build an interactive "Choose Your Own Adventure" story where each slide offers choices that lead to different parts of the story. And so was born "Dragon Quest"!"

"Programming may be one of the newest skills we are bringing into modern classrooms, but it can be a difficult topic to introduce. Lines of complex code can not only be quite intimidating but it can also be devastatingly boring for students new to the subject. This is where the POP app can be an excellent introductory tool to turn your students ideas and enthusiasm into interactive app prototypes. Using a tablet or phone's inbuilt camera, POP allows students to photograph their sketches and begin designing their app before any coding is needed at all."

"Carol Dweck's famous book, "Mindset", was one that was (is) hugely popular with educators, not only in helping shape their work and thoughts on students, but also pushing learning in educator with their peers.  There were two simple concepts shared that resonated with many readers; the "fixed" mindset and the "growth" mindset. Here is how the two differ according to Dweck: "In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it." The great thing about Dweck's work is that she found that you can move from one to the other.  You may have a fixed mindset, but it is not necessarily a permanent thing.  The other aspect is that you do not necessarily have a "fixed" or "growth" mindset and fall into one of those two categories in all elements.  I have a growth mindset on (most things) education, but have a fixed mindset on fixing things around my house. So what I have been thinking about lately is the notion of the "innovator's mindset".  This would actually go one step past the notion of a growth mindset and is looking at what you are creating with your learning.  SImply it would go look this:"