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"It is the responsibility of all educators to model good digital citizenship for their students. Especially when it comes to copyright, plagiarism and intellectual property. The waters are murky. Not being familiar with online digital rights and responsibilities (hey, teachers did not grow up with the Internet being around), educators are wading through uncharted waters (hey, I did not know that I could not just google an image to use. If someone puts it up online it is free for the taking). That does not mean they can close their eyes and pretend life is the same or that the same rules apply to online versus offline use of copyrighted material with their students."

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"My objective with this wide-ranging set of skills, and involving the community so closely in their development, is to give kids the chance to practice whatever makes them passionate now and feel encouraged -- even if they're obsessed with making stuff exclusively with duct tape. It's crucial that kids learn how to be passionate for the rest of their lives. To start, they must first learn what it feels like to be simultaneously challenged and confident. It's my instinct that we should not try to introduce these experiences through skills we value as much as look for opportunities to develop them, as well as creativity and literacy, in the skills they already love. MAGICIANS CRAFT ILLUSIONS THAT BAFFLE THE SENSES AND CONFUSE OUR REASONING. THEY PLAN LIKE SCIENTISTS, BUT PERFORM AS ARTISTS. ONLY THROUGH LONG AND DISCIPLINED PREPARATION DO THEY SUCCEED. It's difficult to predict which skills will be valuable in the future, and even more challenging to see the connection between our children's interests and these skills. Nothing illustrates this better than Minecraft, a popular game that might be best described as virtual LEGOs. Calling it a game belies the transformation it has sparked: An entire generation is learning how to create 3D models using a computer. Now, I wonder, what sort of businesses, communication, entertainment or art will be possible? Cathy Davidson, a scholar of learning technology, concluded that 65% of children entering grade school this year will end up working in careers that haven't even been invented yet. I bet today's kids will eventually explore outcomes and create jobs only made possible by the influence of Minecraft in their lives. Why take any chances and build your dream house with blueprints alone? The Minecraft kid could easily make a realistic 3D model of one for you to walk through before you build. That's why DIY treats Minecraft as a tool, not a game, and encourages our members to use it to pursue art, architect

"ve been playing with ways to make a switch or button on my paper circuit artwork appear more integrated and purposeful. The robot I originally played with had a momentary button that I designed over the battery into the belly of the robot. See it here. The button also worked as the mechanism that closed the circuit. This time I bought a button online that was spliced into the circuit and not necessarily near the battery. This meant the connection to the battery was fixed and pushing the button (with a satisfying click noise) completed the circuit. I've been playing with ideas in preparation for the fall since I finally received the Donors Choose grant for supplies to try this with my students."

"Looking for some fun and engaging ways to have kindergarten kids participate in problem solving (and creating), I turned to my trusty friend, Lego. Like many division one teachers, I use Lego often because it has so many applications. But as the 2014-15 school year came to a close, I was looking for a challenge. So, what I did was created a maze with Lego that a marble would travel to and showed this to the kids. I then challenged the kids to make a maze that would fit the marble (there had to be three empty spaces for width at all times)."

"My objective with this wide-ranging set of skills, and involving the community so closely in their development, is to give kids the chance to practice whatever makes them passionate now and feel encouraged -- even if they're obsessed with making stuff exclusively with duct tape. It's crucial that kids learn how to be passionate for the rest of their lives. To start, they must first learn what it feels like to be simultaneously challenged and confident. It's my instinct that we should not try to introduce these experiences through skills we value as much as look for opportunities to develop them, as well as creativity and literacy, in the skills they already love."

"As my first batch of masters courses come to a close, I was asked to reflect back on my experiences with the Maker movement. At first, I found it to be a bit out of my realm of comfort. I'm not one to sit and tinker with machinery and play video games. As I delved deeper, I found that making is not only about video games and tinkering with things, it's about creating and inventing. Creation can look many different ways, too. It can be using everyday household items to make a new game to play. It can be using a familiar presentation tool to create a project on a topic you've been dying to learn more about. Creating is the basis for the Maker movement, and it needs to become commonplace in the classroom."

"Can the act of making or designing something help kids feel like they have agency over the objects and systems in their lives? That's the main question a group of researchers at Project Zero, a research group out of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, are tackling alongside classroom-based teachers in Oakland, California. In an evolving process, researchers are testing out activities they've designed to help students to look more closely, explain more deeply and take on opportunities to change things they see around them."

"I have been designing an Operation-type board game that uses the MaKey MaKey to interface with a computer running Scratch. I started with a simple prototype left over from my squishy circuit Operation game. I was curious whether the MaKey MaKey would read a closed circuit on this hardware. Good news: it works! Connect an alligator clip cable from the MaKey MaKey to the game board's foil "game port." Connect the MaKey MaKey board's Earth port to another alligator clip cable."

"It really all started with the 20+ iPads we loan out to educators. Those suckers are constantly in demand and constantly in need of charging. They're each firmly encased in Fintie Kiddie cases, which, laugh all you want, those things can stop a bullet. And they stand up. And they recline, have carrying handles and come in neon colors, perfect for locating 20+ loaned out units during the chaos of an event, but that's a whole other blog post. Anyway, we've been loaning these iPads out in tote bags, and just tossing the chargers in higgledy-piggledy. Mainly because if you have done any shopping around for charging carts you likely have needed to be resuscitated at least twice when looking at the prices. The cheapest we could find that works with our beloved Fintie cases started at $399.00, and there was no guarantee everything would fit. We've borrowed another department's iPad charging tray a couple times, but a) it cost them closer to $1,000.00, b) weighed close to 25 lbs and c) had no wheels, thus entailing that their tech guy** lug it four blocks each way. The thing about the Fintie cases is that part of their magic durability is that they surround the iPad in thick molded foam rubber - perfect for tossing in bags and bike panniers (guilty!) but problematic for trying to buy a pre-made charging cart, as the slots in those are generally cut for slimmer, uncased iPads. Plus can we get back to the whole cost thing? Are school districts really running around with so much cash? I know I'm not. And thus, with no more rambling, I present: How to Build Your Own iPad Charging Cart Out of Office Supplies"

"Putting kids to work on meaningful projects can transform classrooms into beehives of inquiry and discovery, but relatively few rigorous studies have examined how well this teaching method actually works. An encouraging new report describes preliminary, first-year outcomes from a study of 3,000 middle school students that shows kids can, in fact, learn more in science classrooms that adopt a well-designed, project-focused curriculum. "

In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.

Read an image closely. Think critically about turn of the century America.

Taking Center Stage-Act II (TCSII): Ensuring Success and Closing the Achievement Gap for All of California's Middle Grades Students promotes, illustrates, and supports the concepts embedded in the California Department of Education's (CDE) 12 Recommendations for Middle Grades Success. Created specifically for middle grades educators, the Web portal delivers developmentally responsive and research-based practices through videos, professional learning activities, and best practice vignettes focused on the young adolescent.

Dr. Alec Couros delivered the closing keynote presentation at the 2009 Summer Faculty Institute program at the University of Delaware. His talk, titled "Harnessing the Power of Social Networks in Teaching & Learning" addresses the underlying questions about social networking and education.

Rotate and examine the Blue Morpho up close. Morpho butterflies are among the most stunning butterflies with bright iridescent blue wings. The underside of the wings, however, is dark brown, which provides the butterfly camouflage when at rest and eating. A row of eyespots on the underside also are designed to fool predators. The blue color derives from iridescence rather than from a pigmentation, and it is the reflection and refraction of light through prismic scales that gives the morpho its incredible color.

Great image captured in a classroom. Not the closed laptop on the student's desk and the cellphone hidden and in use.