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"On the second floor of Morgan State University's engineering building, Jacob Walker, 12, is putting the finishing touches on a ruler he's just created. Not yet an actual ruler. One he's designing on the computer. He just needs to add his initials - then it's time to produce it on a 3-D printer. Jacob starts seventh grade in the fall and has big dreams. Building this ruler is all part of the plan. "When I was a child," he says, "I loved to play with Legos, and it inspired me to be an engineer when I get older." Jacob is one of some 50 boys in this free, four-week camp at Morgan State. It's called the Minority Male Makers Program - paid for by Verizon."

""Sorry, that's a great idea, but we can't build it here." That's my nightmare. A student in the STEAM Room, our student Makerspace, approaching me with a brilliant project concept requiring some reasonable tool we didn't even consider. Of course, there are worse nightmares involving our reciprocating saw or our drill press, but those scenarios are easier to plan around. How do you come up with an all-encompassing list of tools and materials that will facilitate every student's wildest dreams, while staying within budget and within space constraints? How can you avoid stifling creativity when you haven't even polled your students for their interest areas? How do you know when your Makerspace is complete?"

"Inspired by the short film, 'Caine's Arcade,' the Global Cardboard Challenge is an annual event presented by the Imagination Foundation that celebrates child creativity and the role communities can play in fostering it. This September, kids of all ages are invited to build anything they can dream up using cardboard, recycled materials and imagination. Then on Saturday, October 10th, 2015, a day that commemorates the flash mob that made Caine's day in the short film, communities come together and play!"

"Inspired by the short film, 'Caine's Arcade', the Global Cardboard Challenge is an annual event presented by the Imagination Foundation that celebrates child creativity and the role communities can play in fostering it. This September, kids of all ages are invited to build anything they can dream up using cardboard, recycled materials and imagination. Then on Saturday, October 10th, 2015, communities will come together to play!"

"This post is about a topic and app close to my heart. Computer programming is the engine of modern life and dream maker for tens of thousands. More and more countries are introducing the subject as compulsory schooling at surprisingly young ages. The UK is introducing a national school programme in september this year whilst also funding yearofcode.org to increase momentum. Code.org is pushing an international message with big-name endorsement. Even small countries like Estonia have their 5-year-olds taking their first steps into logical problem solving. A site I've used for years is codecademy.com"

"Marlon Frausto is in pursuit of the new American dream. Just a few weeks ago he left his job, in Hispanic marketing for the legal industry, and moved to San Francisco. Every day he wakes at 5:30 a.m., commutes 45 minutes by train, and studies until 9 or 10 at night. He's spending down his savings and says he's getting help from "my loving family." At age 26, Frausto has gone back to school. Sort of. He's enrolled in a brand-new kind of trade school: the immersive web-development program, also known as a "coder boot camp." These programs promise, for several thousand dollars, to take people like Frausto and, in a manner of weeks, turn them into job-ready web developers."

"I have always believed that teachers (and people in general) MUST have an open midset; one that tolerates and celebrates mistakes and errors; one that looks at failure as an opportunity for a better beginning. It is through falling down that we stand up robust and it is through misfortunes that we gather our strength to live the life we want and pursue our dreams. If we want to raise up socially and  emotionally strong students who can face up and overcome  the hardships of life, an important key in this is to teach (and model) them about failure. We need to show them that failure is a healthy sign and a good omen for a healthy life experience. They need to view failure as an attempt for deep reflection and meditation about what work or did not work. They also need to be reminded that failure has been a common denominator behind most of the historical achievements and invention in the history of humankind."

"Schools are busy places filled with competing agendas. At Printrbot Learn, we believe that learning should be hands on. We believe that kids need opportunities to become builders, designers and inventors and that classrooms and schools should be spaces where all learners can pursue their passions. Teachers and students need all kinds of tools to do this. They need paints and clay. They need microscopes and sand tables. They need electronics, robotics and 3D printers. Each of these tools give us opportunities to dream, to imagine, to investigate and to design. We need to build learning spaces which are worthy of the passion and potential of our kids. While skills and tests are part of the reality of education, we want to do all that we can to ensure that kids, their curiosity and passions stay at the forefront of what we do. This is where making needs to be an important part of classroom life."

"After teaching grades 7 and 8 for seven years, it was a challenge for me to go down to Kindergarten. The first few months, the way was treacherous. Now looking back, after eight months or so, I can say overall it has been a delight, and I know it was a gift I didn't even know I needed. I find I can practice what I learned in my Master's program; that is, teaching young children literacy. Most importantly, though, the children are "wonderful, marvelous, beautiful, magical, filled with curiosity and dreams." (Lyrics by Debbie Clement) They are loving and open. They are learning sponges with big, growing brains. But how can I do genius hour with them? I wondered. I loved the engaged ownership in junior highers when they were given a chance to learn what they wanted in what we call genius hour."

"To celebrate World Usability Day, a group of us are releasing a book with the title "I Am More Powerful Than You Think". The idea behind the book is to show how technology empowers us as people of different levels of ability to pursue our dreams as students, teachers and world citizens."

"TEDxOslo speaker Torgeir Waterhouse is on a crusade to make coding an integral part of students' early education, especially in his home country of Norway. "I'm driven by the fact and the knowledge and the hope and the dream that we can empower kids with technology," he says at the event. "Technology in the hands of the right people can change everything." Kids are those right people, he believes. "[Kids are] those people who will someday wake up and say, in the words of John Perry Barlow, 'I am from cyberspace … I am all about the future.'" A future, Waterhouse says, that will present new demands and challenges to this new generation, challenges that will very likely have to be tackled with technology. "If they are going to build that future for us," Waterhouse says, "they have to learn to code.""

"Join high school-aged girls from around the world as they try to better their community through technology and collaboration in this thrilling, heartfelt documentary. By 2017, the app market will be valued at $77 Billion. Over 80% of these developers are male. The Technovation Challenge aims to change that by empowering girls worldwide to develop apps for an international competition. From rural Moldova to urban Brazil to suburban Massachusetts, CODEGIRL follows teams who dream of holding their own in the world's fastest-growing industry. The winning team gets $10K to complete and release their app, but every girl discovers something valuable along the way."

"Anybody can learn coding - everyone starts somewhere. What's your dream future? Inventing something cool? Helping the environment? Creating your own business? Whatever it is, chances are that coding can help bring it to life. From now until December 13, you can join in weekly coding challenges that will help you learn to code! Earn points for each challenges completed, redeem those points for awesome rewards and receive an invite to the ultimate code-off. "

"t's been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a "Starbucks for kids", and less like, well, a classroom. Think about when you go to Starbucks to complete some work. Why do you choose to work there? Where do you choose to sit? I usually gravitate towards the comfy seating choices like the couches and big chairs, and yet, I see people choose the tables and chairs over and over again. Regardless, when you walk into Starbucks, you have choice. You get to choose where you sit. No one checks you in and directs you to a spot, telling you that you must sit there for the remainder of the day to do your work. If you need to get up, walk around, or choose a different seat, you are free to do so. As I sat in our local Starbucks this past summer, I looked around and thought-why can't my classroom look like this? After several weeks of planning and a little bit of faith, what resulted was this"

"Why build a Makerspace in your school? Student creativity, building stronger neural pathways in the brain through kinesthetic learning opportunities, is the reason to build a Makerspace. It is about play, students tinkering to discover, children experimenting to learn, and students building what they dream. Building a Makerspace is worth it when the students grow and learn within it. In an age of accountability and standardization, these elements have been steadily removed from schools and classrooms. A Makerspace has the potential to put it all back in place. Even so, making a Makerspace come to life in a school is not an easy task. It takes vision, buy-in, materials and space, and a plan for implementation. More than that, building a Makerspace in a school takes time. And, we did it!"

""What do you want to be when you grow up?" When I was a kid, I dreaded the question. I never had a good answer. Adults always seemed terribly disappointed that I wasn't dreaming of becoming something grand or heroic, like a filmmaker or an astronaut. In college, I finally realized that I didn't want to be one thing. I wanted to do many things. So I found a workaround: I became an organizational psychologist. My job is to fix other people's jobs. I get to experience them vicariously - I've gotten to explore how filmmakers blaze new trails and how astronauts build trust. And I've become convinced that asking youngsters what they want to be does them a disservice."

"I wrote a post earlier this year entitled, Authentic Learning Experiences. Some of the characteristics of authentic learning I identified are summarized in this graphic:"

"One of the great things about Netflix is that it has brought thoughtful, compelling documentaries to a much wider audience - something filmmakers could only dream of a decade ago. And with binge-worthy titles like "Amanda Knox" or "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" a click away, you can get a lot of great nonfiction viewing any night of the week. You'll learn a lot more about the world, but don't worry - you'll also be entertained."

"With so many Raspberry Pi projects to choose from, it can be tricky to find the one you really want to build. Our advice is to find a way to marry the Pi with something you really love. One great example is TV and movie robots - iconic characters from popular sci-fi that can be rebuild at home with a Raspberry Pi built in. Once constructed, your robot might be able to utter commands when a condition is met (perhaps a sensor detects motion). Or it might move around, learning about its surroundings, or reading information to you from Wikipedia. Whatever you have in mind, it should be relatively straightforward to plan and execute. It may take some time, however. Here are five example projects that show how you can combine a Raspberry Pi 2 or later with your favorite fictional robot. 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do The latest edition of the pint-sized computer is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there's 5 things you can only do on a Raspberry Pi 2. READ MORE 1. R2-D2 We've all wanted our very own astromech droid, haven't we? Sure, no one on earth is (currently) operating a light speed drive, but Star Wars droid R2-D2 has far greater abilities than onboard spacecraft maintenance. For instance, he can hold torches, carry a tray of drinks, and launch lightsabers across pits in the desert. Okay, it's unlikely you'll manage to get your own R2-D2 robot to do that… but don't let that put you off. Check out this little guy, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. While this project was based on an existing R2-D2 toy, that shouldn't limit your ambition. You'll find plenty of R2-D2 builds on YouTube. There's a massive R2-D2 building community online. Finding one that has a drive unit should be ideal for integrating a Raspberry Pi (and perhaps an Arduino, which you can use the two together) and developing a more realistic R2-D2 experience. Arduino vs Raspberry Pi: Which Is The Mini Computer For You? Arduino vs Rasp

There's no doubt that the world looks far different today than it did just a year ago. For so many of us, the outbreak of COVID-19 has dramatically changed the way we live our daily lives. Now, more than ever, we're using the internet not just for communication or for entertainment. We're relying on it to help us survive and grow, from working at home to learning at home. But what does the transition to the digital world mean for our children who are having to adapt to remote learning? How might this affect not only their education today, but also their hopes and dreams for the future? Are we dooming this generation to a lifetime of academic struggle because of the "learning loss" they're ostensibly facing now? And, if so what does that mean for their futures? For their career prospects?