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"Who doesn't want to improve the tone of the whole day in 5 minutes or less? What better commitment to make in the new year than to positively impact your own life, the lives of those around you, and your school's culture? The science of character strengths and social emotional learning (SEL) is well-documented and quite actionable. All that is needed is a bit of intentional leadership. Click here to download the 5 to Thrive Toolkit! Mayerson Academy, a non-profit professional learning organization, launched the "5 to Thrive Challenge" to encourage education leaders to dedicate five minutes each day over the next month to engage in simple activities that will reframe their thinking and improve the culture in their school. To help get started and frame your thinking, Mayerson Academy provides a free "5 to Thrive Toolkit" that will get you started."

"This week we've been reading a favourite winter time story! The children love the adventures the Gingerbread Man has as he runs away from the different characters in the story. They are always so sad at the end when he is eaten by the fox!     Today I challenged them to retell the story and help the Gingerbread Man outsmart the bakers, cow, goat, cat and fox by using a coding game. This activity helped the children to strengthen their retell as they recalled the story and sequenced the events of the story, and encouraged them to practise their coding skills, specifically oral language related to directionality and number.   We used a small stuffed Gingerbread Man, photos of the different characters from the text, our coding board (sensory table lid with tape), and directional coding cards. "

"I normally tend to stay away from "stuff" lists when it comes to talking about makerspaces.  I believe that the stuff that goes into a makerspace should be based around the needs of the students and the school, not on a checklist of items to get.  But this list is different.  The holiday season is upon us, and what better gift to give to a young (or not so young) maker than something that encourages creativity? (Well, books, but don't worry, I've got those too). Here's some of my favorite picks for maker themed gifts for the holidays or any day."

What are the mindful habits of successful learners and how can an understanding of these habits help us better achieve our learning goals? This is the question Art Costa Bena Kallick set out to answer with their study of the Habits of Mind. In 'Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind' Costa and Kallick identify sixteen habits which when utilised promote deeper understanding, unlock creativity, encourage reflective thinking and scaffold problem solving for individuals and groups. 

"The Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 5-11, is an annual initiative that mobilizes educators, parents, nonprofits and the industry to inspire all young people to learn computer science and open the door to a promising future. With our rising digital economy and the nonstop pace of technological change, we have an imperative to prepare young people to pursue careers that are in demand. Computer science refers to the academic discipline of studying what can be done using a computer and how to do so. At the foundation of this is computational thinking, a mental process that allows one to formulate problems so as to design possible solutions that a computer or human can easily understand. Coding is one way that computational thinking can be expressed. It is simply writing a list of step-by-step instructions for computers to perform what we want to do. More importantly, it provides everyone a platform to unleash our creativity to create software websites, games, and apps. More than half of today's jobs require some technology skills, and this will increase to 77 percent in the next decade, according to IDC. With youth unemployment in Southeast Asia alone almost three times that of total unemployment rate, coding and computer science serve as the gateway for youth to secure a more fulfilling career or even venture into entrepreneurship. In the Philippines for instance, an entry-level tech position pays 38 percent more than the minimum wage.   I strongly encourage everyone to try coding-and here's why:"

"Kid Inventors Day falls on Benjamin Franklin's birthday (January 17, 1706) and celebrates the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of kids. To encourage your students to dream about their own inventions, try some of these activities in your classroom."

"Critical thinking skills truly matter in learning. Why? Because they are life skills we use every day of our lives. Everything from our work to our recreational pursuits, and all that's in between, employs these unique and valuable abilities. Consciously developing them takes thought-provoking discussion and equally thought-provoking questions to get it going. Begin right here with the Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet. It's a simple infographic offering questions that work to develop critical thinking on any given topic. Whenever your students discover or talk about new information, encourage them to use these questions for sparking debate and the sharing of opinions and insights among each other. Together they can work at building critical thinking skills in a collaborative and supportive atmosphere."

"Perhaps, however, Music teachers have an advantage. While other subject teachers are more accustomed to books, videos and websites as resources, Music teachers are accustomed to using a much wider gamut of tools - instruments. If we can encourage Music teachers to view the iPad as another instrument and a vehicle by which children can make genuinely music progress, then we are well on the way to making the most of this 21st century resource. So, how can music teachers deliver real learning with the Apple iPad?"

""You don't need to teach us.  That's what Google is for." That was the message a student shared with a surprised audience of educators during a popular technology conference. The students went on to say, "If I can't figure something out I prefer to watch a YouTube video or text a friend rather than ask a teacher." The other students in the room nodded their heads in agreement. Many teachers understand this is how today's students prefer to learn, but what does that look like? As danah boyd recently shared on her site, "too many students I met were being told that Wikipedia was untrustworthy and were, instead, being encouraged to do research. As a result, the message that many had taken home was to turn to Google and use whatever came up first. They heard that Google was trustworthy and Wikipedia was not." Here's what happen when you do that."

""Maker spaces"-facilities designed to encourage hands-on activity and experimentation-have become an increasingly exciting part of many schools' digital-learning and career-tech offerings. With their focus on inventiveness and collaboration, they also offer new ways of looking at classroom or learning-space design. To showcase the composition and variety of these facilities, Education Week is asking educators to post short videos of their schools' maker spaces to YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram over the next month, using the hashtag #ShowUsYourMakerSpace. (Photos are OK, too.)"

"Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, along with other education researchers interested in growth mindset, have done numerous studies showing that when students believe their intelligence can grow and change with effort, they perform better on academic tests. These findings have sparked interest and debate about how to encourage a growth mindset in students both at home and at school."

"Engaging students with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education is more important today than ever before. There's a large gap in today's job market between the skills demanded by growing fields and the amount of potential workers that possess those skills. All of us at STEM Village aim to empower all youth to take a passion for STEM subjects and to continue building their skills for the future job market. However, we also recognize the growing gap between women and girls who choose to take on a STEM career. Read more about why girls need STEM and why STEM needs girls in this article by Today's Parents. Our team aims to find the best STEM resources available so we can bring them to the Technology, Math, Science, and Discovery sections of our STEM Village app. We celebrated International Women's Day this week and are continuing to celebrate the power of women and girls for Women's History month, by sharing our favourite Women in STEM education resources on social media. Here's a list of our top 10 picks to empower girls in STEM!"

Making is as old as learning itself. While the maker movement may only be about a decade old, the human desire to create dates back to the earliest forms of human activity, from making stone tools to drawing on cave walls (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Martinez & Stager, 2014). Thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Montessori, and Papert helped paved the way for the maker movement by stressing the importance of hands-on, student-centered, meaningful learning. Instead of viewing learning as the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student, these thinkers embraced the idea that children learn best when encouraged to discover, play, and experiment. More recently, maker education is being used as a way to connect do-it-yourself informal learning to classrooms. Driven by new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, and kid-friendly coding, making is emerging as an effective way to introduce students to STEM, particularly women and minorities. By incorporating elements of making into the classroom, educators can bridge the gap between what students are passionate about and what they're learning in school.

"Among the many ways to actively engage children in the learning process, educational games are one of the most fun. With so many award winning and cleverly designed games on the market, young children to teens (and even adults!) can develop new skills and reinforce other skills, without even realizing they are learning. Board, card, cooperative, puzzle games, and more encourage interactive hands-on learning in a humorous, light hearted environment. In a addition to math, reading, vocabulary, logic, problem-solving, and spelling skills regularly introduced by educational games, turn based and cooperative games foster with social interaction, communication skills, and self confidence. Consider adding one of these excellent educational games to your home or classroom collection."

"Find resources and tools to help bring elements of maker culture into schools and classrooms, and encourage students to explore STEAM subjects within the context of maker projects."

"More people are living longer these days, but the good news comes shadowed by the possible increase in cases of age-related mental decline. By some estimates, the global incidence of dementia will more than triple in the next 35 years. That grim prospect is what makes a study published in March in The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease so encouraging: It turns out that regular walking, cycling, swimming, dancing and even gardening may substantially reduce the risk of Alzheimer's."

"As the school year draws to a close, many reflections are running around in my brain. The biggest one though stemmed from a question I have asked myself about our school mascot, the penguin. Why a penguin? They are cute, and fun to observe; but where is the value in having this little formal wearing bird as a mascot? After much reading and many discussions all via twitter chats, I have come to discover that being a penguin is an amazing feat...maybe even more amazing than one may realize. I have observed and interacted with my students in new, scary, unchartered, and sometimes crazy fun waters this year (Genius Hour, Maker Space, STEAM, getting ipads, etc.) and through it all have come to  realize what it means for my students to Live Like a Penguin. I am sure many of you educators out there have heard of the author, Dave Burgess, who wrote "How to Teach Like a Pirate", "How to Learn Like a Pirate", etc. In his books he assigns term to each letter of PIRATE that encourage innovation, risk taking, and determination.  Taking inspiration from him, I have come up with an acronym for our mascot, the PENGUIN that seems to truly fit how my students and I lived this year of teaching and learning and how I hope we both continue to so in our futures. ​Live like a PENGUIN:"

"The concept was pretty straightforward, but the logistics were a bit complicated. We wanted to create four mobile maker space carts that could rotate among four middle school libraries in the Knox County School district of Knoxville, TN. It all started when our director of instructional technology, Theresa Nixon, encouraged us to apply for a TeacherPreneur Grant to fund a traveling maker space program. Our funding goal was approximately $50,000. Requesting  this much money meant that we needed a an idea that dazzled. As we prepared the grant application, the librarians representing the middle schools (Farragut, Vine, Carter, and Karns) discussed rotating maker space carts that would dock in each library for nine weeks. We hoped to optimize accessibility to high-ticket items such as 3-D printers and keep our libraries dynamic with new projects."

"Yumi is a grade 7 student who is maker at her core. She shares her passion for creating things through her experiences of blogging, baking, and starting her own successful online business, encouraging all of us to explore our creative sides and become makers ourselves."

"Computer coding is becoming an increasingly popular activity for today's technology oriented kids. Even kids who do not plan to grow up and become computer programmers are enjoying the control and autonomy that coding delivers. Coding encourages kids to be creative, think logically and develop critical thinking skills that they will need throughout their lives. The skills young students develop through these early coding experiences can also help them to succeed in their education. With coding, kids get to try out new solutions to problems and tinker around with what can happen in various situations. The following seven visually oriented and child-friendly apps can help to teach even the youngest children how to code."