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"It's a sign of maturity and experience to be able to determine just where you are in a journey, and I think the time has come to put some stakes in the ground about just exactly where we all are in regards to our innovation journeys. While some companies have made tremendous strides, becoming much more innovative than their peers, the real truth is that most corporations are still at the very beginning of their innovation work, and as I've written in other places the emerging new management fads around digital transformation combined with the fact that innovation often hasn't lived up to its promises means that our innovation journeys may end before they really got started. Because while it seems many companies have been on an innovation journey for quite some time, the honest reality is that they haven't moved very far. There's been a significant amount of sound and fury, signifying not so much, to paraphrase a much more ancient bard. The reality is that right now, after almost 20 years of innovation as a corporate phenomenon, most companies are closer to the end of the beginning of innovation, rather than the beginning of the end."

""I recently learned, for the first time, about Aristotle's belief that there were three basic activities of humans: theoria (thinking), poiesis (making), and praxis (doing). Corresponding to these activities were three types of knowledge: theoretical, the end goal being truth; poietical, the end goal being production; and practical, the end goal being action (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process)).... All of this led me to think about how this would translate into a full spectrum of making in the context of maker educator. Having such a framework would help insure that learning from the making experience is more robust, not left up to chance. I believe a fuller spectrum or framework would including the following elements:"

"The end of the year is upon us. AP testing dates are passing soon. Providing a valuable "Show What You Know" project can be an effective method for an end of the unit/year project. Finding the right combination of apps to "smash" together can provide choice for students as they provide you with the insight that they have. Starting with iPads, here are some suggestions for smashing apps to create "Show What You Know" opportunities. "

"The end of the academic year is approaching, as is summer break. But learning doesn't have to end on the last day of school--neither for the student, nor for the teacher. To that end, we've compiled a selection of resources and opportunities for teachers (click here for our educator list) and students (click here for our student summer opportunities list) to prevent that tired ol' "summer slide" and make this "summer of learning" the best one yet."

"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."

The End of EdTech - Medium https://t.co/WiqhJRH3OZ #edtech #elt #esol #k12 #he #edreform https://t.co/Fhc6sAAieJ

"So how can teachers prepare for this surge of computer science in the classroom and integrate it into their curriculum in a meaningful way? It starts with understanding that technology is a tool-a means to accomplishing an end, but not an end itself. It's important to not just leverage technology for technology's sake. There needs to be a purpose behind it. For example, besides simply having iPads in the classroom, schools need to have goals in place for using them. Perhaps the goal is enabling kids to create with the iPads-like build their own apps-versus simply reviewing materials on the device. Through our work helping students, teachers and parents around the world embrace technology in the classroom and at home, I've learned some best practices for maximizing the opportunities that technology education offers:"

"With the end of the school year, Apple is taking the opportunity to remind schools and educators about a free professional development program that it's offering. Called the Tune In Series, the program is a series of webcast events covering the iPad and many of the technologies that Apple introduced during its education event in January. The series is running every week through the end of August."

"Quick, before the school year ends, share this app with your teens and maybe their parents. Quick, before the school year ends, download this app yourself. You're going to want to start using the genre search to support readers' advisory tomorrow!!!"

"Feedback is an inevitable part of teaching. Naturally, you're in a position where you're giving a whole lot of feedback, but you're likely on the receiving end of feedback as well. We've all been on the receiving end of feedback in various aspects of our lives, and I'm sure we've all experienced some feedback that was less than desirable - for a variety of reasons. Even if the feedback itself is inherently negative, the delivery and process of the feedback doesn't have to be. The handy infographic below (from ASCD) offers 7 important things to remember about feedback. These are important items to remember both when you're giving and getting feedback. Keep reading to learn more."

"The end of the school year is a time for reflection. What did we do well? What do we need to improve upon? These are the typical questions that both individuals and school districts ask at the end of the spring. However, there is another important question that I struggle to answer as well. This is the question about how we have changed? What have we done differently this year to push our thinking and the thinking of our students? To be more specific, I find myself dwelling on the R in Dr. Ruben Puentedura's SAMR model, a model designed to help educators integrate technology into teaching and learning."

"One of my favorite films is The Emperor's Club, starring Kevin Kline as Mr. Hundert, the Western Civilization teacher at St. Benedict's Academy. In the film's opening scene, the headmaster of the school stands before the assembled student body explaining the meaning of the school motto, Finis Origine Pendet: The End Depends Upon the Beginning. "What you accomplish in life and the significance of your contribution," he counsels, "will depend largely on what you do here. How you begin determines what you will achieve." As the film unfolds, we see this poignant message revealed in the lives of the students. What they do at the school and the relationships they develop powerfully affect the kind of persons they become and the nature of the lives they eventually lead. In the end, we realize that Finis Origine Pendet is the film's central message. The same is true of professional learning for educators. What it accomplishes and the significance of its contribution depend largely on how it begins. This holds true not only for traditional forms of professional learning-seminars, study groups, workshops, conferences, mentoring, coaching, and so on-but also for "new" forms that include face-to-face or online professional learning communities, teacher exchanges, bug-in-the-ear coaching, data teams, individualized improvement plans, and unconferences. The effectiveness of any professional learning activity, regardless of its content, structure, or format, depends mainly on how well it is planned."

"The end of the school year will soon be upon us. This is the time of year that we think about activities that we can do to help students review the school year. At this time of the year I start to get a lot of requests for suggestions for tools to create review activities. Here are twelve good options."

"There are already a lot of apps in Apple's App Store for iPad and iPhone (over 1.5 million), and more are added each day. In fact, this month an average of 1,400 apps have been submitted to the App Store. Despite the outrageous number of apps, only a small percentage end up piquing my interest. The apps I get most excited about are ones that are open-ended. I like to make things, and I love it when an app empowers students (and teachers) to create digital productions. Shadow Puppet Edu, Adobe Voice, and TeleStory are three apps that facilitate creativity. They provide students a way to retell stories, explain concepts, or persuade an audience."

"In Wednesday's post, What Is Hotlinking? I gave an overview of the potential problems associated with linking to images on the web. At the end of that post I included a short summary of best practices for using images in blog posts. Since it was buried at the end of a post that was otherwise fairly technical and lacking of a catchy title, I think it is worth sharing those best practices again in this dedicated post."

"You see it everywhere in K-12. Kindergarteners design toys for their friends to practice empathy, while learning to use a saw and glue-gun along the way. Second graders deepen their understanding of character traits while designing and sewing puppets to represent a character in a folk-tale. In high school physics, students make wind turbines in order to internalize an understanding of how magnetism can create electricity. The "it" I'm referring to is "Making," and simply put, Making is any activity where people create something, often with their hands. I often define Making by looking at what people bring to the Maker Faire, which does include more technical aspects like 3D printing, physical computing and programming. But Making also includes woodworking, growing food, making art and crafts."

"I participate as a parent in our middle school Tech Club - the TechDetectives. The 8th graders in the club came up with this great end of year project idea - they wanted to take apart one of the lab computers and re-mount all the parts on the wall so that future students could easily see all the parts of this working computer. It was something they saw done on YouTube. I've been calling it the "CoW" (Computer On the Wall). I loved this idea - and quickly volunteered to help out after school - knowing we didn't have enough time in tech club before the end of their graduating year to finish it. As I described in a few posts previously, this project also turned into a great opportunity for some #3DPrinting solutions."

"As a science teacher, this is the best project I do all year.  I have yet to come across a project where students are more engaged.  They want to come after school to work on it, they ask to take the project home to work over the weekend, students are shocked when the class period has come to an end, and they all want to skip their next class to continue working. The purpose of this project is to reinforce Newton's Laws of Motion through roller coaster physics.  The objective is to have a marble take the GREATEST amount of time to get from the top of the first hill to where the coaster ends.  This instructable has also been submitted into the paper contest.  I know the competition is fierce so please vote for me!"

Are you unable to get any sound from your Windows-based PC? If yes, then don't worry anymore. Techvedic is here with end-to-end solution to fix "Windows no sound issue."

"I participate as a parent in our middle school Tech Club - the TechDetectives. The 8th graders in the club came up with this great end of year project idea - they wanted to take apart one of the lab computers and re-mount all the parts on the wall so that future students could easily see all the parts of this working computer. It was something they saw done on YouTube. I've been calling it the "CoW" (Computer On the Wall). I loved this idea - and quickly volunteered to help out after school - knowing we didn't have enough time in tech club before the end of their graduating year to finish it. As I described in a few posts previously, this project also turned into a great opportunity for some #3DPrinting solutions."