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""Makerspaces are too complicated for elementary students.  You can only get in depth with middle and high school students" "High schoolers are too jaded for making.  They'll roll their eyes at you if you give them LEGOs" I've heard variations of these criticisms so many times.  Placing some kind of age restriction on when students are capable of/will be interested in making seems to be one of the most popular excuses educators have for not even considering creating a Maker environment in their school. We need to smash these notions and assumptions.  That creativity is tied to a certain age group.  That we outgrow our desire for play.  That young children aren't capable of serious making.  That adults will never have an interest in expressing themselves."

"Special projects require special highlights, and those can only come from special creativity tools. Use these with your students to add unique creative flair to projects of all kids! It's always a treat when a student can express themselves creatively in a way they're never tried before, with a tool they may not have used. Discovering how to use such a resource-and what you can create with it-is very rewarding. The creativity tools we have listed here are great little online resources that will develop creativity in all sorts of ways. Using these creativity tools, students can add artistic personal touches to their work in so many ways. They can build fonts; make themselves into a robot or a Picasso painting; draw with fire; and turn pictures into words and textures, to name a few things. These are fun tools to explore and engage your students with, so everyone can have fun!"

"As educators, we know that learning is not one size fits all, and what's best for some students may not be for others. Yet differentiated instruction (DI) remains elusive as a major part of formal planning. Myths about DI persist despite work by respected advocates such as Carol Tomlinson, Susan Allan, Rick Wormeli, and Gayle Gregory. What follows are prominent misperceptions expressed about DI, presented here so that we can separate myth from truth."

"Perfect Storm: an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically.  The term is also used to describe an actual phenomenon that happens to occur in such a confluence, resulting in an event of unusual magnitude. "

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

"I'm in Minecraft, of course-the phenomenally popular, open-ended game that places players in a world in which they can live and build things infinitely. Marcus "Notch" Persson, the Swedish creator of Minecraft, started out by creating a simple game, allowing players to construct whatever they wanted, using a few different colored blocks, each equivalent to one cubic meter. Released in 2009, it has evolved into a massive, world-building video game in which players uses those blocks to create anything they can think of, from houses, caves, and machines to a scale version of the Death Star. Microsoft purchased Minecraft from Notch and his team for $2.5 billion in November 2014. There aren't any express objectives or any real way to win in Minecraft. It's a "sandbox," in gaming speak-offering free play without a specific goal and currently used by more than 18.5 million players, with some 20,000 more signing up every day. Users may choose between Creative Mode, in which they can build using unlimited resources by themselves or with friends, with no real danger or enemies, and Survival Mode, where they fend off enemies and other players and fight for resources and space. They can trade items and communicate using a chat bar. Modifications (or mods) can add complexity by creating things like economic systems that let players buy and sell resources from in-game characters using an in-game currency system. These downloadable mods can also add computer science concepts and thousands of additional features."

"The new visual below is intended to give teachers and students more choices of make their thinking and learning visible using the following platforms, activities, tools, Visible Thinking Routines as an option or starting off point. The suggestions include tools and platforms that are specifically suited to connect, collaborate, communicate and create, 21st century style, one's process and make it easier to amplify and to document4learning. The framework is based on REFLECTION being an integral part of the learning process the understanding that through technology tools our access to INFORMATION has exponentially expanded as well our ability to take ACTION beyond affecting people we are able to reach face to face that technology tools allow us to express and communicate in OTHER FORMS of media beyond words and text"

he annual Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). Each year, the report identifies and describes six areas of emerging technology likely to have a significant impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression in higher education within three adoption horizons: a year or less, two to three years, and four to five years. The areas of emerging technology cited for 2009 are: * Mobiles (i.e., mobile devices) * Cloud computing * Geo-everything (i.e., geo-tagging) * The personal web * Semantic-aware applications * Smart objects Each section of the report provides live Web links to examples and additional readings.

Dean Shareksi's interesing way of expressing quotes he finds, well, interesting!

Whether you're a photojournalist, photoblogger, or a student who wants to share your world.... COLLAGE will become your multimedia expression space! Features include: * Image Cut-out and Masking tools * Layer positioning and Compositing * Interactive 'Hot-spots', providing links to media, text or other websites * Ability to add rich media details * Text and Soundtrack

Fun home/school activities that reinforce Indiana Academic Standards using computers to encourage students to draw, research, calculate and express!

Free online photo editor from Adobe.

Today's classrooms are diverse and inclusive by nature. Differentiation of instruction and assessment and the principles of universal design are now recognized practices for teachers. Both differentiation and universal design provide systematic approaches to setting goals, choosing or creating flexible materials and media, and assessment. To undertake differentiation and universal design, teachers need to be aware of a range of accommodations (multiple means of representation, of expression, and/or of engagement) that may be necessary to help each student in the classroom succeed. These accommodations may take the form of adaptations and/or modifications

"Benjamin Blooms' second stage, "understanding" occurs when new learning connects to prior knowledge. At this point, students have the ability to make sense of what they have read, viewed, or heard and can explain this understanding clearly and succinctly to others. This particular learning stage balances precariously between communicating understanding and expressing opinion. Here the student demonstrates the ability to identify the main idea, generalize new material, translate verbal content into a visual form, transform abstract concepts into everyday terms, or make predictions."

The purpose of the interactive notebook is to enable students to be creative, independent thinkers and writers. Interactive notebooks are used for class notes as well as for other activities where the student will be asked to express his/her own ideas and process the information presented in class. Requirements vary from teacher to teacher and is set up according to the directions of the teacher. Some go left/right, others go right/left, and still others go sequential. It really does not matter, so keep that in mind when looking at the suggestions. The purpose of this page to give teachers a starting point for setting up their own notebooks with their classes. The links presented on this page were shared by teachers on T-Net, A to Z, and Pro-Teacher , and of course, TCI, the originators of the Interactive Student Notebook, as examples of good interactive notebooks and guidelines. Credit belongs to the creators of the individual sites. I have tried to divide the sites by subject categories, but many are inter-changable.

"Super readers have Super Powers! First graders in Ms. Guthrie's class honed their Reading Super Powers in class today. Using Reading Street's leveled readers, iFiles, and the Explain Everything app, students practiced pacing, self-correction, using context clues, decoding skills, and reading with expression. "

"Figurative speech is the language we use to spice up our writing. Besides their aesthetic value , figurative expressions and axioms cast a flavour of 'writerly professionalism' on the written piece. It does take so much practice for students to be adept at the use of figurative language and there are no shortcuts to learn that quickly. There are however some useful tips to help them in their learning process. Periodic table of the figures of speech is an example of a very good document students can draw on to consolidate and learn different ways to use figures of speech."

"One of the best perks of supporting the Los Angeles Central Library is advanced notice of the readings and talks coming through town as part of their ALOUD program. A few months ago, when I noticed that danah boyd was going to be talking about her recent book, "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens," with USC Professor and Connected Learning pioneer, Henry Jenkins, I snapped up a ticket. The talk took place at the end of July, and the ideas that these two scholars expressed about how young people are interacting with digital tools are still rattling around in my mind, inviting further exploration. "