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"Teachers do a lot to maintain student interest. The use of technology and different classroom models, like blended learning, are strategies that increase student engagement. However, there are simpler ways to hold students' interests, especially if you don't have the financial or administrative support needed for high-tech engagement models. The key to student interest is simple: it's choice."

"Despite all its making potential, desktop 3D printers have a reputation of being nothing more than toys. Only suitable for creating desktop clutter. To be fair, that reputation isn't completely undeserved, as many users create little more than pot planters and smartphone cases. That's exactly why Ding Zhou, a Chinese industrial design lecturer at the Nanjing University of the Arts, recently hosted a workshop that seeks to inspire users and find handy solutions for everyday problems through 3D printing. And the results are very impressive; from plug removal aids to wire clips that prevent entanglement, this workshop is an excellent reminder of how much simpler our lives can become with a few clever 3D prints."

"This was the first hackathon I'd participated in. The way teams were divvied up was a bit awkward: after opening remarks, the audience was asked if anyone had an idea for a team yet - perhaps they were expecting more small groups to show up ready to go, but I think most of the people came as individuals. So instead a few people introduced themselves and said what comes to their mind when they think about tech / music / education. I introduced myself and said I liked to use Arduino to teach music and coding."

"Kids who struggle with reading get an early lesson in one of life's more sucky realities; the earlier a person falls behind, the harder it is to even want to catch up. Their classmates move on to more interesting books, write stories that get noticed and get rewarded for finishing their work fast. Meanwhile the slower readers can barely make sense of the activity sheet in front of them. When a child can't read, school becomes either a huge, grinding drag or a very efficient confidence-removal machine. Usually both. Reading is not a natural ability. The vast majority of humans don't just pick it up; they have to be taught it quite explicitly. Until Johannes Gutenberg invented mechanical movable type, most people had little use for reading, just as now the vast majority of people have no use for weaving. And for some, acquiring this essential skill is an incredibly frustrating experience. Education experts are not of one mind about how much of the population has a diagnosable reading disorder such as dyslexia, but it's clear that while kids all read at different ages and stages, some otherwise average-intelligence people find reading an unusually hard slog."

"Think. Design. Create. Test. Analyze. Think. Design. Iterate. Test. Solve. Improve. Solve better. Think you're done? Think again! The Design Thinking Process is really a cycle that looks something like this:"

"In a different life, I was an English teacher. In fact, I spent the first half of my twenty-four year career in education writing beside middle and high school kids. Writing workshop was my passion, and Nancie Atwell was my hero (well, she still is). Naturally, I was thrilled when my principal tapped me to design and teach an entire course specifically devoted to this endeavor. For many years, all of the kids in our middle school enjoyed writers workshop beside their core English classes, and I got to be their teacher. I loved this, and I loved teaching so much that when I stepped out of the classroom to begin doing staff development, I refused to let it go. Nearly a decade ago, I founded the WNY Young Writers Studio, a community of writers and teachers of writing. Then, I began doing a whole lot of action research. Here's what I learned: When many young writers sit down to confront flat, empty screens and pages, they experience frustration and even defeat. Wading into procedures that often feel contrived using tools that are completely intangible paralyzes them."

"Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Go Back and Forth. Get Reactions. Rinse and Repeat. There are many ways of looking at the design thinking process. The main premise remains the same though: Take Action and Create Something to Solve a Problem of Some Sort. Below, I describe the most commonly used and taught Design Thinking Process. However, it is not about what the names of the 5 spaces are. Rather, "doing" design thinking is about understanding what each space involves and that the process rarely occupies a single space. In fact, any project will have the designers focusing in one area, but working within the constraints of several spaces. For example, new ideas will occur everywhere along the way to the "permanent" solution, even in the testing stage. And, the process is cyclical - it never ends... There are always improvements to be made."

"I'm not sure of the way most people learn the complicated process of programming Arduino projects because I only know my own convoluted journey. I started the hard way following projects from the Arduino Starter Kit by building photo sensor theremins and electronic magic 8 balls. Here is one of my first Arduino projects I created at a class at the Denton Public Library. (The tweet below is a flashback to the Coding Bonanza I led at Lamar Library in 2014.) I quickly found that I wanted to do things OTHER than what the projects outlined, but I just didn't have the code knowledge to hack projects and make them my own. I continued following projects and attempting to tinker with code. For someone with absolutely no background in coding, it was quite an arduous journey. Imagine my surprise when I found out about the ScratchX extension from Kreg Hanning at SXSWedu in 2015!"