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"On the night of Monday, June 13, someone stole my 12.9-inch iPad Pro from my bag during the annual Beard Bash event. I won't go into the gritty details, but suffice it to say my valuables (as well as those of my colleague Serenity Caldwell) were in a secure location. Unfortunately, secure doesn't always mean nothing bad will happen, and in this case, something bad did happen: My iPad Pro was removed from my bag, Serenity's belongings were stuffed into my bag to make it look full (I guess), and the iPad Pro went bye-bye. The night of the theft, long after Serenity and I had stashed our belongings, she approached me and asked why I'd put her coat inside my bag (which, of course, I hadn't done). After a minute or two of self doubt: "Had I put her coat in my bag? Maybe I just don't remember," I was certain I hadn't misremembered. I ran to our belongings to check out what happened and flew into a bit of a panic when I realized my iPad was definitely gone. I took a minute to pull myself together and got to work tracking down my missing iPad Pro."

"Obviously a lot can change in 15 years. We all know this, but these images put that reality into perspective for me. It makes me wonder about things. It make me ask myself, "If that's what was on the movie of the summer, what was in our classrooms? How much has changed with technology? What about in our classrooms?" Why innovate? Here's my worry: Schools that don't innovate are going to look like this, and it likely won't take 15 years to happen. In all likelihood, it's probably happening more places than we'd like to admit right now. If we don't change, we're going to end up looking like that picture appears to us now-irrelevant, a relic of the past. For some (maybe even many) what we were doing now will be nearly unrecognizable in the not so distant future. In hindsight, some of what we understood as best practice not too long ago seems that way. We can't control the fact that our schools will continue to grow, but if we don't start getting some movement now and gaining momentum today, we're going to end up so big and so settled in that our own inertia will keep us from moving forward. With each day that passes without innovation, we only make it harder to make change happen in the future."

"The Global Day of Design just wrapped up on May 2nd. If you want to see what happens when 80,000+ students embrace design thinking, check out the Twitter stream and #GDD17 hashtag! Students from six different continents (over 20 countries) participated and rocked this event in the second year in existence. Teachers and entire schools carved time out for students to not only beginning with empathy, not only brainstorm and navigate ideas, but to make, create, build, and design while in school. This was only one day, and although the event was a success for our students, the real question is: What happens when students embrace design thinking beyond one day?"

"The maker zeitgeist has evolved far beyond the day when an educator might set objects-say, a box of robotic LEGOs-in a library corner and call it a "maker lab." Educators are now focusing on how the maker movement can be truly meaningful: it's not about where making is happening, but about how creating, experimenting, and collaborating impact education. In addition, some high schoolers tinkering their free periods away can discover a passion-sometimes leading to a future educational focus or even scholarship money. "The maker movement…encourages a growth mind-set, which tolerates risk and failure and maybe even encourages it," says Laura Fleming, library media specialist with the New Milford (NJ) High School. "It has been the great equalizer within, and in some ways against, our modern education system by allowing opportunities for creativity and innovation to take place through informal learning.""

"Recently, I saw a post on a discussion board that asked, "Whatever happened to iBooks?" I found that a really entertaining concept, because my EdTechTeacher colleague - Greg Kulowiec - and I have spent hours on iBooks this summer in our workshops. In fact, iBooks is one of the first apps that we discuss, and one of the last ones that we reference. However, our use of this tool follows along a path from consumption to creation"

"Perhaps it's my bias as a classroom teacher that has me pushing back a bit, for I firmly believe that while extra-curricular activities can be one way of educating our children in more complete ways, they had better not be the main way in which we do so. This is important for two reasons. The first is that many children are unable to participate in outside activities. They may have to work or support their families. They may not have the resources or parental support needed to stay after school. If extra-curriculars are our main vehicle, the students who would most benefit from a whole child approach will be least likely to get it. Second, I worry about a subtle message that may be sent when the most engaging, supportive, and interesting work happens outside of the regular curriculum. Some students might come to believe that academic work is something to slog through-to endure. The fun learning happens in the band room, on the baseball field, on the ropes course, or in the afterschool art class."

"We've all been told that we should recycle plastic bottles and containers. But what actually happens to the plastic if we just throw it away? Emma Bryce traces the life cycles of three different plastic bottles, shedding light on the dangers these disposables present to our world. "

"The first day that the students receive their iPads is very exciting. While distributing iPads to students it is good practice to let them have about 20 minutes of exploration time to check out apps and share with each other things they discover. A lot of the learning that happens in the classroom is based on sharing amongst the students. This exploration time should happen daily for the first few days so students can have time to acclimate to using the device."

In "Grown Up Digital" he uses the results to paint a portrait of this generation that is entertaining, optimistic and convincing. The problem, he suspects, is not the net generation but befuddled baby-boomers, who once sang along with Bob Dylan that "something is happening here, but you don't know what it is", yet now find that they are clueless about the revolutionary changes taking place among the young.

"After spending a few weeks looking at the visitor vs resident notions it became clear today why it's such a big deal. During a unconference today in Halifax a group of teachers were discussing and exploring Project Based Learning. Specifically one of the participants had been looking at the Buck Institute's resources and for implementing PBL. I told them as a kind of "fun fact" that I knew the latest consultant and that she happened to be from Canada. While that fact was mildly interesting I realized what would be more significant would be a more formal introduction. I messaged Shelley who happened to be online and she agreed to an impromptu session with this group. Within minutes she was sharing with them her own story and some advice for beginners. While the day was filled with lots of resource and idea sharing, the most impactful moment was sharing and finding new people."

"Chances are, if you're teaching a group of younger students (elementary or middle school, though high schoolers are certainly not known for being super careful with their devices either), you're likely concerned about how they're handling your expensive classroom iPads. There are a ton of "tough" tablet cases out there designed to save your device when it is dropped/banged/slammed/smacked/otherwise injured, but just trying to protect them for when that happens isn't getting at the root of the problem. Teaching students how to properly handle their devices so that they don't get broken (or are less likely to, since obviously accidents happen) is a necessary approach (though I'd still recommend padding those iPads to high heaven in whatever case is most appropriate for your classroom needs)."

"Blended learning is one of the most important learning trends happening in today's classrooms. It's not always called 'blended learning' but make no mistake. It's happening. That's because blended learning is one of the driving forces of educational change right now. It's a big way schools are integrating education technology, trying out new learning techniques, rewriting curricula, and more. In order to sound like you know what you're talking about, it might be useful to take a look at this visual guide to blended learning. It's a step-by-step guide that tells you the what, why, and how of everything blended."

"There are very few companies or products that actually enter the language as both a noun and a verb. Everyone knows what Google is, and chances are that we've all used it as a verb as well; after all, it's really common to say, "I need to Google something," instead of, "I need to look for something on the Internet." As much as Yahoo, AOL and Bing would love to have their names used in the same way, it simply hasn't happened, and unless something catastrophic happens to Google, it never will."

"It has happened before, and it is happening again. Microsoft's MSDN blog has released a whole new batch of free ebooks that cover everything from Windows 8, to Office 2013, to SQL Server, and more. "

"In my new book, "The Innovator's Mindset", one of the things that I discuss is understanding that we are not able to change others, but are able to create the conditions where change is more likely to happen.  Instead of  pointing fingers at others, it is important to recognize what we have the ability to do, and develop conditions where innovation is more likely to happen. Below are five focuses I share in the book on how to "Unleash Talent", with a quick synopsis and some questions."

"It is getting to be that time of year here in Maine when we can't walk across a carpet then touch a light switch without getting a bit of a shock. What causes that happen? And why does it seem to happen more often in the winter months than in the summer months? The answers to those questions and more are found in the TED-Ed lesson The Science of Static Electricity."

"Motivating and engaging students is the goal of most teachers-priming them to receive instruction, or otherwise align themselves to a pre-set process you've sketched out that you hope will yield a learning goal you selected beforehand. But I've also been thinking recently of how learning actually happens-the causes of learning. Learning events, maybe. Eh. So I came up with 60 (of millions) of these "learning events" (for lack of a better term)-circumstances in which students seem to learn effortlessly. They can learn when they are coerced-to start, to increase the pace, to finish, to revisit. But what kind of conditions or contexts promote effortless learning? Learning when they don't even know it's happening? When they're (essentially) tricked into deep understanding?"

"What happens to a bowling ball after you bowl with it? How do vending machines really work? What happens to your luggage when you check it in at the airport? What's inside a street organ? In 2017, Centre Pompidou museum approached me to create five short films for their kids web show Mon Œil in line with Preposterous. Les machines impossible series (Impossible Machines), a tribute to Rube Goldberg, explores and reinvents what's inside complex mechanisms. Watch four amusing imaginings from French motion designer Florent Porta: Les machines impossibles - Bowling, above, Soda, Bagage, and Musique:"

"fter talking to 350 students, educators, and parents across 30 schools, they found few schools where powerful learning, in which most students were engaged and thinking critically, was happening across the board. However, they did find individual teachers who were making it happen on their own. In those classrooms, students were enthusiastically engaged, participating in challenging tasks that drew on their analytical and problem-solving skills. Mehta and Fine describe these bright spots in their new book, In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School. Usable Knowledge sat down with Mehta and Fine, who is now the director of the teaching apprenticeship program at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education in San Diego, to find out how other teachers can replicate the successes they uncovered - and how to prepare teachers to facilitate the kind of deeper learning we'd hope to see in every setting."

"SAMR is a technology integration model that basically shows the way to get the most out of your technology in the classroom. The dotted line in the chart to the right shows where you cross over from doing what you've always done - just adding technology - to doing what you couldn't do before. Redefinition is at the top of the SAMR model, but that doesn't mean that you "win" or that you're doing it right only if you reach redefinition. Some tasks just aren't made for redefinition, and great learning can happen without redefinition. But redefinition is the Holy Grail. If you get there, you're providing learning that couldn't have happened a decade ago (maybe a year ago)."