Group items tagged

Mentions Evergreen SD in the article too.

"The maker movement was front and center at the 2015 ISTE conference-and that's a good thing for me. After following maker initiatives with great interest for some time now, I have the opportunity to design a maker space this year for 6th-12th grade students at my school, Worcester (MA) Academy. A search of this year's program at ISTE, held June 28 to July 1 in Philadelphia, using the term "constructivist learning/maker movement" resulted in 67 related sessions. The ISTE Librarians Network hosted a maker station at their Digital Age Playground and convened a panel on library maker spaces, featuring elementary and middle school librarians, a school administrator, and the coordinator of a public library maker initiative. Vendors and exhibitors demonstrated tools, lessons, and ideas for maker spaces. Meanwhile, a four-hour Maker Playground Wednesday morning drew a huge crowd of attendees. One of my goals at the conference was to gather ideas and tips to help me create my library's maker space. Here are some highlights of what I discovered at ISTE."

"Google soon will be rolling out a new service, called Expeditions, that could take virtual field trips to a whole new level - and the company is accepting requests from educators to pilot the technology in their classrooms this year."

"Parents who are uneasy about their own math skills often worry about how best to teach the subject to their kids. Well … there's an app for that. Tons of them, in fact. And a study published today in the journal Science suggests that at least one of them works pretty well for elementary school children and math-anxious parents."

"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 same organization that challenges students to compete in cyber-security competitions now wants to help younger students learn cyber-security. The Air Force Association's CyberPatriot program office has put together a free kit to teach K-6 students how to stay safe online."

Sciyo is a free service that allows scientists to publish their works and connect with other authors. Works published on Sciyo are made available for free to visitors. Visitors can download works as PDFs. There are currently 211 free books on Sciyo.

Brevity has published well-known and emerging writers working in the extremely brief (750 words or less) essay form

"Copying Right and Copying Wrong with Web 2.0 Tools in the Teacher Education and Communications Classrooms"