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"IN THE small town of Fayetteville in northern New York, you'll find the local library in an old furniture factory dating from the turn of the 20th century. The refurbished building retains hints of its industrial past: wooden floors, exposed beams, walls lined with carefully labelled tools. But instead of quietly perusing stacks of books, many of the patrons are crowded around a suite of 3D printers. One machine is midway through a pink mobile phone case; another is finishing up a toy sword. This is Fayetteville's maker lab - and it may very well be the future of libraries."

"I'm now a little over a month into my new role as the coordinator of our brand-new makerspace in my PS-8th grade school here in Seattle, and I'm honestly loving it every bit as much as I expected! Over the course of this month, 450 students made prototype boats for their stuffies (PK), built "doodle bots" (K and 1),  "hacked" their notebooks with surface-mount LEDs (2), made dioramas powered by Hummingbird Robotics kits (3 and 4), designed and laser cut labels for their new classroom spaces (5), made postcards using the greenscreen of themselves visiting exotic locales (5 French), built casino games for math class (6), and built symbolic representations of their personal core values (8). 7th grade will be building turbine-driven generators next week! And, that's not even a comprehensive list… In the process of collaborating with my colleagues to develop and implement these projects with our students, I've figured out a few tips to pass along to educators at other schools initiating similar programs."

"Around this time of year I post a gift recommendation each Friday as part of a "Gifts for the Gifted" series.  The title is a bit misleading, as it might imply that the gifts are only for children who have been endowed with the label, and that is certainly not true. Just as with any gift, you should select a product that suits the interests of the receiver.  These lists of potential gifts that I provide are ones that I feel will be engaging for children who enjoy problem solving and/or creativity. Our first product in this year's Gifts for the Gifted recommendations is the lovable pair of robots, Dash and Dot. Wonder Workshop, the company behind Dash and Dot, knew exactly how to encourage youths to program and create when they put these robots on the market.  They definitely have the cuteness factor wrapped up, and they were designed with so much versatility that will keep imaginative children occupied for a very long time."

"When you the word "creative," you might think of a painter or a playwright or an author or a photographer or a filmmaker or a chef. In other words, you might think of people who make things. I think it's what we mean when we use a label like "creative type." But there is no such thing as a creative type. We are all creative. Every one of us. We just need a bigger definition of creativity. "

"No app is more integral to teens' social lives than Instagram. While Millennials relied on Facebook to navigate high school and college, connect with friends, and express themselves online, Gen Z's networks exist almost entirely on Instagram. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of teens use the platform, which now has more than 1 billion monthly users. Instagram allows teens to chat with people they know, meet new people, stay in touch with friends from camp or sports, and bond by sharing photos or having discussions. But when those friendships go south, the app can become a portal of pain. According to a recent Pew survey, 59 percent of teens have been bullied online, and according to a 2017 survey conducted by Ditch the Label, a nonprofit anti-bullying group, more than one in five 12-to-20-year-olds experience bullying specifically on Instagram. "Instagram is a good place sometimes," said Riley, a 14-year-old who, like most kids in this story, asked to be referred to by her first name only, "but there's a lot of drama, bullying, and gossip to go along with it.""

"When the bell rang for early dismissal on a recent afternoon at Cold Springs Middle School in Nevada, students sprinted toward the buses while teachers filed into the library, where posters filled with the names of every child in the 980-student school covered the walls. Taking seats where they could, the teachers turned their attention to Principal Roberta Duvall, who asked her staff to go through the rosters with colored markers and make check marks under columns labeled "Name/Face," "Something Personal," "Personal/Family Story," and "Academic Standing," to note whether they knew the child just by name or something more-their grades, their family's story, their hobbies. "

"You can create a safe space for your students to engage in conversation about digital topics with though-provoking images and a variety of activities. Students of all ages can use the image/discussion cards I've created in a variety of ways. Asking students to group images and assign groups a label will force them to engage in discussion and analysis of the artwork in front of them. The questions on the back of the image cards can make great journal prompts, debate topics, and launches for research and inquiry projects."

We have some strange ideas about intelligence, many of them are wrong. Some of our ideas can have a damaging effect on the people we label as intelligent. When we look at some of the research behind intelligence we find that our assumptions based on what we were once told about it need to be updated. 

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Higher-level thinking has been a core value of educators for decades. We learned about it in college. We hear about it in PD. We're even evaluated on whether we're cultivating it in our classrooms: Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching, a widely used instrument to measure teacher effectiveness, describes a distinguished teacher as one whose "lesson activities require high-level student thinking" (Domain 3, Component 3c). All that aside, most teachers would say they want their students to be thinking on higher levels, that if our teaching kept students at the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy-simply recalling information-we wouldn't be doing a very good job as teachers. And yet, when it's time to plan the learning experiences that would have our students operating on higher levels, some of us come up short. We may not have a huge arsenal of ready-to-use, high-level tasks to give our students. Instead, we often default to having students identify and define terms, label things, or answer basic recall questions. It's what we know. And we have so much content to cover, many of us might feel that there really isn't time for the higher-level stuff anyway. If this sounds anything like you, I have a suggestion: Try a curation assignment."

"Our recent article on reading levels and the dangers of using strictly prescribed leveling systems in libraries for young readers sparked much dialogue and debate. One of the most popular and widely used reading systems is the "A to Z" gradient, developed by Irene C. Fountas, professor in the School of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, and Gay Su Pinnell, professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. Both researchers have been adamant that their leveling system was designed as "a teacher's tool, not a child's label." We caught up with Fountas and Pinnell, who jointly gave their perspective on leveling, libraries, reading comprehension, and what they say to districts mandating leveled collections. "

"The pandemic has raised concerns about the way stress is affecting kids. Even though the word 'trauma' is on a lot of worried adults' minds these days, information about it is wide-ranging and can leave people feeling unsure about what to do next. Trauma is a response to life-threatening events, harmful conditions or stressful environments, writes Vermont-based educator Alex Shevrin Venet in her book "Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education." As students transition back to learning in school buildings, traumas that have been hard to see during Zoom classes may become more apparent. On top of that, adjusting to new schooling structures may be another hurdle for young learners and teachers alike. Educators who want to create a nurturing school environment for returning students or hybrid learners may find solutions in trauma-informed education that uses an equity lens."