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"The learn-to-code movement is aiming younger. MIT and partners, for example, recently released a free iPad app with its visual programming language ScratchJr., so kindergartners could use it to code stories and games even before knowing how to read. Vikas Gupta, a former Google executive who founded the startup Wonder Workshop (formerly called Play-i), has taken a slightly different path. "We learned that in order to make programming of interest to young children, it has to be a tangible product. It can't be just software," he told Co.Exist last year. Enter Dot and Dash-Wonder Workshop's two new robots that teach coding skills to children as young as five that are now being field tested in a few dozen elementary school classrooms nationally. And they are definitely tangible: Dash hears and responds to sounds, navigates around a room and avoid obstacles, and comes to life with sound and lights. He can even play the xylophone. Dot, on the other hand, doesn't have wheels and is meant to interact with Dash via Bluetooth and act as a controller. Both have their own customizable "personalities." On the back end, through four apps that control both robots, they are secretly teaching coding skills such as "event-based programming, sequencing, conditionals, and loops.""

"I first heard about the maker movement last summer. I initially thought that this was a direct arm of the STEAM movement to incorporate arts into science, technology, engineering and math. It has been part of my own genius hour to continue to explore and learn more about the maker movement. Here's a little about the path that I've followed so far..."

"This summer PracTutor is offering their online curriculum completely free for students.  This personalized curriculum includes a diagnostic pre-test that measures current learning levels and customizes a learning path for every student.  This summer your students can practice Math and English skills through various question types, manipulatives, and videos with scaffolds and support."

"When Sonja Khan started college, she'd never thought of studying computer science. But when she heard from friends that the intro class was good, she decided to give it a try - and then ended up majoring in it. Four years later, she has just graduated with a computer science degree, is pursuing a master's degree and is headed to a summer internship at Facebook. "I didn't even know anything about the field before; I had never considered it," she said. "I signed up for it pretty much on a whim and really enjoyed it." Ms. Khan's story reads like a dream for universities and technology companies - where only about 15 percent of computer science graduates and technical workers are women. The industry has been under pressure to recruit more. The difficult question, though, is how to encourage more women on paths like Ms. Khan's"

"For many teachers, online games are the scourge of the classroom - a drain on students' attention, time and potential. Any educator who has ever tried to teach a lesson using online resources or taken a class in the computer lab has probably experienced the frustration of finding a student on a gaming site instead of sticking to the intended lesson plan. But online games don't always have to be a distraction (see last week's post 5 Reasons to Embrace Gaming in the Classroom). In fact, there are many brilliant educational games out there that can actually engage and inspire students and equip them with the tools and ambition to approach a whole host of exciting careers and academic paths"

"What are the real benefits of a maker-centered approach to learning? It's often described as a way to incubate STEM skills or drive technical innovation - and it is probably both of these. But as a new report from Project Zero's Agency by Design concludes, the real value of maker education has more to do with building character than with building the next industrial revolution.  "

"School and district leaders that are thinking about personalizing education tell us one of their top concerns is how to train, support, and develop teachers effectively to teach in ways that may feel new and unfamiliar.  As former educators we agree that this is crucial, and are happy that they recognize the challenge and are ready to take it on. First and foremost, in order to support the teachers we are asking to teach in blended learning environments we have to understand the implications on teaching practice.  Over the past three years, we've worked with thousands of teachers tackling the question of how to personalize learning in their classrooms and we've gathered a set skills into 5 domains of blended learning teaching that we believe are new skills to master for veteran and novice teachers alike. This five-domain rubric was created, not for evaluation purposes (there are enough evaluation rubrics out there!), but for teachers to be able to self-assess, set goals and progress.  In the same way, we want blended learning to allow for students to have a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, we want teachers to be able to identify blended specific skills and better understand their own strengths and areas for growth.  We wanted to give teachers, their coaches, and their leaders, a sense of what to strive for, and help them plot a path to get there through aligned professional development.  We also found that the teachers we work with cherish the opportunity to self-reflect, identify the skills they have and the skills they need, and take the time to set goals around where they want to shift their practice.  Many of our schools infuse these concepts into community of practices discussions for continuous learning."

"It is a new school year and I'm so excited to see many teachers and schools starting Genius Hour or 20% Projects for the first time! As I mentioned to Joy Kirr on Twitter a few weeks ago, I sense a tidal wave of student choice being unleashed in K-12 schools around the world this year. As someone who is passionate about letting our students choose their own learning paths, this has me pumped to be a part of the movement! I recently had a conversation with two teachers in my school district about start Genius Hour and wanted to share a few of the key takeaways from that talk. When you give students choice, amazing things happen. But it is also difficult as a teacher to support this type of learning. Here are five things to remember before you jump into Genius Hour:"

"A lot of people limit themselves only to use things without wondering how they work internally or without having the ability to look inside and possibly make changes.This means that we renounce a better understanding of the objects that surround us and we become mere passive users of systems, mechanisms and technology. By cultivating the maker philosophy and promoting tinkering and coding, we can lay a solid foundation for those kids and young people who are intrigued by science, technology, art, engineering and maths. We can also involve more girls to encourage them to choose future career paths in scientific and  technological areas."

"Introducing kids to coding is the hot new thing. Even President Obama is promoting it. By teaching children how to write code, we enhance their understanding about how computer science makes so many things work. Using their new coding skills, budding programmers can create their own games and solve problems, while also practicing logical thinking, math and reading skills. Here are some of the best free ways to start kids down the path of coding."

This paper explores the role that notemaking strategies can play as part of an emancipatory pedagogy designed to empower students. We will argue that being taught active notemaking is fundamental in enabling students to use information with confidence and thus that notemaking allows students to gain a voice (Bowl, 2005; Burns et al., 2006) within their own education.

PhotoFilmStrip creates movies out of your pictures in just 3 steps. First select your photos, customize the motion path and render the video. There are several output possibilities for VCD, SVCD, DVD up to FULL-HD

"When Texting Kills, Britain Offers Path to Prison "

"ner Driven Community," a disruptive approach led by self-directed learners, in a community tightly bound by personal covenants and contracts, using the full power of the internet to craft a transformative, personalized learning path."

"Teenagers really get a bad time,' says Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. 'It is amazing how it seems to be totally acceptable - even institutionalised - to parody and demonise them. We laugh at things that mock teenagers, but if you applied those sorts of jokes to any other sector of society, it just wouldn't be acceptable.' Blakemore is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and deputy director of the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. She is sitting in her office behind Russell Square, the heartland of London academia, mounting a strong defence for every teenager in Britain who has slammed a bedroom door, smoked a cigarette, driven a car too fast and even - though she certainly doesn't condone this - given in to the peer pressure that surrounds drugs such as Ecstasy. Society's response to the teenage conviction that 'nobody understands' is often lack of patience. Teenagers, we think, are moody, self-absorbed, reckless, defiant creatures who reject our wisdom in favour of a path of personal sabotage. But the rallying cry from Blakemore - an increasingly powerful voice in the world of international neuroscience, who has given policy advice to the British government - is that teenagers are right. Beyond the world of neuroscientific research, for the most part society does not understand them."

"Lightbot is an addictively fun puzzle game that is the perfect platform for introducing programming concepts to your students. Using sequential commands, students create simple programs to direct their Lightbot (Girlbot or Boybot) through a 3-dimensional grid on their mission to 'light up' the world of tiles. With no explicit coding required and a fun and tactile interface, Lightbot is an excellent starting point to get your class on the path to programming."

"It seems that everyone wants to learn how to write computer code these days. No matter what field or profession a person works in, the ability to make a computer (or mobile device) dance to your tune seems part of the basic skill set. The question is, how does a person take the first step toward gaining those skills? Once upon a time the path was simple: BASIC was where most people started before moving into Fortran or COBOL (depending on whether they were heading toward scientific or business programming). Now, though, there are far more options and rather less clarity. If you want to know how to get started (or give advice to others), then you have a number of options. Choosing the best means looking at what you ultimately want to do, what you like to do now, and how you best learn new skills."

"When I put together this list of top-rated games of 2015, I noticed that though the tools varied in target grades and subjects, they shared some key things. As Mitch Resnick of the MIT Media Lab has argued, if you want to know if a tool is good for learning, first look to see if it aids kids' creativity and expression. I think many (if not all) the tools on this list get kids there, but they don't all take the same path. Some of these tools explicitly help kids make things while others foster thinking and reflection skills that complicate and expand their understanding of themselves and their worlds. They show us how great games can be for learning and inspire others to follow their lead."