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"f you build it, will they come? Just because you create a makerspace (PDF) in your school doesn't guarantee that your community will embrace it. Students who have had all personal choice removed by traditional educational models can be passive and feel overwhelmed when faced with real-world problems or design challenges. Academic passivity is common in schools where students swallow content and regurgitate it on multiple-choice tests. Students simply want to know how to get the "A." This type of learning does not stick. Teachers may find the role of facilitator (or "guide on the side") uncomfortable if they are used to being the "sage on the stage." New technology in these spaces may be intimidating. Teachers need encouragement and professional development to change their mindsets and become facilitators of learning. How do you change your culture and ensure that your shiny new makerspace will empower students to acquire 21st-century skills? How do you change the culture of student apathy to encourage a mindset of doing? Follow these steps and design tips to build a culture of making and active learning."

Spelling videos have been created for each of the 3000+ words in the National Spelling Bank, from which teachers can generate and assign a word list to their Key Stage 2 pupils. Memorable characters help to reinforce spelling concepts in an enjoyable way that will appeal to various learning styles.

How one goes about starting a PLN, how do you monitor it, and how do you learn to shut it off.

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"When asked, "What is the most challenging part of writing an essay?" Most of my students agree, "It's just getting started that's hard." I remember feeling this same way as a student. The blank page was daunting. So, I decided to try a new strategy. The first stage of our formal essay on Shakespeare's play, Othello, was a prewriting activity designed to tap into the collective potential of the class. I wanted students working together to generate ideas and collect textual evidence."

"Adam Savage took a few minutes on Sunday at the Maker Faire Bay Area to share what he feels are the 10 Commandments of Making. Braving the somewhat precarious elevated stage of the crowd-favorite Life-Sized Mousetrap, Adam addressed the audience with bits of wisdom and jewels of experience. It was obvious from the laughter that many of these insights and observations struck close to home."

"For the purpose of offering a reliable cadre of apps that teachers can plan around instructionally, Waukesha One offers all students and staff a set of apps called the Core Apps. In selecting these apps, the team looked for apps that integrate well with Google Apps for Education, are flexible and not content/subject specific, promote thinking and doing aimed at the highest levels of Bloom's, are easy to use, and can output easily for publication to the world. Book Creator fit all of those descriptors, was stable and reliable, and set the stage for teachers and students to do many different things with it once they became comfortable with the tool."

"As both hardware and software design improve, the possibility of mobile learning is increasingly accessible. Video is undoubtedly at the core of a modern mobile learning experience. (As opposed to, say, an early 20th century "mobile" experience that was likely hands-on, place-based, and experiential.) To actually be useful beyond the cool-video-as-a-writing-prompt-every-once-in-a-while stage is going to require smarter tools. Teachers need to be able to capture, upload, download, edit, slow down, speed up, annotate, curate, share, and otherwise "own" video content so that is fully merges with everything else. With that in mind, below are 25 of the best resources for teaching with YouTube. Some are web-based, some are apps, and others are guides or tips. Let us know in the comments what your favorites are that we might've missed!"

"Our PYP evaluation went really well and it was gratifying to hear the evaluators' positive observations of our school. They talked about our dynamic learning spaces, the energy of our teachers and learners and the respect that is evident between staff and students. They were impressed by how articulate our students are and the openness of our teachers. It was clear to them that the entire school community has a deep understanding of the PYP philosophy and that we have a strong culture of learning. Almost all their recommendations are things on which we are either working already or have identified for action through the self study. There's only one thing I found jarring in their feedback and it relates to my beliefs about inquiry learning. They noted that neither students nor teachers seem able to identify what particular inquiry cycles we follow. They said the children to whom they spoke didn't seem to be aware of the specific 'stages' of inquiry and that most teachers couldn't articulate how an inquiry cycle directs our planning. To be honest, I'm glad."

"Since this year's WWDC keynote ended, the focus of any analysis on iOS 8 has been its features - things like Continuity, Extensions, and iCloud Drive. This is, of course, expected: iOS is the operating system that drives Apple's most important (and most profitable) products, so it's natural that the limelight be shone on the new features for the mass market. As I've written, however, the Accessibility features that Apple includes in iOS are nonetheless just as important and innovative as the A-list features that Craig Federighi demoed on stage at Moscone. Indeed, Apple is to be lauded for their year-over-year commitment to improving iOS's Accessibility feature set, and they continue that trend with iOS 8. Here, I run down what's new in Accessibility in iOS 8, and explain briefly how each feature works."

"ll ludicrous jokes aside, isn't this how some educational institutions operate? Totally unaware of students' opinions about the very aspect of their own lives that will impact them the most? What might the educators excuses be? Too little time? Too many papers to grade? Unwillingness to learn something new? Fear of being knocked off the sage-on-the-stage pedestal? An allegiance to out-dated and inflexible lesson plans? Fear of facilitating a class full of learning noise and having it mistaken by administrators as chaos? Or, plain ole professional stagnation due to a detachment from the ever-burgeoning world of the connected, 21st Century Educator? But please excuse my lack of manners. I should not be treating readers like participants in a twenty questions session. Instead, I got an idea. Let's just ask the students some questions. Got time to listen? The Questions If you could improve public education, what three changes would you make? If you were a school principal, what types of teachers would you hire? If you were a school principal, what types of teachers would you fire? Do you believe smartphones should be allowed in school? How can all teachers integrate students' passions/talents/interests into their curricula? What are your passions/talents/interests? Please describe your future plans."

"Rocket Science 101 is a free iPad app offered by NASA designed to help students understand how rockets work. The app also helps students understand the differences between the four types of rockets most frequently used by NASA. In Rocket Science 101 students can build all four rockets in a jigsaw-like activity then virtually launch their rockets. When the rockets are launched students see the timing of each stage of the launch from surface to orbit. "

"The value of computer programming has been rising exponentially for decades. To the point where now coding has gained traction in mainstream media. TV shows like CBS's The Big Bang Theory or HBO's Silicon Valley are good indicators of computer science careers are taking center stage. The domino effect created by the demand for amazing technology is likewise leading to a demand for skilled workers to engineer and program. Whether training comes through a high school certificate program, or a degree in computer science, the need for project-ready coders is only increasing. The bottom-line: All schools at all levels are kicking coding into overdrive."

"St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School hosted Miami Device, a conference held on their campus November 6 & 7, 2014. Felix Jacomino, the school's Director of Technology, managed to lead a team that pulled off an incredible learning event. The speakers, sessions, food, venue, and even the name tags surpassed all expectations. The opening keynote speaker was Kevin Honeycutt.  Kevin's wisdom, humor, expertise, kindness, charm, and wit set the stage for the two days. I had the privilege of being the closing keynote speaker. I had a great time encouraging educators to give students as much ownership over their devices and learning as possible. "

"In September of this year, I was asked back to the TEDxKyoto stage to give a few words regarding tips from storytelling as they relate to modern presentations. The 15-minute talk can be viewed below. The title of the talk is "10 Ways to Make Better Presentations: Lessons from Storytellers." But as I say early in the presentation, perhaps a better subtitle would be "Lessons from watching too many Pixar films." Below the video I list the ten (actually eleven) lessons. It's not an exhaustive list by any means. But it's a start. (Link on YouTube.)"

"Many of the applications for introductory program are based on the logo turtle concept.  Even at that presentation, there sometimes is a challenging entry point.  You have to understand the concept of the stage, the mathematics of location, movement, etc. before you even get started. In the case of CodeMonkey, they've take more of a challenge / gamification approach. Yes, you work directly with code instructions like STEP and TURN but they're done in the context of solving a problem.  The video above gives a nice description of how you or your students work within the environment. As with many of my obsessions with coding and Computer Science, it's just plain fun.  Stepping back for a moment, I had to reflect on the fact that they've introduced the concept of coding and problem solving in a very non-threatening manner.  I was quite impressed."