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"Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. "For someone like me who teaches literature by lots of dead white guys, teaching programming adds relevance to my class," said Jessica Herring, a high school English teacher at Benton High School in Arkansas. Herring first experimented using Sphero, essentially a programmable ball, when her American literature class was studying the writing of early settlers. Herring pushed the desks back and drew a maze on the floor with tape representing the journey from Europe to the New World. Her students used class iPads and an introductory manually guided app to steer their Spheros through the maze. Herring, like many English teachers, was skeptical about how the Sphero robot could be a useful teaching tool in her classroom. She thought that type of technology would distract students from the core skills of reading, writing and analyzing literature. But she decided to try it after hearing about the success of another English teacher across the country."

"Convincing more students to pursue STEM studies is a goal widely shared by educators, policymakers, and industry representatives concerned about the leaky pipeline of students preparing to become the next generation of innovators. Fortunately, there's no shortage of solutions. When more than 200 of the nation's top math and science educators gathered at the White House this fall to receive the 2016 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, they exchanged practical ideas for igniting student interest in STEM. ADVERTISEMENT Among the honorees was Dr. Jaunine Fouché, science curriculum supervisor at the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania. This unique residential school, founded as a philanthropic effort more than a century ago, serves more than 2,000 students in preK-12 from across the U.S. Every student comes from a background of poverty. Education and wraparound services are provided at no cost. In a recent conversation, Dr. Fouché shared strategies for making science education more engaging to diverse learners. Here are the highlights."

"Root looks like a smoke detector but is actually a sophisticated robot. A magnetic surface, wheels, and an impressive arsenal of sensors allow it to navigate a classroom white board. But Root isn't actually programmed to do anything. Its tasks and functionality hinge on a child's imagination. To operate - Root needs instructions, a line of code. Zivthan Dubrovsky of Harvard's Wyss Institute recalls testing out Root with kids for the first time. He asked them this: "Can you make a text based java script line follower? They go 'no that's hard, can't do that', but we can put level one in front of them and they can do it in minutes." Level one introduces kids to principles of programming using an interface of simple instruction and pictures. As they become more adept, they jump to levels 2 and 3, at which point writing computer code becomes second nature, according to Dubrovsky."

"You know you have "arrived" when the White House honors a week just for you. This June 17-23 President Obama and his staff will host the National Week of Makers. With the support of the President, it's safe to say that making is not just a trend, rather it is a movement rapidly spreading across the educational landscape. It has become commonplace to hear of urban makers quarters, events such as Maker Faires, and schools building maker spaces in community areas. As is with most frenzies, while it can be invigorating and inspiring, it can also feel intimidating and overwhelming. If the later descriptors speak to you, never fear because there are baby steps you can take to integrate making into your curriculum."

"According to Wikipedia, a QR code is " a specific matrix bar code ( or two-dimensional code ), readable by dedicated QR bar code readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL, or other data." Teachers can use this technology for a wide variety of educational purposes. In this excellent video tutorial, Red Squirrel demonstrates 11 ways you can use QR codes in your class (e.g: create handouts with links to online content; enrich your content by adding links to online videos, documents and PDFs where students can access more information about topics taught; create QR codes that can show answers to a specific exercise or instructions on how to carry out a certain activity …etc, make books interactive and many more)."

"Few trends in K-12 ed tech are as hot-or as under-researched-as "Maker" education. The term generally refers to using a wide variety of hands-on activities (such as building, computer programming, and sewing) to support academic learning and the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community.  Typically, "Making" involves attempting to solve a particular problem, creating a physical or digital artifact, and sharing that product with a larger audience. Often, such work is guided by the notion that process is more important than results. The Maker Movement has its roots outside of school, in institutions such as science museums and in the informal activities that everyday people have taken part in for generations. It began exploding about a decade ago, thanks in large part to the enthusiastic audience of Make magazine and the popularity of public events such as Maker Faires (the most well-known of which was hosted by President Barack Obama at the White House in 2014.) The rise of cheap digital tools, including microcontroller platforms such as Arduino and rapid-prototyping tools such as 3-D printers, has in recent years lent the movement a decidedly techie flavor. Efforts to bring Making and "Maker spaces" into K-12 schools are still "nascent," said Erica Halverson, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading researcher into Maker education. But that's changing fast."

"With more than 500,000 apps available for use on the iPad, which ones are best for education? TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) helps by testing and recommending great apps for the classroom. They regularly try out new apps and list those that make the grade in the shared document available here for iPad. Apps are categorized into 46 different subject areas and 14 different personal use areas. Apps that are free are listed in white. "

"The Maker movement continues to gain momentum. At this year's White House Science Fair, President Obama invited Super-Awesome Sylvia from Auburn, California to exhibit her water color robot as a representative of the Maker community. At the same event, the Corporation for National Service announced its commitment to place Americorps VISTAs in Maker movement organizations across the country. Maker Ed is placing those Maker VISTAs in makerspaces to help build their capacity for engaging low-income students as makers. In this spirit, we are starting to see more and more makerspaces springing up in schools across the country. If you are a teacher experimenting with making projects in your classroom, here are some successful fundraising strategies we've seen educators use to fund a makerspace for their school community. "

"Don't have the budget for a field trip to The White House or Mount Everest? Take a virtual field trip with one of these websites from parent and teacher JC. Tour the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Journey through The Grapes of Wrath using Google Earth. Keep a travel journal as you visit city after city and read about their cultures and histories."

"Wherever we are, we'd all like to think our classrooms are "intellectually active" places. Progressive learning (like our 21st Century Model, for example) environments. Highly effective and conducive to student-centered learning. But what does that mean? The reality is, there is no single answer because teaching and learning are awkward to consider as single events or individual "things." This is all a bunch of rhetoric until we put on our white coats and study it under a microscope, at which point abstractions like curiosity, authenticity, self-knowledge, and affection will be hard to pin down. So we put together one take on the characteristics of a highly effective classroom. They can act as a kind of criteria to measure your own against-see if you notice a pattern."

"In children's books, it can be easier to find talking pandas than characters of color. Only six percent of children's books published in 2012 featured diverse characters. Last Saturday, the first ever BookCon in New York city came under severe scrutiny for featuring all-white speakers (and one Grumpy Cat). NPR's Bilal Qureshi reported on the controversy and the resulting hashtag campaign, #WeNeedDiverseBooks. We asked around the NPR headquarters, checked out our library and compiled a list of books with authors hailing from around the world, including Korea, India and the South Dakota Sioux reservation. These books tackle themes like international adoption, bi-racial families and cultural history, to name a few. Not all of the authors are minorities, but every book features a protagonist of color that children can point to and say, "That's me!""

"Hackathons, tech shops, makerspaces: These terms are increasingly prevalent in today's vernacular, and for good reason. They represent a burgeoning global movement with people of all ages developing, designing, and often marketing their creations. In the age of the maker, anyone can be an inventor. Their potential impact on the world is enormous. Innovations and discoveries are no longer produced exclusively by scientists in white lab coats or research and development departments of major corporations. Thanks to affordable technologies and online environments, individual makers can launch small companies to manufacture and market their goods. This shift in industry is influencing the way we learn, shop, sell, and interact. Here are four ways this movement is changing our world. "

"The maker movement and maker education, in my perspective, are such great initiatives - really in line with what student-centric education should be in this era of formal and informal learning. Maker education (often referred to as "Maker Ed") is a new school of educational thought [at least in terms of having an "official" educational label - JG] that focuses on delivering constructivist, project-based learning curriculum and instructional units to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as full high school workshops with high-tech tools, or as small and low-tech as one corner of an elementary classroom. A makerspace isn't just about the tools and equipment, but the sort of learning experience the space provides to students who are making projects. (9 Maker Projects for Beginner Maker Ed Teachers) Social media has helped me gain a more global perspective and become aware of some of the problems associated with the maker movement. The two I discuss in this post are: Maker movement initiatives are often driven by more affluent white males. The maker movement is too often being associated with the tech stuff - Arduinos, Littlebits, Makey-Makeys - stuff that less affluent schools and community programs can afford."

"It's now possible to display your iPad to your class by connecting it directly to your Mac using the lightning-USB cable (the same one you use to charge your iPad).  Once your iPad is connected to your Mac, launch QuickTime Player (in your Applications folder). From the File menu Choose "New Movie Recording".  This will open a movie window and show your web cam.  If you hover your mouse over the window you will see a floating recording palette.  Next to the record button, there is a small white V icon.  Clicking that will let you select your iPad as the camera source!  Of course you can record it if you want to - but you don't have to - you can just use it to show your screen to the class."

"You can't watch a video like you read a book; the modalities couldn't be much different. On the surface level a video uses light, color, sound, and moving images, with the potential for adding text and shape and color and light filters as overlays to communicate ideas, while the most basic text structures use alphanumeric symbols, paragraph and sentence structure, and an assortment of text features (e.g., white space, headings and subheadings, fonts, etc.) to convey their message. There is much, much more to it than this. Videos are meant to be consumed in short bursts, while literature, for example, is meant to be "sat with." Videos are (often manic) sprints, while texts are (often meandering) walks. Because of this very different tone and purpose as a matter of design, it's unfair to criticize videos as "less rigorous" than texts, just as it would be misleading to say that video is universally "more engaging" than text (something I may or may not have said in the past). It's more complex than that."

"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.  "

" President Obama announced the "Week of Making" the week of June 12 - 18, 2015, and eleven educators from the Pittsburgh region were invited to the White House on June 15, 2015 to discuss what great makerspaces look like in schools and how we can scale this movement across the country in schools. But not everyone can visit Obama to talk about Making--so how does one lead professional development when introducing a makerspace? EXPERT "MAKER" EDUCATORS FROM PITTSBURGH AT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S "WEEK OF MAKING." At Elizabeth Forward High School, the 2015 Pittsburgh FAB Institute was held June 15 - 18, 2015. Sponsored by the Grable Foundation, the 2015 Pittsburgh FAB Institute provided a rich professional development to 75 teachers across the country focusing on digital fabrication. These educators ranged from beginners to experts, elementary, middle and high school teachers, educators from museums, college professors and school administrators and these educators were interested in what aFABLab looks like in schools."

"Hackathons, tech shops, makerspaces: These terms are increasingly prevalent in today's vernacular, and for good reason. They represent a burgeoning global movement with people of all ages developing, designing, and often marketing their creations. In the age of the maker, anyone can be an inventor. Their potential impact on the world is enormous. Innovations and discoveries are no longer produced exclusively by scientists in white lab coats or research and development departments of major corporations. Thanks to affordable technologies and online environments, individual makers can launch small companies to manufacture and market their goods. This shift in industry is influencing the way we learn, shop, sell, and interact. Here are four ways this movement is changing our world. "

"Makerspaces have made headlines recently. Several weeks ago New York City hosted the World Maker Faire. The White House had its first Maker Faire this summer, and schools and libraries across the country are installing these spaces. It is certainly tempting to start thinking about all the amazing tools you could put into your makerspace. If you know anything about Makers, you are probably thinking that you need a CNC machine, a 3-D printer, Dremels for everyone and a laser cutter since they are the gateway tool for making things. But buying a bunch of tools without first stopping to think about how they will be integrated into the culture and curriculum of your school is a recipe for a dusty and underused workshop. Don't be tempted by the sexy CNC and laser cutters if you don't need them. Just taking apart a blender offers a wealth of learning opportunities. From my experience installing makerspaces in several dozen schools, I've developed a process that helps you think through your makerspace and how it fits into the culture and curriculum of your school. Skipping this process, or one like it, will almost certainly result in tension, missed teaching opportunities, and overspending."