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"There's an old saying that the things that change your life are the books you read, the places you go, and the people you meet. But I'd like to add a fourth: the challenges you face (and how you face them) will always change your life. If we want our students to respond to challenges with creativity and inventiveness, we must create the conditions in which innovation is not only possible but encouraged. You don't help students learn to invent by giving worksheets or cookie-cutter assignments. In fact, these one-size-fits-all approaches may actually take up the time that could be used for such creativity. ADVERTISEMENT According to the Torrance Test-which measures CQ, or creativity quotient-the United States has been declining in creativity since 1990. There has to be a reason. Perhaps it is because we focus on students' weaknesses instead of their strengths. In many schools, we'll put a math genius who struggles with grammar into extra English classes. Should we not give this math genius access to college-level advanced math work, and figure out the basic English requirements he or she needs for a basic understanding of grammar? Why do we think that all students should be good at everything? We can either be average at everything or exceptional at something. With this in mind, here are some things we need to do to encourage student inventors as we nurture student passions, interests, and strengths."

"At TeachMeet Nottingham, Friday 30th March, I spoke about my work with Apps Based Learning on iPad and how Puppet Pals and Morpho Booth has been effective in bringing story language to life in my Reception class."

"Living a life of perpetual travel is pretty exciting - new destinations, new cultures and new incredible people to meet and hang out with! However, working on the road can get pretty hectic at times. As a digital nomad I have found myself in rather awkward situations a lot - from missed deadlines due to incorrect time zone conversion to a nearly missed plane when I forgot to print out my booking and confused the time (I did catch that plane though!). Being your own boss is equally awesome and hellish. Juggling numerous tasks at once and getting things done super-fast with a terrible wi-fi connection requirea killer organizational skills and zen-like concentration. Try using the next 20 websites and apps to make your life as a digital nomad easier, less stressful and even more exciting!"

"Literature is meant to be brought to life. Without musical, artistic, acting, and verbal connections, many students view literature as an endless flipping of pages full of meaningless words. They long to experience novels, short stories, poetry and other works of literary art by creating songs, drawing precise symbols, morphing into a character and dropping a few lines, and speaking in such an academic manner that demands the attention of their peers. Anything else can be, well, square."

"Primary source documents, especially photographs, are powerful tools for grabbing the attention of students.  Sometimes it's challenging to find the right picture to connect to a historical fiction literature circle or to support a Social Studies lesson.  I'm a big fan of Google Image searches but another option is to check out the LIFE photo archive hosted by Google.  You can search over a hundred years worth of photographs by typing in a keyword or choosing a specific event or time period.  This is a terrific resource for teachers who work with students of any age!"

"Storytelling has been around as long as humankind. It is one of the most effective ways to communicate an important truth to another person. It is a connection point between two people. It gives meaning, context, and understanding in a world that is often filled with chaos and disorder. Because of this, educators must use stories if they hope to reach their students. Stories will stay with people much longer than facts or statistics. If a teacher becomes an excellent storyteller, he or she can ensure that any concept they teach will be remembered for years to come. Stories don't just work well for narratives; they can be used to illustrate scientific or mathematical processes as well. Take for example the difference between learning a formula, and the ability to solve that problem in the context of a real-life example. Stories bring information, knowledge, and truth to life."

"If "children grow into the intellectual life around them" (see L.S. Vygostky's Mind in Society), then what kind of intellectual life are we providing to the students in our classrooms and schools? Teachers all over the world have had to accept the compromise of focusing more on delivering prescribed curriculum than developing understanding - test-taking rather than learning. This, among other reasons, is why strategies focused on ingraining cultures of thinking have been such game changers in many of today's classrooms. One good example of this that I've worked with is the Cultures of Thinking Project, led by Ron Ritchhart as part of Harvard's Project Zero. The Cultures of Thinking Project focuses on two main ways of moving towards cultures of thinking: the eight cultural forces that act on a classroom, and documentation. Curious as to what that means? Continue reading for more."

"There's an old saying that the things that change your life are the books you read, the places you go, and the people you meet. But I'd like to add a fourth: the challenges you face (and how you face them) will always change your life. If we want our students to respond to challenges with creativity and inventiveness, we must create the conditions in which innovation is not only possible but encouraged. You don't help students learn to invent by giving worksheets or cookie-cutter assignments. In fact, these one-size-fits-all approaches may actually take up the time that could be used for such creativity. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. According to the Torrance Test-which measures CQ, or creativity quotient-the United States has been declining in creativity since 1990. There has to be a reason. Perhaps it is because we focus on students' weaknesses instead of their strengths. In many schools, we'll put a math genius who struggles with grammar into extra English classes. Should we not give this math genius access to college-level advanced math work, and figure out the basic English requirements he or she needs for a basic understanding of grammar? Why do we think that all students should be good at everything? We can either be average at everything or exceptional at something. With this in mind, here are some things we need to do to encourage student inventors as we nurture student passions, interests, and strengths."

"Nothing matters more for economics and human living standards than innovation. It's innovation that has allowed us to cure diseases and extend life spans. It's innovation that has drastically increased the pace of transportation and communication, and ultimately it's innovation that has let most people do high-wage work rather than subsistence agriculture. What the researchers found is fascinating. They discovered that both an actual ability to invent things and early life exposure to a culture of innovation and opportunity are crucial to driving inventions. Ability itself is, of course, unevenly distributed. But in the United States, so is opportunity - with huge numbers of highly skilled children from unfavorable backgrounds seemingly locked out of pathways to careers as inventors."

Digital Nation is a multiplatform project that includes this interactive Web site and a one-hour FRONTLINE documentary to air Winter 2010. The project aims to capture life on the digital frontier and explore how the Web and digital media are changing the way we think, work, learn and interact.

"96 percent of Americans use the internet daily, and 62 percent of working Americans rely on the internet to do their jobs. We live in an internet age - an age that requires specific skills. Digital literacy skills have become essential to academic, career and interpersonal success. Digital literacy is defined as the ability to find, evaluate, share and create content using the internet - but it's much more than that. Digital literacy skills (also referred to as "21st century learning skills") have permeated the classroom, becoming requirements for both teachers and students. To address this need, we worked with education expert Leah Anne Levy to create USC Rossier's Toolkit for Digitally-Literate Teachers. This toolkit provide teachers and school administrators with how-to guides, actionable strategies and real-life examples of the benefits of digital literacy in the classroom."

If you are a parent, teacher, or other adult working with children, this blog aims to help you learn, as much as possible, about helping digital kids grow into thoughtful, collaborative, and savvy digital citizens. The blog's mission is to provide context for adults - defining and clarifying digital world issues, 21st Century learning challenges, and those virtual environments and devices that children take for granted. It's not really about technology anymore. Instead it's about lifelong learning, collaboration, problem solving, and flexibility. Media! Tech! Parenting! examines or reviews three or four items of digital news and information each week, surveying newspapers, blogs, research, and magazines, as well as the media, safety, and educational websites. Blog posts, as often as possible, provide links pointing readers toward the sites or publications covered in blog posts. I am Marti Weston, the principal blogger on Media!Tech!Parenting! In my professional life I focus on learning in a K-12 environment along with all the digital world issues that challenge teachers, students, and parents. With more than 30 years of teaching experience I also support parents by teaching three-five digital education classes, leading question and answer sessions, and maintaining current resources on the school's website. My professional work centers on four areas: Coaching teachers and helping them develop learning environments that are rich with 21st Century collaboration and problem solving. Helping students learn to use digital tools appropriately, understand their digital dossiers, and move - carefully - along the digital citizenship highway. Providing teachers, students and their parents added context that helps them evaluate media and learn more about how media affect their world, Offering parents information about the always changing, fast-paced virtual world and suggesting effective parenting skills and strategies that will help children grow into stro

"Using simple analogies, real-life case studies, and state-of-the-art CGI, this special shows how the brain works, explains the frequent battle between instinct and reason, and unravels the mysteries of memory and decision-making. It takes us inside the mind of a soldier under fire to see how decisions are made in extreme situations, examines how an autistic person like Rain Man develops remarkable skills, and takes on the age-old question of what makes one person good and another evil. Research is rushing forward. We've learned more about the workings of the brain in the last five years than in the previous one hundred."

"I work part-time with elementary learners - with gifted learners during the school year and teaching maker education camps during the summer. The one thing almost all of them have in common is yelling out, "I can't do this" when the tasks aren't completed upon first attempts or get a little too difficult for them. I partially blame this on the way most school curriculum is structured. Too much school curriculum is based on paper for quick and one shot learning experiences (or the comparable online worksheets). Students are asked to do worksheets on paper, answer end-of-chapter questions on paper, write essays on paper, do math problems on paper, fill in the blanks on paper, and pick the correct answer out of a multiple choice set of answers on paper. These tasks are then graded as to the percentage correct and then the teacher moves onto the next task. So it is no wonder that when learners are given hands-on tasks such as those common to maker education, STEM, and STEAM, they sometimes struggle with their completion. Struggles are good. Struggles with authentic tasks mimics real life so much more than completing those types of tasks and assessments done at most schools. Problems like yelling out, "I can't do this" arise when the tasks get a little too difficult, but ultimately are manageable. I used to work with delinquent kids within Outward Bound-type programs. Most at-risk kids have some self-defeating behaviors including those that result in personal failure. The model for these types of programs is that helping participants push past their self-perceived limitations results in the beginnings of a success rather than a failure orientation. This leads into a success building upon success behavioral cycle."

"With so many Raspberry Pi projects to choose from, it can be tricky to find the one you really want to build. Our advice is to find a way to marry the Pi with something you really love. One great example is TV and movie robots - iconic characters from popular sci-fi that can be rebuild at home with a Raspberry Pi built in. Once constructed, your robot might be able to utter commands when a condition is met (perhaps a sensor detects motion). Or it might move around, learning about its surroundings, or reading information to you from Wikipedia. Whatever you have in mind, it should be relatively straightforward to plan and execute. It may take some time, however. Here are five example projects that show how you can combine a Raspberry Pi 2 or later with your favorite fictional robot. 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do 5 Things Only a Raspberry Pi 2 Can Do The latest edition of the pint-sized computer is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that there's 5 things you can only do on a Raspberry Pi 2. READ MORE 1. R2-D2 We've all wanted our very own astromech droid, haven't we? Sure, no one on earth is (currently) operating a light speed drive, but Star Wars droid R2-D2 has far greater abilities than onboard spacecraft maintenance. For instance, he can hold torches, carry a tray of drinks, and launch lightsabers across pits in the desert. Okay, it's unlikely you'll manage to get your own R2-D2 robot to do that… but don't let that put you off. Check out this little guy, controlled by a Raspberry Pi. While this project was based on an existing R2-D2 toy, that shouldn't limit your ambition. You'll find plenty of R2-D2 builds on YouTube. There's a massive R2-D2 building community online. Finding one that has a drive unit should be ideal for integrating a Raspberry Pi (and perhaps an Arduino, which you can use the two together) and developing a more realistic R2-D2 experience. Arduino vs Raspberry Pi: Which Is The Mini Computer For You? Arduino vs Rasp

"The 2014/2015 FabLearn Fellows are a diverse group of 18 educators and makers. They represent eight states and five countries, and work with a wide range of ages at schools, museums, universities and non-profits. Throughout the course of the year, they will develop curriculum and resources, as well as contribute to current research projects. Their blogs represent their diverse experience and interests in creating better educational oportunities for all. I've been privileged to mentor this group this past year and part of that is summarizing their amazing blog posts. Here are some blog highlights from May 2015."

"I've been slowly working my way through some of Maya Angelou's material. Notably, Conversations with Maya Angelou, Letters to my Daughter, and What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self. Through that I've pulled out these 25 quotes that resonated with me. They offer timeless wisdom and advice on everything from what to do with haters to the importance of reading and love. "

"I'm about to say something totally unbelievable and completely ridiculous: I love Star Wars. There. It's good to get that bombshell off my chest. I'm a huge fan of the series and eagerly await the upcoming film by J.J. Abrams and the new Disney ownership. After going through all of the trailers, both foreign and domestic, it occurs to me that there is one thing in particular that is a true standout. Is it the 3-pronged lightsaber? No. Is it the lack of Jar-Jar Binks? Potentially, but not really. It's the merchandising BB-8 droid that is taking the world by storm. Better still, it's actually something you can now purchase (if you're lucky to find one) in real life. How cool is that?"

"Looking for some great Raspberry Pi projects to do? Then you have found the right place. On this page, you will find plenty of tutorials ranging from simple beginner projects right through to the more advanced projects that require a fair bit more work. All these projects are a great way to learn more about both the fundamentals of the Raspberry Pi and also how a Linux operating system works. By doing some of these projects, you will even start to learn bash, PHP, Python and lots more programming & scripting languages. You will learn how to install and use some great tools, entertainment software, and much more. A few examples of what you could do include things such as a retro game emulator, network attached storage, cloud server and so much more."