"I want to start a makerspace. Where do I begin? Ask any experienced maker educator this question, and you'll get a variation of the same response - it depends."

"Since the days of Star Trek, we've always wanted to talk to computers. Recent advancements in voice technology, AI and IoT have now made that a reality. Smartphones, smart speakers and other devices can now be controlled by voice assistants like Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa. To help us understand the future of voice, let's first examine the popularity of voice assistant devices, the best places to use them and how our voice will be used as a biometric authentication tool to combat identity theft."

"The Global Education Network Over 55,000 resources shared by educators across the globe. "

"Wakelet is constantly coming up with new features that enhance the user experience. While I could easily share 15 or 20 Wakelet features that I love, for this blog, I was asked to share five features that you might not already know about (don't say anything, but I did manage to sneak in a 6th - shh!)"

"Chromebooks might have taken their time to become part of the public lexicon, but after several years of demanding respect, they've finally gotten it. Over the past few years Chromebooks have carved out their own niche in the laptop market with their mix of snappy performance and relatively low price tags compared to their Windows counterparts."

"If you've done any research at all into different browsers, you're familiar with the fact that Chrome can be a bit of a resource hog. Glance at your Task Manager or Activity Monitor, and you'll often see Chrome at the top of the list. But why does Chrome use so much RAM, especially compared to other browsers? And what can you do to keep it in check?"

"Ten years ago, seeing a drone zoom over a college campus would have been unusual, to say the least. Today, however, several institutions are using the technology to support learning, research and even administrative work, such as capturing footage for a marketing video. Unmanned aerial vehicles have been in use since the 1990s, primarily to support military, border security and other public operations, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Consumer adoption began to accelerate a few years ago as hobby drones became more advanced and less expensive. From 2014 to 2017, consumer drone shipments jumped worldwide by 7 million units, according to a Business Insider Intelligence analysis. That's about when higher education institutions began to realize UAVs could play a role on campus, according to Venkata Krishnan Seshadri, industry lead at market research provider Technavio. "Drones facilitate application-based, practical learning, which helps students understand and remember key theoretical concepts," Seshadri says. "Using drones significantly reduces risks and costs. For instance, in archeological-related courses, drones are used to capture aerial imagery, which increases the quality of learning without safety issues.""

"Once students learn how to sound out words, reading is easy. They can speak the words they see. But whether they understand them is a different question entirely. Reading comprehension is complicated. Teachers, though, can help students learn concrete skills to become better readers. One way is by teaching them how to think as they read. Marianne Stewart teaches eighth grade English at Lexington Junior High near Anaheim, California. She recently asked her students to gather in groups to discuss books where characters face difficulties. Students could choose from 11 different books but in each group one student took on the role of "discussion director," whose task was to create questions for the group to discuss together. Stewart created prompts to help them come up with questions that require deep reading."

"Computational thinking isn't new. Three decades ago, Seymour Papert introduced computational thinking when he developed the concept of bricolage, which is the construction of something new from many sources. He rightly understood the significance of computers, and with computational thinking, he surmised that they would not only be an integral part of our educational process, but we would need to acquire new ways for learning when using computers. In essence, the bricoleur builds knowledge by engaging in a process of building precise steps that encourage the construction of knowledge. Papert recognized that over time, the learner's theory may change as the result of refining his or her responses in any of the four stages of computational thinking. Even before Papert's work, however, educational visionaries insisted that the way to solve problems in any field was by adopting sequential problem-solving methods, which became algorithmic or computational thinking. In short, we use computational thinking (CT) to solve problems."

"You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to start a Makerspace area. You don't have to have a designated room or rip out bookcases. You can even have a Makerspace on a cart! When we have testing in our Library, I put all our Makerspace stuff on an AV cart and roll it into our server room.  This post evolved from a previous post called Makerspace Starter Kit Updated where I had some of these idea, but I felt that it deserved it's own expanded post. You can take baby steps into the Maker Movement.  I've been saying that for 7 years or so....long before I blogged about it, I tried it out. Yeah, sometimes I try things on the sly to see if they are blogworthy for you! Now....having said that...."

"It's no secret that students today spend a lot of time online, and that's why educators need to ensure that our students are equipped with digital citizenship and media literacy skills to help them navigate the terrain. Students need to know how to find reliable sources and spot misinformation. They need to know what information is appropriate - and inappropriate - to share. Often, educators try to instill this information via traditional instruction in a classroom. But when presented this way, it can fall flat. The key to helping students make good decisions online is to mentor them in their spaces and allow them to pursue their interests. This personalized learning approach, which addresses several of the ISTE Standards for Students, has real-world application that hooks our students and helps them internalize media literacy and digital citizenship skills. Here are five practical steps that educators can take to help graduate media literate digital citizens - those who learn, curate, collaborate and contribute thoughtfully to social media networks."

"fter talking to 350 students, educators, and parents across 30 schools, they found few schools where powerful learning, in which most students were engaged and thinking critically, was happening across the board. However, they did find individual teachers who were making it happen on their own. In those classrooms, students were enthusiastically engaged, participating in challenging tasks that drew on their analytical and problem-solving skills. Mehta and Fine describe these bright spots in their new book, In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School. Usable Knowledge sat down with Mehta and Fine, who is now the director of the teaching apprenticeship program at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education in San Diego, to find out how other teachers can replicate the successes they uncovered - and how to prepare teachers to facilitate the kind of deeper learning we'd hope to see in every setting."

"One of the most important steps in selling a product is making sure consumers are knowledgeable about what it offers. For many businesses and marketers, this means creating an animated explainer video. According to Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing report for 2019, more than 80 percent of marketers say video helps them increase the number of time users spend on their website, generate more leads, and, most importantly, and help users better understand their product. Marketers aren't the only ones saying video makes a difference. Consumers agree - 68 percent say they prefer to learn about a product or service by watching a video. Additionally, 79 percent say a video convinced them to purchase software or an app."

"I recently discovered Boclips for Teachers, a portal hosting more than 2 million short-form educational videos from more than 100 of the educational video producers you already know and love. Familiar sites like TED-Ed, LearnZillion, Associated Press, PBS, Crash Course, Reuters, Bozeman Science and Smithsonian have offered permission for the site to curate their excellent content in a distraction-free, ad-free environment. Content is selected by teachers for teachers. Boclips for Teachers spans age/grade levels and disciplines. Content includes instructional video, animations, mini-documentaries, historical footage, breaking news and virtual reality. Teachers may use the platform to share, edit, and store videos or they might easily copy BoClips links to share on their own websites and learning management systems. Unfortunately, the search does not yet allow users to filter for subject, age level, curriculum standards, etc"

"When I heard the news that Phil Schlechty had passed away it was sudden and I felt sadness. I've never met Phil but I've been deeply impacted by his work throughout the years. You see it's one of the things I'm learning about education and writing in this whole connected place: We get to know people through their work, we get to know people through their passions, and we get to know people who we actually don't know face-to-face. Schlechty's work around engagement is one of the most enlightening and simple frameworks for educators to use. What I found fascinating about his levels of engagement is that I could see myself in the classroom working towards compliance instead of engagement."

"Joe's teacher, Ms. Watkins, is feeling frustrated. For the fourth time today, the second grader has flatly refused to do as she asks … and it's not even lunchtime yet. The last request, that Joe put away the book he is reading and take out his math assignment, escalated until the he was on the floor screaming and kicking. Ms. Watkins has had meeting after meeting with Joe's parents, but all they can say is that Joe argues like this at home, too. Things seem to be at an impasse until the school counselor suggests Joe might be one of many students with ODD-oppositional defiant disorder."

"One of the biggest impacts of new technology - and perhaps the most life-changing - will be felt in healthcare. Diagnosis of illness will be fast and efficient, and medicine will be highly personalised. Wearable technology will be the norm, and we'll know we are sick before we even get a single symptom. Meanwhile, new drugs will come to market at breakneck speed as clinical trials get faster and more accurate. Ultimately, we will become our own doctors. AI is already being used in healthcare, and these seven examples offer a glimpse into our medical future."

Compare, contrast and find the difference between any two things!

"Bias is a fundamental human characteristic. We are all biased, by our very nature, and every day we make countless decisions based on our gut feelings. We all have preconceived ideas, prejudices, and opinions. And that is fine, as long as we recognize it and take responsibility for it. The fundamental promise of AI, besides the dramatic increase of data processing power and business efficiency, is to help reduce the conscious or unconscious bias of human decisions. At the end of the day, this is what we expect from algorithms, isn't it? Objectivity, mathematical detachment rather than fuzzy emotions, fact-based rather than instinctive decisions. Algorithms are supposed to alert people to their cognitive blind spots, so they can make more accurate, unbiased decisions. At least that's the theory…"

"One of the greatest ironies is that mathematics, at its core, relies heavily on a foundation of doubt. So, this self-examination of our collective practices, biases, and neglect, is something that has been come to us by our own pursuit of mathematics."