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"Dumpster diving and dollar stores. Purse-shaped post-it's and animal lubricant. When you're building a makerspace on a budget, you learn that resources are everywhere-and they aren't always what you expect.  Dumpster diving and dollar stores. Purse-shaped post-it's and animal lubricant. For three years I and my fellow cofounders Kim Martin and Beth Compton, have created, developed, and run Canada's first mobile makerspace-the MakerBus. As an entirely community-driven (pun intended) makerspace, we have had to master doing a lot with very little. As we have learned, while money is extremely useful, no amount of it can replace the value of an engaged, creative community. Below I share some ideas for creating makerspaces at various price points, offering advice for building a $100 and a (nearly) $0 community makerspace."

"Why is it important for students to learn effective studying practices? Besides the obvious reasons  of doing better on exams, there are purposes that are higher in practicality. For instance, part of the art of effective studying means mastering Information Fluency. Some of its concepts are part of the great infographic featured below from ELearning Infographics."

"James Britton is endlessly quoted as saying "reading and writing float on a sea of talk." For kids to become truly fluent with language, talking is a major component. Reflecting orally is also a way for students to codify and cement their ideas into structured ways of thinking. Master teachers of today know the importance of talking in the classroom, but even the best and the brightest may sometimes have difficulty fitting it into their daily lesson plans. With Recap, a web application introduced in April 2016, students and teachers can connect in much easier and more meaningful ways. Essentially, all a teacher has to do is have students sign up using the clean and simple interface and assign questions. Students then record their responses using any front-facing camera; they could use an iPad, webcam, or even their phone. Teachers can then provide video feedback to their students within the program. Watch Greg Kulowiec's video below on how easy using Recap in the classroom can be. "

"You know that your new iPad will let you easily watch movies, browse the Internet, or play games on the go, but plenty of advanced features hidden beneath the surface of iOS can improve your tablet computing experience even further. To help you become an iPad master, we've compiled a handy list of tips and tricks for new iPad users. Read on if you want to learn how to multitask, take screenshots, encrypt your backups, and more."

"e Skills Minimod Figurative Language helps students practice and master the important language skills of recognizing and understanding figurative language. "

"Learning to type well on the touchscreen keyboards of an iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch can take some time. To speed that process up, here are a handful of great tips to make typing on iOS virtual keys much easier and faster. Some of these you'll probably know and some you probably won't, but all are very worthwhile to learn and master:"

"Collaboration is the act of working together for a common goal. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills says that mastering collaboration skills requires the ability to work effectively with diverse teams. It also requires the ability to "be helpful and make necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal.""

"Here's where you'll find the newest Google search features and tips and tricks to help you become a search master."

"Almost two years ago to the day, I wrote a post, "The iPad: Why Teachers Should Care." Flash forward to today, both of the schools I work at have purchased one iPad for each classroom. Although I've already mastered how to manage all the iDevices in my personal household, learning to manage iPads in an institutional environment involved a bit more learning due to the complexities of software licensing and the necessity to keep institutional accounts separate from personal ones."

"You've probably mastered your favorite built-in iOS apps, like Camera, Mail, and Safari. But other apps come preloaded on your iOS device, and they include some features you just might not have discovered yet. "

"I've started a list of educational iPad game apps for parents. I've got a special affinity for these games as I originally started my career in technology as a first generation educational software designer. The list contains casual, fun games to use at home. They don't necessarily help you master long division or prepare for an upcoming geography test. The accent is primarily on having fun. If your child isn't going to enjoy playing then the app won't make the list. The second important criterion is that time spent playing is productive and that something of value is learned while playing the game."

"The iPad is a device that inherently inspires creativity. With its large, yet handheld screen and new 3.1 million pixel retina display that brilliantly showcases colors, crisp fonts, and detailed videos, it's a dream for anyone obtaining an education. From elementary school children, to students studying for their Masters degree its no wonder that the iPad has become a key tool in many classrooms across multiple educational echelons."

"For subjects like math and foreign language, which are traditionally taught in a linear and highly structured context, using more open-ended inquiry-based models can be challenging. Teachers of these subjects may find it hard to break out of linear teaching style because the assumption is that students can't move to more complicated skills before mastering basic ones. But inquiry learning is based on the premise that, with a little bit of structure and guidance, teachers can support students to ask questions that lead them to learn those same important skills - in ways that are meaningful to them."

"The following is an excerpt from the book The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis. Let's dive directly into the world of educational apps. Our survey suggests that the majority - one might even say, the vast majority - of educational apps encourage pursuit of the goals and means of traditional education by digital means. They constitute convenient, neat, sometimes even seductive pathways to accomplish what were already goals in an earlier era: mastering concepts, learning arithmetical operations, identifying geographical locations or historical figures or key biological or chemical or physical processes. We could dub them "digital textbooks" or "lectures" or "pre-programmed educational conversations." Decades ago, major behaviorist B. F. Skinner called for teaching machines that would automate the traditional classroom, allow students to proceed at their own rate, provide positive feedback on correct answers, and either repeat a missed item or present that item via another pathway. Those sympathetic to Skinner's brand of psychology and to its associated educational regimen would easily recognize many apps today and would likely nod in approval at their slick, seductive interfaces."

"CHICAGO - By the time they reach eighth grade, according to federal tests, half of all African-American schoolboys have not mastered the most basic math skills that educators consider essential for their grade level. A new paper being released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests a promising approach for helping the most challenged students, who often arrive in high school several years behind their peers."

"This video lesson will introduce you to early iPad models and show common features found on all iPads. You'll see a guided tour of the buttons, connectors and parts of the iPad. Part two of this video tutorial will address newer models of the iPad. The content is taken from the first lesson of my iPad Academy Master Class video series."

"In order for students to tackle the multi-step word problems they'll be asked to solve as early as elementary school, they need to have mastered their addition, subtraction and multiplication facts. By answering 4 + 12, 15 - 5, 9 x 7 and 18 / 3 quickly and accurately, students can focus on reading word problems to figure out what the question is asking them to do. There are tons of fun apps that help children build their math fluency through games and flashcards. Check out some of these fantastic math apps. "

"How do we raise emotionally aware and well-adjusted kids? With lots of talking and sharing, of course. For some kids, digital media can also help by packaging powerful messages inside enticing apps. In one, kids explore how we are the same and how we are different from one another. In another, they interact with silly characters to learn their emotional responses. And in a third, virtual friends share stories to get 'tweens thinking about how to best handle emotionally charged situations. Here's a closer look at these three masterful apps. Wee You-Things"