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"We are excited to launch the Maker Space at NIST International School!  But what exactly is making, design thinking and Maker Spaces anyway? How do they relate to the NIST mission and values, and how do we integrate them authentically into learning? Who are they appropriate for? What does the research say? There are many questions which surround this hot topic-  which is a good thing!! This website was designed to help students, parents and teachers answer some of those questions and act as a guide as we go on this journey together.  So grab your goggles and tool belt, and come on in..."

"Social media enables collaboration, which for adult learning is the key to success for most adults. The best form of collaboration comes through conversation, which is often enabled by various social media tools. The key to accepting social media as a tool for learning comes in the term "Social". This requires involving other people in order to have a conversation. This requirement precludes the use of social media being a passive endeavor. It takes time to learn the tools, time to learn the culture, and time to learn the strategies to effectively learn through social media. All of this discourages people from even attempting to change what has made them comfortable in their profession. It requires effort, time, and work."

"Even the maximum volume on the iPad can sometimes seem a little quiet, which has prompted many of us to perform thet tried-and-true 'cup your hand over the speaker' trick that gets us a little more sound -which works really well for a quick video clip but isn't terribly practical or comfortable for more than a few seconds."

Virtual History Roma presents a fantastic voyage to Ancient Rome, the capital of the largest empire in the ancient world, which has been reconstructed in virtual form and which you can explore in a "full-immersion" panoramic experience. This app allows you to fully appreciate the building construction, scale and atmosphere that was Ancient Rome. At the higher end of the app market at $10.99 AU it is a bit expensive but it certain has the capacity to entice students into the ancient world. At the end of the post find good ideas for student action

"Finally and I think perhaps more importantly, they introduced the new iBooks Author app. An app which gives educators the power to create their own interactive learning experience for their students, the like of which we have haven't really been able to put together before. The following hits are reasons why iBooks Author tied with iBooks2 is a complete win for schools, particularly in 1:1 type scenarios."

"iOS: More apps go on sale or get discounted on a given day than anyone can really keep track of, but Apps Gone Free for the iPhone and iPad does a great job of keeping you up to date on which apps go on sale on what day and which apps go from paid to free-all right on your phone. "

"Thought I would review this basic tip today since I helped two people at work with it on the same day. "I'm out of iCloud storage space! I haven't backed up my phone since October!" I find a lot of colleagues are beginning to own multiple Apple devices, usually an iPhone and an iPad. With (only) 5GB to share between all devices, it's important to know which files should be backed up and which don't necessarily need backup."

"Computer Science can sound pretty daunting, particularly if you don't know a lot about the subject, and it is often thought of as the preserve of 'geeks' or particularly intelligent students. The idea that it is particularly difficult can put off students who might actually have a real natural ability for the subject, which is a great shame, so finding accessible tools to help them explore and get to know the subject from an early age is a great way to avoid it becoming something feared! And with everything becoming ever more internet orientated, it has never been more useful to provide students with some simple computer science skills from a young age, which will stand them in excellent stead for the future."

"Last year, we took a shot at understanding how twitter could be used across a range of "cognitive actions," which yielded the "twitter spectrum." langwitches.org has done something similar-albeit a bit broader in nature. In the graphic below, they start with the idea of why a teacher should tweet with students (literacy, citizenship, etc.), then moves on to the idea of a "twitter routine" which helpfully offers some ideas for introducing younger students to twitter."

"Digital literacy, as a set of skills that students need to develop and master in order to properly use digital technologies , is an essential component of the 21st century education. Being digitally literate should not be confused with being comfortable using certain types of digital media such as social media. And as Danah Boyd argued in her book "Understanding The Social Lives of Networked Teens" teenagers know how how to use Facebook, but their understanding of the site's privacy settings did not mesh with the ways in which they configured their accounts.They know how to get to Google but had little understanding about how to construct a query to get quality information from the popular search engine. Along with learning how to conduct effective online searches comes the the second most important skill which is that of evaluating and assessing the validity of information found online. One of the versatile tools teachers can use to teach students about web content evaluation is called CRAAP . The acronym CRAAP stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, and Purpose. CRAAP is a test developed by the University of California at Chico to help students evaluate web content ( and any other content) based on those four dimensions. Below is a public domain document, a checklist, that teachers and students can use to evaluate web content. Click here to download it."

"It is that time of year again, when teacher's are desperately trying to prepare for SATs tests and looking for ways in which to get those all important results. The Year 6 teachers asked are there any really good apps to help with revising different topics. I have previously blogged about ways in which I use the iPads to make the SPAG more bearable - read here. I have recently discovered two new apps from Andrew Brodie, focusing on Mental Maths and they both are BRILLIANT!"

"The recent 3D printing explosion on the educational market has left many educators wondering how they can afford to integrate this technology into the classroom. Most schools do not have the luxury of purchasing a 3D printer but still want to provide the experience for their students. 3D pens made their debut on Kickstarter this year as an affordable 3D printing option. After the initial investment of the pens, they are an incredibly affordable tool for classrooms. The pens allow students to illustrate - in 3D - concepts in math, history, art, design, and chemistry, giving them a tangible means to explore complex ideas. The pens work as a manual operating 3D printer. Heated filament is extruded through the pen's tip, which quickly cools down to form a stable 3D structure. It actually adopts the same FDM technology which powers mainstream desktop 3D printers. The human ergonomic design allows students to draw an infinite variety of shapes and items, on both the 2D plane and within 3D free space."

"I think that "Is MY Professional Development Up-To-Date?" is the first question which you need to ask yourselves! You can ONLY give BEST and QUALITY courses when knowing about the latest knowledge in a 21st Century Education. But ===> HOW TO know this? Life Long Learning!

"Here is a wonderful little visual I came across through Edudemic which outlines the 8 skills students need in order to live up to the expectations of the future job market. These skills which are highlighted in the recent report "The Learning Curve"  by Pearson are a big departure from the conventional literacy skills : Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.That being said, the report also underscored the fact that for kids (in developing countries) to get a grasp of the 21st century skills, they need to first master the basic literacy skills. Developing countries must teach basic skills more effectively before they start to consider the wider skills agenda. There is little point in investing in pedagogies and technologies to foster 21st century skills, when the basics of numeracy and literacy aren't in place."

"Unlike the numerous graphics I shared here on the topic of flipped learning which were substantially theoretically based, the one I have for you today provides a practical demonstration of how Dr.Russell flipped his classroom . The graphic also features some of the activities and procedures he drew in his flipped instruction. Another section of this graphic highlights some of the bearings of this flipped methodology on students performance particularly in terms of the enhanced test scores. The purpose behind sharing this visual is to provide you with a concrete example of how you can go about integrating a flipped learning methodology in your instruction. This is only a paradigmatic example which you can adapt with due modifications to your own teaching situation."

"I have written a lot about all that being a connected educator has done for me. I have written a lot about how I would not trade it for anything and that I hope others will choose to become connected as well. I have written about how being a connected educator has enabled me to have connected students, which has radically changed the way I teach. And yet, I have not talked about the downfall of being connected much. Not like this, not in this way. Yet, I think in honor of Connected Educator month, (which is a strange month anyway because aren't we always connected?), I think it is time to discuss the downfalls. Those things that I deal with from being a connected educator, because after all, if I am going to encourage others to be connected, I think I need to be honest about all that it entails."

""If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve," Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: "Do what you love, and don't stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…" Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) - an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness."

"The Land of Venn is an ingenious geometry game that aligns learning to fun.  It smartly avoids being "edutainment" by putting play first.  It is a universal mobile application in which you draw lines and shapes to learn about lines and shapes.  The narrative, which is silly and amusing (as is the catchy music), is a tower defense game. By performing the actions of geometry, players internalize the concepts.  It is a clear example of constructivist learning-learning by doing.  For example, children  connect points (each point is a different enemy) to draw an isosceles triangle.  As a result, confidence in abstract mathematical concepts is built as mastery of levels is met."

"Writer's block is  a crippling condition in which one's creative process slows down to the minimum. It's a symptom of 'creativity blockage' which hits writers. People differ in how they deal with their writer's block but one effective way we have at our hands is the use of technology. There are several iPad apps that can provide writers with all kinds of prompts and incentives to write creatively.  Below is a sample of some of the best iPad apps to help you with writer's block. We invite you to check them out and share with us if you have other suggestions: "

"If you work in education, then the chances are you work with a number of people yet you're never in the same room. It might be because your fellow educators are in classrooms and otherwise engaged; you might work with a large, disparate group of people, spread across the city, the country or across timezones, or you might be trying to coral together a bunch of parents, students or community workers. It could be anything - how am I supposed to know? But what is known is that there's a whole bunch of tools which help you organise, talk to, share with and otherwise connect with people in ways which would have been utterly impossible even 2 or 3 years ago. So have a look at some of the better ones."