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"Photos, logos, graphics and images are an important part of any multimedia creation that students produce. A few well placed, high quality images can transform class work from amateur to spectacularly professional. So, unless you plan on taking your own photographs or creating your own artwork, finding legitimate Creative Commons images is an essential digital skill. To help students (and teachers) navigate and understand the often confusing space that is digital copyright, here are five tools that we recommend using to to search, reference, attribute and download Creative Commons images."

""Spaces and Places" encompasses tours and descriptions of makerspaces, schools, libraries, and museums through video, images, and multimedia content. These examples may inspire anyone looking to jumpstart or organize his/her own makerspace. In addition, "Spaces and Places" links to articles and guides with concrete tips for those who are planning or improving a youth makerspace. Maker Ed has also created several of its own resources around youth makerspaces, including but not limited to Youth Makerspace Playbook and Makerspaces: Highlights of Select Literature, all accessible at MakerEd.org/makerspaces and included among the resources below."

"The Maker Movement is a new trend based on old school traditions in which the philosophy of doing, building, and creating prevails over just simply buying. Instead of going to the toy store, people are learning how to design and 3D print their own toys. Instead of shopping for furniture, people are going to local community workshops like TechShop and building their own custom chairs and tables. The Maker Mentality creates a powerful paradigm shift by eliminating the separation between consumer and producer. By looking at the benefits and upsides of the Maker Movement and analyzing why it has reemerged, we can use it productively in the classroom by intertwining these new techniques with the classic methods such as lecture, reading, and so on."

"appoLearning Collections enable teachers to create, annotate and share lists of hand picked digital resources, including YouTube videos, iOS and Android apps, and websites, around specific subjects, topics or lessons. Collection creators can easily: select from thousands of expert-vetted, standards-aligned resources from appoLearning search and/or add their own resources (including anything that is URL-addressable including videos, apps, websites, assessments, Dropbox links, Google Drive links, Evernote links) and upload their own files (Photos, Lesson Plans, Videos, PowerPoints, PDFs, etc.).  "

"Professional and personal development are important to many people. Professional development allows you to stay current in your field, make connections with likeminded professionals, and satisfy any continuing learning requirements your job may have. Personal development allows you to grow as a person, learn new skills, and try new things. In order to grow, professionally or personally, in the past, you had to sign up for college courses, pay a lot of money, and rush to class after work or on weekends. But that set-up as changed. Online courses, many of which are totally free, have revolutionized the way in which many people access professional and personal development. Thanks to the advent of massive open online courses (MOOCs), people can attend free courses offered by Stanford, Harvard, and MIT in the luxury of their own home, taking the courses at their own pace at a time that is convenient."

"The flipped classroom model is here to stay. This model, although not a golden bullet, puts the student firmly into the educational process. Think back over the last few years that you have been teaching or learning about teaching. What did you do when you came across a new idea? Did you investigate on your own? Did you seek others who had experiences they could share? This is what the flipped classroom is all about: Putting students in charge of their learning process and allowing them to wrestle with ideas and topics before coming back to class with their own specific questions and seek guidance from the teacher. Often (but not always) there is some sort of online activity outside of the school day that students are responsible for. This could be a video lesson, a video about a lab set up, a discussion board inside of a learning management system (LMS), or any other vehicle that communicates the topic of the lesson outside of the normal class time instruction. "

"School and district leaders that are thinking about personalizing education tell us one of their top concerns is how to train, support, and develop teachers effectively to teach in ways that may feel new and unfamiliar.  As former educators we agree that this is crucial, and are happy that they recognize the challenge and are ready to take it on. First and foremost, in order to support the teachers we are asking to teach in blended learning environments we have to understand the implications on teaching practice.  Over the past three years, we've worked with thousands of teachers tackling the question of how to personalize learning in their classrooms and we've gathered a set skills into 5 domains of blended learning teaching that we believe are new skills to master for veteran and novice teachers alike. This five-domain rubric was created, not for evaluation purposes (there are enough evaluation rubrics out there!), but for teachers to be able to self-assess, set goals and progress.  In the same way, we want blended learning to allow for students to have a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, we want teachers to be able to identify blended specific skills and better understand their own strengths and areas for growth.  We wanted to give teachers, their coaches, and their leaders, a sense of what to strive for, and help them plot a path to get there through aligned professional development.  We also found that the teachers we work with cherish the opportunity to self-reflect, identify the skills they have and the skills they need, and take the time to set goals around where they want to shift their practice.  Many of our schools infuse these concepts into community of practices discussions for continuous learning."

"Gamification is the process by which teachers use video game design principals in learning environments. The effects are increased student engagement, class wide enjoyment of academic lessons, and high levels of buy-in, even from your most reluctant learners. When gamifying a classroom there are several things you'll need to consider. The first is content, as in what are you trying to teach? Like any lesson or unit plan, you'll need to figure out how to organize and assess new material. You'll also need to consider your students. What kind of learners are they? What information do they already know? You'll need to have a basic understanding of your students' technology skills and how much support each student may need. You'll want to consider putting together a training manual or some other support system for students who may need extra help. You'll also need to consider your own comfort level with technology and the actual technology available to you. These considerations may lead you to designing your own game, or relying one a template or already built quest."

"It really all started with the 20+ iPads we loan out to educators. Those suckers are constantly in demand and constantly in need of charging. They're each firmly encased in Fintie Kiddie cases, which, laugh all you want, those things can stop a bullet. And they stand up. And they recline, have carrying handles and come in neon colors, perfect for locating 20+ loaned out units during the chaos of an event, but that's a whole other blog post. Anyway, we've been loaning these iPads out in tote bags, and just tossing the chargers in higgledy-piggledy. Mainly because if you have done any shopping around for charging carts you likely have needed to be resuscitated at least twice when looking at the prices. The cheapest we could find that works with our beloved Fintie cases started at $399.00, and there was no guarantee everything would fit. We've borrowed another department's iPad charging tray a couple times, but a) it cost them closer to $1,000.00, b) weighed close to 25 lbs and c) had no wheels, thus entailing that their tech guy** lug it four blocks each way. The thing about the Fintie cases is that part of their magic durability is that they surround the iPad in thick molded foam rubber - perfect for tossing in bags and bike panniers (guilty!) but problematic for trying to buy a pre-made charging cart, as the slots in those are generally cut for slimmer, uncased iPads. Plus can we get back to the whole cost thing? Are school districts really running around with so much cash? I know I'm not. And thus, with no more rambling, I present: How to Build Your Own iPad Charging Cart Out of Office Supplies"

"A meaning of "essential" involves important questions that recur throughout one's life. Such questions are broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable - What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author's view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional. In other words, we are liable to change our minds in response to reflection and experience concerning such questions as we go through life, and that such changes of mind are not only expected but beneficial. A good education is grounded in such life-long questions, even if we sometimes lose sight of them while focusing on content mastery. The big-idea questions signal that education is not just about learning "the answer" but about learning how to learn. (http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artid=53)"

"If there is a better guide to establishing a school-based center for sparking creative student-based making than Laura Fleming's small book, I have not yet found it. In Worlds of Making, Fleming describes her own experiences as a school librarian transforming her library into a vibrant makerspace and offers practical advice for anyone wondering how she went about doing it. Or as she puts it, her book is designed to provide "the nuts and bolts of imagining, planning, creating and managing your own makerspace.""

"Forget overpriced schools, long days in a crowded classroom, and pitifully poor results. These websites and apps cover myriads of science, art, and technology topics. They will teach you practically anything, from making hummus to building apps in node.js, most of them for free. There is absolutely no excuse for you not to master a new skill, expand your knowledge, or eventually boost your career. You can learn interactively at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home. It's hard to imagine how much easier it can possibly be. Honestly, what are you waiting for?"

"What separates the successful mobile learning projects from the unsuccessful? This is a 'million dollar' question, and I've thought long and hard about it. From the 17 large 1:1 projects I've worked on, only three have been truly successful in producing transformational learning. In your own experience, how many schools do you know who have transformed learning vs how many you know rely on iPads as laptop placements, focusing on web browsing and research functions only? I'm sure you'll draw similar conclusions to my own, but if a handful of schools can transform learning with mobile devices, how do we replicate it across more schools? I believe I've found the answer."

"I've been traveling the country speaking on the power of a student's voice in his or her own educational experience along with the need for transforming learning spaces in today's schools.  Both topics are very important to me not only for my own passion as an educator, but as a parent of two children.  I've personally seen the impact a learning space can have on a child's experience within the classroom.  Additionally, I've been fortunate to have my children surrounded by caring educators who value the importance listening to students.  This week I have the pleasure of speaking at Blackboard World in D.C.  When I arrived at Blackboard World, I knew the first stop I had to make, the student maker space.  Blackboard invited students from all ages to participate in a day of creating their ideal learning environments.  The company partnered with the Smithsonian to provide resources and guides to help facilitate the activities.  Children would rotate between 5 stations throughout the day - each station lasting roughly thirty minutes.  "

create your own educational games

SmallWorlds is a 3D virtual world that runs inside your web browser. It enables you to build your own room, house, or even your own world, and fill it with a wide variety of items and fun activities.

Upload your own or a YouTube video, then 1. Capture up to 30 images 2. Add titles and descriptions 3. Add a title to your Vidinote 4. save as a pdf, and print. Interesting tool for teaching/learning by extracting knowledge from video, or for creating handouts from one's own video.

"Children 'more likely to own a mobile phone than a book'"

"I was very excited to try out this new tool from Techsmith. It's called Screenchomp and it does something that I've wanted to do for a while. It lets your create your own screencasts on your iPad. So, I eagerly downloaded it and set about to create my first screencast. I did what everyone does when they first grab this application…I doodled on the screen with my finger. It was very responsive to the touch and had a small set of tools to do the task. I did the mandatory "2+2=4″ and got excited. Maybe I could start my own educational academy…"