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This video was filmed at the ISTE 2014 conference. It’s a five minute introduction to what I think is the positive intersection of the maker movement and school.

Filmed by Bob Greenberg as part of the Brainwaves project.

We are proud to announce the publication of The Invent To Learn Guide to 3D Printing in the Classroom: Recipes for Success

by David Thornburg, Norma Thornburg, and Sara Armstrong

This book is an essential guide for educators interested in bringing the amazing world of 3D printing to their classrooms.  Learn about the exciting technology, powerful new design software, and even advice for purchasing your first 3D printer.

The real power of the book comes from a variety of teacher-tested step-by-step classroom projects. Eighteen fun and challenging projects explore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, along with forays into the visual arts and design AND are connected to Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards.

The Invent To Learn Guide to 3D Printing in the Classroom is written in an engaging style by authors with decades of educational technology experience.

Buy today at Amazon.com (Print or Kindle)!

The talented Cathy Hunt created this lovely piece of art during my session at Learning 21c in Hong Kong.

1. Iterative design is a skill review. Iterative design is a good way to find out if students actually learned skills that were taught on previous assignments.
2. Iterative design stages are fixed and if they skip one, students should go back do it again.
3. Iterative design means that teachers should specify how many “drafts” a student should complete, and have specific milestones for each draft or prototype.
4. The process and steps of iterative design should be taught before any design actually begins. Students should be able to name and use the correct vocabulary before being allowed to do any design or construction.
5. Teachers should require documentation from students that shows the steps and thinking they went through at each stage of a project.
6. Iterative design takes too much time, so a good way to shortcut it is to tell the students how each step should look and what the intermediate products should be.
7. Iterative design means that you can’t assess student work, so should be combined with “real” assessment, like a multiple choice test.
8. Iterative design is something to do only after students complete real classroom work on the topic.
9. Students will just goof off if I don’t tell them exactly what to do every minute.
10. Students will just beg me to tell them what to do next.

“I like programming because I like being able to sit down and just do it, I like how it makes you think and I like working on projects with my dad. I also like reading, writing, drawing, math, TV and word games.

My motivation is to be a great person, to help the world, to make discoveries and to prove that girls and women can do anything.”

Alexandra Jordan, a fourth grader from Sunnyvale, programmed a playdate app called Super Fun Kid Time, which she is planning to launch in November. In honor of the International Day of the Girl — formally recognized by the United Nations on October 11th, 2012 — TechCrunch asked Jordan to write a guest post on her experiences as a young coder.

Alexandra’s simple explanation of why she likes programming is clear enough. Programming is thoughtful, social, and helps her feel like she can make the world a better place.

To me, age-appropriate concepts like these, not future job prospects or global competition, are the real reasons we should be teaching programming to all children.

Read her entire post>>>

Top ten reasons for Genius Hour (other names are 20% time, FedEx time, etc.):

1. I want to add space and time for interesting and engaging activities to my classroom, especially cross-curricular projects that don’t fit into the curriculum.
2. I hope to create models of student-driven, project-based learning that will show parents, administrators, and others that this kind of learning really works, offers opportunities for deeper learning that meets standards, and therefore should be done more than an hour a week.
3. My students, especially my non-traditional learners, need to see that their interests, ideas and problem-solving styles are valued and valuable.
4. I plan to use the projects students create for Genius Hour as starting points that I can extend and incorporate into other class lessons and activities.
5. I can’t wait to create opportunities for all students to shine, and then celebrate a wider variety of student contribution and work.
6. My classroom needs to become a more collaborative  community where ideas are shared and peer expertise is valued.
7. I have talented student leaders who can mentor others.
8. I want to balance a highly competitive school atmosphere where extrinsic factors such as scores and grades dominate.
9. I believe that students need more agency over their own learning.
10. Encouraging imagination and creativity will help my kids love school.

Top ten reasons for doing a Genius Hour doomed to failure

1. It will be an hour for me to relax while the kids have a good time.
2. I was told to do it.
3. It’s one less hour of lesson planning for me.
4. The kids will figure out what to do. It will be magical!
5. I have a full set of lesson plans and worksheets that someone else wrote for their Genius Hour that I can follow to the letter.
6. It will get the kids energized so we can buckle down to real work after Genius Hour is over.
7. I heard Google does it and they are tech savvy and creative, so this will make my kids tech savvy and creative.
8. I  can pull some kids out of Genius Hour to do extra test prep while the other kids are busy.
9. Doing a Genius Hour means I don’t have to change anything else.
10. All the parents think their child is a genius, so this will make parents happy.

See also – Design Thinking, computational thinking, genius hour, and making in the classroom – good, bad, worse