Recent articles
Get inspired: Top 5 videos from ISTE 2014
12/17/2014
Topics: Makerspaces, professional learning, Project-based learning, STEM & STEAM
It's hard to pin down what makes the ISTE Conference & Expo such fertile ground for inspiration. Maybe it's the constant hum of excitement and passion that permeates the environment. Maybe it's the steady exchange of new ideas and information.
Whatever the case, if you haven't…
Your PBL questions answered
11/24/2014
Topics: Project-based learning
A questioning mind is essential for teachers as well as students as you set off on your project-based learning journey. ISTE readers recently…
Kailee Mitsuyasu: Growing her STEM knowledge
10/21/2014
Topics: Project-based learning, STEM & STEAM
Kailee Mitsuyasu, 15, lives in Hawaii, a verdant island state that doesn't grow enough food to feed its 1.4 million people.
About 90 percent of Hawaii's food is imported, according to state estimates. If a natural disaster or global event disrupted the planes and ships that deliver…
Put students in charge of their learning
08/21/2014
Topics: Personalized Learning, Project-based learning
On a Monday morning at a junior high school just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, a student teacher enters Room 120 for the first time. Looking to his left, he sees students discussing how to write an appropriate description of a picture they've just embedded in the online poster they've created…
The maker movement: A learning revolution
02/11/2019
Topics: Makerspaces, Project-based learning
The impulse to create is one of the most basic human drives. As far back as the Stone Age, we were using materials in our environment to fashion tools for solving the problems we encountered. And in the millions of years since then, we have never stopped creating. In fact, the rise of…
Connect English learners to science with online projects
07/21/2014
Topics: Assistive and adaptive technologies, Augmented reality, Online learning, Project-based learning, Standards, STEM & STEAM, Tools
For many of us, learning science in school meant opening worn textbooks, watching projector slides in a stuffy classroom and dissecting rats once you got to eighth grade. Did you ever ask yourself, "How is this relevant? How can I take this knowledge, go out into the world and use…
Jeff Charbonneau asks: What is your 'What if?'
07/01/2014
Topics: Mobile learning, Project-based learning, STEM & STEAM
Jeff Charbonneau was named 2013 National Teacher of the Year for a reason. The man gets involved. In his small school in Zillah, Washington, a community of only 3,000 people, Charbonneau wears many hats. He's the high school chemistry teacher. He's also the yearbook teacher and the assistant…
5 visionary lessons from beyond the world of ed tech
06/30/2014
Topics: Makerspaces, Project-based learning, STEM & STEAM
If education is to evolve to meet the needs of a digital world, we can't afford to keep drinking from the same pool of ideas. Technologies and innovations from beyond the realm of academia — 3D printers and video games, mobile devices and the maker movement — have already had a profound…
Here's how we achieved real tech integration
06/28/2014
Topics: 1:1, Education leadership, Learning spaces, Mobile learning, Personalized Learning, Project-based learning
The biggest challenge I faced during the waning days of the 2013-14 school year was responding to comments, questions and dismay from teachers after they learned the 1:1 technology would not be available during the final three weeks of school. All I can say is three years ago, I would never…
Using formative tools to improve PBL outcomes
06/19/2014
Topics: Project-based learning
In a high school art room, I watched a student working at an easel.
When I asked about her progress, she explained that she was attempting to paint sunflowers in the style of Monet, her favorite artist. She told me she liked how the flowers were looking but said the vase was giving her…