Last summer, my son started an online writer’s workshop. Although it fizzled by the end of the summer, there was a period where they were all working on a collaborative story and writing their own editorials back and forth. This wasn’t a school-sponsored activity. It…
One of the key take-aways from Moore’s Law is that technological developments tend to double every six months. Products that sounded like science fiction a generation ago are now so commonplace we take them for granted. We are in an era of rapid changes in…
My daughter looks up from her cereal and says, “You know what day I can’t wait for?” “Um, your birthday?” She shakes her head. “Next Christmas?” She shakes her head again and then says, “The first day back to school. I can’t wait to see…
If we say we want students to become critical thinking life-long learners, we need to provide projects that encourage them to engage in creative collaboration. But what does this look like in each subject area? How do turn this idea into a reality? We’ll be…
It’s easy to think of creativity as a solitary endeavor. But some of the best creative work is collaborative. The following is an exploration of the seven keys to successful creative collaboration. Reluctantly Embracing Creative Collaboration I don’t enjoy collaboration. My natural inclination is to…
If you’re interested in designing your own makerspace, check out the Makerspace Master Course. It’s a self-paced, week-long course that you can do from anywhere at any time. Making Can Happen in Every Subject Recently a friend of mine said, “When I think of makerspaces,…
At first I thought it was a teacher thing. I would ask how someone was doing and they would say, “I’m really busy.” This was often followed by a description of how little sleep they had gotten and how much grading they had done. Teachers…
It was about five years ago when a boy walked up to me and asked, “Hey Mr. Spencer, can you talk to the district and see if they’ll open up the library over the summer?” “I don’t think they can,” I answered. “But the city…
Subscribe to YouTube Channel I used to hate the word “innovative.” See those quotes right there around the word? Those are actually air quotes that I would use whenever I used the term. “It’s a buzzword,” I would say. “It’s overused,” I would point out….
Imagine you are building a self-driving car. Chances are you’ll look for a team of engineers who can figure out how to make each part work fluidly in an interconnected manner. You’d look for software engineers and mechanical engineers and experts in user interface (UI) and…
