Being a teacher librarian, I’m reading ALL the time. For posts under this category, I review various books that I’ve read. This isn’t meant to be a YA or middle grade review site, so the books I review tend to focus on professional growth, makerspaces and creativity.
The Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note-taking On the flight to ISTE a few weeks ago, I brought along The Sketchnote Handbook. This book hooked me within a few pages. As I took sketchnotes throughout the conference (see them in my post) I could immediately see my skills improving. I’m relatively new to sketchnoting … Read more
The Language of School Design The Language of School Design: Design Patterns for 21st Century Schools, is a fantastic, well-designed book that takes a broad look at what makes a 21st Century School a modern learning space. They break these ideas down into 29 well-researched Design Patterns. Included with each of the patterns are examples … Read more
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, is not a book written specifically for educators, yet out of all the books I’ve read so far this year, it’s had the most profound effect on me. The author, Greg McKeown, explains his philosophy of Essentialism in the book. And I found myself nodding my head over and … Read more
The Exploratorium & The Tinkering MOOC The Exploratorium is an amazing hands-on science museum in San Francisco. They created a makerspace for their patrons called The Tinkering Studio. I participated in their Tinkering MOOC this past summer and it was a fantastic experience. They published their book, The Art of Tinkering, back in early 2014. … Read more
The Complete Do-it-yourself Manual When I was growing up, the 1973 edition of the Reader’s Digest Complete Do-it-yourself Manual sat on a shelf in our garage. I was born in 1984, so the book was well over a decade old by the time I was reading it. I wasn’t really that into the handyman section … Read more
While on the flight to AASL in Columbus, OH, I read Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative in its entirety. Like Show Your Work, which I read over the summer, Steal Like an Artist offers fantastic advice on being creative, promoting your work, sharing with others and following your … Read more
What are the best Makerspace books to read? I’ve got a new post up over on AASL Knowledge Quest where I talk about the 5 makerspace books that had the biggest impact on me during my first year of starting a makerspace at my school. Check out the excerpt below: I want to take a … Read more
Get Active: Reimagining Learning Spaces for Student Success I got my copy of Get Active: Reimagining Learning Spaces for Student Success at ISTE 2015 this summer in Philadelphia. I love reading about and studying learning space design theory. I truly feel that innovative learning environments can transform how our students learn. This book is an … Read more
“What is a ‘maker’? Quite simply, makers make things. Some makers build robots, some sew clothes, some prepare food, some design tools, some construct houses. ‘Maker’ isn’t a title conveyed after passing some test or degree program; rather, it is a self-identification. It’s also not, by any stretch of the imagination, a new concept.” In … Read more
Creative Confidence I’m always up for reading books that deal with creativity and self-improvement. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All certainly did not disappoint in this realm. Coming from the two guys who started the Stanford d.school and IDEO, I was excited to read about their perspective on creativity and design. While … Read more