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.
When educators and designers get together to write a book on learning spaces, amazing things happen. Many books on learning space design focus on lots of gorgeous photos of expensively renovated school environments, language to use with architects or projects that are amazing, but not always easy to replicate. The Space takes a different approach. … Read more
From the Campfire to the Holodeck (2014) is David Thornburg’s updated work on his theory of the primordial learning metaphors and how they fit in with today’s modern educational spaces. I’m currently researching and writing for book #2, which will be about learning space design and libraries (more info soon). In just about every book … Read more
The Big Book of Makerspace Projects is definitely the next book you should add to both your school and personal library. Colleen Graves and Aaron Graves offer up 51 awesome makerspace projects in this book that are fun and doable no matter what level you’re at. Why The Big Book of Makerspace Projects should be … Read more
STEAM Makers: Fostering Creativity & Innovation in the Elementary Classroom At least once a week, I get a tweet or e-mail asking about resources for starting a makerspace in an elementary school, incorporating maker activities into elementary classrooms, or convincing hesitant administrators as to why makerspaces are incredible and can help teach curriculum. I worked … Read more
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