Read this Book: The Space: A Guide for Educators

Read this Book: The Space: A Guide for Educators | The Space is an amazing resource on learning space design. It helps educators to learn to think as designers, to co-design their spaces with their students and to create learning spaces that are inclusive of ALL their students.

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

Read this Book: From the Campfire to the Holodeck

From the Campfire to the Holodeck - David Thornburg's amazing work looks at four primordial learning metaphors: campfires, watering holes, caves and life. He discusses why each one is essential for student learning in our schools.

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

Read this Book: The Big Book of Makerspace Projects

Read this Book: The Big Book of Makerspace Projects | Colleen and Aaron's new book is a fantastic resource for teacher, students, parents or anyone else interested in learning some new skills through some fun, hands-on maker projects.

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

Read this Book: STEAM Makers by Jacie Maslyk

Read this Book: STEAM Makers | My review of Jacie Maslyk's fantastic book. It's an excellent resource for anyone at the elementary level (or any level really) who's interested in starting a makerspace. Jacie comes at this from the perspective of an adminstrator, making this a great resource for those trying to convince hesitant admin about makerspaces.

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

Read This Book: The Sketchnote Handbook

Read this book- The Sketchnote Handbook- The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note-taking | I may be a little late jumping onto the sketchnoting bandwagon, but I'm loving it. If you're interested in learning more about techniques and how to sketchnote, The Sketchnote Handbook is an amazing resource. Check out my review.

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

Read this Book: The Language of School Design

Read this Book: The Language of School Design | In this amazing work on learning space design, the authors identify 29 different design patterns for 21st century schools. Included are many pictures, graphics and examples of the 29 design patterns. Some of these patterns include: cave space, daylight, connection to community, and indoor-outdoor connection. This is a fantastic book to inspire changes in our learning spaces to make them more conducive to 21st century learning.

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

Read This Book: Essentialism

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

Read This Book: The Art of Tinkering

Read This Book: The Art of Tinkering | This amazing, beautiful designed book looks at the importance of tinkering in the creative process. It includes profiles of artists, project tutorials and lots of examples of tinkering in the fine arts. | RenovatedLearning.com

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

An Ode to the Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual

An Ode to the Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual | The Readers Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual served as a source of creative inspiration for me as a child. I loved flipping through its pages and dreaming up project ideas.

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

Read this Book: Steal Like an Artist

Read this Book: Steal Like an Artist | While being an educator might not be seen as a "creative" type career, the advice that Austin Kleon offers about sharing your work and putting yourself out there really resonates with me. There's a great deal we educators have to learn from him. | RenovatedLearning.com

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