Tinkercad offers a free and powerful way to work with computer-aided design, or CAD, for students of a wide range of ages. But it does more.

The art of 3D design using digital software tools has been an expensive and computer-resource draining task. Now Tinkercad is here to help make this fun and intelligent way of working accessible to everyone.

This can be used to teach CAD specifically, perhaps in a shop class, but is also useful for art classes, physics, math, and more. The designs can be used or 3D printed for real-world use -- helping empower students to create in a professional way from scratch. But it does more with circuitry and coding skills baked in too, making it a powerful STEM-teaching tool.

This guide aims to lay out all you need to know about Tinkercad to help you decide if it could benefit your class.

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• Best Tools for Teachers

What is Tinkercad?

Tinkercad is a software platform that allows for the design and manipulation of 3D images using CAD, coding, and circuitry.

Tinkercad works as a web and smartphone app, so it won't use up computer resources and, since it's free, can be accessible to a wide range of students from nearly any device. This allows student to design, edit, and print 3D objects and offers the ability to work with virtual circuits and to learn code using blocks.

At its most basic this lets students create shapes and then combine these to create more complex objects. If your school doesn't have a 3D printer this need not be an issue as it's also possible to order 3D prints of designs as needed.

Everything is education-focused so there is a dashboard for teachers to be able to create lessons and classes, share, and monitor as needed.

How does Tinkercad work?

Tinkercad is a free web tool so you simply need to go to the site, or download the app, register for free, and you can start designing and editing right away.

Tinkercad breaks down into three STEM-friendly sections: 3D design, circuits, and codeblocks. The first is for pure CAD work, the second for physics and electronics-style circuit building and testing, and the third is for writing coding using block-based code.

Teachers can set tasks or classes to groups or individuals and then monitor progress as students perform the tasks. Usefully this is all ISTA, Common Core, and NGSS standards-aligned to make hitting those important markers even easier for educators. 

Using sample videos teachers can give students ideas about potential projects, which can then be worked on in class as well as outside the room using their own devices and logins.

What are the best Tinkercad features?

Tinkercad is very easy to use, making it appealing for students as young as grade 3 and above, yet offers enough complexity to cater for older students in grade 12 too.

Tinkercad lets you output designs into Minecraft, which is a great way to get students excited about working with the software. They can also 3D print their creations to get an even more satisfying physical end result of their efforts.

The availability of scaffolded mini-lessons makes this a great way to get started and to introduce students to CAD. They can learn at their pace in a way that builds confidence, especially when making fun creations that leave them wanting to do more.

The Tinkercad community is popular and active so students can share and use designs with and from others to get more out of the tool. This can help in saving time, building off the back of another's work, but can also be helpful in teaching collaboration and sectionalizing projects. 

Teacher resources are plentiful with the ability to create classes, add students, import, and share designs with the groups. Usefully, there are lesson plans and tutorials also available to make teaching any of the three functions simpler.

How much does Tinkercad cost?

Tinkercad is a totally free web app and downloadable smartphone and tablet app. You just need to sign up with an email address to get the most out of the service to get going with ad-free use. The fact work can be saved and accessed across devices without charge is a really powerful feature here.

Tinkercad best tips and tricks

Build for Minecraft
Start by designing with a Minecraft output end result in mind to have students excited and engaged on this new tool right from the outset.

Print out
Be sure to use the 3D printing option to make real-world results from the designs so students can see the impact their ideas can have. Phone cases is a fun one to create.

Fix a problem
Find a real-world problem and set students the task of solving it with their designs, perhaps working in groups to achieve the ideal result.

• New Teacher Starter Kit
• Best Tools for Teachers

The future is 3D, says Shaun Foster, director of 3D Digital Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). 

“Computers went from being text-based machines in the 80s, then transitioned to two-dimensional graphical user interfaces,” Foster says. “Then over time, the level and complexity and visual representation of those graphics got deeper and higher resolution.” 

We’re in the midst of the new revolution in graphics as 3D technology is improving rapidly, along with wearable AR and VR technology. “We're going to be ‘Ready Player One,’ pretty soon,” he says. 

This burgeoning field is full of opportunity for educators and their students. Technology convergence is driving the adoption of cutting-edge interactive 3D game technologies into fields such as visual effects, architectural and production visualization, data, GIS, vehicle and transportation optimization, says Foster. 

Foster has received grants from game-maker Epic Games, creators of Unreal Engine and Fortnite. He has also launched an edX course in 3D design. He offers advice for educators interested in learning more about the field and grant opportunities. 

Be Aware of The Field’s Potential  

Former students of Foster’s have worked in 3D design for major film and television productions, including The Mandolorian. 

But the entertainment industry is just one of many areas in which these skills are applicable. 

“I’m talking to our sister departments in interior design and industrial design at RIT, and we have connections to the game design department,” Foster says. “Students are doing work with professors in the medical field who are doing traditional medical work, but also psychology -- there are avatars that our students have been designing that are working with one of the professors at RIT who got a big grant to do avatar-based psychology.” 

Foster adds, “it's really multiple fields coming together.” 

Utilize Free Resources  

Epic Games’ Unreal Engine game engine is available to download for free and is a great tool for students, Foster says. “Unreal Foundations,” Foster’s course on using this game engine, is also available for free on the EdX platform, though students who pay $537 will have access to course forums and other features and will earn a certificate of completion. “It’s a 16-week course that’s split in three chunks, three smaller classes that give you a really strong foundation and an overview of the Unreal Engine,” Foster says.  

The lessons include learning the program’s interface, learning lighting, camera work, visual effects, coding, sequencing, and more in relation to the program. Educators can utilize aspects of this course in their own courses and Foster’s YouTube channel is another excellent free resource. 

Applying for Grants  

In recent years, Foster received grants for $160,000 and $275,000 from the Epic MegaGrants program. The latter grant was applied for with David Long, director of RIT's Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction & Creativity (MAGIC). These grants have helped Foster design educational resources for others. 

Foster has learned that the projects that get funding are often the ones in which much of the work has already been done but grant money is necessary to complete it. “They're funding the 20 percent of the work that you haven't done yet,” he says. That doesn't mean they’re only funding 20 percent of the overall work, however. “There's this concept, the Pareto principle, or the 80-20 rule, that you might do 80 percent of the work in 20 percent of the time, but getting that extra 20 percent of quality or depth, it takes potentially 80 percent of the time.” 

“What I found is that a lot of times, for the grants that I've gotten funded, I've done a huge amount of work ahead of time,” he says. “And then I've realized that there's a huge amount that I could do if I had the time to do it, and that's where I tend to go to go looking.” 

While there are specific grants designed to fund early research, decision makers for other types of grants like to see that researchers have done their homework. “People can look at you and say, ‘Hey, you're not just asking for a handout, you spent time in the field and you want to go deeper,’” Foster says. 

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The two science labs at Deer Path Middle School in Lake Forest, Illinois, were 20 years old and starting to show age. 

“They were beginning not to function,” says Renee Fitzsimmons, director of innovation at Lake Forest School District. 

This was in 2018, and Fitzsimmons and her colleagues in the district were faced with a choice. “It's like in an old house. Do you just make the quick little repair or do you do a full makeover?” she says. “We decided to go with the full makeover.” 

The science classrooms for grades 5 and 6 and grades 7 and 8 were renovated across the district, creating an entirely new lab suite that is “future ready.” 

Gone are the old, stuffy, and institutional-looking labs of yesteryear, and now in place are bright new open spaces designed with collaboration and student-centered learning in mind. “We wanted a good ambiance to the space,” Fitzsimmons says. “We wanted things to be flexible because we wanted to be able to teach in a newer style of teaching, which is what we are calling ‘a future ready style of teaching.’ We wanted to be able to have kids do formal and traditional labs, but then also be able to go sit and work and brainstorm.” 

To that end, the two labs are joined together by a sleek, lounglike space called the “Living Room.” Fitzsimmons worked with designers from the school furniture provider MiEN to come up with a space that fostered comfort and learning. 

“It almost looks like a cafe,” Fitzsimmons says.“You've got high-top tables with high-top chairs, and a lot of windows and glass. You've got natural light coming in now to this inner lab space that before didn't get any, and movable chairs, movable tables, and comfortable couches. You've got soft lighting.” 

To foster student collaboration there are multiple whiteboard surfaces, and the whole suite is tech-friendly with TVs that are connected to Apple TV so students can sync their school-issued iPads and share their work in real time.

It’s all designed to provide the opportunity for kids to be able to show their thinking as they're talking, communicating and collaborating, Fitzsimmons says.

Each lab can be split in half with moveable walls, so up to four classes can be conducted at once.

The new spaces debuted at the start of this school year. The district is operating with 80 percent of students attending in-person classes, and they have embraced the new space even while adhering to the distancing requirements needed due to Covid.

“Kids love it,” Fitzsimmons says. “The positive responses have been overwhelming.”

Advice for Other Districts 

Focus on the Learning to Come 

“Don't just replace,” Fitzsimmons says. “Don't just look at what you have and buy newer examples of what you've got. Actually think about what is it that your students do on a daily basis, what are the outcomes you want, and how can you make it future ready. So design for the collaborative and creative learning model that we all should be using in our pedagogy and the different types of professional learning that we're giving to our teachers.” 

Collaborate and Compare 

Before choosing the design for the new labs, the Lake Forest team met with science teachers and students to hear what they were looking for in a space. They also visited innovative labs at other schools. Fitzsimmons urges others considering an upgrade to make their process collaborative as well. 

“Work with your curriculum people so that you know what sorts of things are important with that professional learning so that you know what the district's goals are,” she says. “Make sure that it’s going to be a space that matches what you're doing in your curriculum and in your pedagogy.” 

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When it comes to classroom design, the pandemic is responsible for a lot of change. 

“It's causing us to rethink how we design everything from a lecture hall to a small classroom,” says John Pfeffer, a team member of IT Customer Service at University at Buffalo who is charged with classroom and learning space design, as well as determining future plans as technology changes.

Prior to March, modern classroom design was very focused on creating active learning spaces designed to facilitate all the students in the space being able to collaborate, says Julie Johnston, acting Associate Vice President of Learning Technologies at Indiana University. 

Active classroom design prioritizes writable surfaces, moveable chairs, and multiple displays so every student can clearly see the material the teacher is presenting. Since March, there has been an effort to extend that active learning environment to students who are not in the room and make spaces suitable for hyflex and hybrid learning. 

Better Acoustics and More Mics

“We've discovered how important acoustics are,” Pfeffer says. “When you've got remote students, and local students, they need to be able to hear each other so that they feel like they're part of the same group.” 

This means more mics, placed not just at the podium but throughout the room so student discussions can be captured. 

To do this at her institution, Johnston says, “We are creating audio zones for the student zone versus the instructor zone, and the ability to mute the student zone so that you don't have the ruffling paper when you just want to have the instructor having a conversation and not opening it up to all.”

At San Diego State University, leaders have designated hybrid-video class ready rooms as “connected classrooms,” says Rebecca Frazee, a faculty member of the Learning Design and Technology Program at the School of Journalism. Frazee, who is also associate director of FLEXspace.org, an online community and resource dedicated to sharing classroom designs, adds an important component of a COVID-safe connected classroom is ceiling-mounted microphones. “They're all over the room and you can pick up the audio really well, but they're also not being touched and handled,” Frazee says. 

More Cameras and Display Surfaces

The modern classroom features cameras that will track a professor’s movement, and offer more camera angles and different perspectives, Pfeffer says. 

“Traditionally, the goal is to just capture as much of everything as possible,” he says. “Now the goal is going to be more about capturing the individual instructor and the individual students in much greater clarity for the remote students to see. And vice versa, how are those remote students seen? We need to consider ways to show those remote students as well as the content that's being talked about.” 

These video and audio components in new classrooms are being designed with lecture capture technology in mind for students who may be participating online asynchronously, says Frazee. 

Educators anticipate these trends continuing even after the pandemic. “We don't have a crystal ball,” Johnston says, “But we do believe that this has the capability of changing what students want and opt for. Thus, having the ability to provide a more improved, quality hybrid experience in our classrooms is the direction we are heading.”

Sharing Resources

Educators looking to upgrade learning spaces should tap into the global community that's interested in learning about classroom design, says Frazee. FLEXspace, a favorite of designers, has more than 5,000 members who upload and share their designs from campuses all over the world. “You can take a sort of virtual field trip to see what other campuses are doing,” Frazee says. 

In addition, Frazee recommends resources such as Educause, Learning By Design Magazine and the Association for Learning Environments, which focuses primarily on K-12 institutions. Still, it’s important for universities to look at what’s coming up from the K-12 pipeline, says Frazee. 

In general, she advises university officials to look at the spaces that have won awards in the past from all these organizations. “I think that's a great way to see some of the innovative thinking that's going on around the world,” Frazee says.  

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While every college and university faces challenges in adjusting to the new normal and what a hybrid learning environment will look like for students, perhaps most unique is the state of art schools at which hands-on requirements are integral to learning. 

We chat with Olga Stella of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, about how implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure is helping art and design students make the grade. 

Sketching a New Plan

“We had a stay at home order that went into effect in March,” says Stella. “We had about a week to transition 1,400 students to online experiences so we could comply with the state's order to close campus. Our faculty pivoted to finish the semester strong virtually, but we're coming back 8/31 to campus with a more intentional plan using tech to keep students on track.” 

The institution is a traditional art and design school, so in order to accommodate that necessary in-person experience, liberal arts classes are going fully online, while some other courses will be offered in a hybrid mode to reduce the density of people on campus. 

“When you think about art and design there's a lot of hands-on making and creating of work,” says Stella. “We have studio classes that require equipment—a glassblowing studio, a wood shop—so scheduling allows us to maintain appropriate social distancing within those facilities.”

Staff is reconfiguring the physical footprints so the classrooms are bigger and can safely accommodate students. At times, faculty and teachers may move between more than one room in order to help support the students as they work.

Starting With a Blank Canvas

“What's exciting is that we've never really done online before, so there's a number of things the college has really invested in,” says Stella. “One of the things is bringing in expertise from a firm to rethink how some of these classes work, how we can think about them from a virtual first perspective and rework for a hybrid or online-only experience in the fall. 

The institution is implementing the Dell EMC VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure, a new infrastructure that allows for quick and seamless updates of all the software packages students use to create their work, such as 3D design and modeling packages. 

“While students can download these programs, a lot of times their computers don't have the system requirements to run the software on the device itself,” says Stella. “By using the VxRail, we're basically expanding our computer lab into the students' homes or dorms or wherever they are working, thereby reducing density on campus (or in the physical computer lab) and making it as convenient and easy for the students to access tech, work on their projects, and do their classwork.”

Tech Provides the Palette

“I think people find it surprising at the amount of tech that is already used at design schools—a lot of the software packages are integral to creating the work,” says Stella. “Our students come from all different backgrounds, with potential inequality of resources when they are forced to work from home.” 

Adjusting with tech tools such as a virtual desktop allows students to access what they need to be successful as if they were in a seat in a computer lab. “You can't take the glass-blowing studio home with you, but the modeling package that the designers use, you can,” says Stella.

With some software programs, professors can use a video conferencing platform such as Zoom to share the student’s screen and use a 3D-modeling package to provide that constructive feedback in real time. It provides an opportunity for interactive teaching.

“We've done very intentional support bringing our faculty to a comfort level with the tech,” says Stella. “We want our students to feel empowered and supported in moving their lives and educational careers forward, and that this pandemic doesn't need to hold them back.”

Silver Linings

Implementing the virtual desktop infrastructure is providing challenges—and new opportunities. The IT team has wrestled with rightsizing the workstation infrastructure while also enabling students to use their own devices. 

“Beyond this unfortunate current situation, however, this will be a game-changer for our students,” says Stella. “Learning is so much more flexible because they will continue to have access to the high-end resources our school is known for, in the comfort of their own home and learning space.”

The platform is also an eye opener for new possibilities, including other kinds of programs that could be offered to make the institution even more accessible. “I think about working parents, students who are managing work schedules, those with physical challenges, even simple location issues,” says Stella. “We can now serve those students who might be living out of state with access to our faculty and our classes.”

What's Next

Investing in technology such as a virtual desktop is helping to optimize learning long term, not only through a wider variety of classes and types of students we can reach, but for faculty learning and professional development. Leveraging existing partnerships across a wide range of industries can also create opportunities to increase continuing education and certificate programs.

“Part of what we recognize is that we are passionate about creativity, we are passionate about the roles artists and designers play in society,” says Stella. “Part of what has driven us is that our world needs creative people now more than ever, to help create the solutions for the challenges we are facing, but also to help us as a society to process and understand what’s happening around us. And there's a lot to process and understand right now.”

Tech Tools Used

•  Zoom 
•  Blackboard 
•  RealVNC 
•  Labstats 
•  Google G Suite 
•  Various webcams 
•  Limited equipment loan-outs for local students without any computer at all 

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Changing the world is a lofty goal for any enterprise, but the team at the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) Digital Transformation Hub in San Luis Obispo, California, is making that a reality as students work locally and with other innovation hubs around the world on real-world problems.

The Cal Poly Hub was created to help education and the public sector develop a more innovative culture to solve challenges in new ways using proven, customer-driven methods familiar to business. The Hub’s director, Paul Jurasin, says that one of their goals was to determine how student engagement in real-world problem-solving would add value in an educational environment plus provide experiences to help organizations tackle human challenges around the world.

Tasked with improving the campus IT infrastructure four years ago, Jurasin began looking for a partner to improve campus technology and connect them to the cloud. They chose Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

Administrators also wanted to provide students better access to emerging technology. The Cal Poly philosophy is to “learn by doing,” and the partnership with AWS opened up the opportunity to work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, and nonprofits around the world who were working on real-world problems. The Hub collaborates with other AWS cloud innovation centers in France, Germany, Canada, Korea, and Australia on shared international challenges.

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Developing the Innovation Process 

Jurasin and his team developed a workshop to use with clients as they refined their innovation model in multiple sectors, such as public safety, law enforcement, and healthcare. They began by identifying who needed a problem solved, the technology needed to solve it, and whether there were policy changes that needed to lead to the solution. The teams included students, subject matter experts, technology staff, and a leader.

The innovation team discovered early on that the process was more effective if they focused on the problem first and then brought in the technology. They also learned that the students on the team needed to be there for more than a quarter as projects lasted longer and involved a good deal of training. “Once we have students trained in methodology and process, we want to keep them for a year or more,” says Jurasin. 

The Hub team utilizes a 5-step innovation process based on a proven business model:

1. Identify: Establish specific customer interest in the innovation process
2. Engage: Vision is articulated, digital innovation is introduced; the design challenge is framed; agreement to work with the innovation team
3. Define: Through the innovation workshop itself, customer needs are defined; a new digital offering is defined at a high level; stakeholder alignment and momentum
4. Prototype: Statement of solution in the customer’s voice; digital offering brought to life with descriptive or digital prototype; value proposition created with order-of-magnitude cost/benefit estimates
5. Realize Value: Minimum viable product (MVP) launched; scalable architecture designed and deployed; operating model established to support MVP and sustained innovation.

Using Design Thinking

Empathy mapping is actually the first step in design thinking. “When we put together the team for the innovation workshop—we try to bring in people who clearly represent the needs of the customer, or the actual customer, to gain a depth of understanding about the problem the customer is experiencing,” says Jurasin. “Once we understand how the customer is experiencing the problem, then we can innovate a better solution than if the customer were not involved. For example, if we are working with a community on their homeless situation, we would want a current or former homeless person to help us understand the real needs.”

Jurasin’s team uses the AWS empathy mapping process. Elements include:

• Tasks: What tasks are users trying to complete? What questions do they need answered?
• Influences: What people, things, or places may influence how the user acts?
• Overall Goal: What is the users ultimate goal? What are they trying to achieve?
• Pain Points: What pain points might the user be experiencing that they hope to overcome?
• Feelings: How is the user feeling about the experience? What really matters to them?

At the conclusion of this process, team members have a clear understanding of their customer—the insights into their needs, wants, attitudes, and behaviors. 

Here is an example of a small project:

Students at Fresno State University were being inundated with communications from various departments of the university and there was a concern that critical communications might be missed. What the team developed was a comprehensive student-centered communication platform that delivers students relevant and high-priority communications on a consistent basis. 

The Mission

The Cal Poly Hub team wants to solve problems across the public sector. They work in open source so that anyone can have access to the solution. They believe that sharing this information will lead to more problems being solved across the world. 

“We would like to do more international challenges with other innovation hubs in order to impact global problems,” says Jurasin. For example, the hub in Paris is working on aging issues. The Cal Poly team may tackle that same issue in Los Angeles or Santa Monica. It might be the same problem but local conditions might mean a different solution.

With this defined innovation process, The Cal Poly Digital Transformation Hub has opportunities to collaborate with local and international partners to make an impact on significant real-world problems.

On April 25, 1901, New York became the first state to require license plates. Design your own license plate and driver's license to use when you play. Print them when you are finished.

Brought to you by Knovation, powered by ACT  

Educators are looking for opportunities to teach students the skills that will best prepare them for college and career. Design thinking is a process to help them solve real-world problems. Specifically, it is a problem-solving process that puts people at the center of an inquiry.

“It allows students to think about the challenges the world is facing,” says Laura McBain, 

Director of K–12 community and implementation at the K–12 lab at Stanford University’s design school. “It puts them in the driver’s seat to be really engaged to solve those problems, to feel empowered to change the world.”

Design thinking is a useful framework when teaching in-demand 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication. The iterative design process allows students to focus on a solution for a particular problem, interview and gather data from the people who have the problem, and refine and test potential solutions until they get to the one that resolves the problem.

Using 3D Printing to Support the Design Process

3D printing allows students to test their designs with high-quality models. It also facilitates STEM thinking within the design process, which provides real-world practice that they will encounter in their careers. Other student outcomes include practicing the finding/defending/presenting of design decisions as well as applying advanced 3D printing skills to communicate those design decisions.

Learning to use design thinking and 3D printers gives students an advantage. “Having the technology in school prepares them [students] to fabricate and build and test and gives them an edge that none of us had a few generations ago,” said Willy Wong, Professor at Parsons School of Design

3D Printer and Design Thinking Training and Certification

A new cloud-based 3D printing solution by Makerbot removes any apprehension an educator new to 3D printing might have. It maximizes student access with multiple printers so that teachers have increased classroom engagement without slowing down the learning process.

With MakerBot Cloud, teachers have seamless classroom management at their fingertips.

Students can queue up their designs and print them without a hitch. By making 3D printing more available to students, it boosts the opportunity for student innovation as they test their designs to solve real-world problems.

The Makerbot SKETCH Classroom is a reliable 3D printing platform that gives students the access they need and sets teachers up for success. It includes:

• 2 MakerBot SKETCH Desktop 3D printers.
• 600+ curated lesson plans created by Makerbot Certified educators.
• ISTE-certified 3D printer training for both teachers and students.
• Allows you to certify 2 teachers and 10 students in real-world problem-solving, design thinking, and 3D printing.
• Cloud-based integration manages student projects and allows direct printing from TinkerCAD

To find out how you can jumpstart design thinking and efficient 3D printing in your classroom, visit https://www.makerbot.com/3d-printers/sketch-classroom/ 

One Massachusetts middle school teacher challenged her students to use their creativity, and some tech, to design the perfect parkour shoe. 

Who: Diane Hichborn, Middle School Teacher—Math, Science, Humanities 

Where: Sparhawk Middle School— Amesbury, MA 

What: Parkour and the Octoshoe, a Sucker for PBL Enrichment 

One fall recess I observed a few students tumbling on the ground, jumping off of boxes and projecting off walls. When returning to class, they asked if we could have a Parkour Enrichment. Enrichments are six-week-long courses that provide learning experiences outside the regular curriculum. They are derived from traditional academic domains, the art and kinesthetic realms or practical life-skills and tease out an array of interests in our students. I looked into what it takes to build a course for that type of activity. It must have been meant to be! When I opened my email, there was an invitation from TERC—a non-profit group made up of math and science education and research experts— announcing the Data Arcade Sportslab Parkour Shoe Design Challenge. 

The challenge took students through an online environment of the sport; set up with milestones and labs to uncover information needed to create deliverables. During some labs, students tested the coefficient of friction on sneaker outsoles and how the force of jumping affected the design of the midsole. Teams worked together to build models of sneakers that enhanced the shoelace-tying experience. The winning design, Octoshoe, used bio-mimicry to do away with the laces, instead using an octopus-like strap that secured the sneaker with suction cups. Students watched and interviewed real athletes in action. They collaborated in designing the final product. 

Biggest Challenge

The main obstacle I had was the time investment. Fortunately, our current science topic was Forces and Motion, so I was able to incorporate the challenge into our curriculum. The final project was to include a business card including a team logo, a presentation board showing the anatomy of the sneaker’s features, and a sales pitch.Together, the students and I learned how designers illustrated the marketability of their shoes and techniques of preparing computer-aided presentations.

Positive Results

The competition was rewarding in itself. Students enjoyed critiquing other teams’ designs and said that they will never look at a sneaker the same way. They learned that it was not about the competition, but all that they had achieved along the journey. (Sparkhawk teams took two of the top three awards in the Challenge.)

Pro Tips

Patience and the ability to listen to each student’s ideas are key. I like sharing my ideas and knowledge with them so that they can learn and become more confident in their own abilities. I believe it is important to differentiate the curriculum to suit student’s abilities and then watch the range of possible outcomes. In the end, I reflect on the task, not only as a learning experience for the student, but also for myself.

Finding Funding

There was no cost as it was part of a grant that TERC received from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Tech Tools

• Laptops
• Google search
• Spring scales and weights (to test for tread traction, finding the coefficient of friction)
• Recycled/upcycled materials
• 3D Sketch-up Design
• Architectural Tools
• Excel

Genially

Create professional-looking media with an abundant library of templates

Pros: The site supports nearly any type of media creation, and templates are varied and dynamic.

Cons: There’s a lot going on, and it could be more intuitive. It might challenge school internet speeds.

Bottom Line: It’s a treasure-trove of well-designed templates and features that encourage creativity and collaboration, but expect some growing pains.

Read more 

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

Piktochart

Add oomph to info with sleek infographic tool

Pros: Design quality and inspirational templates are top-notch; students can easily create professional-looking infographics with a few clicks.

Cons: The free account is quite limited; to do more than the basics, a PRO account will be required.

Bottom Line: Tech- and design-savvy students will immediately take to this well-designed, reasonably easy-to-use tool.

Read more 

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

Google Slides is an excellent tool not just for creating presentations, but for making eBooks, stop-motion animation, Choose Your Own Adventure stories, comic strips, and much more. However, one aspect that is a little lacking in Slides is the amount of design themes available by default.

When you create a Google slideshow you are given a simple list of 23 basic design themes to choose from. These control the colors, font choice, and overall style of the presentation. Although these are a great place to start, and work well for most presentations, what if you want a different look and feel? Certainly you can manually change the font face, font colors, background color or image, and more.

However as educators, the one thing we have less of than default design themes is time. Thankfully there are many websites that have created and shared hundreds of templates that can be used for your new Google Slides presentations.

In this blog post we will look at a wide range of online resources that provide over 600 design theme templates (as of last count) for you and your students to use in your creations. In most cases you will simply need to click on the templates provided and then make a copy for your own use. Once you have your copy, you can edit the slideshow however you want and add your own content.

1) Slides Carnival

https://www.slidescarnival.com/
Over 130 design theme templates. Each template has 25+ slides with a variety of layouts and designs.

2) Slides Mania

https://slidesmania.com/
134 design theme templates. Each template has a wide variety of layouts and designs. Many of the templates are for general use, but there are also a large amount of specialty templates including graphics organizers, manipulatives, school planner, back-to-school, school rewards, and more.

3) Google Slides PPT

http://googleslidesppt.com/
36 design theme templates. Each template has 30+ slides with a variety of layouts and designs.

4) Slides Go

https://slidesgo.com
145 design theme templates, including an entire category dedicated to education themes. Each template has multiple slides with a variety of layouts and designs.

5) Free Google Slides Templates

https://freegoogleslidestemplates.com/free-templates/
17 design theme templates. Each template has multiple slides with a variety of layouts and designs.

6) Slide Model

https://slidemodel.com/google-slides/
240 design theme templates. Many of these templates have fewer slides than some of the other sites, but with a wide variety there are many to choose from.

7) Mike MacFadden Templates

http://www.mmacfadden.com/templates/
21 design theme templates. These templates differ from the earlier examples because the layouts are saved in the slide master. After you make a copy of one of the templates, click the down arrow next to the "+" button (new slide button) to see and choose the layout you wish to insert.

8) Google's Template Gallery

https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/?ftv=1&tgif=c
26 design theme templates. In addition to the default themes that show up when you first create a slideshow, Google actually provides another 26 options in their template gallery. You can access these resources using the link above, or by going to Drive then clicking "New" then hovering over "Google Slides" and choosing "From a template".

These templates include examples such as Book Report, Flash Cards, Science Project, Photo Album, Portfolio, and more.

cross posted at www.controlaltachieve.com

Eric Curts is an education trainer and consultant with over 20 years' experience throughout the U.S. He is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator. Read his blog at www.controlaltachieve.com and follow him on Google+ and @ericcurts on Twitter.

SAM Labs

Kids use block code and wireless blocks to program, design, and create

Pros: Students will love the hands-on creation process and interactive features that bring their designs to life.

Cons: The site is slow to load, and costs for the various blocks and kits can add up quickly.

Bottom Line: With some perseverance, it's a great fit for PBL and STEAM, helping students learn programming skills and engineering concepts through invention.

Read more.

Site of the Week picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed byCommon Sense Education, which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

Canva - Photo Editor & Design

Create snazzy designs in seconds with flexible, cloud-based tool

Pros: Tons of free templates plus great guidance can transform budding artists into able designers.

Cons: Resource-intensive and can be prone to crashes. It can be easy to confuse "layouts" and "designs" and lose work in the process.

Bottom Line: A flexible, accessible way to get kids -- especially design novices -- creating digitally in your classroom if you have stable internet and time to get students set up to be successful. 

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App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

A few times a day I chuckle at a text message or social media post with a meme. Maybe it’s a Game of Thrones reference sent by a friend or a corny joke sent by a family member. Either way, a meme requires a certain level of topical knowledge and a big dose of creativity to really get laughs. 

Creating memes with students is a great classroom activity. It asks students to think deeply about a topic, apply what they’ve learned and create something ready-to-share with the world. Although you might think of meme activities as something popular in an English Language Arts classroom, you can make memes with students in any subject area.

In our book 40 Ways to Inject Creativity in the Classroom with Adobe Spark, Ben Forta and I share dozens of classroom activities with Adobe Spark. There are also lots of graphic organizers for students. In this blog post, I’ll share another activity that promotes creativity. It asks students to think about course content from a new angle. In the math classroom, you can have students create memes to illustrate an idea or bring a concept to life.

Memes in the Classroom

So here’s a sentence I couldn’t imagine writing a decade ago… Merriam-Webster defines meme as “an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.” You’ve certainly come across memes in your own social media spaces, and there are lots of classroom creations too. A quick Pinterest search will bring up lots of cross-curricular examples, like this math meme featuring Drake.

In this activity, students can brainstorm what they’d like their meme to communicate and create their own math meme in just a few steps. Spark Post makes it easy for students to layer text over images. This is just like the memes students are used to seeing in social spaces. Students can think of a meme, search for the perfect picture, add text to their image. Then they can share their meme with classmates, family, or any audience.

Making Math Memes

To start making math memes, head over to Adobe Spark’s website or open up the Spark Post app on an iOS or Android device. Students can use one of Spark Post’s templates or start from scratch. If you have the branding features set up for your school (learn more here), you can access them during this first step too.

For the meme I share in this blog post, I started from scratch and first chose the shape and size of my graphic. These sizes are optimized for different social media platforms. You can resize your graphic at any time and even add custom dimensions. I chose a square to keep it simple.

Searching for Images

Since I already knew that my meme was about fractions — with a pizza reference — I searched for free photos right from within Spark Post. When your students brainstorm and plan their meme before opening up Spark Post, you may want to encourage them to write down 3-4 search terms for their image. This way they have several options to work with when looking for images.

After students search for and choose an image, they are prompted to add text to their Spark Post graphic. The colors are chosen automatically to match the image. However, you can change the font colors, alignment, and any other details manually. I actually included two lines of text on my meme, so I used the plus sign at the top righthand corner of the screen. 

Students looking for design inspiration can use the Design suggestions built right into Spark. This feature makes it easy to create a beautiful graphic without having a design background. Students can tap on each design idea and then tweak the text, colors, and arrangement to create their perfect meme. 

Using the Download button at the top of their screen, students can then save their meme as a picture file. If students are on a Chrome browser, there is also the option to download the graphic as a PDF file. Alternatively, students can publish their meme as a link.

You may have seen other ideas on my site for using Spark Post. Check out these two blog posts on using this tool for exit tickets and vocabulary study. Or head straight to Adobe Spark’s website to get started with this powerful, easy-to-use creation tool.

I've had the pleasure of working with this company. All opinions are my own. 

cross posted at classtechtips.com

Dr. Monica Burns is a former classroom teacher, Speaker, and Curriculum & EdTech Consultant. She is the author of Tasks Before Apps (ASCD) and #FormativeTech (Corwin). Visit Monica's site ClassTechTips.com for more ideas on how to become a tech-savvy teacher.

3DBear AR

3D design and augmented reality merge in creative, interactive app 

Pros: Students can independently or collaboratively design and create scenes that fit any subject area.

Cons: You'll have to go searching for tutorials; while learning through experimentation can be engaging, the lack of hints may frustrate some kids.

Bottom Line: A great fit for classroom or makerspace settings as long as kids have compatible devices. 

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App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

By Common Sense Education

When we talk about collaboration in schools, we often default to thinking about collaboration within an individual classroom, but schools are made up of many classrooms and libraries and lunchrooms—and even non-spaces, like the technological infrastructure and the communication tools we use to address students, teachers, and parents. At Humble Independent School District, when it came time to build a new middle school, we took the opportunity to put this broader understanding of collaboration into practice.

Our new school, West Lake Middle School, is a STEAM-focused school with an emphasis on project-based learning. The first thing that means is that we are not, as a school, afraid of technology. All of our teachers have laptops to enable them to move around the room with their computers as they teach and facilitate learning. We’re working on raising funds to launch a 1:1 computing initiative, but in the meantime, we are at about one device for every four students. We also allow students to bring their own devices.

Designing Spaces for STEAM

As a STEAM school, part of our goal is working to develop students who are excited about technology and using it in creative and imaginative ways. That’s easy enough to say, but designing a school that enables it is both an opportunity and a challenge.

The first step in unleashing student creativity is providing the right environment. In the past, schools have tried to force learners to conform to the design of the classroom. That seemed backwards to us, and so we took flexible design as our first guiding principle in creating a school that would conform to our learners.

Inside the classroom, we use furniture provided by Hon and Mien via School Specialty, who took care of ordering, check-in and assembly of everything. Students can choose to sit on exercise balls or tall café-style chairs. Our movable desks can easily be arranged together in multiple configurations for group work or used separately for individual study.

In keeping with our belief that collaboration should not end at the edge of the classroom, we also included collapsible walls for the option to extend some classes and glass walls to eliminate the barriers where others ended, along with an open-air environment for Socratic seminars on the first floor. On the second floor, we included another open-air environment for conducting science experiments and other learning activities that require more space and freedom. The third floor also includes an open-air learning environment for activities such as an egg drop to study physics concepts like velocity.

Connecting Students, Teachers, and Classrooms

In keeping with our vision of flexible design and extending collaboration beyond the classroom, we wanted an AV tool that would operate across spaces without wires, and that worked with any device our teachers and students happened to be using

The solution we found, Vivi, quickly became a key piece of our whole-school collaboration model. In addition to allowing students and teachers to wirelessly present from any device they have on hand, it allows us to make announcements to the whole school or select classrooms. We’ve tied it into our public-address tool and it’s even replaced our bell system. Before Halloween, to signal the transition between classes, instead of a bell we played songs like “Monster Mash,” “Thriller,” and the Scooby Doo and Addams Family theme songs.

Finding Risk-Taking Teachers

The last, but certainly not least, piece of a collaborative school environment, is of course the teachers. I was lucky in that our district is growing so fast that I had the pick of the litter when making staffing decisions for our school. In my staffing search, I was able to begin the conversation by explaining the vision and asking what applicants thought of it and how they could contribute to it. There are no right answers to those questions, but they did help to reveal the one characteristic that is vital to developing self-directed and creative learners: a willingness to take risks.

Today we have a school in which the teachers are able to model that willingness, and in which the students are able to do the same for one another, whether it’s by sharing their work on a screen, looking from one classroom to another to see their peers diligently at work, or by watching a classmate run an experiment over and over in one of our open-air learning spaces.

Dr. Ken Hodgkinson is the principal at West Lake Middle School. With more than two decades of school administrative experience, Dr. Hodgkinson has presided over the opening of two new schools. He can be reached at Kenneth.Hodgkinson@humbleisd.net.

Using the Science of Learning to Redesign Schools

A new policy brief from the Center for American Progress challenges policymakers and educators to reimagine the American school experience. The brief cites data that less than half of US students are prepared for college-level math or reading. Some schools are being restructured to fit the needs and interests of students—a practice called school redesign. This brief specifically examines the ways that learning science can support school redesign. Science shows that practice improves learning, however most students don’t get enough time to develop what they’re learning. Adjusting schedules by extending the school day and year is an easy way for schools to offer more opportunities for student practice. An analysis of nearly 200,000 research studies found that feedback is one of the top influences on student achievement, having a greater effect on student performance than many other interventions. Redesigned schools can strengthen instruction, as well as student outcomes, by creating more opportunities for students to receive feedback—in particular, immediate and individualized advice on how well they do on a given task. States and districts should also reevaluate assessment policies to encourage the use of formative assessments that provide teachers and students more real-time feedback. Also, students need opportunities to apply what they have learned, especially to familiar, real-world contexts. Creating senior-year internships is a terrific way to encourage students to learn by doing. 

 https://tinyurl.com/yalvm4dm 

3D Slash

Minecraft-like 3D modeling (and printing) made super easy for all ages

Pros: Simple, Minecraft-inspired design tools are familiar to some users and easy to learn for others, especially with the great tutorials and examples.

Cons: Designs are exclusively composed of cubes, which makes creating very complex designs a bit challenging, and the teacher dashboard is limited.

Bottom Line: This may be the fastest, cheapest route from idea to 3D printing out there, if you don't mind low-res, pixelated designs.

[Building Cities on the Red Planet]

Read more here.

Site of the Week picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

At a CTO summit this summer, I joined a group of educators discussing the effect of spatial design and furniture selection on learning. It was clear that attempts to influence learning by changes to spaces and furniture had not always met with success. One tech director described how the new flexible furniture was still being arranged in the same uniform rows as the old table-arm desks. He was frustrated that the time and effort to remodel the space appeared to have been wasted.

The facilitator in the CTO discussion, Maureen Miller, has not yet had the opportunity to fully renovate all classrooms at Winnetka School District 39, in Illinois (the District is just completing an educational facilities master plan). However, her district was successful in encouraging students and teachers to innovate and modify their current spaces. The district has given away design grants for teachers to modify their spaces and furniture. Maureen shared that teachers have implemented improvements like flexible furniture and marker boards on horizontal rails, to enable the existing spaces to be more adaptable.

When I visited this Maureen’s district a few years back, there was a sense of excitement from students. I saw examples of students energetically attacking unstructured problems and taking ownership in their learning assignments. Two of her students recently served as panelists at Tech and Learning Live Chicago.

A school renovation project I was involved in underscores the role of spatial design in supporting instructional practice. In addition to my District CIO role at a past school district, I was also the building committee co-chair for a complete high school renovation.

[What’s New: New Tools for Schools]

As the building design team grappled with the possibilities for technology, furniture and spatial layout of classrooms, we decided to create prototypical classrooms. Teachers could sign up and use the prototypical classrooms, have their classes experiment with audio-visual technology, and try out student desks, student chairs and teacher furniture. They could also check out a breakout room for small-group discussion.

Student and teacher feedback influenced the selection of student desks, chairs and the teacher’s station. The labs also helped the design team to refine the materials for the room, ultimately settling on full-height marker surface on two walls, and tackable surface on a third wall.

Earlier this spring, I toured the renovated high school, about 6 years after it was completed. I saw students working individually and in groups, in breakout rooms, in hallways, and throughout the classrooms. The math department chair told me about students working out math problems on every available writing surface, including desks, the marker surfaces, and even on windows.

My site tour showed a school where spatial design, technology and furniture combined to enhance individualized student learning. What made this deployment successful when others in my summer discussion were still looking for results? From my experiences in this district, I know that individualized student learning was already taking place before the renovation. In discussing this question with the math department chair, he remarked that the push for individualized learning was really driven by the classroom teachers, with leadership by department heads, and strong support from curriculum and administration. Classroom teachers were ready for the renovation because they had already been planting the seed of innovative instruction in the existing high school.

Winston Churchill said, “we shape our buildings and afterward they shape us.” However, Churchill was referring to how to rebuild the House of Commons, which had been badly bombed at the end of the Battle of Britain, during World War II. He worried that if the shape of the House of Commons were changed by expansion, it would change the look and feel of the proceedings there. He was not trying to create a new type of behavior. In his mind, the crowded, intimate setting of the House of Commons meeting room encouraged the kind of healthy debate that was already taking place there. He felt that debate was essential to Great Britain’s democratic process and should be sustained.

In the same way, I think the redesigned high school I visited was encouraging the type of healthy instruction that was already taking place there. A new school design would not necessarily have led to new instructional methods, but the new design did make it easier for teachers to allow students to flourish.

Wherever you are at in the design and renovation process, I encourage you to develop a wholistic approach to your thinking about the elements of technology, furniture and spatial design. Start with your instructional direction, then use of all three elements to foster the type of instruction your district desires. While these elements by themselves will not generate changes in instructional practice, they will certainly provide the soil to nurture best-practice instruction, to the ultimate benefit of your students.

Craig Williams has 30 years of experience working with schools, focused primarily on providing visionary consulting and support. A former school CIO, Craig emphasizes pragmatic improvement in all areas of IT, from internal infrastructure, to effective instructional software and public-facing technologies. He is the Director of Infrastructure Consulting Services for Client First Consulting Group (www.clientfirstcg.com).

Lightwell

No coding required -- visual app design for the rest of us

Pros: Novice app designers can create and publish professional-looking apps.

Cons: Teachers will need to provide significant planning and design support to ensure student success.

Bottom Line: Create authentic learning experiences for your students with app design in the classroom.

[Minecraft: Kids Learn 21st Century Skills While Building New Worlds]

Read more.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

One way to truly inspire innovation is to send students on learning missions or challenges to invent or imagine a new app, vehicle, machine, building, or system that solves a problem. I’ve sent students on missions to imagine a house or vehicle for people to live on in space. I’ve challenged them to invent apps to solve real world problems they face or to help a superhero. I’ve gotten them to pitch a new business or invention. These are wonderful ways to spark ideas, but we can push this further by getting students to visualize and mock up their innovations through blueprints and floor plans. It isn’t enough to have incredible ideas if students aren’t able to present them to others, plan them out, or actualize them. Teaching students how to draw out, mock up, and map out the brilliance in their minds helps them tremendously throughout their lives. This gives them the key to transforming their world with their innovations. Creating a blueprint or floor plan also meets Science, Technology, Engineering, ART and Math (STEM/STEAM) standards. Students use math, science, and the Engineering Design Process. Below, find my presentation, STEAM UP Learning, and free web tools to help students, even toddlers, design and visualize their innovations. Some of these tools even help students 3D print their designs. Find tons of my STEAM inspired lessons and resources collected here.

[Tips for Encouraging Learners of All Ages to Read]

Design and Blueprint Tools

Most of these tools should have a free version, but might not be available for all countries. As with any technology, you should always make sure the tools are approved by parents and your school administration.

• The Draw and Tell iOS app is perfect for toddlers and children to mock up their inventions. They can use the graphing paper feature and add stickers or draw on it. Students also get to record themselves describing their inventions. Discover more ideas about using this app in the Teach Outside the Box blog.
• Home Styler is a web tool for designing floor plans and blueprints that was recommended to me by Kelly Jake Duncan who teachers high school students.
• Lucid Chart is available on the web and on iOS and Android device. Get access to 2 different floor plan templates that students can easily edit. This tool also has an education version.
• Home Design 3D allows students to create blueprints and print their designs with a 3D printer.
• Cospaces allows students to use virtual reality and augmented reality technology to create virtual buildings and innovations. This tool also has an education version.
• With Minecraft (not free, but does have an education version) students can also design, visualize, and build in a virtual space.
• Room Sketcher is a blueprint tool with the ability to drag and drop furniture and other shapes.
• Art Space allows you to create a 3D virtual gallery and is pretty simple. They do have upload limits.
• Students can use this virtual museum Google Slides template from David Lee Edtech.

Challenge: Get students to mock up and blueprint their innovations.

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is an education consultant, technology trainer, and author. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.

PowToon

Cool presentation tool lets students turn slides into video animations

Pros: Presentations look clean and professional and add an element of fun.

Cons: Presentations can be slow to load, and the ability to add images from Flickr and other online platforms may result in student access to inappropriate content.

Bottom Line: With guidance and oversight, students will have fun making creative video presentations, but more collaborative features and classroom support would help.

[Create Stylish, Engaging Presentations with Top Slideshow App]

Read more.

Site of the Week picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

By Common Sense Education

Earlier this year I had the chance to present at the Magnet Schools of America Conference in Chicago. If you’ve been following along for the past few years, you may already know that I taught at a magnet school in New York City. The very first time I presented a session at a conference was the annual Magnet Schools Conference, so this year’s trip was definitely a highlight on my list of events.

As a classroom teacher at a magnet school, one of my roles was to share our school’s story by snapping and posting pictures. Our school had a Twitter account and a blog, but in the years since I’ve left the classroom, the way educators use social media to share the story of teaching and learning has definitely changed. There are new tools, platforms, and strategies for using social media.

A few years ago I came across the Spark tools from Adobe. I’ve shared lots of ways to use these free, powerful tools. This includes how to use Spark Video with Google Classroom and how to showcase student work with Spark Page. There are lots of ways to tailor these tools to rigorous tasks that connect to student interests while promoting creativity.

In addition to the moviemaking and website creation tools, Spark Post can play a fantastic role in the classroom. This graphic design tool can be used to capture book quotes, for virtual exit slips, and lots of other ways. So what does this have to do with Instagram? Well, Spark Post is terrific web-based and iOS friendly tool for educators (and students) who want to tell their school’s story.

Creating Images for Instagram

Spark Post is a K-12 friendly graphic design tool that is perfect for educators with access to a Chromebook, iPad, iPhone, or a laptop with access to the Internet. With Spark Post, you can use a picture you’ve snapped or search for Creative Commons-tagged images. Once you have your image or solid color background, you can add text and your school logo to your graphic.

If you scroll through this page of blog posts, you’ll notice how I use a similar font, colors, and logo on each of my blog graphics. I do the same thing on Instagram too (here’s a link to my account). Schools, companies, and individuals use fonts, colors, and logos that make it easy for other people to notice their content. So as families or community members scroll through their Instagram, they’ll slow down and notice your posts to learn about what is happening at your school.

Instagram with Spark Post

In the following screenshots, you can see how I’ve captured an example of a quote from a school day on a Spark Post graphic. Users can add a logo to the bottom of their Post and use colors that connect to their brand. These premium features usually cost $9.99 a month but K-12 schools can access these features for free.

All you have to do is add Spark to your Adobe Admin Console. If you don’t have and Adobe Admin Console you can set it up for free and add your school domain, so they know you’re from a school. There is more information about setting this up on the Spark in the Classroom homepage. This month I sat side-by-side with a technology coach at a school I work with as she set up the Admin Console and she was able to access all of these premium features for free!

Why should schools use Instagram?

Earlier this year I wrote this blog post about the reasons why I’m excited about Instagram. There are lots of reasons schools should embrace this social media platform. A picture can share and celebrate student learning. It gives you the power to spotlight special moments from the school day. From guest visitors and field trips, to read alouds and science experiments, there are so many moments in the day to capture and celebrate.

You might make a plan to share one photo every day. You can also use a tool like Buffer or Tailwind to schedule student quotes (like the example above) on the weekends. I would suggest having just one or two people in your school with access to your Instagram account. Educators and students can send potential images to that point person. Then the point person can curate and share pictures straight from their device.

[Class Tech Tips: Can an App Spark Student Curiosity?]

Instagram Tips for Schools

In addition to the special moments listed above, there are lots of graphics you can share on Instagram. Create a graphic with Spark Post that includes the same information you would traditionally send home on a flyer. Try sharing student exit slips on Instagram to celebrate everyday learning. The possibilities are endless!

You can also use Spark Post for Instagram stories. Created a square Instagram image? You can still change your mind if you want to feature it in an Instagram story instead. Tap on the resize button to change your image to the perfect size. Haven’t used Instagram stories before? I share more information in this post.

Make sure you have permission to share photographs and work of students online. Although any reason is a good reason, some families decline to grant permission. This might be because they don’t really understand why you are asking for it. Giving students an authentic audience for their work and connecting with a global audience are reasons you may want to share with families.

Head over to Adobe Spark’s website to get started!

cross posted at classtechtips.com

Monica Burns is a former classroom teacher, author, speaker, and curriculum & edtech consultant. Visit her site ClassTechTips.com for more ideas on how to become a tech-savvy teacher.

When I looked into the music store room next to one of the computer labs in my new school, I didn't see a music store room. I saw a teachers' computer lab. The size and shape -- long and narrow -- were irrelevant. I knew I could make better use of it than how it was being used now. It was not so much a store room as a junk room, with old music stands scattered all over the place, piles of paper which had obviously not been looked at in ages, judging by the dust on them. So I went to the headteacher, and asked if I could have the room. To my delight (and, I have to say, surprise) he said "Yes."

Read more.

Terry Freedman is an independent ed tech consultant and freelance writer based in London, England. He publishes the ICT & Computing in Education website.

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.

Adobe Capture CC

Magical design tool extracts colors, patterns, and more from images

Pros: Access to granular photo elements; ability to create and share photo element libraries; fully compatible with Adobe CC apps
Cons: The Vector Capture tool is a step down from the previous version; no in-app access to FAQs or other support.
Bottom Line: The rare combo of "wow" factor and utility; this tool help students recognize and use the designed world around them.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

Drawp for School is one of my favorite tools for teachers and students. It’s a workflow management platform with powerful design tools for kids. Children can draw, paint, add text, and include photos and voice recordings in their creations. Drawp gives students opportunities for immediate collaboration and includes multiple ways for students and teachers to give feedback on their work.

The folks at Drawp for School recently shared a blog post that highlights some of the ways this terrific tool supports Project-Based Learning (PBL) classrooms. They discussed how students can use Drawp’s blank canvases and design tools to innovate and create as they demonstrate their learning. Teachers and students can use voice stickers to give feedback by adding unlimited short voice recordings to tag student designs or assignments. There are also opportunities for reflection, since students and teachers can choose select student canvases to create a student portfolio of PBL work to help students reflect on past work or on stages in a single project.

Learn more about Drawp for School by visiting their website!

I received compensation in exchange for sharing this product. Although this post is sponsored, all opinions are my own :) Learn more

cross posted at classtechtips.com

Monica Burns is a fifth grade teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom. Visit her website at classtechtips.com for creative education technology tips and technology lesson plans aligned to the Common Core Standards.

 Autodesk Digital STEAM Visual Design 

Cool tool helps teach principles and elements of design in 3-D 

Pros: Multiple visual and text examples make terms easy to understand, and the app is free.
Cons: Missed opportunity for incorporating audio; no assessment included in app.
Bottom Line: Autodesk Digital STEAM Visual Design can be a good tool for individual, self-directed learning.

Read more here.

By Common Sense Education

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. 

Don LaBonte, co-director of Convergence Academies—a three-year initiative through the Department of Education to test theories around connected learning to enhance curriculum—chats about the benefits of creative learning spaces.

Larry, a student at Tilden High School, edits music in the Digital Atelier, an in-school, student-centered makerspace built in partnership with Bretford furniture. He committed to making a beat a day in order to master the skill.What do you feel is the biggest benefit of establishing a creative learning space?

The concept of choice. Give youth the freedom to direct their own learning, pick their own paths, with an educational mentor present to guide them. Currently classrooms are set up for students to undertake rote memorization, complete a series of repetitive acts, then move on to the next set. Our society needs more—we need to help develop critical thinkers and people who can walk into situations and work through their options creatively to find the best possible solutions.

Classrooms have followed largely the same configuration for a very long time—why change?

Classrooms are set up so the teacher, on a stage, can regurgitate content from a book—expecting students to absorb, digest, and regurgitate it to prove they have received it. When you get into creative learning spaces, those paths haven’t been laid out and kids have opportunities to express themselves in a variety of ways. We all learn differently and express ourselves differently. Having a space where you can get on a computer and journal or create a stop-motion movie to demonstrate your understanding of the material—it’s another way to reach the same end result and demonstrate that yes, you are gaining knowledge.

Do you find unique learning spaces to be a distraction to students’ learning?

Creative learning spaces are often messy and loud and they look different from what we think of as a “successful” formal classroom, where everyone is working silently and independently on identical sheets of paper—but that doesn’t mean learning isn’t happening.

Digital media mentor Luke Sequeira strums guitar with a small group of Tilden High School students in Convergence Academies' Digital Atelier makerspace to share the enjoyments of tactile performance not always present with digital media production.How do reluctant learners respond to this type of change in environment?

From our observations, kids come to school because they have something to look forward to. If you are in school, then you are learning, and grades go up. Kids who are allowed to pursue their passions begin to see school as a resource to accomplish what they want to accomplish, rather than something that takes up their time and gets in their way.

Budgets are tight, so how can teachers who don’t have the financial resources benefit from the concept without remodeling their classrooms?

Experiment to find an engaging environment. Create a shift in the room, changing the focal points where instruction happens. Go outside if a lesson lends itself to that. Unfortunately, teachers need to be empowered to make those shifts. They often feel intimidated and unwilling to be the first ones to take that step. There is a comfort in the four walls of a formal structure, surrounded by order, but we need to push through that as educators to benefit our students.

Where do you see the future of learning spaces heading? Will this concept become more widespread?

How we do things now isn’t the way the world works. There needs to be a compromise in our thinking. It’s a very mixed message. We want kids to walk down the hall all perfectly lined up, very ordered and regimented, and sit up straight at their desks in a row . . . and then we ask them to think outside the box. And they can’t do it. They haven’t been given permission. They haven’t been let out of the box.

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Autodesk Design Academy provides educators and students free access to product tutorials, exercises, projects, and courses for Autodesk tools as they learn about the world of 3D design. With a growing set of resources at three skill levels, Autodesk Design Academy empowers students to start creating their own 3D designs that they can also showcase in individual portfolios.

Quality and Effectiveness: Autodesk Design Academy is a fantastic resource for teachers who are just getting started with design and for veterans who are looking for new ideas for student projects. Educators and experts in various fields of design have created supporting materials for each activity. Activities for students include individual exercises, projects, and courses. Exercises are short, skills-based experiences that introduce students to Autodesk software and the design thinking process. Exercises usually include a lesson plan, dataset, step-by-step instructions, and software tutorials. Projects ask students to apply skills and design thinking by designing solutions to problems. Each project includes resources such as instructor and student manuals, datasets, software tutorials, and step-by-step guides.

Ease of Use: Account creation takes minutes and unlocks a vast array of resources. Because there are so many materials available, navigation can be tricky at first. Each product used in the activities has its own tutorial. Tutorials include product how-to videos for AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, Maya, 3ds Max, Formit 360, and Fusion 360. Each exercise, project, and course comes with its own tutorial videos that are specifically about how to do that project using the software that that project requires. Educators and students alike can choose to learn tool-based skills in the context of a particular project or separately.

Creative Use of Technology: Autodesk Design Academy offers exercises and projects in the areas of animation, architectural engineering, architecture, construction management, engineering, maker, manufacturing, STEAM, and sustainability at three skill levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced). Each activity includes all the resources students need to successfully create a 3D design in one of Autodesk’s software tools that include 3ds Max, AutoCAD, Fusion 360, Inventor, Maya, Revit, FormIt 360, and more. The two fully developed courses that Design Academy currently offers (“Product Design in Fusion 360” and “Introduction to CAD and CAE Tools”) provide a more in-depth look at 3D design, design thinking, and Autodesk software.

Suitability for Use in a School Environment: Teachers can easily integrate Autodesk Design Academy into existing curriculum. Each resource includes an instructor’s manual with learning objectives, alignment to national standards, and rubrics for assessing each part of the activity.

OVERALL RATING:

Autodesk Design Academy is a fantastic resource to help educators and students explore design thinking and 3D design. Because there’s a wide array of materials available, there’s something for everyone. The high-quality and well-designed activities include everything necessary to unlock students’ creative potential. Because each activity is aligned to national standards, there’s no question that 3D design belongs in the classroom.

TOP FEATURES

• Relevance—Helps students develop design thinking and technology skills that are important for 21st-century learners.
• Price—Autodesk Design Academy is free.
• Quality—The high-quality materials make it easy for educators to introduce 3D design into the curriculum.

www.hidden-heroes.net

A “hidden hero” can be anything from chopsticks to lipstick to bottle caps. Create an exhibit of these “ordinary” objects with Hidden Heroes and learn about their origins, unusual uses, and how they’ve changed over time.