Video Post from Chicago Tribune – Minecraft

Minecraft video game taps into students’ creative power: Chicago area teachers tap into the creative power of the video game “Minecraft” to help educate students in everything from history to engineering to biology. (Chuck Berman/John Keilman, Chicago Tribune)

Minecraft and Dragons

Beginning last spring, I introduced Minecraft into the community at my school, Quest Academy. After researching and learning about the possibilities from Joel Levin, father of MinecraftEdu, Lucas Gillespie, and Kevin Jarrett. It was at EduCon that Kevin convinced me that I had all of the tools I needed, both in terms of hardware and software, but my personal skills to implement this. I originally brought Minecraft into an After-School program two days a week. During one of our faculty in-services, where we ran a mini-EdCamp model, I had eight teachers spend 40 minutes learning about Minecraft through playing. They […]

A Year of Learning in Our Innovation Lab

For our school’s quarterly magazine, I was asked to write a reflection updating the school community on what we have learned and done as a result of our having Innovation Lab. Here is my first draft: Learning in the Innovation Lab by Sheryl Peterson, Arturo Garcia, and Vinnie Vrotny One year ago, we were actively working on the transformation of the Innovation Lab – choosing color schemes, ordering furniture, cabinets and lighting, ordering equipment, and developing the curricula that our middle school students would experience when they arrived this fall. Looking back at the year, we are excited about what […]

MakerEd Teachers – Share With Us @ ISTE 2014

At the upcoming 2014 ISTE Conference in Atlanta, the Independent School Special Interest Group (SIG-IS) is organizing one of the many playgrounds that will be at the conference. Our playground, Maker Playground and Agile Learning Spaces will be held on the last day of the conference, Tuesday, July 1st from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.  This playground will be set up to: To provide a hands-on, interactive maker’s environment for attendees to explore To create a prototype agile learning space that demonstrates “new” classroom ideas To demonstrate some of the new digital fabrication tools in used in schools to fuel innovation To provide a […]

An Truly Amazing Day

It is the first day of spring. The last Thursday before our week-long spring break. This winter has been exceptionally harsh. Bitter cold that doesn’t seem to like it is ever going to give up. Snow that seems like it will never melt, although I am starting to see my front lawn. Yet the day is full of energy, excitement, and discovery. A day when one is thoroughly exhausted as they leave the building, more than the winter has sapped from its relentless assault. Why? Today was as busy and chaotic due to the shift in mindset which has occurred […]