Happy holidays to all. We are halfway through the silly season, if like me you have been madly cleaning, cooking, shopping, wrapping and hosting during the last few weeks, you should be enjoying the calm before the New Year celebrations.

For me this means couch time, yes, the ultimate lounge lizard, with a few dips in the pool, some Xmas rum balls and holiday bubbles (champagne), my iPad and a few new books…heaven! So, what am I reading?

Online I have been catching up with some of my favourite topics and websites, or exploring new ones. First up, Brightworks-an extraordinary school. I love to read what the staff and students have been up too during the last few months. This school to me is the ultimate STEAM school with a whole school broad focus topic, CHOICE-freedom in teaching/learning for students and staff, plus technology integration with purpose. The dream school which many of us long for, or are trying to create through our learning programs.

I also checked in on Rachel Van Dyke’s blogs, Rachel focuses on teaching ‘Real World’ and STEAM art projects. Once again, building creative thinking is high on the agenda, as is using available technology and software to build design skills. Rachel has three blog sites, Teaching Elementary Art ( STEAM projects), Teaching Real World Art and Design (for High School) and her personal artworks blog.

I have also been looking for websites and ideas on gamification and game making, and came across a great lesson on the Bloom into Ed Tech blog site. The lesson focuses on using Gamestar Mechanic to build knowledge on game design and build game design skills by creating your own game. The Gamestar teachers link gives a good run down on how to use the software, and recommends it suitable for Year 4-9 students.

The last online share is this great Prezi Edu production created by Clint Stephan, in 2014. It is a rundown of 60 Apps in 60 Minutes, well, actually 74, to use in the classroom and for your own teaching and organisational purposes. I found it to be great for any newbies, as there is a whole range of apps to meet a range of teaching and learning needs, and also a few gems which may have passed us experienced iPad users by. It is a good reminder of what is available, I found several apps that I hadn’t used in a while or had forgotten about, and quite a few that were new to me. A great way to add to your own professional learning, download and trial a few apps for the new teaching year, in 2017.

If you are looking for a few Digital Technology and STEAM focused reads, these are what I am reading on Kindle (and hard copy):

• 100 Ideas for Primary Teachers: Computing (100 Ideas for Teachers)  This is proving to be a great read with lots of different ideas for teaching and learning technology/digital technology knowledge and skills across the curriculum. 

• From STEM to STEAM: Using Brain-Compatible Strategies to Integrate the Arts  Hhhmm…coming from an arts background I can understand some of the negative reviews regarding this book, however, for the everyday classroom teacher it gives very good examples for science and math focused creative activities. 

• Stem by Design  A great text to get you started designing STEM lessons and projects. It gets into the nitty gritty, the why and how, about developing STEM programs.
• Classroom Activities for the Busy Teacher I bought the hard copy, as it is a great resource for those using EVO3 LEGO robots, which we have in our school. It may also be useful for other robotic devices, as inspiration, for you to adapt the lessons to work with your school’s selected robot.