Best ever!

There seems to be a consensus that Constructing Modern Knowledge 2023 was the best institute in our 15-year history. The projects were whimsical, complex, and creative. Our guest speakers were riveting. Education legends shared their two hundred or so years of wisdom and Howard Gardner’s fireside chat was spectacular.

Our colleagues from Reggio Emilia led a fantastic workshop and were impressed by the entire CMK experience. Folks worked on projects until midnight at the first ever Project Pajama Party and educators from around the world left Manchester, New Hampshire ready to invent the future of education.

Thanks for sticking with us

If you've subscribed to this newsletter for a bit, we've been pretty obsessed with CMK planning. We appreciate you sticking with us!

If you are new and don't know what CMK is all about, please check out Josh Burker's blog post about Constructing Modern Knowledge 2023. We create this professional development opportunity every year to showcase the amazing creativity that is possible when educators are offered a non-coercive environment with support from a caring, knowledgeable faculty and tons of cutting-edge resources. Everything we believe about the enormous potential of educators comes true every year at CMK. It's different than ANY other professional development experience out there!

We are just about finished (physically) unpacking CMK 2023, planning for 2024, and hitting the road to work with educators from Brooklyn to Melbourne. There is a lot to say about Constructing Modern Knowledge 2023 and we plan to reflect on those experiences in the coming months.

In the meantime, one of our terrific faculty members, Josh Burker, wrote a blog post chronicling his learning adventures and culinary accomplishments at CMK 2023. [We hope you read it, it's awesome and totally funny.]

You might recognize Josh as the author of The Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide that you were able to download for free earlier this year.

Heading Downunder

Gary Stager is on his way to Australia for three weeks. Australia is like a second home for Gary. He first began working there in 1990 when he led professional development at the world’s first 1:1 “laptop” schools and helped invent truly personal computing in education. He also earned his Ph.D. in science and mathematics education at The University of Melbourne. This is Gary’s belated thirtieth anniversary tour after COVID-19 erased 2020.

He will be keynoting the giant EduTECH conference, along with such luminaries as ISTE CEO Richard Culatta, and leading a preconference workshop, Computational learning adventures - craft, coding, and creativity.

Gary will also be leading a couple of family physical computing workshops, leading school PD, teaching 1st and 2nd graders, and collaborating with the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership to help roll out Victoria’s exciting new Numeracy and Mathematics curriculum by leading multiple regional workshops called Electrifying Children’s Mathematics and keynoting a day-long workshop for the Teaching Excellence Program.

This computationally-rich mathematics education work is quite exciting and we promise to share more about it in the near future. Stay tuned!

​Learn more about Gary Stager and his work across Australia​

Sylvia Martinez Keynotes Construct3D Conference

Sylvia just returned from keynoting the Construct 3D conference in Brooklyn, New York. This conference is a meetup of educators, researchers, and digital fabrication gurus sharing what's happening and what's coming next for students and educators in the fascinating world of 3D printing and digital fabrication. For schools, 3D printing is often a big part of makerspaces, although laser cutters have become much more affordable and manageable in the past few years.

The age old question is... what does this have to do with education? What do kids really learn from these experiences? We believe there is plenty of evidence that hands-on, minds-on learning, what we call "real deal" PBL supercharges learning. Our book, Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering the Classroom has practical advice, research, and resources to help educators make the case for making in the classroom.

The video of Sylvia's keynote will be released publicly and we will share it here when that happens...

Bring Real Deal PBL and Professional Development to Your School or Conference

Constructing Modern Knowledge is uniquely equipped to provide inspirational, practical, and sustainable professional development activities tailor-made for your community. Dr. Stager has keynoted many of the world’s largest conferences, including EduTECH, WISE, BETT, and ISTE. Explore the possibilities of collaboration here.

Back-to-School Resources

We hope you will squeeze every last second of joy out of your well-deserved summer break, but if you are ready to get started with creative computing and technology in the classroom, here are some new resources.

• ​New Turtle Art Activity Cards – 150+ gorgeous ideas for creativity and computational fluency using Turtle Art, the free, browser-based programming software for creating amazing geometry and art.
• ​micro:bit Getting Started Challenges with new lessons for using radio communication. Use these quick challenges to jumpstart your exploration of the micro:bit.
• ​The Cabinet of Wonder – thinking out loud about the CMK model of project-based learning

Physical Computing Must Haves!

This custom-made robot Alaskan squirrel could climb stairs and was powered by two Hummingbird Bits and micro:bits (made at CMK 2023)

CMK 2023 proved definitively that this is the micro:bit era. Our friend Diego Fonstad, the CEO and inventor at Lectrify generously gave one of his terrific new Bit Explorer micro:bit expansion board to each CMK participant and Birdbrain Technologies lent us a dozen extra Hummingbird Robotics Kits to supplement our supply of 16 kits that we take to all our workshops. Every single Hummingbird found its way into a CMK 2023 project – further proof of why this is our favorite physical computing platform.

Don’t Go Anywhere...

New videos (including the CMK 2023 conversation with Howard Gardner), new books, and exciting professional learning opportunities will be shared in the coming months.

We will also be sharing news about Constructing Modern Knowledge 2024 soon.

Watch your inbox for news of additional learning adventures.

Thank you sincerely for the work you do to make the world a better place for kids.

Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez