May 2012
47 posts
6 tags
The Tomato Business →
The Tomato Business
When we started talking about our garden for the year, my girls were adamant about growing cherry tomatoes. Usually I do a few heirloom slicing tomatoes, a few Roma’s for sauce and then various grape tomatoes, like Yellow Pear, for snacking. This year, though, they wanted proper cherry tomatoes. Following on that though, the girls has another: Wouldn’t it be...
11 tags
Making toons with iPad... for FREE →
Our family recently bought a shiny new iPad 3. For the kids education… totally. It’s an amazing device, of course. My girls took to it quickly, playing games and exploring. One thing my eldest daughter wants to do is make movies, and I’m hoping that the iPad will give her some tools for that purpose. Caitie and I decided we’d give cartoon making a try first. There are...
8 tags
STEM Expo: Designing Fun
For those that might be interested, I’ve posted my presentation from the 2012 NSTA STEM Expo. You can enjoy a slide show below. Key points: Discover what YOU find exciting and fun about an activity, then pass that on to the students. Look for the “ah ha” moment and capitalize on it. Empower students to lead the class and make decisions. Teach innovation, work cooperatively, and...
5 tags
Making Do: A Toy Review
I recently returned from the National Science Teacher’s Association STEM Expo in Atlantic City. Of course, one of the best parts of any convention is the exhibitor’s room. Aisles and aisles of fun new products, services, computer programs and books to buy. And swag. Never forget swag. One item I picked up was a tube of Makedo. It’s a “reusable system for creating things...
3 tags
9 tags
40 STEM IPAD APPS FOR KIDS (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,... →
Ready for the best ipad STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) apps for kids? These can be great for summer learning, too.
Just remember that most ipad apps, with a few exceptions, won’t instruct your child. They will however, give him or her practice, repetition, and reinforcement. Which is great for stopping the summer slide!
Read more…
4 tags
Saddle up for maximum snack satisfaction... →
Personally, I’ve never been turned on by Lays Stax. Not only are they covered with the stink of being the unoriginal upstart that is so obviously trying to rip-off the adored-for-decades potato chip, but they’re not thin and delicate enough, they’re not oily enough, and they’re not addictive enough. However, none of the above is Dr. Mathra’s complaint with them.
...
3 tags
1 tag
2 tags
5 tags
10 reasons technology is vital to education
Does technology hurt or benefit the classroom? That is the question in an ongoing debate as more innovative advances in technology are coming to schools and classrooms, and most importantly to our students around the country.
Here are 10 reasons which explain why these advances in technology are a good thing and should be embraced.
1. Technology Connects Students to the Global Classroom.
2....
3 tags
The Tangential: 5 Things We Learned from Maurice... →
thetangential:
1. Children are mysterious, and childhood can be dark.
When I worked at a daycare, I watched High School Musical to see what the kids were so excited about. After seeing that the conflict was basically that the stars were good at too many extracurricular activities, I was disappointed….
5 tags
USA National Phenology Network →
Phenology - Knowledge of when recurring life stages occur,
The USA National Phenology Network brings together citizen scientists, government agencies, non-profit groups, educators and students of all ages to monitor the impacts of climate change on plants and animals in the United States. The network harnesses the power of people and the Internet to collect and share information, providing...
3 tags
The Importance of Continuing Education and How to... →
via @lifehacker
Learning Opportunities are Available Every Day through Communication
About half way through finishing my master’s degree I began to realize something. This being that an overwhelming amount of my conceptualizations of the topics being discussed were not necessarily happening from my readings, but from the in class discussions afterwards. The readings simply gave me the...
3 tags
3 tags
20 Free and Fun Ways To Curate Web Content →
Always looking for new ways to organize content!
Do you suffer from info overload? Is your RSS reader bursting at the seams? Have your bookmarks gone bonkers? Like that alliteration? Me neither. Anyway, we are all slammed with information every time we go online. What’s the best way to organize it all into at least some reasonable manner? Teachers, students, and admins alike don’t have the time...
3 tags
Is STEM education declining in the U.S.? →
It may not have been as required in the economy 40 years ago, but now, it is skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) which can make a school leaver or graduate an enticing prospect to employers — even more important when faced with a stagnant economy.
However, whether enough is being done to make these subjects appealing to children is under debate. A recent report by...
4 tags
Common Misunderstandings of Educators who Fear... →
Education is currently at a crossroads as traditional methods and tools are changing as a result of advances in technology and learning theory. We are beginning to see some schools across the country take the lead in merging sound pedagogy with the effective integration of technology. These schools and educators, whether they realize it or not, are not only enhancing the teaching and learning...
4 tags
New Survey: Half of Teachers Use Digital Games in... →
No longer relegated to experimental programs, digital games are becoming much more commonly used in classrooms across the country, according to a survey by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center released today.
…
There will be further, more in-depth coverage of this report in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, some more statistics from the study:
Nearly 70 percent said that “lower-performing...
1 tag
1 tag
“They laugh at me because I’m different; I laugh at them because they’re all the...”
– Kurt Cobain
4 tags
5 tags
The Ups and Downs of Game-Based Learning →
Games have shown great promise for learning, but it’s not always easy to figure out the logistics of how to use them in class. Every student and teacher’s experience is unique and it takes time to calibrate and tinker to get the best out of the experience.
What’s more, using games might lead to something neither students or teacher anticipated — more work.
…
The prevailing conclusion?...
4 tags
Game on! UCLA researchers use online... →
Online crowd-sourcing — in which a task is presented to the public, who respond, for free, with various solutions and suggestions — has been used to evaluate potential consumer products, develop software algorithms and solve vexing research-and-development challenges. But diagnosing infectious diseases?
Working on the assumption that large groups of public non-experts can be trained to...
3 tags
Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught In School →
Be aware of the insidious and unspoken lessons you learned as a child. To thrive in the world outside the classroom, you’re going to have to unlearn them.
Dangerous things you were taught in school:
1. The people in charge have all the answers.
2. Learning ends when you leave the classroom.
3. The best and brightest follow the rules.
4. What the books say is always true.
5. There is a very...
4 tags
Education System Stifles Creativity, Survey Finds →
Is the American education system stifling creativity? That’s the attitude held by a majority of Americans, according to a new worldwide survey focused on attitudes toward creativity in schools, the workplace, and the home.
…
73 percent of respondents agreed that, “as a country, we are not living up to our creative potential.” That sentiment was a bit stronger in the...
4 tags
Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement →
A while back, I was asked, “What engages students?” Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccurring themes that appeared again and again. So, from the mouths of...
1 tag
“Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.”
– Albert Einstein
Talking to Kids About 'Gay' →
The truth is that explaining to children (or anyone, for that matter) what being gay means isn’t difficult. It’s about love and attraction. It’s about whose hand someone wants to hold, or whom someone wants to ask to a dance. It’s about emotion and the way people feel. It only gets complicated when adults make it complicated, when parents and other adults try to deny the...
7 tags
Harvard and M.I.T. Team Up to Offer Free Online... →
In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans — one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world — Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities.
…
But Harvard and M.I.T. have a rival — they are not the only elite...
6 tags
Put Away The Bell Curve: Most Of Us Aren't... →
New research however suggests that rather than describe how humans perform, the bell curve may actually be constraining how people perform. Minus such constraints, a new paper argues, lots of people are actually outliers.
Read more…
by SHANKAR VEDANTAM for NPR May 3, 2012
5 tags
6 tags
5 tags
100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious... →
While burying yourself in the stacks at the library is one way to get some serious research done, with today’s technology you can do quite a bit of useful searching before you ever set foot inside a library. Undergraduates and grad students alike will appreciate the usefulness of these search engines that allow them to find books, journal articles and even primary source material for whatever...
5 tags
Project management software for students
Can the business world’s software serve student projects?
Flipped classrooms? Self-directed education? Group work? Project-based learning? Hey all that’s great, but how do you organize, track, assess and personalize all that information, while providing students with a sense of the “big picture?”
Why not try some of the free online project management software currently...
4 tags
What happens when you give Kindles to kids in... →
courtenaybird:
Kids learned to use e-readers quickly even though 43 percent of them had never used a computer before. Also, not surprisingly, they were quick to discover “the multimedia aspects of the e-reader, such as music and Internet features.”
Near-zero theft. Only two e-readers (out of 600) were lost in the whole study, partly because “community involvement was encouraged through e-reader...
7 tags
Leave Exclusion Out of the Group Dynamic →
Always a tricky situation for teachers that use group work.
It forced me to confront a reality in my classroom. How often does this happen to students? When I explain a partner activity, I often see students make eye contact around the room, their faces lighting up as they communicate an invitation and acceptance without saying a word. However, some students take a sudden interest in studying...
8 tags
Online Video Invades the Classroom →
Teachers become enamored with YouTube, TED, and WatchKnowLearn.
In his 40 years of teaching, Al Hasvitz has always understood the importance of video aids in the classroom. “I am one of the few teachers in the United States who can thread a 16mm projector,” the award-winning social studies teacher from Walnut, Calif., boasts. But today, like most teachers, Hasvitz looks online to find...
8 tags
Elementary Mapping Activity →
Classroom climate dramatically affects students’ lives on a daily basis. We know that a teacher can set the mood of the classroom, but so can students, through the ways they interact with each other. This sociogram helps students see their patterns of interaction and offers them opportunities to mix it up.
6 tags
Shuffling shenanigans →
A magician-turned-mathematician figures out how many times to shuffle a deck of cards before playing Old Maid
As Diaconis learned the card tricks, he found himself asking questions. How many different ways can you arrange the cards in a deck? What if you ignore the number and suit and only consider card color – then how many different ways can you arrange the deck? Vernon taught Diaconis a...
Facial recognition to be used in art history... →
infoneer-pulse:
Three University of California, Riverside academics recently won a $25,000 startup grant in the “digital humanities” from the National Endowment for the Humanities. They’ll use the money for a research project that would use facial recognition technology in areas that it historically hasn’t been used in.
“What we want to do is to see to what extent facial recognition is...
