Math Smart Tutoring looking for tutorsLodi News-SentinelMath Smart Tutoring is looking for volunteers to share their love of math, algebra and geometry with area students. New tutor orientation will be held at MK Troke Library in Stockton at 5 pm on Feb. 22. Math Smart Tutoring provides free tutoring to any and more »
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Most Topular Stories
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Math Smart Tutoring looking for tutors - Lodi News-Sentinel
MATH - Google News9 Feb 2012 | 6:53 am -
Social networked learning in complex information environments
elearnspace1 Feb 2012 | 12:45 pmIn mid-January I spent a wonderful day at American University learning about (and presenting on) the changing educational landscape, technology, and the practices and activities of learners. The slides from my presentation are below: Social Networked Learning -
Teach.com – a resource for new and aspiring educators
21st Century Collaborative30 Jan 2012 | 6:45 amTeach.com is a comprehensive educational web resource dedicated to discovering, discussing and encouraging great teaching around the world. With America’s need for more great teachers, particularly science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers, Teach.com provides current and aspiring teachers an easy-to-navigate map outlining the steps to become a teacher, including information on teacher salaries, teacher preparation and certification requirements for all 50 states as well as information on teaching abroad. The site also profiles great teachers from around the country and… -
We need to stop arguing over which factory-age solutions we should try
Dangerously Irrelevant6 Feb 2012 | 4:13 amTrace Pickering recently sent me a slide deck that's definitely worth viewing. Trace is a wonderful systems thinker. His slides do a nice job of describing historical shifts in American society and the concurrent changes that were necessary in American education. As he notes about our current era, We seem to be stuck … arguing over which factory-age solutions we should try without fully understanding the implications of the context we are in and the new functions we need education to perform. Trace's slides are embedded below. He's kindly made them available with a Creative Commons license. -
Links for 2012-02-08 [del.icio.us]
Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 amHyping classroom technology helps tech firms, not students - latimes.com Making 2012 plans: mozilla + web makers « commonspace At the most recent Mozilla Foundation board meeting, we dug into the question: what concrete things can we do in 2012 to tackle our big picture goals around web makers? I’ve pulled together board slides plus a summary of our emerging plans in this slidecast:
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MATH - Google News
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Math Smart Tutoring looking for tutors - Lodi News-Sentinel
9 Feb 2012 | 6:53 amMath Smart Tutoring looking for tutorsLodi News-SentinelMath Smart Tutoring is looking for volunteers to share their love of math, algebra and geometry with area students. New tutor orientation will be held at MK Troke Library in Stockton at 5 pm on Feb. 22. Math Smart Tutoring provides free tutoring to any and more » -
Study science and math to get ahead in the future of work, right? - GigaOm
9 Feb 2012 | 6:05 amGigaOmStudy science and math to get ahead in the future of work, right?GigaOmBut is getting that degree in science, tech, engineering or math (the so-called STEM subjects) really the best bet for long-term career success? If you look at trends in the future of work, then maybe not, argued Daniel Jelski, a professor of chemistry and more » -
Success Ignites Statewide Math Contest Featuring 13000 Students Participating ... - PR Web (press release)
9 Feb 2012 | 5:53 amPR Web (press release)Success Ignites Statewide Math Contest Featuring 13000 Students Participating PR Web (press release)For more than five years, the state of West Virginia has been implementing Apangea Math, a Web-based adaptive math solution supporting grades 3 through Algebra 1. Currently, Apangea provides over 13000 students access to Apangea Math. -
US lag in science, math a disaster in the making - CNN International
9 Feb 2012 | 5:21 amNew York TimesUS lag in science, math a disaster in the makingCNN International(CNN) -- Almost everyone, from educators to government officials to industry experts, laments the lackluster abilities and performance of our nations' students in science, technology, engineering and math (know as STEM education).Detroit Public Schools Students Show STEM Skills At White House Science FairHuffington PostWe Need New Attitudes About Math, Science FeaturedWashington InformerMercer Island student's video game earns White House visitThe Seattle TimesWashington Postall 1,019 news… -
50 year-career adds up for Bonner math teacher - Delaware County Daily Times
9 Feb 2012 | 5:00 am50 year-career adds up for Bonner math teacherDelaware County Daily TimesNow with 50 years of teaching math under his belt at his alma mater, Donohue, 71, will be the guest of honor at the 23rd Annual Friar Fest, a fundraiser to benefit the scholarship fund, 6:30 pm Saturday at Springfield Country Club.and more »
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elearnspace
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Social networked learning in complex information environments
1 Feb 2012 | 12:45 pmIn mid-January I spent a wonderful day at American University learning about (and presenting on) the changing educational landscape, technology, and the practices and activities of learners. The slides from my presentation are below: Social Networked Learning -
I need some help
27 Jan 2012 | 12:40 pmOn February 8, I’ll be delivering a talk at TEDxEdmonton’s event Rethinking Open Source Culture. In 2003 I posted a few articles online on open source movements and learning: Open source p.I, Open Source p.II, and Why we should share learning material. I have benefitted enormously from open learning. Open online courses in particular have been among the most significant learning experiences in my life. I’m not a programmer. But I benefit daily from open source software – my blogs are wordpress, the server that hosts my sites runs LAMP, at work I use ELGG (the Landing),… -
“I can’t teach at Stanford again”
23 Jan 2012 | 9:50 amOpen online courses really mess things up. The force educators/funders/learners to question the value point of traditional education. Over the past four years, many different open online courses have been offered – some through formal universities (U of Manitoba – Stephen Downes and I, BYU – David Wiley, U of Regina – Alec Couros, Stanford – Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, U of Illinois -Ray Schroeder). I have a long running question that influences my vision of education: If we were to design education today, without the legacy baggage of the existing system,… -
Online University Education in Canada
21 Jan 2012 | 8:50 amThere is more activity in online learning (or, at minimum blended learning) in higher education than most universities realize. When I was at University of Manitoba, we tried to get a sense of what faculty were doing with technology in their courses, particularly with what was then called web 2.0 (doesn’t that almost feel like I’m referencing a trend in the 70′s? you know, like bell bottoms?). First, we looked at the formal university reports – annual reports of department activity. We found very little. We asked Deans to forward an email to their faculty asking about… -
Lots of free learnin’ going on
11 Jan 2012 | 1:16 pm2012 is shaping up to be a good year for open online learning experiences (Sanford is actively promoting open courses, David Wiley is running an openness in education course, Alec Couros will likely be doing his EC&I831 again, etc.). I’m involved in several open online learning projects this year: 1. Ongoing from 2011: Change MOOC 2. Learning Analytics Open Course (sign up here) – Starts January 23. 3. Stephen Downes and I will be offering Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2012 starting January 23. More info soon on sign up 4. I’m helping to organize an online…
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21st Century Collaborative
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Teach.com – a resource for new and aspiring educators
30 Jan 2012 | 6:45 amTeach.com is a comprehensive educational web resource dedicated to discovering, discussing and encouraging great teaching around the world. With America’s need for more great teachers, particularly science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers, Teach.com provides current and aspiring teachers an easy-to-navigate map outlining the steps to become a teacher, including information on teacher salaries, teacher preparation and certification requirements for all 50 states as well as information on teaching abroad. The site also profiles great teachers from around the country and… -
Why is it Important to be a Connected Educator?
15 Jan 2012 | 12:56 pmTim Holt ask several folks to create a 1 minute video of why its important to be a connected educator for a project he is doing. Here is what I shared with him. -
Wax on…Wax off and other lessons learned
28 Dec 2011 | 10:10 amMen are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” James Allen “Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.” Arnold Bennett “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin Three Lessons Learned I learned a lot this past year about myself, about life, and about business. In fact, the older I get it seems the less I know and the more questions I have. I remember being so sure of everything,… -
Congratulations, winners!
1 Dec 2011 | 11:55 amA hearty congratulations goes out to our three winners of the Connected Educator book drawing! Your comment was chosen via the random number generator and we’ll be sending you information about your prize shortly. I look forward to hearing any feedback you may have about the book and hearing how you’ll utilize your learning experience that you take away from it. If you’re so inclined, I’d love for you to write a review of the book on your own blog or on Amazon. If you do, I’d be happy to feature it here, tweet a link to your site out, to get you some more traffic… -
An interview, plus win a signed copy of The Connected Educator
22 Nov 2011 | 10:47 amWhat a whirlwind month it’s been! My book was published and I’ve been traveling quite a bit. One of my favorite stops was for my presentation at the Solution Tree authorspeak2011 conference to kick off the release of my book: The Connected Educator – Learning and leading in a digital age. Learn all about the book, join a book club, get a free webinar and more Interview of the Month Speaking of the launch of the book, I am honored to be Larry Ferlazzo‘s Interview of the Month for November. Larry and I came to know of each other through the Teacher Leaders Network and…
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Dangerously Irrelevant
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We need to stop arguing over which factory-age solutions we should try
6 Feb 2012 | 4:13 amTrace Pickering recently sent me a slide deck that's definitely worth viewing. Trace is a wonderful systems thinker. His slides do a nice job of describing historical shifts in American society and the concurrent changes that were necessary in American education. As he notes about our current era, We seem to be stuck … arguing over which factory-age solutions we should try without fully understanding the implications of the context we are in and the new functions we need education to perform. Trace's slides are embedded below. He's kindly made them available with a Creative Commons license. -
Digital Learning Day: The aftermath
2 Feb 2012 | 5:51 amWell, yesterday was Digital Learning Day. By all accounts, it was a busy day across the country. Lots of conversation and high-profile events and demonstrations of students doing cool stuff with technology... Should every school day be Digital Learning Day? Nope. We still need down time from these electronic and virtual spaces of ours, times when we experience the joy of human connection, nature, solitude, reflection (and all of those other things that people say I should be experiencing!). But, nonetheless, we definitely need 'more digital, more often' in most of our primarily-analog… -
Announcing our new School Technology Leadership courses: Get a graduate certificate, Master’s, or Ph.D.
1 Feb 2012 | 10:48 amShort version We're relaunching our online School Technology Leadership courses and programs today! Woo hoo! (This is all pending final approval by Faculty Senate) Long version It's Digital Learning Day here in the U.S. As I said in my guest post for the event: We ... need school leaders who can begin envisioning the implications of these [new technology-suffused, globally-interconnected] environmental characteristics for learning, teaching, and schooling. We need administrators who can design and operationalize our learning environments to reflect these new affordances. I also said: If… -
Keeping Students Engaged in a 1:1 Project-Based Classroom [guest post]
29 Jan 2012 | 3:55 pmImage approved for copy by Creative Commons. Source: http://bit.ly/vYUkXB When laptops first arrived in my classroom, I worried about classroom management. How could I create an environment where students used their computers as tools rather than toys? I was worried for nothing. The following are suggestions for keeping students engaged in a project and accountable for their time with computers: Students make a plan. Students are most tempted to open widgets, games, and social chats when they are faced with a blank screen and have no plan. Much of the time, students think they have… -
Flawed, ideological, non-peer-reviewed studies should not rebut decades of anti-retention research
29 Jan 2012 | 8:41 amIowa Governor Terry Branstad's recent remarks about retaining 3rd graders confirm both the potential positives and the many negatives of in-grade retention in elementary school. First, the potential positives: in-grade retention sometimes leads to short-term (1 to 2 years out) - and maybe even mid-term (3 to 5 years out) - academic gains. The peer-reviewed research shows that these test score gains occasionally occur when you force kids to repeat 3rd grade, partly because 4th grade test scores look better when low-achievers have been removed from the grade cohort and partly because retained…
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Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education
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Links for 2012-02-08 [del.icio.us]
9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 amHyping classroom technology helps tech firms, not students - latimes.com Making 2012 plans: mozilla + web makers « commonspace At the most recent Mozilla Foundation board meeting, we dug into the question: what concrete things can we do in 2012 to tackle our big picture goals around web makers? I’ve pulled together board slides plus a summary of our emerging plans in this slidecast: -
Do you teach from the bandstand?
8 Feb 2012 | 3:35 pmDo you have a plan that you stick with, no matter what? Do you have a plan at all? Do you have a plan that you're prepared to give up totally when a student proposes something, anything, interesting? Are you patient, listening to what's going on, allowing yourself to be pulled, and slick enough (skilled enough?) to react and create something magical out of your box to make a lesson sing? When we're working with our Design Thinking Schools the main challenge that comes up, at the beginning at least, is the desire of educators to forward plan to the extent that improvisations - or mistakes -… -
Stop ping pong questioning. Try basketball instead
8 Feb 2012 | 11:28 amA little run of posts inspired by my favourite educationalist of the past decade, Dylan Wiliam. He's the chap that explained formative assessment to me in twelve pages flat, and changed my practice forever. In this two-minute clip he pleads with us to move away from IRE questioning (Initiate a question to the class, Response comes from one child, Evaluation comes from the teacher ["that's right", "interesting answer" etc etc). He describes this form of questioning as table tennis question and answer, where all questioning, thought, wisdom and learning revolve around the teacher, and occupy… -
Links for 2012-02-04 [del.icio.us]
5 Feb 2012 | 12:00 amIt's Not Time For Imagination? | Canadian Education Association (CEA) Imagination and creativity cannot simply be inserted into our school systems as a “value-added” feature. It’s not about developing a curriculum that teaches imagination, and its certainly not about creating a box on the report card that accounts for imaginative thinking. -
Links for 2012-02-03 [del.icio.us]
4 Feb 2012 | 12:00 amHotel en Reino Unido, H10 London Waterloo - H10 Hotels Free wifi
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A Difference
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Too Big To Know #edbookclub
25 Jan 2012 | 1:29 pmImage by dkuropatwaHow'd you like to know "how our concept of knowledge is changing in the age of the Net"? (John Seely Brown quoted from the dust jacket) Since I first heard David Weinberger say: "The smartest person in the room is: The Room!" I've repeated it often. I've seen it in action. In his new book Too Big To Know he fills in a few more details about this. The room is "smartest" as a function of the networked connections between all the people in it, and out of it, via the internet. I hear echoes of George Seimens and Stephen Downes in that. Anyway, the book was published on 3… -
The Difference Between Curriculum and Pedagogy
2 Jan 2012 | 9:57 amThere's a difference between curriculum and pedagogy. Curriculum is all about what we teach. Pedagogy is about how we teach it. There's also a difference between knowing how to do something and understanding what you're doing. In mathematics there are all kinds of "how-to", or computation skills, that kids learn and promptly forget right after the test; sometimes they forget before the test. The thing is though, it's difficult to forget something once you understand it. by dkuropatwa A few weeks ago I was part of a panel on the Richard Cloutier Reports show on… -
How would you plan a reunion?
31 Dec 2011 | 11:29 pmHow would you plan a reunion with a bunch of people you're terribly fond of, many of whom you've never met face-to-face, who you touch base with only occasionally and live in places scattered across the globe? A few years back I lead a group of about 120 teachers in a year long immersive professional development experience around leveraging modern technologies to foster deep student learning. This was for Will & Sheryl's Powerful Learning Practice in their 2nd year of operation. We did some cool stuff together. Stuff like this game of Presentation Tennis: That grew grew out of a… -
Narrative Matters
25 Oct 2011 | 4:56 pmLast night a group of Manitoban educators got together to talk about teaching and learning and how that learning takes flight when we take advantage of new opportunities offered by technology. The evening was framed around having the six Manitobans who participated this summer in something called Unplugd, talk about this uniquely Canadian educational summit: 36 of us wrote a book in a weekend. Anyone who's spoken to me since I got back from Unplugd knows what a transformational event it was for me and that I've really struggled with figuring out how to share what happened to me in a remote… -
The Character of Test Questions
4 Oct 2011 | 10:57 pmImage by rwillia532 via Flickr In my math classes a typical test is modeled on the character of test questions students will see on their final exams: multiple choice, short answer and long answer. In a grade 10 math class, what we used to call Applied Math 20S, a multiple choice question might be: A factory makes tents. The cost of running the factory is $300 per day plus $50 for each tent made. What is the total cost (C), in dollars, as a function of the number of tents (t) made? (A) C = 350t (B) C = 50t + 300 (C) C = 300t + 50(D) t = 300 + 50C I like this question because…
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Creating Lifelong Learners
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Is There a Place for “Drill and Kill” on the iPad?
7 Feb 2012 | 8:00 pmLast week, I posted on Twitter when a highly engaging math app went on sale for 60% off. I didn’t oversell it by any means: It’s just drill and kill simple math facts with fancy graphics and music but it’s fun. I’m torn on whether to mention the name of the app here (I will list all the apps we use in a future post). However, imagine an app with a first class movie soundtrack, mission impossible-like graphics, and an excitement that is not present in many other apps. Yes, I do consider it “drill and kill” but as an app of this kind, it’s best in… -
My Current Thoughts on Teacher Evaluation
6 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amI was asked by someone in the press for my thoughts on teacher evaluation, probably because of my previous posts on Merit Pay (I’m not for it) and the Value that Teachers Add to the Classroom (hint, it’s more than just test scores). I haven’t written about the subject in some time and my views are constantly changing. My idea of having teachers gather around a campfire and write down the name of one teacher they’d like to vote of the island hasn’t been picking up any steam so here are my other thoughts. 1. What do you think of the recent national push to tie… -
My Guide to iPad Deployment in School
31 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amAlmost two years ago to the day, I wrote a post, “The iPad: Why Teachers Should Care.” Flash forward to today, both of the schools I work at have purchased one iPad for each classroom. Although I’ve already mastered how to manage all the iDevices in my personal household, learning to manage iPads in an institutional environment involved a bit more learning due to the complexities of software licensing and the necessity to keep institutional accounts separate from personal ones. School Accounts You’ll Need: 1. A generic e-mail address. You can use a… -
Parent Better and Change the World in 2012
27 Dec 2011 | 10:18 amOn a recent journey to Costa Rica, I had the opportunity to reflect on good parenting. Due to a brief layover, we had to switch planes mid-way and on each leg of the journey, we found ourselves sitting in front of children (yes, the same people we left our classrooms to get a break from). I’m not (yet) a parent. However, I believe the principles that I’ve laid out previously about classroom management apply to parenting as well. Specifically, when you can help it, never expose children to a new situation without first letting them know what to expect from that… -
It’s a Hoax! Teach Critical Thinking and Analysis Through Online Hoaxes
28 Nov 2011 | 12:00 amWhat follows are three of my favorite hoax links, shared in a Google Workshop for Educators. Use these to teach students that not everything posted on the internet is true. All About Explorers An attractive site looking site chock full of information about famous explorers, except all the information is false. RYT Hospital Men can now have babies, this high tech web site shows you how. Museum of Hoaxes Find tons more in the Museum of Hoaxes.
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danah boyd | apophenia
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World Economic Forum: More than Meets the Eye
29 Jan 2012 | 7:16 pmI spent the last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. When my friends (y’all) learned I was going, some were supportive while others were horrified. A few called me an outright traitor. Given how much mythology there is around this event, I want to take a moment and briefly share my own experience there. If you read news articles about WEF, you get the impression that it’s a high stakes event where many of the world leaders gather to discuss governance and finance. (Journalists especially love to highlight when said leaders snicker or snark at one another.)… -
How Parents Normalized Teen Password Sharing
23 Jan 2012 | 1:24 pmIn 2005, I started asking teenagers about their password habits. My original set of questions focused on teens’ attitudes about giving their password to their parents, but I quickly became enamored with teens’ stories of sharing passwords with friends and significant others. So I was ecstatic when Pew Internet & American Life Project decided to survey teens about their password sharing habits. Pew found that one third of online 12-17 year olds share their password with a friend or significant other and that almost half of those 14-17 do. I love when data gets reinforced. Last… -
We need to talk about piracy (but we must stop SOPA first)
17 Jan 2012 | 6:51 amMuch to my happiness, the internets are in a frenzy about the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (aka SOPA). Congress is currently in recess, but the House announced a hearing on the potential impact to the Domain Name Service on January 18 and everyone expects the Senate to begin discussing a similar bill “PROTECT IP Act” when they return to DC on January 24. There’s a lot to these bills – and the surrounding furor – and I’m not going to go into it, but I recommend reading the actual bill and Open Congress info, the Wikipedia article, EFF’s blog,… -
Nancy Baym, Kate Crawford, Mary L. Gray to Join Microsoft Research
12 Jan 2012 | 7:19 am::bounce:: I am *ecstatic* to announce that Nancy Baym, Kate Crawford, and Mary L. Gray are all joining Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, MA. See Jennifer Chayes’ announcement. ::bounce:: Three years ago (this week), I joined Microsoft Research to help integrate social scientists and computer scientists. I have known about and admired MSR since my undergraduate days when I was studying computer science. From the perspective of a researcher, it seemed like heaven-on-earth. As I slowly shifted disciplines, I was saddened to think that I had moved myself away from MSR so I was… -
I am Generation Flux
10 Jan 2012 | 11:05 amI love talking with smart journalists. When they’re good at what they do, journalists can really prompt me to think deeply (and differently) about issues. Nothing makes me happier than coming out of a discussion with a journalist with my brain on fire. My conversation with Bob Safian from Fast Company did precisely that. I left that chat high as a kite with all my synapses buzzing. The funny thing? I didn’t know why he was asking all of those interesting questions. Then, a few weeks later, I was asked to do a photoshoot. And that too ended up being way way way too much fun.
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The Power of Educational Technology
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Educon 2.4 Reflections 2012
29 Jan 2012 | 6:13 pmLisa & Liz Presenting at Educon 2.4 There is always so much to think about on the way home from Educon. And this year was no different. As I sit home unraveling my experience, I am feeling a mix of emotions. As always it was wonderful to see my old Educon friends and meet many new ones. I attended some interesting sessions, presented an Encienda (20 slides, 15 seconds per slide), and presented a session with Lisa Thumann. Here are some of my take-aways. Boy is this a heady experience! Educon lives in the brain. It is a conference of ideas and ideas and ideas. Each session tries to think… -
5 Things I Love about Educon
22 Jan 2012 | 1:40 pmAt my first Educon 2008 This will be my fifth Educon, and over time, my relationship with this conference has changed, from the freshman excitement of meeting everyone for the first time at Educon 2.0, to the highly anticipated sophomore year, when I couldn't wait to go back and see everyone, to my junior year, where the the familiarity of a place I know well led me to give some Educon advice, and finally my last year as a senior attendee I shared a bit of my disillusionment. And even though I should perhaps have graduated, I'm still committed to this extraordinary conference. Here are a few… -
My iPad Adventure
17 Jan 2012 | 12:22 pmFirst semester has just ended and I am finally taking a breath and a moment to blog. I know it has been forever. I've been in the thick of teaching 7th grade English and setting up an iPad pilot for our school. Both have been extremely time consuming. In this post, I'll focus on my iPad adventure and save my 7th grade English stories for another day. The Plan: We purchased 30 iPads this fall and have disseminated them to one faculty member in each department. In addition, we will be piloting 2 iPad classes starting in the second semester (next week). We have chosen a geometry class and… -
5 Things I hate about the Kindle Fire
19 Nov 2011 | 4:36 pmI was ready to love it. I put my name on the list the day it was announced. I waited and waited. When it finally shipped, I tracked that shipment like a hawk. Then it arrived. My school has recently decided to do an iPad pilot. We are deploying 30 iPads and budgeting for more next year. I thought the Kindle fire might just be a cheaper alternative. Well it's not and this is why. 1. Boy is it heavy! It is supposedly lighter than an iPad, but if you held one in each hand you wouldn't think so. It is shaped like a brick and feels like one too. I tried reading a book on it and my arms felt like… -
Marching Backward into the Future
24 Oct 2011 | 11:35 am“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” http://www.flickr.com/photos/derbaum/14504516/ - The Media is the Massage. An Inventory of Effects. McLuhan & Fiore. p74 Everything we look at is shaped by our experiences. We come from a 20th century perspective and it is incredibly difficult to imagine what the 21st century will bring. When I started teaching 20 years ago, could I have envisioned an iPod, a netbook, a Kindle? We had the beginnings of an Internet, but nothing like the global interactions of today. And yet it was my job to…
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Education News
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APNewsBreak: Snyder ties school funding to scores
9 Feb 2012 | 7:54 amMichigan Gov. Rick Snyder is tying lots of strings to the extra cash he's offering public schools, universities and communities in next year's budget. -
Daily poll: Should an NJEA official resign over his 'life's not always fair' remark?
9 Feb 2012 | 3:40 amGov. Chris Christie is calling for the executive director of the New Jersey teacher's union to resign over comments the union chief made about the limited educational options available to poor families. -
Tim Kaine splits with Obama on birth control rule for religious groups
8 Feb 2012 | 11:35 pmThe insurance rule has sparked fierce criticism from religious groups., particularly the Catholic Church, who say the policy will require them to violate their own beliefs. -
February Vacation Boot Camp Offered at The Study Hall in Rockport
8 Feb 2012 | 7:31 pmHow are you spending your February vacation? Preparing for the SATs? The Study Hall, located on Rt 90 in Rockport, is offering an SAT Prep Boot Camp. -
Carrollton High named AP Honor School for second time
8 Feb 2012 | 6:26 pmFor the second consecutive year, Carrollton High School has been named an Advanced Placement Honor School by the Georgia Board of Education, winning both times for its AP science, technology, engineering and math program.
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eSchool News
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Chief Provides Flexible, Engaging Classroom Solution
7 Feb 2012 | 1:12 pmChief Provides Flexible, Engaging Classroom Solution After years of searching, Nebraska’s Gretna Public School District finds the perfect solution for its classroom technology needs: Chief Interactive. The solution is installed using existing whiteboards and projectors, and provides an easy upgrade path for future projector replacements. -
NBC Learn nets a winner with ‘Science of NHL Hockey’
7 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amNBC News’ educational arm, NBC Learn, and the NBC Sports Group have teamed up with the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Science Foundation (NSF) to release “Science of NHL Hockey”—a 10-part video series exploring the science behind the sport. Developed especially for students and teachers to use in the classroom, these videos are aligned with lesson plans and state education standards and are available free of charge. NBC News’ Lester Holt narrates the series, which demonstrates how the principles of science enable players to perform actions such as quickly stopping on ice,… -
PublicSchoolWORKS Adds New Attachment Feature
7 Feb 2012 | 6:39 amFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Kati Elliott | KEH Communications | 410-975-9638 | kati@kehcomm.com Katherine Russo | KEH Communications | 410-975-9638 | katherine@kehcomm.com PublicSchoolWORKS Adds New Attachment Feature To Reporting Systems Feature allows for evidence in the form of pictures, documents and emails to be attached to safety reports for more detailed reporting Cincinnati, Ohio – February 6, 2012 – PublicSchoolWORKS, a Cincinnati-based company that offers the one and only comprehensive, fully-automated risk management system available for schools, has added an Attachment Feature to… -
Time To Know Users Cite High Satisfaction with Digital Teaching Platform
7 Feb 2012 | 6:37 amFor Immediate Release PR Contact: Anne Smith, C. Blohm & Associates, P: 608.216.7300, anne@cblohm.com Time To Know Users Cite High Satisfaction with Digital Teaching Platform 76 percent reported the program made a substantial difference in their classrooms NEW YORK (February 6, 2012) – Based on a recent customer survey by Time To Know, teachers in New York and Texas using the company’s Digital Teaching Platform in their classrooms are satisfied with the program and have seen improvements in student engagement and academic progress. The majority of survey respondents (80 percent)… -
SCHOOL SPECIALTY’S uLOG DATA COLLECTION HELP STUDENTS BUILD SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY SKILLS
7 Feb 2012 | 6:36 amFeatured at FETC 2012, Innovative Data Collection Sensors Turn Every Computer Into a Datalogger ORLANDO – Jan. 24, 2012 – As the number of jobs requiring scientific thinking skills and knowledge continue to escalate, Frey® Scientific, a division of School Specialty®, is furthering its support for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education by featuring its uLog USB Data Collection devices at FETC 2012. With these innovative dataloggers, Frey Scientific introduces a whole new way to collect data without barriers or expensive logging devices. uLog sensors are an all-in-one…
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The Fischbowl
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Ideas I'd Like My Future Principal to Consider: The Schedule
5 Feb 2012 | 9:59 amWe have a problem with time. Specifically, the way we allocate it in schools. As Chris Lehmann points out:Our schools are structurally dysfunctional places which, therefore, makes teaching and learning much harder than it needs to be, so that teachers -- and students -- have to succeed despite the system, rather than because of it.As long as high school students have to travel to eight different classes where eight different teachers talk about grading / standards / learning in eight different ways, students will spend far too much trying to figure out the adults instead of figuring out the… -
Tools I'd Like My Future Principal To Consider: Twitter
1 Feb 2012 | 2:50 pmFrom the article Meet Your New PD Tool in Scholastic Administrator magazine:"I really think anybody who doesn't spend a little time building a personal network is doing themselves and their school a disservice. If we're not modeling this stuff for our teachers and students, then I don't think we're doing our… -
Discussing Little Brother with Cory Doctorow: Take Two
30 Jan 2012 | 8:01 pmAnne Smith and Maura Moritz's students will once again be discussing Little Brother with author and blogger Cory Doctorow. A different set of students had this opportunity two years ago and it was a great experience (see that post for more details on the bigger picture of the unit), so we're really looking forward to this.If you're available at 8:30 am Mountain Time on Tuesday, January 31st, feel free to join us in the live stream or the live blog. Mr. Doctorow will be responding to our students' questions live via Skype from London (the stream will be a not-so-great quality webcam-based… -
Crowdsource My Basement Design
29 Jan 2012 | 12:06 pmOkay, so this is kind of a silly post that I actually don't believe will generate anything, but I thought it might be fun anyway. We're about to finish our basement and I am not a very visual person, so trying to picture what it might look like is difficult for me. I'm sure we'll get lots of help with that from the contractor and most likely will go with one of the designs they come up with, but I thought it might be fun to see if I could tap into the wisdom of my small crowd.We currently have a "full," unfinished walkout basement with a wood floor (with some crawl space underneath). We've… -
Quotes I'd Like My Future Principal to Ponder: Participatory Media Education and Civic Education Are Inextricable
23 Jan 2012 | 5:37 pmFrom the article titled "Head of State" in the print edition (subscription required, although if you are in a school you most likely have access to it through one of your library subscription services) in the November 7th, 2011 issue of Time magazine:Whereas US Envoys once filed secret cables to Washington late at night, Clinton has pushed her ambassadors to expand the use of Twitter and Facebook - State now has 192 Twitter feeds and 288 Facebook accounts - and her daughter Chelsea calls her TechnoMom. "We are in the age of participation," Clinton said at her husband's charity even in New…
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Learning is Change
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Start Google Documents or Upload Files to Google Docs with an email.
31 Jan 2012 | 9:20 amGoogle decided that emailing to start a Google Doc wasn’t a service that enough people were using, so they discontinued it sometime in 2009. While I didn’t use it all of the time, I found it incredibly useful. And ever since, I have been looking for a way to do the following: Start a Google Document with the text of an email I send Start a Google Document by attaching a Powerpoint, Excel, or Word Doc. Have anyone upload to my Google Documents in a predesignated folder Well, now all of these things are easily within my grasp and I am basking in the glow of this productivity hack. -
What I’m Learning: How to make a secondary Google Calendar into a primary Calendar on iCal
3 Nov 2011 | 12:43 pmCalaboration (Mac) – Download: So, while there are many other ways to get Google Calendar to sync with iCal, it always makes your secondary Google Calendars into delagates. The only way to make those secondary calendars into primary ones in iCal is to use this older program (created by Google). It is awesome, however, and I highly recommend it, especially if you want to add items to an iCal calendar from another program on your machine, which would then sync with Google. I know it sounds like no one would ever want to do this. But I am finding it incredibly important and I thought I… -
What I’m Learning: Hall.com
17 Oct 2011 | 8:17 amThis looks like an interesting idea to talk about a given topic or allowing others to engage and create a community. So far it seems to be a little light on functionality, but everything that exists is super intuitive and quite beautiful. They may have something here. Hall.com: “Our Story Frustrated by communication tools that were siloed and did not solve real problems. The team quit corporate america to solve the problem. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, CA.” -
What I’m learning:Big Marker (Free Web Conferencing)
10 Oct 2011 | 8:34 amCould be interesting, but it reminds me a lot of WizIQ (although I do like the interface on Big Marker better): Big Marker: “BigMarker is a free web conferencing community. Through our platform, you can reconnect with your family in Rio; manage your employees in Madagascar; organize your non-profit’s resources to Ottawa; teach a virtual class from Tulsa to students all over Thailand; foster a support group for cancer survivors from France to the Falkland Islands. With unlimited access to live events, there are endless opportunities for you, your community, organization, business,… -
What I’m learning: Vyou – Conversational Video
27 Sep 2011 | 12:17 pmI was looking for a service to do video-based discussions. I think this may work quite well. We shall see if it works itself into any of my workflows, though. VYou: “VYou allows people to broadcast video structured as conversations, offering the most personal form of social interaction on the web. It works like this: you record video responses to messages entered by friends and fans. VYou organizes their messages and your videos into conversations, making the experience feel continuously live even though the content is stored. VYou lets you get advice from experts, interact with your…
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Remote Access
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The Desktop Model of Learning?
4 Feb 2012 | 5:31 amI don’t know a single person who’s recently bought a desktop computer. Not one. Combine that anecdote with the stats showing that for the first time more smartphones were sold than PCs and another that shows over the Christmas season of 2011, the number of people who owned either a tablet or an ereader doubled from 10% to approximately 19% and you can see that the computing world is in complete flux these days. We want to take our technology with us. Is it the data that we want to have with us, our files and pictures, or the ability to connect with others? Both? A couple of years… -
Building Online Communities Resources List
2 Feb 2012 | 8:44 amIt’s no secret that I’m a fan of online communities. I think that using them as spaces to connect and learn with others is a positive and powerful development for education. We’ve had good success with the Idea Hive community. It has engaged our students and given them a chance to learn valuable skills. It continues to evolve as we learn more about what kind of a space meets the needs of our students. But that’s not what I’m really here to tell you about…. I’m here to tell you about this amazing list of resources that has been published by the Fever… -
Online Study Groups?
31 Jan 2012 | 4:48 pmI know that in many places in North America (including here in Snow Lake) students are writing either mid term or final exams around this time of the school year. A question: has anyone seen or heard of students setting up study groups online? A google + hangout seems like the perfect place for a small group to get together. What about using a wiki or a google doc to make note,s or using a chatroom or facebook chat session or something else to get ready for exams? I know that this stuff is getting fairly common once you head into postsecondary institutions, but I’m wondering how low… -
You Can’t Buy Change
30 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amI’ve received a few grumpy emails from people over the last several weeks. Tied to a few of the posts I’ve written lately, several people have accused me of being anti-innovation, anti-change and of being anti-corporate. I can understand how people might feel that way. A few of my posts have had the distinct leaning of my having COMS (Cranky Old Man Syndrome). But actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I think the edtech industry is maturing. And I believe that is bringing us a new set of challenges. Corporations smell the enormous amounts of money that is being… -
Consumerism and Producerism
27 Jan 2012 | 7:39 pmI’ve been holding on to this post for a week or so, rolling it around in my head trying to connect a few dots before clicking the publish button. It’s got to do with Apple, and SOPA and Raspberry Pi and education and learning and on and on and on….. It started with the education event that Apple hosted on January 19th. At this event Apple unveiled iBooks2 and iBooks Author. After several weeks of hype and people breathlessly awaiting the great advancement that Apple would give us in education – we got interactive textbooks. Interesting as a business model, interactive…
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open thinking
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Sasktel’s Great Bait & Switch
4 Feb 2012 | 6:07 pmLast year, I terminated my mobile phone contract with Rogers, and signed a three-year contract with Sasktel Mobility. I chose Sasktel at the time for two reasons. First, their coverage area within Saskatchewan is much better than Rogers’ (although now it is comparable to Bell or Telus). Second – and this was the most important reason - Sasktel offered a $40 unlimited Canadian texting & data plan (the data portion of my average $80/month bill). Seeing that I am a heavy data user and that I travel frequently across Canada, this was by far, for me, the best mobile data deal in… -
Student Work – Fall 2011
31 Dec 2011 | 7:37 pmFor the third year in a row (see 2009 and 2010), I wanted to use the last post of the year to share a few examples of the great work that is being done by my graduate and undergraduate students. I am so very fortunate to have creative & hard-working students who are committed to improving their knowledge of teaching and learning in light of our new digital landscape. I hope that some of these examples will inspire you to take up new challenges in your own context. From EC&I 831 (Open graduate course, Social Media & Open Education): Summaries of Learning: Leslie – used… -
RIP Steve Jobs
5 Oct 2011 | 5:05 pmToday, the world lost a remarkable man – a visionary and a world-changer. You will be deeply missed Steve. I’ve always loved this video (above) of Steve introducing the Macintosh in 1984. There’s something about the look on his face as people applaud near the end – it’s like they all knew Steve would change the world. And, as we all know now, he truly did. Related posts: He’s Henry … Oh Henry … -
Open Course: Social Media & Open Education
27 Aug 2011 | 10:18 pmI will be facilitating an open graduate course this Fall titled EC&I 831: Social Media & Open Education. This will be the 5th time I have taught the course (first time was 2007), and it’s different each time. It looks like I will have about 25 graduate students taking this for credit (which is well over the usual limit), and I’m also inviting anyone out there interested in the experience to participate for free. If you would like to learn more about the course, go to http://eci831.ca. If you’re familiar with the course (from past iterations), you’ll notice that… -
Connections: A Free eBook
1 Jun 2011 | 11:51 amOne of my favorite people on the planet, Dr. Richard Schwier, has just released his new free eBook titled Connections: Virtual Learning Communities. Read about the book here, or download directly from this link. The book is in .epub format, so if you are unfamiliar with how to handle that format, see this resource. A little bit about the book: This ebook pulls together the big ideas from our work for educators who might actually be able to put what we have learned to good use. That’s what this book is about—making sense of online learning communities. In a sense it isn’t original; it is…
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Bud the Teacher
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The Week in Tweets for 2012-02-06
6 Feb 2012 | 5:15 amReviewing the writing we did together at #educon Interesting how people define "research" and "impact." Or don't. http://t.co/wALcdmaQ # Also looking forward to @jonbecker's coordination of some teacher research as an outcome of the session. Important. # @courosa @msstewart We're about to enable the Google Apps for Ed addon for Sliderocket – looks good. in reply to courosa # @msstewart @courosa @nwhyluckysgirl A couple of our teachers said the other version was more fully featured – but I don't have specifics. in reply to msstewart #… -
The Week in Tweets for 2012-01-30
30 Jan 2012 | 5:15 am@nawalnader That's backward. Funding after the student's done? How does a school start under that model? in reply to nawalnader # Reviewing district copyright policy. http://t.co/7z0v7Chc # Spent the day in training. Reaffirmed that working with video is hard. # Opportunity to build a blended learning school. Interesting. http://t.co/jtlTF4LT # @MrMacnology I love Hazel. Don't use it as much as I could but it's great. in reply to MrMacnology # @msstewart @jonbecker No problem. I got this. Just point me towards the audience. in reply to msstewart # First day in a couple of… -
#Educon 2.4: Talking Teacher Research
28 Jan 2012 | 5:40 amLater today, I’m honored to be joining my friends and colleagues Jon Becker and Meredith Stewart as we facilitate a session at Educon 2.4 on teacher research and professional development. Specifically, on how we can be critical, in a good way, in our choice and craft of professional development. Here’s the session description: # #edchat #RSCON3 #140edu #TEDx______ #edcamp____ # Many of the educators who participate(d) in the events listed above and others like them report that the events are/were perfectly wonderful; amazing even. Apparently, this social media-aided PD is more… -
Schooling That Isn’t School-y
27 Jan 2012 | 10:46 pmI sat in on a meeting today of the organizers of our school district’s Innovation Academy, a summer STEM enrichment program that’s a partnership between the district and IBM.1 # The DLC will be embedding a teacher research group within the Innovation Academy and its planning in order to see if the work they’re doing, and that students and district staff are enthusiastic about, has something to teach us about how we can make positive change in the classroom. # During the meeting, two statements really caught my ear and got me thinking about the work ahead. # The first was a… -
#DMLBadges for Teachers: We Missed Here, Too
24 Jan 2012 | 2:47 pmJustin Reich and I recently submitted a proposal to the DML Teacher Mastery and Feedback Badges Competition. And, like my recent submission to the DML Conference, it wasn’t accepted. # But that’s cool. I was curious about the process and I learned a bunch about the problems and opportunities of badges and badging. In case you were curious, below is the full text of the application. You can read the winning Stage 1 proposals on the DML Competition Website. # Teacher inquiry has long been recognized as a valuable way for teachers and students to critically examine their…
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Steve Hargadon
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Learning Instead of Teaching - Nicholas Negroponte
7 Feb 2012 | 8:54 pmThanks to Gary Stager for sending me the following video of Nicholas Negroponte talking about rethinking global education based on learning rather than teaching.The current experiment he describes in the video--to see if the millions of children in villages that have no schools can learn to read by themselves--should be married to 1) Sugata Mitra's work on social learning by groups of children, and 2) the education team I've heard that Amazon has looking at providing Kindles in similar circumstances.Still hoping I can get both Nicholas and Sugata on the FutureofEducation.com show for… -
This Week: "Unplugged Ed" Tonight; Empowering Teachers; Alan Blankstein; Free Conference Events Coming Up; Hacking Education with Audrey Watters
7 Feb 2012 | 12:37 pmTONIGHT:Join me as I talk tonight with Laurette Lynn, the "Unplugged Mom," about "unplugging from the conventional and artificial process" of traditional education. More details, with instructions on joining in the live session HERE.ANNOUNCEMENTS:Read the DMLcentral interview with me about about the process of rebuilding educational narratives , the value of thinking of education as a process, and the importance of engagement and empowerment for not just students but also teachers, administrators, families, and communities. And consider attending the DML Conference March 1 - 3 in San… -
Webcast: Building a Successful Online Learning Community for Librarians
7 Feb 2012 | 12:34 pmThursday, February 9, 20123pm ESTSteven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community have invited me to join them for a live webcast event.In this interview session our first question will likely be “Steve, how do you manage so many projects simultaneously?” A review of his website reveals that Hargadon manages or participates in multiple online communities and produces several online interview series that feature leading educators and technologists. Hargadon is also recognized for launching the Library 2.011 Conference that was attended by over… -
Live Thursday February 9th with Alan Blankstein on Improving Individual Schools
7 Feb 2012 | 11:50 amJoin me Thursday, February 9th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Alan Blankstein on his latest book, The Answer Is in the Room: How Effective Schools Scale Up Student Success. Citing wisdom from top educational experts and building on what is already working, Blankstein offers tools for finding excellence in schools, scaling these practices across learning communities, and transforming low-performing schools into high-performing schools.Date: Thursday, February 9th, 2011Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am (next day) GMT (international times here)Duration: 1… -
Live Today - Laurette Lynn on Unplugged Education
7 Feb 2012 | 8:03 amJoin me today, Tuesday, February 7th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com interview with Laurette Lynn, the "Unplugged Mom." A self-proclaimed pioneer of Unplugged Education, Laurette believes and actively promotes learning not only without school, but "without any systematized, institutionalized or prescribed methodology that isn’t specifically determined by our own organic, instinctual and natural drive to learn, grow and discover our world." To her worldwide audience, she blogs and podcasts about the value of “unplugging from the conventional and artificial…
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Free Technology for Teachers
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Videos - How Candidates Raise and Spend Money
8 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pmThe amount of money that Presidential candidates spend on their campaigns is just mind boggling to me. Chances are good that it's mind boggling to your students too. CNN's Explain It To Me series has a couple of videos explaining how candidates raise money and what they spend that money on. Here is How Candidates Raise Money. Here is Campaign Spending. One of the statistics in this video that might help your students understand how much money is spent on campaigns is that Kobe Bryant would have to play for 29 years to earn as much money as President Obama spent in 2008. On a much lighter… -
Applications are Still Being Accepted for Google Teacher Academy UK
8 Feb 2012 | 1:30 pmThe Google Teacher Academy is held periodically at various locations throughout the world. I had the privilege of attending GTA when it was held in Washington, D.C. in 2009. This spring there will be a Google Teacher Academy in London on April 4th. If you're interested in becoming a Google Certified Teacher, applications are being accepted until February 16th. On a few previous occasions I have written about applying to GTA and the experience. If you're interested in my advice about GTA, here are some of my thoughts: Overcoming the Video Hurdle of Applying to GTA Advice for Applicants Why… -
Free Bike Tours for Teachers
8 Feb 2012 | 12:21 pmImage Credit: Ian Britton Free Foto My lifelong friend Steve Thompson runs a company called Crate Works that builds travel cases for bicycles. This morning he sent me an email about a free travel opportunity for teachers. Experience Plus Bicycle Tours gives away bicycle tour packages to teachers every summer. The tours are in Europe, South America, and Central America. If you're a cycling enthusiast, teaching at least half-time in the United States you're eligible to apply. Applications are due by March 30, 2012. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers. Follow on… -
Two Tools for Reading ePub Files in Your Browser
8 Feb 2012 | 4:15 amePub documents are everywhere now. But if you don't have an ereader, you might feel like you're missing out on something. Fortunately, there are some tools that you can use to read ePub documents on your laptop or desktop. Here are two tools that I have used to read ePub documents on my laptop. EPUBReader is a Firefox add-on that will allow you to read ePub documents within your browser. EPUBReader downloads ePub files and displays them directly in your browser. The video below offers a short demonstration. Magic Scroll is a Chrome web app that you can use to read ePub files on your desktop… -
A History of Timelines & 5 Tools to Make Your Own
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 amThrough Brain Pickings I discovered a neat set of timelines called the Cartographies of Time. The Cartographies of Time are historical map and timeline mash-ups. I've embedded one of my favorite images from the Cartographies of Time below. The Cartographies of Time made me think that it would be fun to have students create their own creative timelines like this one drawn as dragon, but if you would like to have your students create a more "traditional" multimedia timelines, I have a short list of good tools for that too. Better World Flux allows users to create animated visualizations of…
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Empowered High Schools
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Updates to Teacher Evaluation News page
9 Feb 2012 | 4:16 amThere is a great deal of action on the issue of state teacher evaluation plans. We’re trying to keep you updated with the latest news on our State Teacher Evaluation Laws Update page. In a weird way, it is a fascinating topic as each state maneuvers around this sensitive and highly charged topic. If you have news to share please pass it along. -
How to Generate Creativity
3 Feb 2012 | 6:35 pmToday’s leadership insight pertains to innovation and creativity and comes from management thought leader Russell Ackhoff. While not as famous as Peter Drucker, Ackoff is truly a key management thought leader. Like Drucker, Ackoff has spent decades sharing meaningful and actionable management advice. Fans of Ackoff appreciate that his writing style is more straight forward and less formal. A great book from Ackoff for school leaders is Management in Small Doses. It is composed of 52 mini-chapters that are typically around 5-8 pages in length. The chapters are perfect for… -
20 Ways Educators Can Use Twitter
3 Feb 2012 | 6:31 pmCheck out this post on great ways for schools to use Twitter. -
Teacher Evaluation Updates
3 Feb 2012 | 5:34 pmCheck out our teacher evaluation updates. Please email us if you have new news from your state. inquiries@empoweredhighschools.com -
Google In Education
29 Jan 2012 | 4:06 pmFrom what I understand, Google just opened up their Google In Education site. I’m surprised that I didn’t see this in Twitter. I have a pretty broad array of education Tweeters, you’d think that this would have popped up. Maybe it has been out for a long time and I just missed it. It looks pretty interesting. Suffice it to say, it’s still in its infancy. http://www.google.com/edu/index.html
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Free Education Magazines and Downloads from alltop.tradepub.com
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Joomla! 1.6 Essential Training
24 Jan 2012 | 3:20 pmThe course also explains how to change the site look and feel with Joomla! templates, install plug-ins and extensions, assign users to create and edit content, and much more. Exercise files accompany the course.Topics include:Understanding Joomla!A quick tour of the Joomla! InterfaceUsing the media managerCreating individual articlesLinking to a PDF or other documentAlong with the free video training tutorials you will also receive monthly offers, tips, and insider information you won't hear elsewhere--including special discounts extended to newsletter subscribers.After taking advantage of… -
Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta Preview
23 Jan 2012 | 11:50 amThe course covers the new Book module and integration with Blurb, an online book printing service; the video playback and editing options, including the ability to color, tone, export, and publish movies; and the image editing enhancements in Lightroom 4, including the Image Adjustment Brush for correcting color and noise.Topics include:Why use Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta?Video playback and trimmingEditing the color and tone of a video fileOrganizing video files in a Lightroom databaseCapturing a still image from a video fileExporting or publishing a video to your hard driveAlong with the free… -
Google Analytics Essential Training
23 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amThis course covers the out-of-the-box functionality, from account creation to reporting fundamentals, and explains how to glean insights from the vast array of data available.Topics include:The pitfalls of hit counting and turning data into informationDefining goals and conversions: Why do you have a web site?How does Google Analytics work?Using language identification to segment usersUsing flow visualization to see common pathsReal-time data for time-sensitive analysisAlong with the free video training tutorials you will also receive monthly offers, tips, and insider information you won't… -
Joomla! 1.7: Access Control Lists in Depth
23 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amThe course also includes tips and tricks for styling the offline access page and working with the ACL Manager extension. Exercise files accompany the course.Topics include:Introduction to ACLDefining usersDefining access levels and their roleAssigning access levels to modulesTesting loginsAlong with the free video training tutorials you will also receive monthly offers, tips, and insider information you won't hear elsewhere--including special discounts extended to newsletter subscribers.After taking advantage of the free video training, you can access all of the video tutorials by becoming a… -
Get Your Lean Six Sigma Certificates 100% Online from Purdue University with The College Network
23 Jan 2012 | 12:00 amSix Sigma focuses on a lowering of occurrences of defects in the products or services of your organization in order to improve overall quality. There is an emphasis on the voice of the customer and the tools needed to measure customer needs. Lean focuses on the tools for streamlining production and services from end to end with a focus on the elimination of waste. Purdue University has created online training in Lean Six Sigma designed for busy professionals in all industries.Purdue Lean Six Sigma Certificate Courses Available:Lean Six Sigma Green BeltAdvanced Lean Principles and ToolsLean…
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One Laptop Per Child News
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100 XO Project at St. Jacob School in Rwanda
8 Feb 2012 | 5:16 amResumen en español al final del artículo Rwanda which became the site of the largest non-South American OLPC deployment in mid-2011 recently saw the launch of a second, independent OLPC project. This new project is run by a coalition of four different German organizations which distributed a total of 100 XOs at the St. Jacob School in Kigali in November: In Germany a group of dedicated organizations have teamed up to introduce 100 of these laptops for three classes at the St. Jacob School in Rwanda. The Stuttgart-based Care for Kids e. V. has taken the initiative and took over the project… -
OLPC Improves the XO's Membrane Keyboard
6 Feb 2012 | 6:43 amResumen en español al final del artículo One of the most frustrating aspects of my 2010 journey through Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru was seeing how many children had to use XOs whose keyboards were broken. Uruguay seemed to be particularly hard-hit by this issue. From what I gathered this is due to the fact that they received many XOs which were produced fairly early on when OLPC had yet to implement changes to make the membranes of the keyboards thicker and thereby more robust. As such I was very excited when I saw this photo showing off a new and seemingly much improved membrane keyboard… -
Walter Bender to Talk About OLPC and XO 3.0 at mEducation Event in D.C. on February 10
3 Feb 2012 | 5:50 amResumen en español al final del artículo Yesterday the Mobiles for Education Alliance - which includes many big players such as USAID, U.S. Department of State, Peace Corps, World Bank, IADB, UNICEF, UNESCO, and others - announced an upcoming event with Sugar Labs' Walter Bender. The topic for the February session of the mAlliance's Seminar Series is "The OLPC Project, Learning and the XO 3 Tablet" and according to the invitation it will focus on: The move to a tablet device for OLPC The relationship between device design and learning The OLPC model and the Sugar operating system The… -
Talking About OLPC and Negroponte's Helicopter Deployment on The World Tech Podcast
1 Feb 2012 | 6:16 amResumen en español al final del artículo Even though it was widely reported when Nicholas Negroponte first mentioned that he was planning a new deployment model based on dropping laptops or tablets out of helicopters, few media outlets have bothered to follow up on the idea since then. The one notable exception is New Scientist which conducted an interview with Negroponte in early December where he revealed a few details and the fact that pre-pilots were scheduled to start in January. Now, it shouldn't come as a surprise that we have tried to keep a close eye on the relevant developments. -
Isaac Asimov Speaks About Computer-Supported Education in 1988
30 Jan 2012 | 5:54 amResumen en español al final del artículo I saw the following interview thanks to a volunteer who shared it on the olpc-uruguay mailing list. In it Isaac Asimov - most widely known for his science fiction writings - spends several minutes talking about the use of computers and what is essentially a description of the Internet in education. While that in itself would already be noteworthy the fact that the interview took place in 1988 makes it all the more interesting. It's not hard to find similarities between what Asimov described 24 years ago and ongoing projects such as Khan Academy,…
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Spot Cool Stuff: Tech
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The Samsung Galaxy Note: Phone or Tablet?
25 Jan 2012 | 4:02 amIs it a tablet? Or is it a phone? That’s the tagline on billboards advertising the new Samsung Galaxy Note. When the company selling a product expresses uncertainly about what exactly their product is, you know you are dealing with something different. Indeed, the Samsung Note seems like a new hybrid product that’s both an oversized phone and an undersized tablet. The phonelet weighs 6.3 ounces (178 grams) and has a 5.3-inch display—more than the largest smartphone and less than the smallest tablet. The Android operating system powered by 1.4GHz dual-core processor is capable of… -
Waterproof Your Smartphone—Without a Case
20 Jan 2012 | 4:39 amSince returning from the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show the question we’ve been asked most is: What was the coolest thing you saw? After some contemplation, we’ve settled on our answer: Liquipel. It’s a nanotechnology service that waterproofs electronic gadgets without adding any weight to a device or any altering it in any discernible way. Futurists have long recognized the potential of nanotechnology—the study of manipulating matter on an atomic or molecular level—to revolutionize products we use in our daily lives. Spot Cool Stuff believes that one day it will. But… -
Stream Music Wirelessly To Old Wired Speakers
16 Jan 2012 | 9:58 amThe Griffin Twenty audio amplifier for the Airport Express is named such because it is offers a speaker output of twenty watts per channel. But it could be named that because the Griffin Twenty can bring new life to your twenty-year-old speakers. You know the sort of unpowered speakers we’re talking about—the kind with copper analog wires that clamp awkwardly into round sockets on the back of stereo amplifiers. Spot Cool Stuff has a pair of these up in our attic that we bought in high school. They are still good speakers. But they’ve been rendered obsolete in today’s… -
The Refridgerator That Will Cool a Beer In Under 5 Minutes
12 Jan 2012 | 12:44 pmWhere was this when we were in college? A refrigerator that can chill a can of beer from room temperature to ice cold in about four-and-a-half minutes. The ‘fridge is the Ultra-Capacity French Door Refrigerator from LG. Its fast cooling drawer is called the “Blast Chiller.” And the refrigerator can not only quickly chill liquids in aluminum cans. The Blast Chiller will also turn a warm one liter glass bottle of liquid cold in about eight minutes. The fast chilling is accomplished through a combination of two methods. First, the refrigerator quickly cycles very cold air from… -
Justin Bieber and the Vietnamese Entertainment Robot
11 Jan 2012 | 3:24 pmThe most surreal moment at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show—and the competition for that honor is stiff—is surely Justin Bieber introducing the mRobo, a toy robot from the Vietnam based company Tosy. So what does the teen pop idol have to do with Vietnamese robots? Very little, so far as we are aware. Yet that didn’t stop tongs of proud geeks and self-confessed nerds from descending upon Tosy’s tiny corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center and jostling for the best position to get a glimpse of the star. Not that most of the crowd could recognize him. “Which one is…
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Acumen Fund Blog
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A New Movement in Philanthropy
8 Feb 2012 | 2:27 pmCandidates for the Acumen Fund East Africa Fellows Program Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on Blair Miller’s blog on February 5, 2012 ___ I have spent the majority of my professional career working in emerging markets and one of the reasons I love what I do is because I know I am on the cutting edge of innovation. Every time I go to Kenya, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, or South Africa, I am fascinated and energized by the amount of innovation coming out of these regions. My late mentor C.K. Prahalad deeply understood this and it is captured in his paper The Innovation… -
VANCOUVER+acumen Case Competition – From a Student’s Perspective
6 Feb 2012 | 8:30 amFinalists from last year's competition +acumen chapters – self-organized, volunteer-led groups in cities and schools around the world – are actively supporting Acumen Fund’s mission to create a world beyond poverty through education, fundraising and service. To start a +acumen chapter in your city, contact Jo-Ann Tan at jtan@acumenfund.org. You can learn more about +acumen chapters on our website. We’re excited for VANCOUVER+acumen’s efforts to mainstream patient capital. This post originally appeared on VANCOUVER+acumen’s blog. ___ Stop for a second, and close… -
Time is running short – Apply now to be an Acumen Fund Summer Associate!
2 Feb 2012 | 12:00 amA demonstration of a Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd ambulance in a village in Rajasthan, India Do you want to spend your summer changing the way the world tackles poverty? Do you have what it takes to join the Acumen Fund team? Acumen Fund is seeking high-impact individuals to fill the following roles in our global offices: East Africa Summer Associate – 4 Openings West Africa Summer Associate – 3 Openings India Summer Associate (Research) – 1 Opening India Summer Associate (Portfolio) – 1 Opening New York Summer Associate (Portfolio) – 2-3 Openings New York Summer… -
Why I want to start a MUMBAI+acumen volunteer chapter
31 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pmI am an engineer by education, and I thought my life was all sorted when I graduated. I had a job in hand and was excited about finally earning a living and working my way up the professional ladder. Yet it didn’t feel right. A connection was missing. Born and raised in one of the most backward states in India, Odisha, I was used to seeing a startling level of poverty all around me. Throughout my four years of college I volunteered at several organizations. There was so much we did, yet I was frustrated by our level of impact. There remains a gnawing desire within me to bring about… -
Circ MedTech’s PrePex device featured in today’s New York Times
31 Jan 2012 | 9:49 amComponents of a PrePex device This morning, Circ MedTech’s PrePex device was recognized by the New York Times as a key technological innovation in combating HIV/AIDS in Africa. PrePex is a device that enables safe, simple and scalable adult male circumcision, which is an effective, proven method of reducing the lifetime risk of HIV infection by approximately 60% in high-risk areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the PrePex device, which has shown success in initial safety studies and trials. An excerpt of the Times article appears below:…
