At Forest Grove Elementary School, along the Ohio River just northwest of Pittsburgh, the Rust Belt is giving way to educational innovation. In a windowless room in the library, first- and second-graders experiment with a strange teaching device that’s half computer and half wooden play table. A giant computer screen looms over the table, and…
New Year’s resolutions are a lot easier to create than they are to keep. Luckily, Goals in Google Calendar is there to help you find time for the things that matter. Set a goal like “run 3 times a week,” and Calendar will help you find the time and stick to it. Starting today, we’re adding new…
The others aren’t even close. One time market-leader Microsoft Windows’ Internet Explorer is a distant third. Source: Chrome is the most popular web browser of all | ZDNet This is based on data collected by the federal governments Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which analyzes data collected from about 5,000 government websites. In second place is…
Sir Ken Robinson said the current education system is designed to create conformist and compliant students, but this approach doesn’t honor the diversity and creativity inherent in human life. Source: Sir Ken Robinson: How to Create a Culture For Valuable Learning | MindShift | KQED News Our society was built on the diversity of its…
It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick…
Simplifying teacher expertise is no big deal– heck, textbooks are an old tech version of that, saving us all from the trouble of coming up with our own materials. I actually have spent some time thinking about this, resulting in my decision a few years ago to stop using the grammar textbooks my school bought…
If we are waiting for some “technology” to come along and redefine schools, we will be either waiting a long time, or it will be too late. This is a shift we will need to create in our own thinking. Source: Technology Will Not Redefine Schools As a product of 20th century school who is…
Previously considered risky investments, it’s true that many edtech startups — commonly founded by “teacherpreneurs” hell bent on mending education through tech innovation… Source: The broken edtech ecosystem investors once avoided is changing | TechCrunch I was surprised at the economics behind etech solutions, and, even more surprising, was the small percentage (1.4%) of educational…
And that’s the true danger of anti-intellectualism. While it’s foolish to choose to be stupid, it’s cultural suicide to decide that insights, theories and truth don’t actually matter. If we don’t care to learn more, we won’t spend time or resources on knowledge. We can survive if we eat candy for an entire day, but…
Humanity has revered creativity throughout time, from the ancient Greeks to modern-day painters, poets, and web designers. It’s one of those ineffable things that’s extremely hard to define but you absolutely know it when you see it. It’s also the driving force for so many of us, to the point where we’ve created an entire…