Category: Middle School

Suggested Reading: STEM Education

Texas Tech alumnus Rick Husband was the final ...
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Overview

“The acronym STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The STEM fileds are those academic and professional disciplines that fall under the umbrella areas represented by the acronym. According to both the United States National Research Council and the National Science Foundation, the fields are collectively considered core technological underpinnings of an advanced society. In many forums (including political/governmental and academic) the strength of the STEM workforce is viewed as an indicator of a nation’s ability to sustain itself.”
(Source)


Suggested Reading

STEM at Work: Students become Physicians-in-Training

Where Will Your STEM Education Take You?

NASA Launches STEM Education Video Game

STEM Resources and Discovery Education


Tech & Learning’s Question of the Week
Which device do you think is best for 1:1?
Cast your vote.

Talking Ed.: Intro. to K-12 Online Learning

Talking Ed.: K-12 Online Learning

Talking Ed. with Dr. Michael Barbour

Episode 002 (View entire series)

Dr. Michael K. Barbour, Assistant Professor in Instructional Technology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, provides a primer in virtual schooling and online learning. Much of his research focuses on rural K-12 students learning in virtual school environments, specifically how these virtual opportunities can be designed and delivered to be accessible to students with a range of abilities.

{ Video not available }

Connect with Michael

Web 2.0 Technologies for Elementary and Middle School Classrooms

These are the slides for today’s presentation at the NCTIES Conference. Examples of how both teachers and students have used these tools are included. The full set of notes and resources from this session are available on the wiki. Thanks to everyone that attended, participated, tweeted, shared resources and ideas, etc.

Today Is World Math Day

Today is World Math Day. Unite with students and schools from around the world to set a new world record! This year’s challenge – to correctly answer more than 182,445,169 questions in 48 hours. Please participate and be part of the new world record.

Publishing to AudioBoo from a Web Browser

Our kids and I have a lot of fun with AudioBoo. AudioBoo is a service that makes podcasting and audio blogging a snap and can positively impact your classroom (See previous posts1, 2, 3 and 4). Although the service has previously pretty much been limited to iPhone users it is now available to everyone. Here’s a screencast demonstrating how to use their recently released BrowserBoo feature which makes it possible to record to AudioBoo through any web browser.

Here’s the sample Boo that I created during the screencast above.

Listen!

You can browse through my AudioBoo profile page to look through many other examples of boos that the kids and I have published.

I strongly encourage all teachers to take a look at AudioBoo. Whether or not you choose to use it as a teacher I believe there are students in your classroom that would enjoy using it and benefit from engaging this learning modality.

Sign-up for your AudioBoo account, friend me and other educators, and begin enjoying the valuable contributions this can bring you and your students.

Guidelines for Class Discussion

Angela Cunningham recently had a post about Teaching Students to Dialogue. She included the following chart of guidelines that she developed. I think this is a great quick reference for classes to use during discussions, debates, role playing, group work, etc. throughout the year.


Today Is World Math Day

World Math Day

Today is World Math Day. Unite with students and schools from around the world to set a new world record! This year’s challenge – to correctly answer more than 452,681,681 questions. Please participate and be part of the new world record.

World Math Day 2009

Unite with students and schools from around the world to set a new world record! The Challenge – to correctly answer more than 182,445,169 questions in 48 hours.

The students play against each other in mental arithmetic games. Students may find it captivating to play and compete in real time. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play as many games as they wish. The questions are appropriately individualized to the appropriate age/grade levels. Homeschools are also welcome to participate.

World Math Day 2009

Free Inspiration Webcast

(NOTE: I received this announcement via email from Inspiration.)

Webcast: Using Visual Learning Techniques to Improve Academic Performance with Inspiration®
Date: Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Time: 12:00-12:45 p.m. Pacific Time, 3:00-3:45 p.m. Eastern Time
Register for this event today!

Inspiration® helps students develop ideas, analyze concepts and improve organizational skills. Join us on January 29th to explore templates and examples that will help your students improve academic performance in Science, Language Arts and Social Studies. Cathy Cuff, our Education Development Manager for Science, will host a complimentary 45-minute webcast demonstrating how you can use Inspiration 8 to:

  • Expand on ideas to create well-supported thinking and conclusions
  • Build knowledge by increasing comprehension of new concepts
  • Increase organizational skills by connecting ideas into a logical hierarchy

Join us for this professional development webcast!

If you are unable to join us, don’t worry – the webcast will be archived and available to you shortly after the event concludes.

View our archived webcasts!