Edublog award winners 2007

Séptimo Blog, Me Divertía Durante mi Servicio Aprendizaje

Patryk Bielawski — Mon, 28 May 2012 20:16:46 +0000

Esta visita a mi servicio aprendizaje he sido la mejor, en mi opinión. Estábamos trabajando con los niños mayores y también un entrenador diferente, Santiago. A diferencia de José Antonio, el entrenador de los niños mas joven, Santiago siempre nos incluías en los actividades que los niños hacen. Aunque no he demostrado las actividades que las pensé, no me importa mucho porque las actividades que hacemos con Santiago siempre son divertidos. También, Santiago participa en los actividades. Los niños en este grupo tienen sobre siete años pero ellos son muy competitivos y también son buenas atletas en su deporte de fútbol. Cuando estábamos jugando en los actividades con los niños me divertía. También, cuando estoy jugando con los niños mayores es mas fácil para aprender nuevo vocabulario. Los niños mayores tienen un nivel de hablar mas alto de los niños mas joven y también ellos les gusta hablar mas, no solamente a mi pero les gustan hablar más a uno al otro. Éste me da la oportunidad para escuchar a sus conversaciones y aprender más.

En los Estado Unidos, cuando era en escuela segundaria, había trabajado con niños de un equipo de baloncesto. Los niños con que trabajaba, tenían los mismos años que los niños aquí, con que estoy trabajando. Aunque ellos tienen los mismos años, ellos son muy diferentes. Creo que los niños aquí son mas maduros que los niños en los Estados Unidos. Por ejemplo, los niños aquí prestan más atención a su entrenador, no se quejan mucho, y cuando están hablando, mas que menos, hablando sobre su deporte. Creo que los deportes aquí son mas competitivos porque no tienen tan deportes para escoger como los Estados Unidos. Creo que los padres en los Estados Unidos usan deportes para una cosa que hacer cuando sus niños tienen tiempo para descansar, o algo para servir de niñera a sus hijos. Aquí, creo los padres y también los niños tienen mas pasión para los deportes. Los niños quieren jugar y también cuando están jugando, juegan tan duro y con mucho enfocado. También los padres, mas padres se quedan durante la practica aquí que los Estados Unidos y los padres aquí prestan mucho atención a sus niños durante la practica. A veces, pensé que los padres eran entrenadores porque estaban gritando mucho a sus niños durante la practica. Una mas cosa que he notado durante mi servicio aprendizaje hoy es que los niños dan mucho respeto su entrenador, Santiago, a pesar de que el es muy joven. Yo lo respeto mucho. ¡Estoy emocionante a mi próximo tiempo con este grupo de niños!

Un fin de semana en Granada

Jessica Chu — Mon, 28 May 2012 20:06:55 +0000

El fin de semana pasado, nuestra programa fuimos a Granada. He oído que Granada es muy hermosa y lo es verdad. Entre Sevilla y Granada, el viaje por el autobús fue tres horas. Granada es rodeado por montañas y la altitud es diferente. No me pareció un tiempo larga porque yo dormí en el autobús. Cuando nosotros llegamos, tenemos tiempo libre por dos a tres horas hasta nuestra viaje de la capilla. Algunos fueron a la piscina y algunos fueron a comer; fui a comer con Ely, Rafael, y Joey. Entonces, yo eché una siesta hasta 16:00. Nosotros hemos caminado a la capilla y la que tiene muchas detalles, religiosa y histórica. La capilla contiene los cuerpos de algunos reyes católicos: Fernando y Isabel, su hija, esposo de hija, y su nieto. Hay muchos murales y uno llamó mi atención, el mural de San Juan Bautista. Estuve oír la cuenta de Jean, pero nunca pienso en lo que a menudo aunque sea importante para morales de vida.

Después de la capilla, nosotros compramos algunos regalos y fuimos a la cena. La cena fue llenado, la contiene biseca (carne), verduras, huevos fritos, y cheesecake de frescas. ¡Que rica! Entonces, nosotros pasamos tiempo con Francisco y mis amigos hasta salimos de la noche. Nosotros exploramos la ciudad pero no mucho. Me gusta esta ciudad pero no tanto como pensaba desde otros comentarios de personas. Realmente, yo espero que vendría un otro vez en el futuro—esto me hará feliz.

El día siguiente, fuimos Alhambra y fue tan bonita. El guía fue simpática, informativo y animado también. Más fácil para mi prestar atención. Hay muchas vistas bonitas y saque muchas fotos. En Alhambra hay mucha influencia de Arabic y Español a ponen juntos. Después de visitar la Alhambra, hemos caminado hacia nuestro hotel y almorzó. Todo el mundo estaba cansado de nuevo y como llegamos en el bus, no más de 20 minutos todo el mundo estaba durmiendo. Fue bastante gracioso porque quienes normalmente no dormir, dormía. Esta fue nuestra fin excursión de la programa--estoy triste.

Blog 8 Mi ultimo fin de semana aqui

Steven — Mon, 28 May 2012 19:47:23 +0000

El fin de semana pasada fue el último fin de semana me va a pasar con todos mis nuevos amigos que he hecho aquí en España. Pensé que era un gran último viaje que con todo el mundo. La semana pasada fuimos a Granada ¡que es precioso! La ciudad de Granada era enorme no me di cuenta lo grande que era hasta que llegamos a la Alhambra. Cuando llegamos allí, me sorprendió lo hermoso que estaba el hotel. ¡Era gigantesco! Yo estaba en el piso la más alta, que es un paseo muy largo para llegar a mi habitación, pero yo tenía la mejor vista. El hotel era genial, excepto por el hecho de que no te dan toallas para su uso. No es guay.

Después de poner mis cosas en el armario, tomé una siesta mientras todos fuimos a la piscina y se emborracharon. Yo no quería emborracharme, porque todavía teníamos que hacer un viaje a la catedral Real de Granada. Para mí, no quiero estar borracho en una iglesia. Eso no es una buena idea. Sin embargo, Casey se emborrachó y fue cómica y me alegró el día. Ella es muy cómica cuando está borracho y no puedo esperar a la fiesta con ella esta noche otra vez.

La catedral era impresionante y tenía un montón de historia, pero era una de las más pequeñas catedrales que hemos visto. Después de la catedral nos fuimos de regreso al hotel y nos preparamos para la noche. Nos pre-gamed en Tony y Joey’s habitación pero eso no fue la mejor idea porque nos olvidamos que hay otras personas en el hotel y no quieren escuchar a nuestros ruidos, así que fuimos a los bares y se divirtieron por supuesto. No regresé hasta 2 y media con Nick y Nicole. Al día siguiente fuimos a la Alhambra, que es la mejor cosa que he visto y era hermosa, con todo lo que bellos jardines y esas cosas fue mi parte favorito de los todos de los viajes hemos tomado. Yo quería tomar muchas fotos, pero mi cámara no estaba funcionando entonces le pregunté mis amigos para tomar fotos para mi. El fin de semana fue muy Guay es triste que necesitemos ir en menos que una semana pero al mismo tiempo estoy listo para ir.

Palabras: 384

Sexto Blog, Mi Servicio Aprendizaje me Hace un Poco Enfadado

Patryk Bielawski — Mon, 28 May 2012 18:36:00 +0000

Este fue mi tercero día de mi servicio aprendizaje. No tenía ganas por esta visita porque los lunes y miércoles, necesitamos trabajar con los niños mas joven que los jueves. Estoy un poco enfadado con el entrenador, José Antonio, porque en esta visita, me sentía que la única razón que estamos allí es para servir de niñera. Cuando llegamos allí, José Antonio ya tiene un horario de actividades para los niños y siempre nos dice que cuidar los niños y no les permitas a hacer algo diferente que el quiere. Antes de trabajar aquí, Mamen y también José Antonio nos dijo que necesitamos a preparar actividades por los niños para hacer y también necesitamos llegar listos para enseñar y participar en las actividades con los niños. Aunque dijeron éste, nunca hemos hecho ni una actividad que la pensamos.

Estoy enfado porque me parece que nosotros estamos allí para esperar hasta José Antonio necesita algo. En mi servicio aprendizaje, me supone a estar aprendiendo algo pero los días que trabajo con los niños mayores porque en estos días, el entrenador, Santiago, nos interrelaciona y también nosotros se interrelacionamos con los niños por haciendo actividades y jugando juegos de fútbol. También, los niños de jueves pueden hablar mas con nosotros porque no son tan jóvenes como los niños de lunes y miércoles y es mucho más fácil para entender los niños mas viejo cuando están hablando con nosotros.

Pues.. creo que José Antonio ya tiene que quiere hacer con los niños. No se la razón para tener nosotros. También, servicio aprendizaje, a mi, significa a hacer un servicio para la comunidad Española, y al mismo tiempo aprender algo sobre la gente, la cultura, y también sobre el lugar. Me siento que no hago servicio aprendizaje pero servicio para José Antonio. Ojala que durante las restas de visitas, nosotros haremos algo mas que habíamos hecho. Tengo muchas actividades por los niños para hacer y creo que ellos pueden beneficiar de éstas. Espero que José Antonio nos dará la oportunidad para enseñar los niños y también demonstrar las actividades que las pensaba. Estoy seguro que el estará feliz con los resultados y también es una posibilidad que el usará unas de las actividades.

Blog numero 8 : Granda, oh, Granada

Rafael Rodriguez — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:32:25 +0000

? Que se puede decir de Granada? Además de ser un sitio muy romántico, tiene sus lugares que son de fiestas. Granada contiene sitios que son para un ambiente familiar y también contiene sitios que son para un ambiente de estudiantes.

Primero, visitamos a la capilla real. Esa excursión no me gusto tanto porque pensé que íbamos andar por toda la capilla. Resulto que solamente íbamos andar por dos cuartos. Era interesante claro, pero creo que mis expectaciones estaban muy altas. No se puede comparar con las catedrales de Sevilla o Córdoba. De todos modos disfrute.

En la noche fuimos de paseo por Granada para conocer su ambiente nocturna. Vaya, ¡que diversión! Me gusto mucho la ciudad de Granada aunque había gente más grosera que en Sevilla. No sé, quizás no están tan acostumbrados a turistas como los sevillanos.

El próximo día fuimos a conocer la Alhambra y Generalife. Era asombroso. Nunca hubiera pensado que un sitio así existía. Como nos había dicho el guía, era un pueblo dentro de un pueblo. El pueblo de los reyes y de los ricos. Me tomo por sorpresa que había estado abandonado durante muchos años.

También pensé que era interesante que Washington Irving hubiera visitado la Alhambra. No sabía que de ahí había tomado inspiraciones para sus libros y sus cuentos cortos. El hotel Washington Irving me pareció un poco triste porque estaba abandonado. Ojala que lo reconstruyen porque yo pienso que sería un buen lugar turístico.

Generalife era muy bonito. El jardín que pasamos era muy romántico y me gusto mucho que lo disfrute con mis amigos y con mi novia. Los amigos que ha hecho en España disfrutaron el paisaje y me alegra eso. Espero que sigamos disfrutando muchos más momentos así.

Me di cuenta de un aspecto cultural en el hotel. La comida era casi igual al hotel que habíamos visitado la semana pasada. Asi que pienso que estamos probando las cosas más españolas que hay de comer. Eso me gusta porque no quiero estar comiendo cosas americanas- para eso esta los estados unidos.

Try Science: Save Your Skin

tleditor — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Try this experiment from Chemistry for Life to find out how sunscreen works and how it saves your skin. By using an apple as a substitute for your skin, you can find out how the sun would affect your ..

Amazing Water Trick Activity

tleditor — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

In this activity , students discover that hot water (tinted with food coloring) will flow upward and mix with cold water above it. If a layer of cold water is beneath a layer of hot water, however, no..

Video Tutorial: Participating in Online Discussions

tleditor — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

This video tutorial provides guidelines for teachers and students conducting online discussions in an LMS. PD Tips courtesy of Atomic Learning

Product Review: Snagit for Windows and Macintosh

Carol S. Holzberg — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

The latest release of Snagit from TechSmith offers digital “publishers” a very helpful tool for adding visual impact to electronic documents.

Bridging World History: Maps, Time and World History

tleditor — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

There are so many more ways to study history than looking at simply military, nation-state analysis. This site addresses other tools historians use to investigate world history, such as the framework..

What Can Voucher Fans Learn from the Space X Mission?

Bill Ferriter — Sun, 27 May 2012 12:59:15 +0000

As a science teacher, I've spent the better part of the past week pretty darn geeked about the launch of Space X's Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule -- as well as its subsequent docking with the International Space Station. It's a historic week, marking the first time that a private company has launched a vehicle that has successfully docked with the ISS. I imagine Elon Musk -- the billionaire entrepreneur behind Space X is JUST as geeked. After all, with their success, Space X has triggered a $1.6 BILLION dollar contract with NASA to shuttle supplies -- and eventually astronauts -- into space 12 more times in the next few years. In many ways, American taxpayers should be pretty geeked too. After all, by privatizing space travel, NASA is creating competition -- there are no fewer than 5 other companies working on vehicles that can replace the recently retired Space Shuttles -- and saving heaping mounds of cash. Need proof? Each Space Shuttle launch used to cost the American taxpayer $450 million dollars. Each of the next 12 Space X launches will cost the American taxpayer $133 million dollars. #groupon Need MORE proof? Russia -- the only country with the ability to launch humans into space -- is currently charging America $60 million dollars PER ASTRONAUT for rides to the International Space Station. When Space X finalizes its own people-craft -- which should happen around the year 2015 -- they plan to charge America $20 million dollars per astronaut for rides to the ISS. This should all be GREAT news, shouldn't it? How could ANYONE find fault in a story about a public-private partnership that saves taxpayers a heaping cheese-ton of cold hard cabbage? More importantly, given the success of the Space X program, how could ANYONE be opposed to our government pushing EVEN MORE public-private partnerships in order to save money? If public-private partnerships can save our space program, couldn't they also save our post offices, our police stations and our National Parks? Couldn't public-private partnerships save our schools? Wouldn't private companies find ways to do education cheaper if they had a paying audience -- and couldn't we create that paying audience by giving taxpayers vouchers that they could spend anywhere that they wanted? The answer is a resounding hell no and here's why: Just like Elon Musk and Space X targeted their efforts towards supporting the space program of one of the richest countries on earth, voucher-inspired corporate "educators" would likely target their efforts towards serving the richest parents and communities. They'll set tuition at $2,000 -$3,000 beyond whatever local vouchers are providing -- which is an easy reach for middle and upper class parents looking for a private school education but an impossible dream for poor families living from pay check to pay check. Intentionally pricing out the poorest students means, for the most part, avoiding many of the expensive challenges that come along with fighting against the crippling effects of poverty. And for the savvy businessmen behind voucher-driven schools, avoiding the effects of poverty is a bottom-line issue. When the students you serve come from stable families who have the means to provide enrichment and support beyond school, you are less likely to need subsidized lunch programs, social workers and extensive slates of expensive remedial classes. What's more, intentionally targeting the richest communities creates a greater growth trajectory for a business-driven school. Selling extras like piano lessons, tutoring programs or spring break trips to Europe is a whole lot easier when your building serves middle and upper class kids. Billionaire entreprenuers aren't stupid, y'all. They recognize a money-making opportunity when they see it -- and just like Musk spent little time supporting the space programs of poor countries, corporate education reformers will spend little time supporting schools in our poorest communities. #notworthit That means if we believe that successfully educating EVERY child is a public interest worth pursuing, vouchers are a crappy alternative for education simply because they create little real incentive for businesses to work in the poorest communities. Any of this make sense? _________________________________ Related Radical Reads: Boortz on School Choice More on School Choice Is it Time for A La Carte Education?

Scienceroll.com: Weekly Introduction

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:35:40 +0000

I’m in the global top 25 doctors on Twitter and the only European so if you are looking for interesting articles and news about medicine 2.0 or health 2.0, find me on Twitter.

The Social MEDia Course: The global format of my university course focusing on medicine and social media for medical students, physicians and also patients with Prezis, tests and gamification.

Webicina.com is my service that curates medical content in social media for free for medical professionals and e-patients.

PeRSSonalized Medicine is the simplest, free, customizable medical information aggregator covering over 80 medical specialties and conditions in 17 languages!

Scienceroll Search is a personalized medical search engine powered by PolyMeta search and clustering engine. You can choose which databases to search in and which one to exclude from your list. It works with well-known medical search engines and databases and we’re totally open to add new ones or remove those you don’t really like.

List of biomedical and scientific community sites: More than 30 communities with links, descriptions and screenshots.

List of Biomedical video sites: Almost 40 sites featuring scientific or medical videos and videocasts.

Medicine 2.0 Collection: I maintain the biggest collection of links and posts focusing on web 2.0 and medicine.

Five Favorites — 101Questions [5/26/12]

Sat, 26 May 2012 12:26:38 +0000

Doggie Bandana, Marshall Thompson. Marshall got me good with this one.
Water Power Plant, Bernard. Similar to Windmill. In both cases, I'd like to know if what we're seeing would power a light bulb, a fridge, or a car. As in, I really want to know. No math teacherly pretense here. If you can help me answer that question, I am your eager student.
Snow, man, Patrick Brandt. I skipped this one initially, but Patrick's question has been gnawing at me since I saw it. Can anyone suggest a redesign?
London Eye, Edwin Ulmer. I've been looking for just this kind of clip for a long while. Three cheers for Internet-based collaboration.
Shoot the Gap, LDH. Recently, I expressed a sense that posting video of GGB / GSP applets tends to miss the best parts of both. This one is different.

My own listings:

At the end of a session in Toronto just now somebody asked me how much time it takes to come up with these kinds of tasks. "More or less than when you made tasks on paper?"

"Definitely more," I said. But, brother, can you see I'm trying to suppress some kind of goofy smile in Popcorn Picker? Same with Coffee Traveler, where I'm grinning off screen. At a certain point, I stopped coding this kind of production as "work." No disrespect at all if that's not your thing.

Data Dump:

Do people who upload more have higher perplexity scores? No, they don't. I would like to see an animation of those points over time, though.

Farris Timimi: The Role of Social Media in Healthcare

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:36:25 +0000

Farris Timimi, MD is an amazing leader in the social healthcare space, also he is a cardiologist and Medical Director of Mayo Clinic’s Center for Social Media. In this short video he says very important things about social media and medicine. One example:

“If we can trust doctors with scalpels and lives, we can trust them with Twitter or Facebook”

“This [social media] is not an addition to your job, this is a part of your job!”

Good Questions For Good Contexts — Ignite #openedu

Thu, 24 May 2012 04:40:19 +0000

If anyone ever asks you to give an Ignite talk, say yes. With twenty slides auto-advancing every fifteen seconds — ready or not — it's a wonderful, miserable format. I've given a handful and each one has helped me get a stronger grip on editing, illustrating, and public speaking. Here's the Ignite talk I gave at O'Reilly's #openedu confab yesterday:

The short version is this: lousy contexts and lousy questions are easy to find. Good contexts and good questions are scarce. I'm working on one solution to the good contexts / good questions shortage that isn't even in the same ballpark as "perfect," but it's a start.

Scott Farrar, Dan Anderson, Frank Noschese all made contributions to this talk. Thanks, buds.

These People With Their Dogs Wearing Bandanas

Thu, 24 May 2012 04:39:25 +0000

McGraw-Hill:

Kachima is making triangular bandanas for the dogs and cats in her pet club. The base of the bandana is the length of the collar with 4 inches added to each end to tie it on. The height is 1/2 of the collar length. If Kachima's dog has a collar length of 12 inches, how much fabric does she need in square inches? If Kachima makes a bandana for her friend's cat with a 6-inch collar, how much fabric does Kachima need in square inches?

I'm not a pet owner so somebody please set me straight: is pet apparel a productive context for mathematical inquiry? Does PETA know about this?

Previously: Unnatural Currents

Featured Comment:

Kari:

Yes, they make triangular bandanas for dogs, single ply. Usually cut with zig-zag scissors. My dog comes home from every stay at the kennel looking like a boy scout. every. time. This is still a terrible problem though.

#HCSM Leaderboard

Thu, 24 May 2012 01:39:51 +0000

Clinical Current came up with a leaderboard of the most active users using the Twitter hashtag #hcsm (healthcare social media). I’m glad to be on the top, but it only means I’m active in this area. The scores are a mixture of Klout scores and activity.

The reason why I’m showing this to you now is that next week, I’m going to publish here a very detailed and thorough analysis of a particular medical Twitter hashtag and also visualize the results. Stay tuned!

So.cl: What About Microsoft’s New Community Site?

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:45:05 +0000

It seems we are having more and more community sites these days. Google+ (which can be quite useful in healthcare anyway), then Pinterest and now So.cl, the community site of Microsoft. I liked the name (even if they had to register a domain name of Chile for that), but I’m wondering whether it could be used in medical communication at all.

Now it looks like a playground for the search engine Bing.com, but nothing more. According to Technorati:

Microsoft’s So.cl, pronounced “Social” is a product of Microsoft’s research lab Fuselabs. The site offers enhanced features such as Explore, Feed, Post, Video Parties and the ability to share any web content.

It looks like Microsoft has indeed created its own social network to compete with the likes of Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest. The timing of the launch is perfect, since Microsoft silently launched So.cl two days after Facebook became a public company.

Do you think it has a momentum in the healthcare space?

Gender Bias On 101questions

Wed, 23 May 2012 03:57:22 +0000

Elizabeth:

Am I imagining it, or are the participants (posters and respondents) mostly male? I’d love to be wrong about this. If I’m not wrong, then why would that be the case? And more importantly, has anyone noticed whether there is there any difference in class participation between female and male students when these are used in class?

I don't ask for your gender during the registration process so it's hard for me bring any data to bear on the question. But if I allow myself some conservative guesses, it seems that at the time of this writing:

the top ten most perplexing users are all male,
nine of the top ten most perplexing first acts were uploaded by males.

So help me, I can't figure out how the interaction on the site (ask a question and click "skip") or the nature of the tasks (a context and a question) preferences men. The reviews are all blind, too. I'm looking at a photo. Maybe it was uploaded by Candice Director. Or maybe by Dan Anderson. It's impossible to know until later.

I'm highlighting Elizabeth's comment to see if anyone can help me figure this out. I'd rather this didn't turn into a general complaint window, though. I'm interested in locating the source of any gender bias, not in airing out any other grievances.

BTW: My adviser has done a lot of work in gender and math. I should probably check in.

Featured Comment:

Too many. A really great discussion down below. Here's a link to my summary.

iDoo, Your Personal Mobile Trainer is Looking for Beta Testers!

Wed, 23 May 2012 03:29:17 +0000

iDoo that I came across at the recent Smartmobil conference aims to become a mobilized personal trainer who even measures your performance. In order to reach this goal, the developers are looking for beta testers. It looks great and I hope a lo of people will sign up through the link below.

iDoo gives you the flexibility to perform the perfect training, anywhere, anytime. The app is based on a patent pending algorithm that uses several sensors of the smartphone to compare the movement of the user with the perfect motion desired by the exercise. The app features several exercises, targeting different muscles and body parts.

We are looking for testers to try out the first 15 warm-up exercises! Apply for the test following the link here, and be among the first users to try this revolutionary fitness app ever.

Hitting Home Runs Fifty Feet at a Time [Slide]

Bill Ferriter — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:57:23 +0000

For the past few months, I've been reading a book called The Method Method, which details the innovative strategies used to grow the Method line of home care products. It's a great read and I'm finding lots of interesting applications to my own work as a change agent. One of the points that the fellas make time and again is that swinging for the fences when trying out new ideas is rarely successful. Instead, successful change is incremental. It relies on taking small steps and revising as you go. I picked up a great metaphor in the text today -- that creating winning products is a lot like hitting home runs 50 feet at a time. Planning on using that notion in some work that I'm doing at school, so I whipped up a slide: Download Slide_HittingHomeRuns Hope you dig it. Bill _______________________________ Related Radical Reads: Our Compulsive Obsession with the Impossible Sexy What the Principals of PLCs can Learn from Hand Washing Sustainable Change in Schools [Slide] Original Image Credit: Baseball by Paco Mexico Licensed Creative Commons Attribution on May 22, 2012 Hitting Home Runs Concept from The Method Method

Necesitamos educación

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:01:07 +0000

EDUCACIÓN

Las definiciones que podemos hallar en torno al concepto de la educación son múltiples, diversas e incluso contrapuestas. Desde posturas ideológicas diferentes unas inciden en su poder para perpetuar diferencias sociales, otras en cambio inciden en sus posibilidades generadoras de cambios sociales. Unas inciden en el desarrollo integral del ser humano y otras en la eficaz cualificación profesional en concretos sectores productivos. Cada autor introduce matices personales en sus definiciones; García Hoz incidió en el perfeccionamiento intencional del ser humano, Dilthey acentuó especialmente la dimensión social en la educación del ser humano, Spencer destacó los aspectos prácticos frente a los teóricos y otros autores concibieron la educación del modo abajo expresado. ¿Qué podemos aportar al concepto de la educación desde nuestro propio punto de vista?...

Artículo completo - Por El Tinglado en General - 22.05.12

A Fundamental Flaw

Karl Fisch — Sat, 19 May 2012 20:36:00 +0000

From the May 21st issue of Fortune Magazine (article not online yet), comes this quote from Fred Smith, founder and CEO of FedEx:

We put so much emphasis on "college degrees." Well, in Germany students at some point come to a fork in the road, and they either go on to university or they go on to a trade school. Say you're a FedEx airplane mechanic working on one of our Boeing Triple Sevens. That's a $100,000-plus job. You don't have to have a college degree to get that job. You don't have to know Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. You can go right to West Memphis, Ark., where we have a relationship with the community college, and be trained to be a licensed mechanic. Then you can come to work at FedEx. (p. 206, emphasis mine.)

Now, I have mixed feelings about this quote. I've never believed that going to college, or getting an education in general, is solely about job preparation. We don't read The Canterbury Tales in order to directly prepare for having a particular career. Having said that, however, this quote resonated to me because once again it seems to be flying the face of most current education-reform movements, which all seem to promote academic skills and college admission as precursors to employment as the ultimate goals of K-12 education.

There are a lot of skills an airplane mechanic for FedEx needs - and some of them will be learned in school - but my guess is that knowing "there is a complex number i such that i² = -1, and every complex number has the form a + bi with a and b real?" (CCSS, N-CN 1), or how to "prove the Pythagorean identity sin²(x) + cos²(x) = 1 and use it to find sin(x), cos (x), or tan(x) and the quadrant of the angle" (CCSS, F-TF 8) isn't quite necessary.

So, once again, I'm struggling with this idea that all students need to learn the exact same things at the exact same time. That doesn't mean that some students shouldn't read The Canterbury Tales, and that some (possibly other) students shouldn't learn trigonometric identities. But I worry that locking our students into a fixed, required, standardized curriculum that is supposed to meet the needs of all of them will end up meeting the needs of few of them. I worry that our "assumption that it does indeed provide a comprehensive, well-rounded education" is a fundamental flaw in our thinking.

Reminder: Mastery and Performance are NOT the Same Thing [Slide]

Bill Ferriter — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:57:47 +0000

Over the course of the past week, I've been wrestling with one simple question: Are the grading practices in our schools too far gone to be fixed? My thinking started when Dean Shareski challenged me to make self-assessment a larger part of the work that I do in my classroom. It was pushed further by a candid confession from one of my students that her determination to "do well" distracts her from actually learning anything. Download Slide_HittingTargets The intellectual challenge continued for me when I stumbled across this remarkable Cale Birk piece which argues that schools need to be places where students are inspired to try instead of where students spend their time cowering in fear of failure. Cale writes: Call me Polyanna, but I want students to try the things they would not normally try. To do things that they would normally not think that they could do. And the only way to get them to do those things is to build the belief that they CAN do it, to help them scaffold the task so they have the appropriate level of challenge, and to build their resiliency skills so when they are confronted with the inevitable challenges that will come they choose to persevere. In short, I want them to approach their courses at school as though they cannot fail as opposed to thinking they might fail and that failure is good for them. What Cale is hinting at is that we need to create buildings that take a mastery -- instead of performance -- orientation to learning outcomes, an idea that the Mindshift blog tackled this week. The difference between mastery and performance orientiations to learning, according to Mindshift, is the difference between the kind of learning that kids do in summer camps and the kind of learning that they do in today's high-stakes classrooms. In summer camps, students learn for the sake of learning. Every day is a new adventure -- an opportunity to explore and to think and to experiment and to tinker without ever having to worry about whether or not YOUR tinkering is the RIGHT tinkering. #mastery In too many of today's high-stakes classrooms, students learn because they are afraid of the consequences of not making an A. They've been told for too long by too many important people in their lives that grades -- on report cards, on standardized tests, on college entrance exams -- matter more than exploring and experimenting. #performance #tinkeronyourowntime The consequences of creating learning environments that emphasize performance over mastery couldn't be more clear according to this research report cited in the Mindshift bit. Performance-driven cultures lead to higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of determination in the face of difficult circumstances. In other words, when the going gets tough in performance-driven environments, students stop moving forward because they know that if they get "the wrong answer" (read: the answer the teacher is expecting), their average is screwed. Better to ask a thousand questions than to take an intellectual risk. Risks aren't worth taking when the stakes are so stinking high. #crippledthinkers On the other hand, learning environments that emphasize mastery INSTEAD of performance encourage kids to be intellectually innovative. Ideas matter more than scores -- and when ideas matter more than scores, engagement levels and motivation rise. #alwayswonder In the words of Rick Stiggins, hitting targets isn't half as important as being willing to continue shooting in mastery-driven learning environments. If this is all true -- and it certainly resonates with everything that I know about teaching and learning after 18 years in the classroom and after 3 years of being a dad -- then WHY are we still pushing for #edpolicies and #edpractices that put so much emphasis on performance over mastery? And more importantly, what steps do we need to start taking -- both as a profession and as communities who care about getting education right -- to make mastery a more important part of the work that we do with our students? Good questions, huh? Wish I had some meaningful answers. ___________________________________ Related Radical Reads: What if Schools Created a Culture of Do INSTEAD of a Culture of Know? Just Another Race to Know-Where? Teaching Innovation with the Curiosity Box Original Image Credit: Aiming for the Gold by Joe Hagan Licensed Creative Commons Attribution on May 19, 2012

Five Favorites — 101Questions [5/19/12]

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:27:35 +0000

Circle or Polygon? Scott Farrar. This thing is poised to take over the all-time list once it crosses the 25-response threshold.
Lemonade, Christopher Danielson. On some other site — let's call it Bizarro 101questions — Danielson uploaded a video in which he dropped a can of concentrate into each of those containers and started filling them with water.
Megalodon Tooth, Jake Jouppi. I know I declared a moratorium on this kind of imagery (which is all over the site at this point) but think about the size of that shark, okay?
Ping Pong, Bob Lochel. Great first act with strong implications for the third.
Roller Coaster Steepness, Tom Ward. An excellent supercut of roller coasters that asks the student to first decide which one feels steepest (that's a low rung on the ladder of abstraction) before using mathematical analysis to determine which one actually is steepest.

My own listings:

Data Dump:

Median photo perplexity: 46.
Median video perplexity: 51.

Photos own the top ten list but videos are more perplexing, on balance.

A Student's Take on Self Assessment

Bill Ferriter — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:00:31 +0000

If you've been following the Radical at all, you know that Dean Shareski has gotten me thinking about the role that self-assessment should play in my classroom. After having my students work through a few opportunities to assess their own learning, I asked them to assess self-assessment as an instructional practice. Specifically, I told them I was interested in (1). their perspective on the fact that self-assessments aren't graded and (2). their perspective on having the chance to reflect on their own learning. One of my favorite responses came from Anna Beth, who wrote: Self assessment really helped me to find what my written work was missing. The questions you asked got me to realize that my work was not as good as I thought it was. After looking at my work carefully, I came to the conclusion that my thoughts were not explained clearly enough for someone else to be interested in my work. I find that I do better on most assignments that aren't graded versus knowing that they will be graded. I think that this is because the pressure of a grade is taken away. Therefore, I am assured that if I don't do well, my grade won't be effected. When that pressure is taken away, I focus better on what I'm doing and I tend to do better. This is where my Ravenclaw side is shown because I want to do well, but I can be so focused on wanting to do well that I can get distracted from actually learning. That's an interesting take, isn't it? I especially liked the last line: I can be so focused on wanting to do well that I can get distracted from actually learning. I wonder if that holds true for other students too? Have we gotten to a point in our high stakes world that grades have replaced learning completely? Is that something we can fix or is grading too far gone to actually fix?

Principio de Arquímedes

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:34:48 +0000

Flotabilidad

¿Por qué los barcos flotan en el agua siendo tan pesados y aunque tengan las máquinas paradas? .

Tenemos en los ordenadores de clase información suficiente para dar una respuesta adecuada y fundamentada.

Seguid la secuencia de trabajo para argumentar vuestra respuesta.

Artículo completo - Por Javier Escajedo en Física-Química - 14.05.12

Post weekly (weekly)

Jim Gates — Sat, 12 May 2012 20:31:00 +0000

PLP Recommended Hashtags.doc - Google Docs

Great list of hashtags shared by @mmkrill tonight on twitter

tags: twitter hashtags

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

@shareski's Right: My Students CAN Assess Themselves!

Bill Ferriter — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:50:19 +0000

If you've read the Radical for any length of time, you know that my thinking is often pushed by Dean Shareski -- a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. What I love about Dean's posts is that they're a perfect mix of practical and provocative ideas. He's just as likely to challenge my instruction as he is to challenge my thinking -- and that's cool. A few weeks ago, Dean wrote about the role that self-assessment plays in the university classes that he teaches. His central premise was one that struck home: Traditional grading practices centered around teachers collecting student papers and giving letter grades with little real feedback -- the kind of practices that are uncomfortably common in my classroom -- are failing our students. Near the end, he issued a challenge: "So I'm wondering if you're ready to let your students assess themselves. Not as some experiment where you end up grading them apart but where you really give the reigns over to them? If not, is it about trust? Is it about readiness? Fear? I'm thinking that even 6 year olds should be able to assess themselves. If we give them the tools and expectations." I decided to take Dean's challenge to heart this week, giving my students the chance to assess themselves on two assignments that were due. "There won't be ANY grade attached to these tasks," I explained. "Instead, you are going to evaluate yourselves. Then, you will get feedback from me on the first assignment and a peer on the second assignment." I gave students handouts designed to guide their thinking as they evaluated their own performance. Both of the handouts included a series of structured questions that forced kids to look closely at the kind of criteria that define accomplished performance. Check them out here: Download Handout_MetaphoricalSelfAssessment Download Handout_OWISelfAssessment Then I turned the kids loose. I gave them about 7 minutes to fill out each column on the self-assessment handouts we were working with. Combined with a bit of introduction to each of the questions, self-assessing each task took about 40-45 minutes worth of class time. I learned a TON about student self-assessment during my experiment. Here are a few of my favorite lessons: The VAST majority of my kids reported NEVER taking the time to systematically assess their own work in ANY subject or ANY grade level before our classroom experiment. I asked my kids when we started our self-assessments how often they spent time evaluating the quality of their work before they turned it in. Most reported that they NEVER self-assessed simply because they (1). didn't have time for self-assessment, (2). didn't really think that self-assessment was important or (3). weren't really sure what "self-assessment" looked like in action. That was a shocker to me because I just assumed that EVERY kid carefully looked at their work before turning it in. After all, that's the kind of thing that accomplished learners do naturally, right? Here's the thing: Our kids AREN'T accomplished learners yet. We need to teach them how to evaluate the quality of their own work in the same way that we need to teach them how to complete equations or write solid paragraphs. #lessonlearned The VAST majority of my kids gave themselves accurate feedback when assessing their own work. In my skeptical moments over the past week, I assumed that my kids weren't going to have the skills to rate their own work reliably. After all, what do THEY know about quality work, right? They're ONLY 12 -- and I have a degree. In my REALLY skeptical moments over the past week, I assumed that my kids wouldn't even be HONEST with themselves when they were assessing their own work. After all, would YOU tell the truth about crappy work if YOU were 12? The good news is that my kids proved me wrong. Not only were they honest when assessing their own work, the feedback that they gave to themselves -- the strengths and weaknesses that they identified and the suggestions for improvement that they offered -- was AT LEAST as good as the feedback that I would have offered. That probably means that I really CAN trust them to be evaluators of their own work -- which MIGHT mean that I can spend less time killing myself to give them formal feedback on every task that I assign. #lessonlearned The VAST majority of my kids enjoyed giving and receiving feedback from their peers MORE than receiving feedback from me. The difference between our first and second attempts at self-assessment was simple: After the first task, I collected student self-assessments and gave each student individual feedback myself. After the second task, students partnered with a peer and gave one another feedback. When I asked my kids which approach they liked the best, they almost unanimously chose receiving feedback from their peers -- and their reasoning was sound: They got MORE feedback from their peers AND they got that feedback immediately. "You only wrote me two sentences, Mr. F" one of my favorite boys told me, "and it took you a WEEK to give me my paper back. That's not very helpful!" And he's right: It DID take me over a week to get feedback to my students -- and even after spending 8 hours of planning time on that task alone, I was only able to give each kid 2 or 3 sentences of feedback. That's what happens when you have 120 kids on your student load. While relying on peer evaluation still seems sketchy to me -- after all, the quality of feedback that a student receives is completely dependent on the quality of the peer that they are working with -- I'm more confident than ever after seeing the kinds of feedback that students gave themselves that peer feedback can play at least SOME role in our classroom. #lessonlearned The VAST majority of my kids wanted to give themselves a number rating anyway. One of the most interesting trends that I saw in the feedback that my students gave themselves was that they were CONSTANTLY slipping numbers into their self-assessment. Statements like, "I would rate my work a 3 out of 5," or "I would give myself an 80 for this" were sprinkled everywhere. What's more, when we talked as a class about what my kids liked and disliked about self-assessment, more than a few students mentioned that the thing they liked the least was NOT having a final number to refer to. "I just want to know what I would have earned," they'd say. #oldhabits #hardtobreak #lessonlearned For the amount of time that I spent on this activity, it was hard NOT to put something in the gradebook. The fact of the matter is that no matter how much I believe in self-assessment, I STILL have to generate a numerical average for the kids in my class. As a result, it's REALLY hard to spend the amount of time that I spent on this activity -- 2 days of class time and about 8 hours of planning time responding to student feedback -- WITHOUT adding something to my gradebook. #oldhabits #hardtobreak #lessonlearned In the end, I was jazzed with our self-assessment experiment -- and I'm sure that kind of work will continue to play a role in my classroom. My students loved the fact that they could be honest with themselves about the quality of their work because they didn't need to worry about a grade. That carries value in and of itself for a guy who is sick of scores being more important than learning something new. And I loved the fact that my students were the ones sweating the assessment. Formative assessment expert Dylan William argues time and again in his work that kids should be working harder than teachers in the assessment process. That definitely happened in my room this week. My kids were genuinely engaged in evaluating their own performance against a set of clearly defined criteria -- and that's cool. Questions? Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Looking forward to hearing what you think.

Post weekly (weekly)

Jim Gates — Sat, 05 May 2012 20:31:00 +0000

50 resources for iPad use in the classroom | ZDNet

50 resources for iPad use in the classroom | ZDNet http://t.co/reNcPtNr #ipaded #edtech @artwithmsb

tags: ipaded edtech
Subtext

http://t.co/BvHfoQc9 awesome, lots of potential for social reading in 1:1 iPad schools. #subtext #ipaded

tags: subtext ipaded
16 Incredible iPad Apps for ESL Learners | Smartlearning Guide

16 fantastic iPad apps created for ESL learners: http://t.co/R0ZUTi8c #esl #edtech #ipaded

tags: esl edtech ipaded
iPad productivity apps - Matt Gemmell | iPads in Education Daily | Scoop.it

iPad productivity apps - Matt Gemmell | http://t.co/YSPogBSv Good blog post about necessary apps. #ipaded #appchat

tags: ipaded appchat
Search Education – Google

With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they're just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training.

tags: google search
Docs Blog: April in Review: New fonts galore and other fresh features

New fonts galore and other fresh features http://t.co/kF0u2iWD
Google Web Fonts

For use with Google Docs. Fun stuff!

tags: fonts google

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.