A Capella Science

Even if you don't teach science, you need to watch this video.  It's a work of art on many levels, and I have no idea what they're talking about.  I know everything I know about string theory from watching The Big Bang Theory.

The Weird Truth About Arabic Numerals is a MUST WATCH

I love the Green brothers, John and Hank.  They make tons of videos on YouTube and have a number of channels there dedicated to teaching us ALL THE THINGS in small doses.

Here's one from the "scishow" channel:

Excellent blog post on Learners as Producers

This post by Steve Wheeler in England really captures a lot of what I believe about the shifts happening in education, whether we want them to or not, and whether we're ready for them or not.

Gone are the days of students and teachers.  Now, we're all learners.  Teachers are lead learners, or learning leaders, functioning as coaches and advisors to help younger learners through their journeys.

Do you love science? COOL infographic!

Oh my gosh, I LOVE this.

Source: http://dailyinfographic.com/do-you-love-science-infographic

What's wrong with this picture? CS is THE field, yet we don't prepare students for it.

Yes, I DO remember that this blog is here.  Life got busy and, well, excuses, excuses....

My colleague Lisa Diffenderfer brought this to my attention from code.org, which is a great site for helping get the word out about the field of computer science.

I LOVE this infographic they shared on the site:

First, we don't have enough students taking computer science to fill the more than a million anticipated jobs in CS over the next seven years or so.



A college degree in CS brings in the highest pay of any field out there.




We have fewer students graduating with degrees in CS than ten years ago!






Most of our schools don't even offer CS courses. (Harker's got an amazing CS department, with LOTS of great courses.)




Too many states don't require CS courses for graduation, so that might be the place to start.  Harker requires a half year of CS for graduation at the upper school level.

Goobric isn't just a cute name for a Google Rubric. It's kind of a miracle.

So I've been playing around (in a serious, totally work-related and productive way) with a Google Script called Doctopus.  This fellow Andrew Stillman is approaching deity-level status in his amazing output of helpful Google Apps Scripts AND his willingness to help a n00bie teacher like myself when she's having trouble.  His latest offering is an add-on to Doctopus called Goobric, which enables the teacher to create a rubric and attach it to the documents (or spreadsheets, drawings, or presentations) distributed via Doctopus.

Yes, I know, to the novice user, I am speaking Pig Latin.  But seriously, folks, this is EPIC.  Jay Atwood, another fine fellow in the field of EdTech, has made an overview video that makes these tools so much easier to understand:

 

Pardon me while I fall completely in love with PBS Idea Channel.

So I'm doing research on Minecraft in education, and of course a video comes to my attention from the people out there in the Interwebz.  And that led me to an earlier video by the same crew.  And I am hooked.

First video, about how things like Minecraft and Makerbot (3-D printing) may be helping to create the Post-Scarcity Economy, which heretofore has primarily been theoretical:

 

And then the video that led me to that gem,  Is Minecraft the Ultimate Educational Tool?

Of course, I'm excited about the content of these, and I love the continuous stream of humor and pop culture references.  But more than anything, I really just dig the format.