Intel Foundation: Changing attitudes is key in STEM education
Several studies have reported that during the next 10 years, there will be millions of open jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields – also known as…
Around the Web
News from around the web.
One child at a time: Custom learning in the digital age
Imagine you're at a dinner party, American RadioWorks reports.
Interstates and E-rates
The Labor Day weekend is fast disappearing in my memory's rear view window, but the traffic experience of a three-mile stretch of barely moving vehicles on I-95 is…
Reinventing school from the ground up for inquiry learning
A grave miscalculation exists in the minds of many educators: That inquiry-based learning, project based learning, and 21st century competencies can flourish in industrial model schools, Mind/Shift reports.
Why is innovation so often synonymous with disappointment?
The Harvard Business Review reports: Because a pure idea is a beautiful thing, and seeing it get mauled as it struggles to become something real can be highly…
Beyond passwords: New tools to identify humans
The New York Times report that as everything around us becomes connected to the internet, from cars to thermometers to the stuff inside our mobile phones, technologists are…
NJ schools ask students to bring their own tech to school
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when bringing a cell phone or other hand-held digital device to school could earn a kid detention or a visit…
6 tech tools that boost teacher-parent communication
Most educators agree: Effective communication with parents is important (if not crucial) to helping students learn, according to Graphite.
If Massachusetts was a country
The self-proclaimed educational "reform" movement is busy packaging Common Core standards with high-stakes assessment, scripted curriculum, packaged test prep, the de-professionalization of teachers, and the privatization of school…
How to build powerful tech-infused lesson plans
More and more educators are leveraging technology in their classrooms, which is one aspect of being a 21st century teacher helping their students (and probably themselves, too) to…
25 techie problems every student can fix
The Number One reason–according to students–why their computer doesn’t work is… It’s broken, according to AskATeacher.
Are teachers trying to turn creative kids into robots?
The cover story of the latest edition of The New Republic wonders whether American educators have fallen in blind love with self-control. Author Elizabeth Weil thinks we have.
Every student deserves the opportunity to succeed this school year
Nearly 50 million U.S. elementary and secondary students have headed back to school this week for the start of a new school year, the Huffington Post reports.
I will not check my son’s grades online five times a day
The Atlantic reports: Last week I received a letter from my son’s high school that started like this: "Dear Parent/Guardian, PowerSchool, our student information system, allows you to…
How a road trip can be the best professional development
It sounds funny, but it makes complete sense, Instructional Tech Talk reports.
eBooks could be the future of social media
In the future, eBooks will act just like social networks, Co.LABS reports.
The STEM crisis is a myth
You must have seen the warning a thousand times: Too few young people study scientific or technical subjects, businesses can’t find enough workers in those fields, and the…
If we were really serious about educational technology
If we were really serious about educational technology, we would… [here are 10 to get you started].
Milestones in science education
“Leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today — especially in science, technology, engineering and math,” President Obama has declared.
Can technology help students find the “sweet spot” for learning?
Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham wrote a book called Why Don’t Students Like School?
iPhone fingerprint scanner? We’ll find out Sept. 10
It's official: Apple will be unveiling something new on Tuesday, September 10, CSMonitor.com reports.
A new teacher asks: “How do I do this?”
He was a big man, a presence to be reckoned with on any football team, the Huffington Post reports.
‘Sesame Street’ widens its focus
The New York Times reports that on “Sesame Street,” a distressed cow has a big problem.
L.A. sheriff: Pay for preschool, not prisons
The man who runs the nation’s largest jail system came to Washington on Monday to promote what he considers a potent tool in crime-fighting: universal pre-school, The Washington…
2 basic ways how to add technology to your curriculum
We know that many of our readers are already integrating a lot of technology into their classrooms, Edudemic reports.
How schools are failing nonconformist kids
Of the possible child heroes for our times, young people with epic levels of the traits we valorize, the strongest contender has got to be the kid in…
‘Heat days’ becoming almost as common as snow days
When city students arrived for the first day of school under the blazing temperatures of a Midwest heat wave, staff greeted them with some unusual school supplies: water…
Should teachers be parents first?
Should people who want to be teachers become parents first? asks The Washington Post. The idea is raised in this ... Read more
Forget books, students say gimme tablets
Take a quick jaunt through some of the education blogs in our Lifestyle section, and you'll know that mom bloggers are all talking about back to school, Technorati…
New Zealand bans software patents
CBC News reports that in a move widely seen as a boost for innovation and competition in the technology sector, New Zealand has passed a law that will…
How much ‘value’ can teachers really add to student achievement?
As a high school English teacher, it’s heartening to think I can “add value” to all of my students, according to The Washington Post.
Video games are the perfect way to teach math, says Stanford mathematician
Video games are a much better representation system for learning mathematics than are symbolic representations on a static page, Forbes reports.
Advice from teachers to parents
The Huffington Post reports: Like many teachers, I have a good relationship with the parents of my students.
MIT unleashes new online game for math and science
As the buzz around games and learning continues to grow, one particular subset — Massive Open Online (MMO) games — is catching the attention of educators as a…
The Common Core Standards are a decent answer to a decent question
The Common Core standards aren’t awful, TeachThought reports.
How to flip an online course
Flipping the classroom isn’t just for those who are teaching in a physical classroom with their students right in front of them, Edudemic reports.
U.S. leads the way in requests for Facebook user data
The U.S. leads the world—by far—in requests for Facebook user data, the social network reported in its first Government Requests Report, which covers the first six months of…
The most ridiculous ed idea of the week (so far)
The Washington Post reports that the most ridiculous ed idea of the week so far comes to us from Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott organized a three-day education…
What we can learn from the smartest kids in the world
In this excellent review of Amanda Ripley’s new book “Smartest Kids in the World,” Annie Murphy Paul highlights one of the biggest changes in how we perceive American…
The envelope, please…
Ten weeks ago, I made some predictions about New York City’s 2013 proficiency rates on the New York State English Language Arts and mathematics assessments.