Chino Carpenter Builds Hundreds of Free Desks

Chino-based software engineer and carpenter, Chai Hansanuwat, started building free desks for students in need after he was recently laid off from his job in technology. With the massive shift to at home learning, desks are often out of stock, increasingly overpriced from the demand, and many families with multiple children can’t afford the cost of buying desks for each child. In response, Hansanuwat began building and donating desks to families, and created a network of other carpenters willing to donate time and supplies to help reach more families.

“I had no idea how big the need was until I started building free desks for local families,” said Chai Hansanuwat. “What started as one request for a family in my community grew to 20, which then grew into 250 requests and counting.”

Hansanuwat was inspired to start the initiative after learning about a family in his community with four students, and without access to a table or desk large enough to fit them all. The family had recently relocated to California to live with their grandmother following a job loss caused by the pandemic. Hansanuwat, who has been a hobbyist carpenter for over 12 years, built four free desks for the family. Word spread about his good deed and he received hundreds of requests from families in the area in need of desks, and without the means to buy them.…Read More

Video: How edtech connects

At SXSW EDU 2018, The Christensen Institute’s Director of Education Research, Julia Freeland Fisher, reveals innovative schools that are creating learning models that strengthen teacher-student relationships, and emerging edtech tools that promise to expand students’ networks to experts and mentors from around world.

Julia’s current research focuses on emerging tools and practices that leverage technology to radically expand who students know – their stock of “social capital” – by enhancing their access to, and ability to, navigate new peer, mentor, and professional networks. She is the author of the forthcoming book Who You Know: Unlocking Innovations that Expand Students’ Networks. Prior to joining the Institute, Julia worked at NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy organization that supports education entrepreneurs who are transforming public education. She also served as an instructor in the Yale College Seminar Program. Julia holds a BA from Princeton University and a JD from Yale Law School.

Visit https://www.sxswedu.com/ to learn more about SXSW EDU and subscribe to SXSW EDU on YouTube for more great videos https://www.youtube.com/user/SXSWEDU.…Read More

What Google’s virtual field trips look like in the classroom

Google Expeditions are field trips with a virtual reality twist

google-expeditions Last spring, Hector Camacho guided his high school economics class on comprehensive tours of the New York Stock Exchange, Federal Reserve banks, and the Treasury Building. Students swept their eyes up countless Neoclassical columns before heading inside for a detailed look — all without leaving the library of their Mountain View, California school.

The catch? Students were plugged into Google’s latest virtual reality creation — Expeditions, which creates immersive, 360-degree tours out of a cardboard viewer and a smartphone.

“The best thing about it that we can’t physically go to these faraway places,” Camacho said. “At the high school level, time is really precious. For field trips, you have to worry about buses, lunches, permission slips. If you can remove all those obstacles, still take them to a very faraway place, and give them a similar experience, that’s powerful.”…Read More

The 5 worst stock photos for education

Nothing says ‘here’s an education photo’ like tacky outfits and meaningless representations!

education-photosAs education editors, especially as ones who don’t have a large field team to snap perfectly-timed, high-res photos to go along with our stories, it’s up to us and our powers of keyword searching to find an appropriate photo that accurately conveys the topic of our story.

Going through third-party stock photos, the often-times “OMG! You guys have to see this” reaction we get during our tedious scavenger hunts never gets any less incredulous, as we see, time and again, horribly inaccurate, offensive, and just plain weird photos of what are supposed to be today’s classrooms, technology, students and teachers.

We know Mondays usually aren’t the best days of the week, and to help put a smile on your face, as they often do on ours, we wanted to share with you the 5 worst stock photos for education we love to hate. It’s not news, but we hope it will provide some much-needed joy for a Monday Fun-day!…Read More