Posts by Guest Author
Hall Davidson at TASA 2013: Tablet Device as Backpack
I had never heard Hall Davidson speak until I saw him at the Midwinter meeting of the Texas Association of Schools Administrators. If you have not heard his presentation, you are in for a treat: enthusiasm, energy, state-of-the-art information. As we say around here in Texas, it was the whole enchilada.
Let’s Give Girls a Chance to Succeed in STEM
There is a digital divide threatening the future of girls in this country. Three of the top ten “Best Jobs of 2013” are in the computing field, according to U.S. News and World Report, yet women make up just 25% of the labor force in science, technology, engineering and math-based (STEM) jobs. With all projections pointing to STEM-sector jobs continuing to grow at a higher-than-average rate, today’s young women cannot occupy just the fringes of the field.
What an Educator Learned From Home Schooling Parents
When I started my blog about the new research on parenting and education, one of the first topics that I wrote about was home schooling. I came across new findings about the explosion in parents opting out of both private and public education, the ways that parents are using new technology and virtual learning to teach their own children, and about other trends in home schooling, such as un-schooling.
20 Apps (Games) for Play-based Learning
Even though older adults might still carry a negative association with video game consoles and devices, today’s technology is vastly different than it was 20 years ago.
50 Educational Podcasts You Should Check Out
Maybe you don’t have time to sit down and sift through the latest education blogs for ideas and inspiration. If the thought of trying to carve out more hours in your day leaves you feeling overwhelmed, this list is for you.
How Minecraft is Teaching a Generation About Teamwork & the Environment
Minecraft, as it stands, has sold around twenty million copies across multiple platforms. It's arguably one of the most successful games of all time, and a demonstration of the fact that videogames do not have to be sexually charged gore-fests in order to be accepted by gamers en masse. Summarily, it's a game in which you are placed in a natural, procedurally-generated environment, and you must cut down trees, mine stone and ore, and generally manipulate your environment to build a home for yourself or go on a journey.
3 Tech Tools for the Sped Classroom
Being a Special Education teacher is something that takes patience and a warm heart. These teachers are truly in it for the love of seeing a student develop as a person socially and mentally. However, they seem to be in need of and short of resources more than most other classrooms.
What Role Does Social Media Have in Education?
Recently, Compass Learning interviewed about 30 educators, including teachers, principals, superintendents, directors of curriculum and learning, and consultants, at the Texas Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development conference held in Dallas. We wanted to know what role—if any—social media (Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, etc.) plays in the classroom, in the school, or in the district. The answers were interesting.
New Ideas On What Colleges Want to See Out of Prospects
We all remember the students from our own graduating classes who did it all. Their GPAs were at the top of the class, or very near to it. They might have played two or three different sports, and served as captain in one or two of them. They were members of two or three clubs, with a leadership position in student government or National Honor Society. They were the ones who we viewed as “well rounded,” likely to get into a highly selective college.
Q&A: Jenn Karson of Vermont Makers
SparkFun’s Department of Education engages in educational outreach all over the country, and we’re always impressed and excited when we run into people and organizations as enthusiastic about electronics as we are. Over the past few years we’ve met a lot of people involved in the maker movement on the east coast, and Vermont continues to stand out as a state invested in furthering STEAM and electronics education in new ways. (In fact, Vermont’s Department of Education recently instituted a grant structure that will give SparkFun Inventor Kits to Career and Technical Education Centers around the state to provide preliminary Arduino training for FIRST Robotics teams!)