Wayfinding

I had a couple of new thoughts on the importance and intricacies of wayfinding this week.  The first came from my son who is gearing up for the winter swim team at his school.  In order to get in shape, he’s joined a local gym (with a pool) and heads over there most days, after [...]

Social Networking and Contagion

If you haven’t yet read the Sunday NY Times article on social networks (written by Clive Thompson) and their relationship to behavior, do it. Stop what you’re doing now (alright, maybe finish reading this post) and go read it.  You’re going to love it.
To recap briefly…for years, social scientists have been looking for an extensive [...]

Say What?!

For those of you with weak stomachs, you might want to sit down before you read this one.  Chicago Public Schools have recently approved a district-wide policy that prohibits teachers from contacting students through cellphones, non-CPS email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs or any web site created off the district’s network.  Here is the pdf of the [...]

Mentoring

I just returned from a short trip to Sacramento to visit my mother (who turned 70 this year – happy birthday, Mom!) and my stepfather, Dale.  They live in a duplex in the South Land Park neighborhood of California’s capitol city.
Not long after moving there, Dale found a small community of like-minded people at the [...]

Report from Oxford and the Science Visualizaton Conference

I’m in Oxford, England this week, attending a science visualization conference.  There are scientists from many academic traditions (chemistry, computational science, cognitive psychology, physics, astronomy, computer science, and biology), gathering to ponder the questions related to how we visualize our science.
The five-day meeting is structured with sessions in the morning and evening, afternoons are free [...]

Parental Coaching

So, I’m sitting in Logan airport, waiting for my flight to St. Louis and my eye is captured by a mother with a gorgeous little boy, wearing Elmo slippers. They are waiting for the same flight.  In his restlessness, the boy wanders over to a bank of pay phones and his Mom patiently attends him, [...]

21st Century Skills

I’ve been thinking a lot about “21st Century Skills” lately.  Mostly because the publisher of our high school biology program wants my coauthor and I to add a section to the front-end of the textbook on the topic.  Seems a bit ironic to put such content into a print medium, but that’s ok.  People will [...]

Digital Media Student Projects

I’m always looking for good student media project examples from clever teachers and, lucky me, I hit the jackpot this week when I met Larry Schmidt.  Larry is a high school English teacher in Minnesota who teaches online courses for EdVisions High School.  EdVisions sounds like a pretty interesting idea….to quote their web site, it’s [...]

Transformations

Have you heard about the transforming building?  I just love this story.  This building in the photograph above, was designed by the Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas, to shift its shape to fit the desired use.  Each of the four sides within the structure’s tetrahedron contain a different shape, better suited to a specific venue.  When [...]

Teaching and Learning with Wikipedia

Every once and awhile we see a new flurry of educational outrage over the idea of students using Wikipedia as a resource for their essays or projects.  Each time the kerfuffle flares up, I’m amazed all over again that teachers have this reaction.  If I understand the concerns correctly, they are 1) that Wikipedia is [...]