Group items tagged

"This database contains the official UN statistics used in monitoring the world's progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. The database is published by the United Nations Statistics Division. Data is included as of 2011, or early 2012 for a few select indicators and countries only." Search data by what, what, topic, or geographic area.

Posters, websites, and video that explain statistics, particularly for the world of humans, in visual ways. A good way to investigate culture and content areas, as well as math.

"he introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high-speed internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps. " While this is a pay-per .pdf file, it looks to have some significant data about the effect of technology on reading and math. Worrisome!

"Index Mundi is a site that provides a huge amount of information about every nation in the world. This site is a data portal full of information, statistics, charts and maps that users will find easy to navigate because the information is all categorized and is easily accessible on the home page. The site not only offers data about individual nations but it has comparison maps and charts as well as an entire area dedicated just to the United States. With data ranging from health, to economics, to energy consumption,and so much more, Index Mundi is an amazingly useful site that just about any educator can use in the classroom."

"Free Math Help offers a variety of free tools to help students with Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and statistics. The site has a simple interface with color coded tabs identifying their four categories which are lessons, calculators, games, and forums." This blog post describes the website, which includes over 100 lessons, calculators, and games for younger learners.

A place to share educational uses of wikis. Good examples: "The educational wikis on this page are listed in alphabetical order. They are awesome and we invite you to add your educational wiki to our list! You may also add the name of your country and a mini flag. Thank you! You may view visitor statistics here."

Discusses why a study in Romanian seemed to indicate that introducing computers LOWERED test scores in math. One answer is the type of statistics analysis used. Another, perhaps more accessible, is that children were given a "bare-room" Windows PC--no educational software, which though available, had to be self-installed. For novices at or below poverty level, how was this to be done. And without educational/pedagogical infrastructure from the school, why would it be done.

"This website is an integrated collection of the indicators and analyses published in The Condition of Education 2000-2008. Some indicators may have been updated since they appeared in print." From the US Dept of Education and Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics --Elizabeth Hanson-Smith

"No reliable research has ever demonstrated that instruction designated as appropriate for any "tested" learning style is effective because it matches that style. The research is missing several important control validations. For example, there are no statistically valid studies comparing the response of a mixed-learning-style control group with the results of a learning-style-matched group. To qualify as "effective," there must be support of claims that superior outcomes are the direct result of teaching to individual learning styles and not a general result to the instruction. There is no evidence that "visual learners" have better outcomes to instruction designed for "visual learners" than do mixed-style learners taught using the same instruction. Without comparison groups, the before and after results could simply mean that the particular instruction is the most effective method for teaching that specific content to all students (Pashler, et al)." Excellent blog debunking some of the neuromyths that instruction is guided by, particularly in the public school system of the U.S.

"Ever wonder why stores offer discounts or how the lottery works? Math concepts like percentages, probability, and statistics have a huge impact on the world around us! Use these videos, graphics, and lesson plans to explore math in new, inventive ways. Discover how math helps explain current issues like the gender-wage gap, credit card debt, rising obesity rates, and more."

In this TED talk, Andreas Schleicher describes a new scale, "PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment), an initiative of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). PISA not only tests students on their mathematical understanding, reading level and ability to apply learning to new problems, but also looks at what teachers get paid, how long the school day is, what the average class size is and whether quality of education is uniform across schools and social stratifications. It even measures cultural attitudes, like whether people in the country expect all students to achieve or only a small segment of them to. It's this broad approach to data collection that makes PISA so powerful, says Schleicher." An interesting way for a country to compare where it is and how it compares globally.

"Quandl is a repository of time-series data on the internet, tailored for researchers, students and other data professionals. Quickly find the numerical data you need Get that data in any format you want Have complete transparency to the source of the data Quandl is open and free. Quandl currently has over 6 million time-series datasets. Most of the data is in the domains of finance, economics, demography, sociology, energy and the environment. 1000s of new datasets are added to Quandl daily."

You can put a question up on the website and then students reply with their webcam. It's a nice tool for oral language practice, digital storytelling, debates, etc. R. Stannard shows how to use the tool and suggestions for lesson plans. He notes that you will need a fairly fast internet connection.