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Whyville , What does it take to build a sustainable, green energy community? 8th Graders are showing us how using WhyPower, an interactive learning game within the largest interactive learning world, WhyVille. Here is an interactive game. http://www.poweracrosstexas.org/projects/whypower-interactive-game Energy Game:  WHYPOWER Whyville is a thriving community with its own economy, newspaper, government and much more.  It now has its own power grid!  As part of the WhyCareers program, we are “electrifying” Whyville with a power grid that uses traditional and renewable energy sources.  Students will manage the power grid to select the right mix of coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar and wind energy. They will build homes in Whyville!  They will observe and measure power use in Whyville, and form good energy behaviors and habits. Finally, they will explore the math, science and career topics related to energy.  Just like in real life, success in Whyville is not pre-programmed!  Students skill, initiative, creativity and teamwork determines the rewards they receive and the “virtual money” they earn in WhyPower. Whyville. Run a city using energy reources.

Asking good questions and encouraging students to build on one another’s thinking gives students voice and enables them to become more critical thinkers in mathematics.

students move into pairs to write their ideas, solutions, and strategies. A variety of materials, such as linking cubes and two-colour counters, are available for students to choose from when constructing mathematical models, making conjectures, and connecting their ideas.

It doesn't solve anything. It is a great first step in reframing the role of the teacher in the classroom. It fosters the "guide on the side" mentality and role, rather than that of the "sage of the stage." It helps move a classroom culture towards student construction of knowledge rather than the teacher having to tell the knowledge to students.

We must first focus on creating the engagement and then look at structures, like the flipped classroom, that can support.

If the flipped classroom is truly to become innovative, then it must be paired with transparent and/or embedded reason to know the content.

Students want more control over how they use technology in school, but many classrooms are still making it difficult.

A whopping 45 percent of middle-schoolers and 55 percent of high-schoolers say that they mainly access the Internet through mobile devices.

esistance from administrators, 52 percent of whom said they don’t allow students to use any personal mobile device in class, at least partially because a blended learning model represents a shift in the relationship between teacher and student.

the Department of Education should not be “a national school board.

to think that first-graders fluently reading would “cure poverty” is not only indefensible, it trivializes the great economic inequities that are the root cause of our nation’s greatest challenge.

I have witnessed schools move from progressive practices such as inclusion, to the grouping of special education students with ELLs and other struggling learners into “double period” classes where they are drilled to pass the test.

The most obvious takeaway, he said, was that "the age of the computer lab is kind of out," in which students travel out of their classrooms to log on.

The idea kids can access tools for learning 24 hours a day and can access learning not bound by the walls of the school is critical," Hobbs said. "It's indicative of what we mean by a 21st-century education."