Criteria for a Meaningful Classroom Assessment
To address these requirements, I ask myself the following guided questions:
Does the assessment involve project-based learning?
Does it allow for student choice of topics?
Is it inquiry based?
Does it ask that students use some level of internet literacy to find their answers?
Does it involve independent problem solving?
Does it incorporate the 4Cs?
Do the students need to communicate their knowledge via writing in some way?
Does the final draft or project require other modalities in its presentation? (visual, oral, data, etc...)
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Articles | What Makes Them Click - 79 views
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What if we applied the psychology of what makes technology attractive to students...to our practices in the classroom? Using this idea, in addition to using more technology in the classroom, why not design the traditional human / face-to-face classroom experience to be more like what makes technology so engrossing to modern students? Do these principles sound familiar... Deliver information in bite sized chunks, Create mental models, Use short stories to help process information, Learning happens and is remembered through repetition, People are motivated by Progress and Mastery, Sustained attention lasts 10 minutes, and the use of Progressive Disclosure. Here are 100 little articles that could have big implications in the classroom.
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FlockDraw - Collaborative group whiteboard - 66 views
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could be a simple way for students to create quickly create a mind map together. It could also be used by students to sketch diagrams and other drawings for use in slide presentations.
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A great drawing site where users can make collaborative drawing chat rooms to create art together in real time. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Art,+Craft+&+Design
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shared by Tracy Tuten on 09 Aug 12
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How Can We Make Assessments Meaningful? | Edutopia - 170 views
www.edutopia.org/...ningful-heather-wolpert-gawron
assessment rubric learning edutopia classroom teaching howto
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So how can high-stakes assessments be meaningful to students? For one thing, high-stakes tests shouldn't be so high-stakes. It's inauthentic. They should and still can be a mere snapshot of ability. Additionally, those occasional assessments need to take a back seat to the real learning and achievement going on in every day assessments observed by the teacher. The key here, however, is to assess everyday. Not in boring, multiple-choice daily quizzes, but in informal, engaging assessments that take more than just a snapshot of a student's knowledge at one moment in time. But frankly, any assessment that sounds cool can still be made meaningless. It's how the students interact with the test that makes it meaningful. Remember the 4 Cs and ask this: does the assessment allow for: Creativity Are they students creating or just regurgitating? Are they being given credit for presenting something other than what was described? Collaboration Have they spent some time working with others to formulate their thoughts, brainstorm, or seek feedback from peers? Critical Thinking Are the students doing more work than the teacher in seeking out information and problem solving? Communication Does the assessment emphasize the need to communicate the content well? Is there writing involved as well as other modalities? If asked to teach the content to other students, what methods will the student use to communicate the information and help embed it more deeply?
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Another way to ensure that an assessment is meaningful, of course, is to simply ask the students what they thought. Design a survey after each major unit or assessment. Or, better yet, if you want to encourage students to really focus on the requirements on a rubric, add a row that's only for them to fill out for you. That way, the rubric's feedback is more of a give-and-take, and you get feedback on the assessment's level of meaningfulness as soon as possible.
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Download the example (left) of a quick rubric I designed for a general writing assessment. I included a row that the participants could fill out that actually gave me quick feedback on how meaningful or helpful they believed the assessment was towards their own learning.
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Tinkatolli - 99 views
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This is a fun, cute, social 3D island world designed especially with children in mind. Children make an avatar and follow a quick tutorial and explanation of safety rules. The children can take their characters on quests, play educational games and interact with other users of the site. A fabulous feature of the site is that users are encouraged to 'make and do' offline as well. These activities can be uploaded to a scrapbook and multimedia blog. Offline activities also generate points in the game. The scrapbook is defaulted to private and no photos of children will be approved by moderators if the scrapbook is public. All the usual safety features are in place, including a 'report' and 'block' other users button. The basic account with most features is free, but there are optional 'paid for' extras. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools
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shared by Clint Heitz on 23 Nov 15
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Edu Leadership:Tech-Rich Learning:The Basics of Blended Instruction - 38 views
www.ascd.org/...cs-of-Blended-Instruction.aspx
classroom blended learning technology blended_learning edtech
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Blended learning, with its mix of technology and traditional face-to-face instruction, is a great approach. Blended learning combines classroom learning with online learning, in which students can, in part, control the time, pace, and place of their learning. I advocate a teacher-designed blended learning model, in which teachers determine the combination that's right for them and their students.
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Student-centered classrooms are the goal of my teacher-designed blended learning model. Giving students control over the learning process requires that they know how to communicate, collaborate, and solve problems in groups, pairs, and individually. This work can be messy, loud, and disorganized, but in the end, the learning is much more meaningful.
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Then I found Collaborize Classroom, a free, dynamic discussion platform. I used it to replace many of my pen-and-paper homework assignments with vibrant online debates, discussions, writing assignments, and collaborative group work.
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Remember that mistakes lead to learning. The best resources I've designed and the most effective strategies I've developed were all born from and refined through mistakes.
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I anticipated that students might hit some bumps as they navigated their first TED-Ed lesson, so I set up a TodaysMeet back channel so students could ask questions, make comments, and access a support network while going through the online lesson. A back-channel tool makes it possible for people to have a real-time conversation online while a live presentation or real-time discussion is taking place.
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I asked students to reference specific details to support their assertions, as did one student who commented on the town's poverty by noting that the local doctor often took potatoes as payment for his work. She also showed how the characters nevertheless reflected the country's "cautious optimism" about its future: That same doctor was still able to support himself, she pointed out, and he enjoyed his work. Students posted their responses, complimenting strong points made, asking questions, and offering alternative perspectives.
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I asked students to analyze examples of strong discussion posts and revise weaker posts. I also realized that I needed to embed directions into our discussion topics to remind students to respond to the questions and engage with their peers. I started requiring them to thoughtfully reply to at least two classmates' posts, in addition to posting their own response to the topic.
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It's crucial for students to see that the work they do in the online space drives the work they do in the classroom so they recognize the value of the online conversations.
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For example, during the To Kill a Mockingbird unit, we researched and discussed the death penalty in preparation for writing an argument essay. The students debated online such issues as cost, morality, and racial inequality and then delved into these topics more deeply face-to-face in class.
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In the classroom, the teacher might give small groups various topics to research. Then he or she could ask students to go online to research and discuss their topic on a shared Google Doc and create a presentation using Glogster, Prezi, or Google Presentation Maker.
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When we read Romeo and Juliet, I use this strategy to encourage students to research such topics as the monarchy, entertainment, and gender roles in Elizabethan England so they have a better understanding of the historical context in which Shakespeare wrote. Back in the classroom, each group then presents its findings through an oral presentation.
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Compared with traditional in-class group work, which typically yields a disappointing finished product, online work provides the time necessary for students to complete quality work together.
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Some teachers think that incorporating online work means they have to be available 24 hours a day. This is not the case. When students are connected online, they have a network of peers they can reach out to for support, and they begin to see one another as valuable resources in their class community.
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I've embedded a Google map in my website that has pins dropped in all the locations on our campus and in our community where there are computers with public access to the Internet.
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shared by Marc Safran on 30 Jul 09
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Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants - 1 views
www.twitchspeed.com/...l%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.htm
digitalnatives web2.0 pedagogy prensky article pd professionaldevelopment integration
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Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.
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The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn - like all immigrants, some better than others - to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past.
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our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language
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Digital Immigrant teachers assume that learners are the same as they have always been, and that the same methods that worked for the teachers when they were students will work for their students now. But that assumption is no longer valid. Today's learners are different.
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So what should happen? Should the Digital Native students learn the old ways, or should their Digital Immigrant educators learn the new?
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it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other thing
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As educators, we need to be thinking about how to teach both Legacy and Future content in the language of the Digital Natives.
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Adapting materials to the language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully. My own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.
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But while the game was easy for my Digital Native staff to invent, creating the content turned out to be more difficult for the professors, who were used to teaching courses that started with "Lesson 1 – the Interface." We asked them instead to create a series of graded tasks into which the skills to be learned were embedded. The professors had made 5-10 minute movies to illustrate key concepts; we asked them to cut them to under 30 seconds. The professors insisted that the learners to do all the tasks in order; we asked them to allow random access. They wanted a slow academic pace, we wanted speed and urgency (we hired a Hollywood script writer to provide this.) They wanted written instructions; we wanted computer movies. They wanted the traditional pedagogical language of "learning objectives," "mastery", etc. (e.g. "in this exercise you will learn"); our goal was to completely eliminate any language that even smacked of education.
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We need to invent Digital Native methodologies for all subjects, at all levels, using our students to guide us.
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L3D Philosophy - 36 views
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Learning is a process of knowledge construction, not of knowledge recording or absorption. Learning is knowledge-dependent; people use their existing knowledge to construct new knowledge. Learning is highly tuned to the situation in which it takes place. Learning needs to account for distributed cognition requiring knowledge in the head to combined with knowledge in the world. Learning is affected as much by motivational issues as by cognitive issues.
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Professional activity has become so knowledge-intensive and fluid in content that learning has become an integral and inseparable part of "adult" work activities.
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require educational tools and environments whose primary aim is to help cultivate the desire to learn and create, and not to simply communicate subject matter divorced from meaningful and personalized activity.
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information technologies have been used to mechanize old ways of doing business‹rather than fundamentally rethinking the underlying work processes and promoting new ways to create artifacts and knowledge.
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current uses of technology in education: it is used as an add-on to existing practices rather than a catalyst for fundamentally rethinking what education should be about in the next century
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important challenge is that the ?ld basic skillsº such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, once acquired, were relevant for the duration of a human life; modern ?asic skillsº (tied to rapidly changing technologies) will change over time.
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We need computational environments to support "new" frameworks for education such as lifelong learning, integration of working and learning, learning on demand, authentic problems, self-directed learning, information contextualized to the task at hand, (intrinsic) motivation, collaborative learning, and organizational learning.
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Instructionist approaches are not changed by the fact that information is disseminated by an intelligent tutoring system.
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ubstantial empirical evidence that the chief impediments to learning are not cognitive. It is not that students cannot learn; it is that they are not well motivated to learn.
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Most of what any individual "knows" today is not in her or his head, but is out in the world (e.g., in other human heads or embedded in media).
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Lifelong learning is a continuous engagement in acquiring and applying knowledge and skills in the context of authentic, self-directed problems.
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challenge of whether we can create learning environments in which learners work hard, not because they have to, but because they want to. We need to alter the perception that serious learning has to be unpleasant rather than personally meaningful, empowering, engaging, and even fun.
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making information relevant to the task at hand, providing challenges matched to current skills, creating communities (among peers, over the net), and providing access to real practitioners and experts.
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What "basic skills" are required in a world in which occupational knowledge and skills become obsolete in years rather than decades?
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problem solving in the real world includes problem framing calls into question the practice of asking students to solve mostly given problems.
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How can schools (which currently rely on closed-book exams, the solving of given problems, and so forth) be changed so that learners are prepared to function in environments requiring collaboration, creativity, problem framing, and distributed cognition?
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teachers should see themselves not as truth-tellers and oracles, but as coaches, facilitators, learners, and mentors engaging with learners
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QR Stuff - QR Code Generator - 54 views
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easy to use QR code generator with a lot of options for different codes; suggestion by Gretchen Schroeder
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Print QR Codes Generate printable QR mobile phone-readable 2D barcodes containing a website URL, an email address, a phone number, a pre-formatted SMS message or just plain text to use as paper prints, DIY stickers, temporary tattoos or iron-on T-shirt transfers. Design A Custom QR Code T-Shirt Generate your own QR Code and then you and your code are sent to the Zazzle print-on-demand website to complete the selection of your shirt style, size and color for immediate purchase, printing and delivery direct to your door.
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Generate QR codes. Encode any text, such as poems, letters or short stories, website links, contact details... the list goes on. You can even choose the colour. They make great displays. All this is free, but you can also buy 'stuff' with a QR design printed on it.
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shared by Darcy Goshorn on 12 Jul 10
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App Inventor for Android - 42 views
appinventor.googlelabs.com/about
android Google app development inventor programming Application apps phone mobile for:cffcoach cs computerscience
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You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone. But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud. To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.
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About Us | Betaversity | Making Room For Creativity - 22 views
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"Betaversity is an education technology company that creates and supports collaborative prototyping spaces for post-secondary schools. We use the latest rapid prototyping technology and design thinking methodologies to help students learn by doing. We are a product-driven company that manufactures, rents, and sells BetaBox Mobile Prototyping Labs. These mobile lab facilities help schools maximize student satisfaction while minimizing expenses."
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21st Century Fluencies - 76 views
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This blogpost discusses the aims of the 21st Century Fluency Project This resource is the collaborative effort of a group of experienced educators and entrepreneurs who have united to share their experience and ideas, and create a project geared toward making learning relevant to life in our new digital age. Our purpose is to develop exceptional resources to assist in transforming learning to be relevant to life in the 21st Century. At the core of this project are our Curriculum Integration Kits - engaging, challenge based learning modules designed to cultivate the essential 21st Century Fluencies within the context of the required curriculum.
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How to Give Your Students Better Feedback in Less Time - 127 views
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Imagination - 77 views
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Make art out of ribbons of light with this interactive drawing site. Just move your mouse around to create beautiful patterns. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Art%2C+Craft+%26+Design
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Mondrimat - 77 views
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This is a great site for creating virtual art. Make art in the style of Piet Mondrian. This art style lends itself to maths with stimulus for fractions and proportion. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Art%2C+Craft+%26+Design
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Free Visual QR Code Generator | Custom QR Code Design | Visualead - 123 views
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This site makes it easy to create images merged with QR codes. It's great for creating stylish interactive logos or add QR links or info to photos. Just choose an image, enter the QR code details, drag into place and download the result. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools
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SNHU: How Paul LeBlanc's tiny school has become a giant of higher education. - 1 views
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t deploys data analytics for everything from anticipating future demand to figuring out which students are most likely to stumble.
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“Public institutions will not see increasing state funding and private colleges will not see ever-rising tuition.”
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tackle what colleges were doing poorly: graduating students. Half the students who enroll in post-secondary education never get a degree but still accumulate debt
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school spends millions to employ more than 160 “admissions counselors” who man the phones, especially on weekends, guiding prospective students into the right degree program
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vast majority are working adults, many with families, whose lives rarely align with an academic timetable.
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“College is designed in every way for that 20 percent—cost, time, scheduling, everything,” says LeBlanc. He set out to create an institution for the other 80 percent, one that was flexible and offered a seamless online experience
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low completion rate can be blamed partly on the fact that college is still designed for 18-year-olds who are signing up for an immersive, four-year experience replete with football games and beer-drinking. But those traditional students make up only 20 percent of the post-secondary population.
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online courses are created centrally and then farmed out to a small army of adjuncts hired for as little as $2,200 a class. Those adjuncts have scant leeway in crafting the learning experience.
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An instructor’s main job is to swoop in when a student is in trouble. Often, they don’t pick up the warning signs themselves. Instead, SNHU’s predictive analytics platform plays watchdog, sending up a red flag to an instructor when a student hasn’t logged on recently or has spent too much time on an assignment
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MAKE HOMEMADE SCIENCE TOYS AND PROJECTS - 12 views
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You have found the non-commercial, teacher-created site for people who like to roll up their sleeves and make science toys and projects. You won't find slick, well-designed web pages here--more like the digital equivalent of a messy workshop. If you poke around though, you'll find good stuff. Science toy maker is a resource for inspired kids, parents, teachers, teenagers, home schoolers, science fair participants and citizen scientists everywhere.
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When the Social, not the Medium, is the Message: On the spaces we make for vi... - 28 views
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"Periodically I find myself confused about my online presence and contributions. Am I using wikis, blogs, twitter, social networks, and email effectively? Effective by what criteria? Indeed, who am I trying to influence? My explorations of what others say about this recently has led me to a position-albeit a provisional one... The social, not the medium (or technology), should be the primary consideration. The criterion we need to apply in designing our online presence and contributions could be something like: "Am I welcoming and cultivating apprentices who are getting prepared to go on and cultivate the kinds of interaction in virtual and physical space that support their own work?" "