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"It seems only fitting to explore the role of questions in education by asking questions about the process of doing so. I propose that we start with the customary way of framing this topic and then proceed to questions that are deeper and potentially more subversive of traditional schooling. 1. WHICH QUESTIONS? To begin, let's consider what we might ask our students. The least interesting questions are those with straightforward factual answers. That's why a number of writers have encouraged the use of questions described variously as "true" (Wolf, 1987), "essential" (Simon, 2002), "generative" (Perkins, 1992; Perrone, 1998), "guiding" (Traver, 1998), or "fertile" (Harpaz & Lefstein, 2000). What the best of these share is that they're open-ended. Sometimes, in fact, no definitive right answer can be found at all. And even when there is one - or at least when there is reason to prefer some responses to others - the answer isn't obvious and can't be summarized in a sentence. Why is it so hard to find a cure for cancer? Do numbers ever end? Why do people lie? Why did we invade Vietnam? Grappling with meaty questions like these (which were among those generated by a class in Plainview, NY) is a real project . . . literally. A question-based approach to teaching tends to shade into learning that is problem- (Delisle, 1997) and project-based (Kilpatrick, 1918; Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Wolk, 1998). Intellectual proficiency is strengthened as students figure out how to do justice to a rich question. As they investigate and come to understand important ideas more fully, new questions arise along with better ways of asking them, and the learning spirals upwards. Guiding students through this process is not a technique that can be stapled onto our existing pedagogy, nor is it something that teachers can be trained to master during an in-service day. What's required is a continual focus on creating a classroom that is about thinking rather

"It has me thinking about what it would mean to improve online classes. A few ideas come to mind: Use multiple platforms. I'm not against using an LMS as a central hub. However, I think it's valuable to experiment with the types of productivity tools you will actually use outside of a classroom. Use Google Docs to share ideas, create surveys, and ask questions. Use Google Hangouts to meet as a group. Go project-based. I haven't figured this out entirely with my first class but my hope is that we can go fully project-based in the same way that my face-to-face class is. In fact, the asynchronous nature of online classes actually means there is a better potential of creating a project-based culture that mirrors the way people actually work on projects. Make something together. I use a collaboration grid with co-creating and communicating on separate spectrums (x-axis) and multimedia and text on another spectrum (y-axis). This has been an effective way to think through collaborative tools that allow students to co-create. Embrace a synchronous/asynchronous blend: I love using Voxer because students can speak back and forth in the moment. However, if they miss it, they can listen to it later. The same is true of using a Google Hangouts On Air. Make it more connective. We tend to treat online instruction as if it is a linear process and we don't do enough to link things back and forth and connect ideas, resources, discussions and content creation in a seamless, back-and-forth nature. Incorporate multimedia. It's a simple idea, but I create a short video at the beginning of each week and I encourage students to create video and audio as well. This has a way of making things more concrete. There's something deeply human about hearing an actual human voice. I know, crazy, right? Go mobile. I don't simply mean use a smart phone. I mean assign some things that allow students to get out in the world and create videos, snap pictures, or simpl

"As an educator who is addicted to Twitter I have always read about students getting introduced to Twitter and wondered how it would work. After reading and reading I have finally decided to give it a go. Here is my introduction to Twitter in my classroom. Last Tuesday, the day started like any other. Roll call, discussion, introduction to an activity and a bit of a laugh with my Year 7 and 8 Technology class. We had been discussing the importance of being an active online user and being a positive digital citizen (the students are preparing some presentations for Year 2-3 children later in the term). The conversation moved into learning environments and we discussed the small and "un-student friendly" (their words) environment that they were currently sitting in. "Take the teachable moment and run with it" my inner, energetic teacher yelled from my shoulder. So there we were talking about the "Ultimate Learning Environment", when one of my students asked me "Why is social media so big?". Good question I thought, why is it 'so big'. So we unpacked that question and broke it down. We talked about Social Media and what it was and how it worked, they gave me excellent examples and we tied it back into our discussion about digital citizenship. From this point, as a class, we decided we would use social media to help us with our learning. The students had no idea how it could work. I suggested twitter and how I use it. We pulled up my profile and saw how it worked (discussion only). The decision was then made -> Let's ask the twitterverse to help us!! On rolled Monday 5th May and in our first class (I see this group twice a week) we decided that tomorrow would be the day, we would ask twitter for their advice on "What makes a GREAT learningenvironment?". The students already have some fantastic ideas and a plan of where they want to see their environment heading but they needed some depth to their plan and some other opinions outside of

1) the ways they currently implement Twitter in their teaching and learning, 2) ideas for future development of Twitter-based assignments and pedagogical practices, and 3) issues concerning the integration of Twitter and other digital media into both traditional and non-traditional pedagogies. Collaborators should feel free to add material to these pages, to comment on existing material, and to share links to relevant external readings and resources. It may be helpful to tag your contributions with your Twitter handle. Collaborators are asked to please respect this space as a forum for open and respectful dialogue and networking. Let's fill up the pages below with great ideas!  Share the ways you currently implement Twitter in your teaching and learning: Students in my course New Information Technologies do an "Internet Censorship" project, focused on a specific country. I ask them to follow a journalist who tweets on that country as part of their research to understand the state of Internet freedom in the country they select. -- Lora Since shortly after Twitter was launched, I've experimented with various iterations of "The Twitter Essay," an assignment that has students considering the nature of the "essay" as a medium and how they might do that work within the space of 140 characters. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) In my fully online classes, I've started using Twitter to replace the discussion forum as the central location for student interaction. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) Show Tweets that have gotten people arrested and prompt discussion on whether it is fair that anyone be arrested for any Tweet in the US, who is likely to be arrested for their Tweets, what kinds of Tweets are likely to prompt arrest, etc. Students in my First Year Seminar course "The Irish Imagination: Yeats to Bono" developed a platform for digital annotation of Irish literature. Embedded in their platform was a twitter feed of relevant individuals/groups, makin

"1. The teacher is choosing the technology. It's not always possible, but when you can, let the students choose, and see what happens. Not all of them will be able to. Some need help; so let other students help them. 2. The teacher is choosing the function. This doesn't mean you can't choose the function, but if you students can't control the technology the use nor its function, this can be problematic: the learning is passive from the beginning. 3. The teacher is determining the process. To an extent you have to, but don't overdo it. 4. The technology is distracting. If the technology is more magical than the project, product, collaboration, process, or content itself, try to muffle the bells and whistles. Or use them to your advantage. 5. The technology isn't necessary. You wouldn't use a ruler to teach expository writing, nor would you use a Wendell Berry essay to teach about the Water Cycle. No need for a Khan Academy account and a fully-personalized and potentially self-directed proficiency chart of mathematical concepts just to show a 3 minute video on the number line. 6. The process is too complex. Keep it simple. Fewer moving parts = greater precision. And less to go wrong. 7. Students have access to too much. What materials, models, peer groups, or related content do students actually need? See #6. 8. The teacher is the judge, jury, and executioner. Get out of the way. You're (probably) less interesting than the content, experts, and communities (if you're doing it right). 9. They artificially limiting the scale. Technology connects everything to everything. Use this to the advantage of the students! 10. They're not limiting the scale. However, giving students the keys to the universe with no framework, plan, boundaries or even vague goals is equally problematic. 11. Students access is limited to too little. The opposite of too board a scale is too little-akin to taking students to the ocean to fish but squaring of

Muy interesante herramienta para pasar tablas de datos a visualizaciones gráficas, en vectores y personalizables... "RAW works with tabular data (i.e. information which is possible to record or track in a spreadsheet). There are many ways you can upload your data in RAW: Dropping a plain text file containing delimiter-separated values such as .csv or .tsv. File extension does not matter, as long as you use one of these delimters: comma, semicolon, tab or colon. Copying and pasting your data from a spreadsheet (e.g. Microsoft Excel, Google Docs, Apple Numbers...) or a text file. This is particularly helpful when you do not want to (or can not) export your data any time you change it or when you want to use only specific columns. Typing your data directly into the text area. While it is unlikely to use this option, it can be useful for editing your data."

"By "NLRBE," I mean core resource-based economy ("RBE") concepts, as fleshed out and expanded by Peter Joseph and his organization, "The Zeitgeist Movement" ("TZM"). *Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of-date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified "advice" is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurances of confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients). By "RBE," I mean the original economic model, as presented by Jacque Fresco and his "Venus Project" ("TVP"). My take on his RBE model is more fully explained in my last blog post, "What Do I Mean by 'Resource-Based Economy' (or 'RBE')?" Given what I heard in a recent talk by Joseph, I am now sorely tempted to begin using the term "NLRBE," rather than "RBE," to refer

"1. Blogging enables reflection. This is true for both students and educators. Too often do we go through our days, class to class, with minimal opportunities for reflection on our experiences or the information that we have acquired along the way. Blogging offers the opportunity to take a step back and connect with our learning and place it in the context of the bigger picture. Make reflection an assignment or part of another assignment - it is an important component to learning. For students: This is not the easiest thing to accomplish - blogging takes time and that is a finite resource during a busy class period. There is great opportunity in academic support periods or advisory classes for students (particularly in 1:1 schools) to blog. Many advisory classes take place throughout the day, which is a great break point for students to create based on their learning from that day. For teachers: This type of reflection can and should be compiled into your lesson planning for future lessons. Take what you learned from teaching and learning that day and incorporate it into the next day's lessons. Find time to do this during a conference period during your day or right after school. Yes, it is tough to get in the habit of doing a new thing - but once you start using reflection through blogging, I think that your lesson planning will be easier and much more meaningful. 2. Develop an Authentic Audience An authentic audience is a great way to increase rigor and in all of my experiences has led to increased performance by students. Authentic audiences in blogging could mean any number of things - family members, students from other classes, students from other buildings, other teachers, individuals interested in the content from around the world, etc. A student knowing that their work may be seen by people other than what they consider their 'typical audience' (read: teacher) typically spends more time and exerts more effort to creating a quality p

"Our new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content. Low-tech Magazine was born in 2007 and has seen minimal changes ever since. Because a website redesign was long overdue - and because we try to practice what we preach - we decided to build a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered version of Low-tech Magazine. The new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content. Why a Low-tech Website? We were told that the Internet would "dematerialise" society and decrease energy use. Contrary to this projection, it has become a large and rapidly growing consumer of energy itself. In order to offset the negative consequences associated with high energy consumption, renewable energy has been proposed as a means to lower emissions from powering data centers. For example, Greenpeace's yearly ClickClean report ranks major Internet companies based on their use of renewable power sources."

"This book is a collection of homework problems for use in an introductory physics course. It is a work in progress, currently complete through mechanics and electromagnetism. There is a complete set of ancillary materials, including solutions and an online answer checker. If you're an instructor, you can use these problems as a plug-in replacement for the ones in a commercial textbook, thus insulating yourself from common hassles associated with using the problems from a commercial text. For example, you can change books without having to redo all your problem sets, or you can tell your students that they can use any edition of a particular text."

"The Minute Paper comes in many variations, but the simplest one involves wrapping up the formal class period a few minutes early and posing two questions to your students: What was the most important thing you learned today? What question still remains in your mind? Taken together, those two questions accomplish multiple objectives. The first one not only requires students to remember something from class and articulate it in their own words (more about that in a moment), but it also requires them to do some quick thinking. They have to reflect on the material and make a judgment about the main point of that day's class. The second question encourages them to probe their own minds and consider what they haven't truly understood. Most of us are infected by what learning theorists sometimes call "illusions of fluency," which means that we believe we have obtained mastery over something when we truly have not. To answer the second question, students have to decide where confusion or weaknesses remain in their own comprehension of the day's material. Closing connections. If we want students to obtain mastery and expertise in our subjects, they need to be capable of making their own connections between what they are learning and the world around them - current events, campus debates, personal experiences. The last five minutes of class represent an ideal opportunity for students to use the course material from that day and brainstorm some new connections.The metacognitive five. We have increasing evidence from the learning sciences that students engage in poor study strategies. Likewise, research shows that most people are plagued by the illusions of fluency. The solution on both fronts is better metacognition - that is, a clearer understanding of our own learning. What if all of us worked together deliberately to achieve that?Close the loop. Finally, go back to any of the strategies I introduced in my recent column on the first five minutes of clas

"Choice Eliminator will eliminate options from a multiple-choice, list, or checkbox type of question. Choice Eliminator is designed for light use only, and may be unreliable when multiple people are taking the form at the same time. Use Dropdown type of questions instead of multiple choice for better reliability. Choice Eliminator will eliminate options from a multiple-choice, dropdown, or checkbox type of question. Great for signing up for time slots or having students choose topics without doubling up. Version 2 uses spreadsheet functions to keep the results up-to-date, besides being more reliable when using limits, this allows you to restore eliminated choices and set the order."

* Create new PDF or edit existing ones. * Add and/or edit bookmarks in PDF files. * Fast and simple PDF forms fill out. * Changing font attributes (size, family, color etc). * Encrypt and/or protect PDF files using 128 bit encryption. * Convert XPS files into PDF. * JavaScript support. * Dynamic XFA form support. * Validation Forms and Calculate Values. * Add PDF controls (like buttons, checkboxes, lists, etc.) into your PDFs. * Import/export PDF pages into common graphical formats including BMP, JPG, PNG, and TIFF. * Signing PDF documents with digital signature, signatures creation and validation. * Free PDF Editor on Linux ( for non-commercial use)

* Create new PDF or edit existing ones. * Add and/or edit bookmarks in PDF files. * Fast and simple PDF forms fill out. * Changing font attributes (size, family, color etc). * Encrypt and/or protect PDF files using 128 bit encryption. * Convert XPS files into PDF. * JavaScript support. * Dynamic XFA form support. * Validation Forms and Calculate Values. * Add PDF controls (like buttons, checkboxes, lists, etc.) into your PDFs. * Import/export PDF pages into common graphical formats including BMP, JPG, PNG, and TIFF. * Signing PDF documents with digital signature, signatures creation and validation. * Free PDF Editor on Linux ( for non-commercial use)

The Atlantic covers consequential news and ideas in politics, business, entertainment, technology, health, education, and global affairs.

"MapMap is a free, open source software for projection mapping aimed at artists and small teams. Its intuitive interface facilitates learning and promotes artistic expression. This software is available on Windows, OSX, and Linux. MapMap gives users the ability to projection map on any surface of choice. Mapmap takes media sources and gives users the ability to manipulate the media into different positions and shapes. Media sources can come from any various accepted media formats. With an easy to understand interface, new users can get started in minutes. Projection mapping, also known as video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a projection technology used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into a display surface for video projection. These objects may be complex industrial landscapes, such as buildings. By using specialized software, a two or three dimensional object is spatially mapped on the virtual program which mimics the real environment it is to be projected on. The software can interact with a projector to fit any desired image onto the surface of that object. This technique is used by artists and advertisers alike who can add extra dimensions, optical illusions, and notions of movement onto previously static objects. The video is commonly combined with, or triggered by, audio to create an audio-visual narrative."

"Last year I went to West Kalimantan in Borneo to see for myself the effects of the runaway growth of the palm oil industry. I came home firm in the belief that Iceland would not continue using palm oil until companies delivered on their zero deforestation commitments. This is because palm oil has had devastating consequences for local communities, who are being displaced, and on endangered species like the orangutan (our closest relative in the wild), which are being driven close to extinction. Palm oil has many benefits, chiefly that its yields are better than the alternatives. But it is grown almost exclusively in areas of tropical rainforest, which are the 'crown jewels' of our planet's biodiversity. With 146 football pitches of rainforest being lost every hour in Indonesia alone, the urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated. And global demand is set to double by 2050. At Iceland the 1,000 tonnes of palm oil we used annually pale into insignificance compared to many of our competitors. As such a tiny player we took the decision that the only way we could create meaningful change was to shout very loudly from outside the established palm oil industry. So we decided simply to stop using palm oil until the industry cleaned up its act. It was our own decision to give consumers a choice where previously there was none. We never called for a wider industry ban, and accept entirely that a wholesale boycott of palm oil is not the right long term solution. ..."

"No country in the world currently meets the basic needs of its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use. Our research, recently published in Nature Sustainability (and summarised in The Conversation), is the first to quantify the national resource use associated with achieving a good life for over 150 countries. It shows that meeting the basic needs of all people on the planet would result in humanity transgressing multiple environmental limits, based on current relationships between resource use and human well-being. The chart below demonstrates the profound challenge nations currently face. National performance on seven environmental sustainability indicators is plotted against eleven minimum social thresholds for a good life (see About page for further details). Ideally, nations would be located in the top-left corner with no biophysical boundaries transgressed and all minimum social thresholds achieved."

"TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables anyone to build visually rich, interactive timelines. Beginners can create a timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet, like the one we used for the Timeline above. Experts can use their JSON skills to create custom installations, while keeping TimelineJS's core functionality. "

"In this Instructable, I'm going to be showing you how to build your own crack the code game in which you use a rotary encoder dial to guess the randomly generated code to the safe. There are 8 LEDs on the front of the safe to tell you how many of the digits you've guessed are correct and how many are in the right place as well. The safe is initially open, allowing you to put something into the inside compartment. The Arduino and battery are housed in a separate compartment in the back. You then push the dial to lock the safe, which is done using a servo on the inside of the door. You then need to input the code by turning the dial to select the digits and pushing the dial to confirm each digit. After your fourth digit is chosen, the safe displays how many of your digits are correct and how many of them are in the correct place using the red and green LEDs on the door. "

"In terms of energy conservation, the leaps made in energy efficiency by the infrastructure and devices we use to access the internet have allowed many online activities to be viewed as more sustainable than offline. On the internet, however, advances in energy efficiency have a reverse effect: as the network becomes more energy efficient, its total energy use increases. This trend can only be stopped when we limit the demand for digital communication."