Group items tagged

Lately I have been thinking a lot about thinking. More specifically, I have been thinking hard about the absence of thought in education. The absence of thought in students, teachers, administrators and policy-makers. This year's political discourse is a wider-world reminder of the ubiquitous lack of thought on the part of otherwise educated adults. We know more but are oddly - increasingly? - thoughtless. Why? Thinking, in the sense in which I am interested, is not mere mental work (or idle mental noodling). There is certainly lots of that going on everywhere. Thinking in the educational sense is not about doing one's work. Little thought need go into a typical course pacing guide or by a student in filling in a Venn diagram. Those are mental tasks. Such work cannot by itself yield a truly thinking person.

Students learn mathematics by DOING mathematics, and not by watching someone else do mathematics. In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of high quality digital resources available from the Net and elsewhere that allow students to investigate, explore or consolidate the topics they are learning in their maths class.

cool for early years counting by 2s

Another recommendation by Kathy. Create your own timeline

A great website recommended by Kathy. Have a look!

Catastrophic thinking is on the rise. And why not? The economy is frail, the earth is overcrowded, the specter of war looms. But Pascal Bruckner is here to calm your nerves. Pascal Bruckner is a French writer and philosopher whose latest book is The Paradox of Love. His article was translated by Alexis Cornel.

grade explanation of theimpact of gaming on ed and the world economy, as well as skills taught by gaming

Another amazing Google Project. From the archaeological areas of Pompeii to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Google's World Wonders Project aims to bring to life the wonders of the modern and ancient world. By using our Street View technology, Google has a unique opportunity to make world heritage sites available to users across the globe. Street View is a hugely popular feature of Google Maps which is already available in dozens of countries. It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images. With advancements in our camera technologies we can now go off the beaten track to photograph some of the most significant places in the world so that anyone, anywhere can explore them.

For years, almost no-one wanted to talk about education policy. Suddenly everyone is. Of course, just because you can invoke the name of "Gonski" doesn't mean you've read the Sydney businessman's talismanic report on schools funding reform, much less understood it. Schools funding is a complex topic. There's an alphabet soup of abstract acronyms (SES, AGSRC) and a spaghetti diagram of administrative structures. Funding for a particular school could include money from parents, from a major church, from a state or territory, and from Canberra. The formula is set with a bewildering array of equations, fed by the demographic chance of Census data.

A+ Click is a free site full of online mathematics games for students at all grade levels. You can find games on A+ Click by selecting a grade level then selecting a topic. Alternatively, you select just a topic or just a grade level and browse through all of the games. Students do not need to register in order to play the games.

I was even more intrigued when he made reference to the work of Bernard Suits that claims there are three constituent parts that make up games: To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude].

Great getting started and how to for edmodo: Edmodo is a 'walled garden' social networking tool designed by teachers for teachers and students. 

I was even more intrigued when he made reference to the work of Bernard Suits that claims there are three constituent parts that make up games: To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude].

Why do we bother... What I mean by this is... Dah!

Good site for kids to get free images that have been released by creative commons lisence

Collective Knowledge Construction model developed by ideas lab, fantastic read to apply to why we use ICT

Looking for something to jazz up your literacy lesson? Check out Domo by goannimate. A free animation tool that allows you to create funky looking animations. A great tool for any literacy lesson especially if wanting to emphasise dialog, setting and characterisation for creative writing. 

Fun, great to view, some people have time on their hands!  These experiments were created by designers and programmers from around the world using the latest open standards, including HTML5, Canvas, SVG, and more. Their work is making the web faster, more fun, and more open - the same spirit in which we built Google Chrome.

Great article by Kenneth Davidson re: Gillard Government continuing to use the Howard era school funding model 

Another useful post by one of my favourite Edubloggers. This guy just keeps on keeping on! This post is about google forms and how they can be used in the classroom. I used Google forms to create the staff survey on the 1:1 program. Imagine the students using this for the end of the week spelling test or maths diagnostics or any of these data collecting excersises completed using google forms and then instantly sent to a spread sheet.