There are a lot of great problems here that could be used in math class. Starting class with one of these problems could be a great way to hook students into the lesson and have the students start generating their own questions and problem solving methods. Then, the math can be brought in appropriately. A lot of these problems seem to lend themselves to the "3 Act Task" model. A video/image representing the problem could go a long way in getting kids hooked.
"Function Carnival changes that. Students watch a video. They try to graph what they see. Then they play back the video and see how their graphical model would be represented as an animation. Does what they meant to graph about the world actually match the world?"
This is an explanation of a new online math tool called "Function Carnival." The link to the tool is in the opening paragraph.
Further explanation of the tool can be found here: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=18420
"Mark talked about the idea of using Evidence-Based Arguments as a starting point. Every historical investigation needs to begin with a great question. Then they asked kids to do research and create videos. But what they got was disappointing. What they got was basically text with pictures, a script with a background. It wasn't a story, it wasn't engaging, and it often didn't really answer the question. They begin to realize that they needed to learn more about how to create high-quality documentaries, how to use images and video to actually tell a story.
And eventually they came up with a Four Step Process that students work through to create high-quality documentaries:"
4 Step Process for creating HST videos.
I don't necessarily agree with the author's thought that tech should not be introduced until step #4, as tech can enhance 1-3 just as well. The teacher just needs to model good behavior and help students develop structures for the work in these phases for it to be successful.
Are we questioning the status quo?
An interesting innovation website focused more on the business community, but the concepts can be applied in education.
Site contains innovation model and pyramid:
Question >Observe>Network>Experiment>Associate>Innovate
A place where I was playing around with aggregating interesting word usage, writing prompts, poetry etc. It might be a model for larger groups or for students which is where it'd get interesting.
An interesting model for novel reflection in general and vocabulary specifically.
"Favorite passage: "The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!"
Words looked up:
Mole (As in "downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves ..."): A massive, usually stone wall constructed in the sea, used as a breakwater and built to enclose or protect an anchorage or a harbor.
Decoction: An extract obtained from a body by boiling it down.
Orchard thieves (Melville refers to having to pay for things as "the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us."): I have no idea what this alludes to. Update: D'oh! I am dumb. I (repeatedly) misread this as "orchid thieves," no doubt because I recently read the book of the same name. Yes, the meaning of "orchard thieves" is clear."
A real world example of the perpendicular bisector. ""The model says that if you have two gangs that are equal in their competitive abilities, the boundary between them will be equidistant and perpendicular between their anchor points," Brantingham says. "It's a nice, simple, geometric organization.""
I don't know if aerodynamics is a field of study in high school, but this is pretty cool. You could take this video and do something interesting with it in Logger Pro to analyze wingspeed or do something else that I'm not thinking of currently...