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Here I share a report on informal science learning. The report synthesizes research on science learning across three primary venues--everyday/family life, designed experiences in informal institutions, and out-of-school programs. The evidence presented suggests that learners' informal experiences with science, from museum visits to television shows to observations in nature, contribute strongly scientific knowledge and engagement. I agree with the fact that such informal experiences boost learning, especially science and additionally language learning.

Famous article by Nicolas Carr. What do you think?

I like these sentences from the text: "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.". Because the way we read has changed with new strategies(scanning and scimming quickly) and a great deal of information. That's why we rather google it then reading hundreds of pages.(Or ctrl-f works pretty good in some cases:)) However, I do not think that we are getting more stupid. Our brain has been evolving with new technologies and habits and probably will keep doing that. So we are not so much eager to keep some information in our minds since we are sure that we can reach them anywhere anytime. For instance, children no longer memorize multiplying tables but it does not tell us that they can not solve multiplication problems.They have another instruments to save time and energy :)

I agree with the ideas of Afra and Sinem. Sometimes I experience this while reading articles for my thesis and I have to write the key points for myself. However, I believe that we are not getting stupid, because we are now in technology era. We cannot abstain from appyling google for any information. It is really cost-effective in terms of time and money. I think that we will have to face with more new technologies in future, but this cannot mean that we will get more stupid. It is the requirement of our era we live in and we have to adapt ourselves.

A brief information on situated learning and Jean Lave : )

Thanks for sharing this Ayşegül, I found authentic context and information sharing really important in the explanation about situated learning. We should create situations for our students' internalization of the information. I think when they share, they make the information permament in their mind.

Here is the Scribner and Cole (1973) article mentioned in Chapter 2 on informal learning. Worth to read.

SITE, the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education, is an international association of teacher educators (and affiliated organizations) who create and disseminate knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education and faculty/staff development. SITE promotes research, scholarship, collaboration, exchange, and support among its membership.

Many UK children have become less confident about succeeding in life by the time they leave school, a report says. The study by think-tank Demos says some pupils feel school is just preparing them for exam success. It urges the government to help schools and colleges explore how self-belief, perseverance and resilience can be instilled in pupils.

I think that not only UK chidren but also our children less confident and unhappy in real life. If same research is done in Turkey, I think that similar results can be obtained. Students spend 12 years in school (primary school, secondary and high school). And they learn socialising, success, failure in school. In traditional classrooms, success is gaining high score in exam, ranked in first three in competition and failure is gaining lower scores on exam. When students leave the school, they face with new environment that is not similar to school. I think, therefore, they can not adopt to this new environment they feel unhappy and less confident. For this reason, schools should bring the skills and qualities that are needed for out of the school. Community service course, role playing, field works should be done in the schools to introduce real life experinces to students. In addition, changing the laerning activites, assesment procedures in school also can be helpful for real life experinces.

In several videos it was said that we start to prepare our pupils for jobs that are not invented yet. It is because there are lots of information production and exchange throughout world now, which makes lots of jobs become obsolete in short period of times. Our students need to have skills to locate, synthesis, and evaluate information and adapt theirselves to new contexts instead of having static knowledge about specific jobs.

We are especially familiar with the psychological flow triggers. In this slide, Steven Kohler who is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, and the cofounder and director of research for the Flow Genome Project varies flow triggers in four categories; psychological, environmental, social and creative. Kohler mentions flow triggers in more details in his book called The Rise of Superman. I watched trailers of his book beside watching this slide. I think it is a good point to relate creativity and flow in this way. Also, social and environmental aspects are essential because not in every flow moment, we're alone. So, I think this slide (and the book if you can buy) would be informative for you.

It's a really informative video which explains project based learning. I liked its clear guiding questions to make students reach the solution just like experts.

The combination of technology, pedagogy and content knowledge is represented well in this video. It seems very informative and has simple explanation. Also, there are good examples for TPACK model which also aims students work collaboratively.

It is an interesting video related to learning which occurs around the world.

I agree with the idea that we are all really fortunate and We should never stop learning regardless of our status, gender, and etc. also, the video advises us to make a distinction between right and wrong . once people believed that the earth was flat but at those times there were people that they knew that the earth is round. so, in order to be like the ones who are always at the right side we should be very careful and should nor accept every information as it is and question it.

If the education would be completely trading thing, that would be an affective commercial! It gives an overview to several kinds of education and its oppurtinities as well as motivation!

A visionary article from Mitchel Resnick. "The shift in focus from "information" to "knowledge" is an improvement. But I prefer a different conception: the "Creative Society." As I see it, success in the future will be based not on how much we know, but on our ability to think and act creatively"

Thanks for sharing this. I would like to check more on the "computer club houses" as some of the things are related to our last week's discussion on informal learning as well as situated learning topic that we will be discussion next week.

Pınar, I think Carnegie Learning "Success Stories" page does not provide the information whether the research group uses the tutoring system as additional or supportive on top of the control group's traditional lesson content. So if the research group only used the tutoring system then it is a significant result.

I think it was a supportive program because in the report it was stated that the Cognitive Tutor Algebra I curriculum consisted of classroom instruction, software sessions, and text. However, the information provided in the report is not sufficient to make an evaluation of the program, other variables might have influenced the results.

This paper can help us neuroscience week… It is too interesting New research indicates that glia cells are "the brain's supervisors." By regulating the synapses, they control the transfer of information between neurons, affecting how the brain processes information. This new finding could be critical for technologies based on brain networks, as well as provide a new avenue for research into disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy.

This is a nice little newsletter that mentions some characteristics of situated learning. Some resources on situated learning and its usage in learning environments are offered !

Firstly, it was a nice source to read, thanks for sharing it. I agree with you time concerns, teacher and student charateristics are prominent to implement the principles of situated learning in practice. It is really difficult to create authentic learning environment in our classes under the stess of keeping up with the curriculum which is based on traditional theories of learning. Thus, it is the work of the curriculum specialists to revise the curricula to be more in line with the improvements in the field of learning sciences.

There is a case study which I really advise you to look at it. It is about a political course in which they took a government's problem about content and design of websites. He says "given all the considerations at work in municipal government, the students will decide how the power of the web can best be brought to bear on making government work better."

This news is about the ethical issues that may arise by learning analytics practices. A software program called Course Signals tracks various pieces of information, including the number of points earned in the course and the amount of time the student has spent logged in to the college's software platform. When students at Purdue University are reading their homework assignments, sometimes the assignments are reading them too. Our assignments are reading us. Should we be warned before the course begins? What do you think?

I have seen this post when I was searching for how can interaction with peers contribute to learning maths. It is written by ROBERT SUN who is the CEO of Suntex International and inventor of First In Math, an online program designed for deep practice in mathematics. The things that are mentioned felt very similar with our country's situation actually, as learners how do we use concepts of maths (or any other courses) except from school? May be the first reason for our students cannot learn and hate maths is behind this question.

"Teachers can encourage their students to express themselves verbally using mathematical terms; even in the early grades, children can be asked to explain what they want or mean using numbers, or relationships between numbers. Anything that encourages them to talk about math and mathematical concepts is beneficial." Social math!. It looks like article emphasizes the importance of language in information exchange. It reminds me Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory in which he also believed that language is important for learning. He also purported that language is culture-dependent so each cultures' learning may be different from each other. In addition, providing opportunity to students to express themselves verbally can give us clues about current mental maps of students as to a specific topic (what is correct, what needs improvement, etc.). In addition, students can transfer their transformed ideas (ideas transformed from scholarly language to level-appropriate language) to their friends which can facilitate their learning.

Yasin, I am curious to hear about some of the contemporary approaches towards teaching Math, a subject generally taught with more traditional methods. Regarding mathphobia, we also need to think about the culture that stimulates that.

College professors and instructors can learn a lot from the chapters of a digital textbook that they assign students to read. Reynol Junco, an associate professor in Iowa State University's School of Education, says digital books provide real-time analytics to help faculty assess how students are doing in the class.

In this research, digital textbook is used for predicting students outcomes. With help of digital text book, instructors can track the time students spend reading. On the other hand, with regular textbooks, instructor do not know how students are doing or whether they read the assigned material or not until they give a graded assignment. Digital text book gives opportunity to teacher to monitor their students' actions and can take precation to make students read the material.With help of digital text book, instructors can track the time students spend on reading. By this way, instructor can gain some information like the material complexity for students reading level and s/he can adapt course material or take other precautions to help students succeed.

We have heard some ideas or theories about better learning from our teachers during the school years. I had organized some science fairs during my past teaching years. However none of them was in the project settings. In this project students learn how to carry out a research about how we learn by reading and listening. In your opinion, which one results in more information retained, reading or listening?