Group items tagged

David Dowling's website where he has created poetry and video to accompany them -- to teach kids about the sun, the planets, flower, the Great Wall, clouds, DNA, etc.

Article re how the color and shape of rooms affects the thinking that goes on inside the rooms... "They tested 600 subjects when surrounded by red, blue or neutral colors-in both real and virtual environments. The differences were striking. Test-takers in the red environments, were much better at skills that required accuracy and attention to detail, such as catching spelling mistakes or keeping random numbers in short-term memory. Though people in the blue group performed worse on short-term memory tasks, they did far better on tasks requiring some imagination, such as coming up with creative uses for a brick or designing a children's toy. In fact, subjects in the blue environment generated twice as many "creative outputs" as subjects in the red one. Why? According to the scientists, the color blue automatically triggers associations with openness and sky, while red makes us think of danger and stop signs. (Such associations are culturally mediated, of course; Chinese, for instance, tend to associate red with prosperity and good luck.) It's not just color. A similar effect seems to hold for any light, airy space."

Article about GBL on Edutopia - good for our research!

"How a handful of researchers are trying to save childhood" by Tom Barlett.... Interesting article on the range of research on the importance of play.... I will be buying some of the books mentioned in the article for the PD collection of the library.

Minecraft - reasons for playing.

How to re Google Slides

Great reminders as we kick off another school year

If you are a parent who has been limiting your child's computer play because of the claims you have read of harmful effects, the research summarized here and in my previous posts on video gaming might give you pause.  The bulk of the research suggests that the claims about negative effects of video gaming are largely myths and the positive effects are real.  As children know in their bones, the kinds of mental skills that video games help to develop are among the skills that are increasingly important in today's world.

Many educators are interested in the idea of connecting their classes to other classes or individuals that could have a positive influence on their students. They just aren't sure where to find people to connect with. Thankfully, the Internet is full of resources to help classes get connected. Here are 10 places where you can turn

Infographic on value of play

Step-by-step guide for teachers on how to create Google Forms from scratch

It's not one versus the other - it's thinking critically about all information, regardless of the source.