Science resources

Cassiopeia Project are videos available for science teachers which anyone can use for free.

Good News as a Learning Tool

The follow image from TreeHugger which is an image of a good news Web mock-up of Google News.


If you can get students to create similar pages, the impact will be tremendous.

A "new" model of boardcasting, a new model of learning

The PBS Car of the Future program has a new format.

1. The material is "open" (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0) meaning that they encourage users to remix the material.
2. Some of their content is contributed from audience.
3. The content also comes with a teacher guide which is very much in the old fashion way, (e.g. explains how petroleum is turned into gasoline). There is always a restriction that the program "can be used up to one year after program is recorded off the air."

Since this is open content, I suggest it would be much more educational if students are asked to add to and mix the content. Different group of students will tackle the problem from different angle. The web site already provides a very good example (the audio slide show of model of efficiency)

Use Google as Your Own P2P Network

More than just teach me how to Google as my own P2P network, I also learnt a few tricks as well.

1. intitle: in google search
2. that a period (.) in the search keyword stands for ., _ or space
3. making a bookmarklet (for firefox)

cool!

Learning to Learn

by Dave Pollard'


I cannot do any better than Dave himself. So I suggest you read the post.

Here are some gems I have picked up:

everything we want or need to know in the world is waiting to be discovered. That means it is waiting for us to be ready to learn it

Despite (or perhaps because of) our large brains we are inattentive, prone to erroneous prejudgement, distrustful of our intuitions and our subconscious knowledge, and we suffer from dreadful and growing imaginative poverty.

what we should do now is build our capacity to understand -- capacity of attentiveness, openness, imagination, intuition, subconscious awareness, appreciation of complexity, ability to learn and intuit and induce and synthesize and see patterns and adapt and let come and let go. And then show others in our communities why this capacity is so important and help engender it in them, too.

All you need to know about elearning?

via Harold Jarche

I found Google Apps for Education and Google for Educators in the article.

None of these are new. Just different combination of the online tools by Google grouped together and some example uses. Anyway, it is worth a look to see examples.

Encyclopedia of Earth

from TreeHugger

This Encyclopedia aims to become the definitive one stop destination for all things environment, climate change and sustainable development.
[snip]
"there are many resources for environmental content, but there is no central repository of authoritative information that meets the needs of diverse user communities."

About Teaching and Learning - 2

A previous post here.

Among all the interesting questions James Kariuki posted, here is another one: What should students know in order to ask questions about the future?

I would rephrase the question as "What should students know in order to be effective in the future?"

Our world is changing, fast, very fast! Information is doubling every couple of years. This is exponential growth! While it is not true that whatever we know today, it will become irrelevant in couple of years time. But it is true that whatever we know today will be only a smaller part of we know in a couple of years.

The job market in the future will consist of jobs that have not been invented yet. How could we prepare today's students for tomorrow's world when we do not know what will happen tomorrow?

See some of my thinking in Learning for 2020

Women In Art

via BoingBoing



This may be an wonderful resource for Art classes.

Growing Up in the Universe

I have just finished watching the 5-hour double DVD "Growing Up in the Universe".

Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic.

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children were founded by Michael Faraday in 1825, with himself as the inaugural lecturer. The 1991 lecturer was Richard Dawkins whose five one-hour lectures, originally televised by the BBC, are now available for [...] on DVD.

Although it was 1991 lecture (some 16 years ago), it is still highly relevant and informative. Strongly recommend it and should be a compulsory material for ALL students in high schools.