Category: Instructional
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HOW TO: Submit Author Photos to Wikimedia Commons (for Wikipedia)
Step-by-step tutorial about how to submit author photos to Wiki Commons
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Making Sense of Algebra (Book Review)
Title: Making Sense of Algebra: Developing Students’ Mathematical Habits of Mind Author: E. Paul Goldenberg, EDC, Inc., June Mark, EDC, Inc., Jane M. Kang, EDC, Inc., Mary Fries, EDC, Inc., Cynthia J. Carter, The Rashi School, Tracy Cordner, EDC, Inc. Publisher: Heinemann, (Download Sample Chapter) ISBN: 978-0325053011 Publishing Date: April 2015 Where to Buy: Publisher’s…
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Education Book Reviews
Over the past few months I have been pursuing a teacher’s public school certification for Texas. One important step in that endeavor has been reading the latest books on education policy, curriculum and classroom management. I have been collecting lots of books and learning new things. I haven’t begun to finish these books, but I…
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Things to Learn, Things to Teach
I have reached a critical juncture in my life: it’s now time to pass some teacher certifications. I have always loved teaching and had been meaning to drift back to it midcareer. In my twenties I held out hope that there was a path to teaching at universities. My thinking at the time was that …
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How to find and view RSS feeds in various browsers
Strangely, it is getting difficult to view RSS feed information from a web browser . A few years ago, you used to see syndication icons everywhere, but it never really caught on. As a blogger and regular reader of RSS feeds on feedly/Mr. Reader, the crucial detail I want to know is whether a website…
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Learning Games, Apps & Ebooks for Kids on the Ipad
When I visited the kids’ library at Houston Public Library last week, I learned 2 amazing things from children’s librarian Sandy Farmer: wii games were available for in-library checkout, and the library would soon be lending out ipads stocked with apps and games especially for kids. What a grand idea. I can vouch that kids…
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Google Groups out, Stack Exchange In
Recently I had a technical problem I was dreading having to find the answer to. It involved installing and configuring Java; that’s one of those topics where answers and resources seemed to be plentiful on google groups. But recently, google groups has been spammed to death, and my best bet was to find a forum…
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Which subjects demand the best teachers?
A fascinating discussion at Marginal Revolution: for which subjects does the quality of a teacher make a huge difference? One interesting commenter: This reminds me of something my dad (a CS prof at a flagship state university) told me when I was leaving for college. He suggested that there were some fields that lent themselves…
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Vocabulary Resources for Kids
Ever since I wrote my article about the importance of a good vocabulary, I’ve been looking for ways to help my 8 year old nephew and 10 year old niece learn new words. Here are some things I’ve found. By far, the most interesting thing I’ve found for children is the interactive vocabulary game from…
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Flattery and Validation: Professors who Seduce
William Deresiewicz notices that mass media tends to stereotype professors as lechers (especially those in the humanities) Why is that? In the popular imagination, humanities professors don’t have anything to be ambitious about. No one really knows what they do, and to the extent that people do know, they don’t think it’s worth doing —…
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March OLPC Meeting Houston (Notes)
Hi, I wanted to provide information about the recent meeting of the Houston OLPC meeting, which featured Samuel Klein, the director of community content. I don’t know how much of these nuggets of information was off-the-cuff and how much is official; use your own judgment. After the meeting, we met at Beck’s Prime for Hamburgers.…
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Random Lists
Elearningpost has long been one of the more interesting weblogs out there. I’ve been reading it off and on for — gosh, 7 years! It’s run by Maish R Nichani (who is much much smarter than I) and has lots of useful information in the field of information design, instructional technology and even web design.…
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Tips for Work Activity
A work colleague gave a mini-presentation about time management skills. Here are my own guidelines: Be clear about what your role in the project is and ought to be. Resist the temptation to turn away from an activity if something more important comes up (It takes time and effort to switch gears and back again;…
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Designing for Children: The Constructivist Approach
In response to the announcement that SimCity will be ported to the One Laptop per Child platform, Alan Kay writes a long piece wondering whether Sim City is truly an example of constructivist learning. He talks about designing software environments for children and at the end concludes that Sim City might not be the best…
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Yu Gi Oh for children? (A parents’ guide)
A shout out to the blogosphere: does anyone have children who play Yu Gi Oh? If yes, do you have advice about how to get started? i have a 7 year old nephew who I’m thinking of buying some cards for. Here’s a parents’ guide. Here are rules about basic gameplay. James Paul Gee has…