{"id":524,"date":"2010-11-09T14:15:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-09T18:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=524"},"modified":"2010-11-09T14:15:22","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T18:15:22","slug":"tuesday-tidbits-november-9-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/?p=524","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Tidbits, November 9, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>More on Race to the Top: In this piece<\/a> in today’s Washington Post<\/em>, a “Maryland legislative committee voted Monday to reject a new regulation requiring that half of teachers’ evaluations be based on student progress, calling into question the future of” the state’s $250 million Race to the Top money. I wonder if this might begin to happen in other states.<\/p>\n

If you have not already, when do you plan to get your kid a laptop to take to school? Do you share my outrage – well, as outraged as mild-mannered me can get – that many elementary school students still have clunky binders and notebooks, that keyboarding’s not a regular part of the week, that more is not done in elementary schools with technology, from Skype<\/a> chats with other schools to blogging to wikis to the use of tools like Prezi<\/a> and Poll Everywhere<\/a>? I don’t share the commonly held belief that the Internet is the Big Bad Wolf; yes, we hear about Internet ugliness weekly, but I believe that if we train our kids well and then oversee what they do on the web, as we might oversee their television viewing, they can be safe – and can live in the 21st century like the rest of us, with all the rich tools and potential for learning that comes with those tools.<\/p>\n

And I’m certainly not arguing for tech for tech’s sake. It’s got to be connected to or a tool for learning, not some bell or whistle. For example, Harvard’s Chris Dede has done powerful work around middle school kids and gaming. See his project River City<\/a>, “an interactive computer simulation for middle grades science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills.” For those that fear games as a part of school, the kind of game that immerses you in a virtual world, dig into the River City site. It represents a revolutionary idea about teaching and learning.<\/p>\n

Hat tip to my friend Sylvia Martinez at the Generation YES blog<\/a>, for news from the ConnectSafely site<\/a>. This site “is for parents, teens, educators, advocates – everyone engaged in and interested in the impact of the social Web. The user-driven, all-media, multi-platform, fixed and mobile social Web is a big part of young people’s lives, and this is the central space \u2013 linked to from social networks across the Web – for learning about safe, civil use of Web 2.0 together.” In fact download ConnectSafely’s new Parents’ Guide to Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And do you know MIT’s Scratch<\/a>? It’s a kid-friendly “programming language that makes it easy to create…interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art” and share these creations on the web.<\/p>\n

Lastly, your student having trouble with algebra? Well, you can watch this scintillating webcast<\/a> on the topic by yours truly, or you can read one of the new books out on the topic, just for students: Hot X: Algebra Exposed<\/a> by Danica McKellar, formerly of The Wonder Years<\/a>, or Algebra Word Problems<\/a> from The Complete Idiot’s Guide series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More on Race to the Top: In this piece in today’s Washington Post, a “Maryland legislative committee voted Monday to reject a new regulation requiring that half of teachers’ evaluations be based on student progress, calling into question the future … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,35,5,7],"tags":[38,132,136,133,87,135,64,134,131,129],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom","category-federal-policy","category-school","category-school-district","tag-algebra","tag-chris-dede","tag-harvard","tag-internet","tag-maryland","tag-mit","tag-race-to-the-top","tag-river-city","tag-scratch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacha.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}