Inspire Elementary Students with Engineering

PBS TeacherLine offers a course that helps Preschool through Grade 6 teachers bring engineering concepts into the courses they teach. It’s a standards-based science, math, and reading curricula, which features critical thinking and problem solving skills. This course, created by Purdue University School of Engineering Education, is available for the winter session. To learn more or to sign up, check the course schedule at PBS Online.

Join the LEGO Advisory Panel

LEGO Education is looking for educators from all grade levels who are willing to serve on an advisory panel. Panel members will review products for possible classroom integration, provide feedback for product development, attend conferences, and blog about STEM and LEGO in education. To become a panel member educators should be experts in STEM education and have “the ability to articulate the value of LEGO Education products to educators.”  Those who are interested should complete a survey in order to be considered for the panel.

Delete Cyberbullying!

CableVision’s Power to Learn introduces its year-long initiative: DELETE CYBERBULLYING. The project is created in partnership with regional Boys & Girls Clubs, Cartoon Networks’ Stop Bullying, and Common Sense Media. You won’t want to miss the resources available for teachers, parents, and students. These include online resources such as an interactive case study and materials for teachers and parents, anti-cyberbullying tips, a pledge to encourage students to stand up against bullying, Boys & Girls’ Clubs town hall sessions, a contest for local students in Grades 4-11, and the booklet, “What Parents Need to Know about Cyberbullying.” All free. All right at our fingertips.

Easy-To-Use Desktop Publishing & More from Serif

Serif’s new PagePlus X5 is ready for educators to try. The program is being incorporated into the Serif Design Suite (DrawPlus, MoviePlus, WebPlus, PhotoPlus and PagePlus) to make it simple for teachers and students to create professional documents. With X5, teachers and students can open, edit, and output PDFs for sharing and presenting. There’s a PhotoLab & Image Cutout Studio, a place to create photo frames, a Logo studio, artistic text, options for instant 3D and filter effects, and PDF forms and slideshows. The program is compatible with Office 2007 and works on Windows computers. Case studies of Serif’s success in schools are available online.

Recognize Our Best Leaders & Teachers in Ed Tech

Until March 1, 2011, don’t forget to nominate exceptional educators for International Society of Technology in Education Awards to be presented at this year’s convention in Philadelphia. Categories for awards include: ISTE Outstanding Leader, ISTE Outstanding Teacher, ISTE Outstanding Young Educator, Kay L. Bitter Vision Award for Excellence in Technology-Based PK-2 Education, Public Policy Advocate of the Year, SIGMS Technology Innovation Award, SIGOL Online Learning Award, and Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation Technology.  Winners will receive prizes and cash awards, registration to ISTE 2011, and a year’s membership in ISTE.

If You Love Learning

Not Retired from Learning! is a unique site developed by dynamic teacher and librarian Mim Bizic. Bizic, before her retirement after 40 years in education, was the winner of many local and national awards for her work with children and technologies. You’ll want to browse through the information she provides about technology and social media. The site includes education news, innovation and business ideas, motivational quotes, and more. Bizic is always teaching and her enthusiasm for learning is available 24/7 on her site.

Better Web Searching with Power Words

Here’s a new way for you and your students to search for information online. It’s called SortFix, and it works with computers, iPads, and iPhones. What SortFix does is to help pinpoint the best keywords to use in searches and also to help eliminate by keyword sites that don’t fit a search. The application works by giving you “Power Words” that you can place in “baskets” such as “Add to Search” and “Remove”. You move the “Power Words” into the baskets to help you better specify what type of sites you’d like to find. To learn more, go to SortFix and watch the demo about picking the perfect house pet. You might also want to watch the YouTube video about using SortFix to find a homemade ice cream recipe and use these tips.

Facts & Myths about Brain-Based Learning

The myth busters in Sara Bernard’s Edutopia article Neuro Myths: Separating Fact and Fiction in Brain-Based Learning, tell us that many of the claims being touted by educational games and software that are supposed to build brain power aren’t really based on neuroscience. That’s because neuroscience in education is a new field, having only been tackled by scientists in the last 20 years.  However, neuroscientists know that general concepts such as these are true: “learning experiences do help the brain grow, emotional safety does influence learning, and making lessons relevant can help information stick.”  The scientists also point to ideas they know are myths or “total nonsense”. These include: people are either left-brained or right brained, male and female brains differ, we use only 10% of our brains, brains are “static” before starting school, and “ages 0-3 are more important that any other age for learning.” The best advice for teachers and others working in education fields is to use what works and have confidence in your own ability to judge what’s good for students. Don’t rely on claims about brain growth, neurological pathways, and all that.

High Schoolers Needing Tech Support

Students in high schools in Des Moines are getting the help they need to catch up in their studies. These are students who have fallen behind over the years and need help if they are going to get enough credits to graduate. The students take computer lab sessions using Apex Learning, a Web-based student credit recovery program. They learn content needed but do it at their own pace using computer technologies. The program, like traditional classroom learning includes lessons, tests and projects. What makes the difference is not only being able to learn at their own pace, but also the fact that they are taking charge of their learning, something they hadn’t done in the past. Lab teachers say the students in the program push each other to succeed; one student says she completed two classes in three months.

What Makes a Difference in Schools?

Matthew Tully’s article, Volunteers Are Ready—All Schools Need to Do is Ask begins with a beautiful story of the success of a music program at an inner city high school in Indianapolis and the dedication of one teacher. In December 2009 Tully wrote a newspaper article about the program and asked community members to show their support for this teacher and his students by attending the choir’s holiday concert. On the night of the event, the 1200-seat auditorium was packed and contributions of over $10,000 were made to the program. The story shows that people in our communities care and want to help. Tully said that many who attended the concert had no connection with the school and didn’t live in the neighborhoods where the students lived. But they were there in support of quality education. This December he reminds us of that special night and suggests that there are those in our communities who are willing to step in and help out in our schools. We need to find more ways to use individual volunteers and volunteer groups in our schools, for they want to help.  As Tully says, “It’s up to school leaders to harness their energy.”