Daily Spotlight on Education 10/03/2008
New website that lets you plan your lessons -- may want to test it a little. Looks kind of interesting. If you can't use Google Cal, this may be an alternative. Anyone using this, would like to know what others use to plan lessons.
Contest to encourage student to create a vision of the future of technology. This site shows the inventions and the awards. This is a neat competition and you might want to plug in your math and science program, particularly the gifted program. Competitions help your top students reach higher and are a very important part of gifted programs (and others too!)
Knowles Science Teaching Foundation
Math and Science teachers -- beginning teachers should consider applying for these fellowships. These are in the United States. Here is what the ocmpany says about the fellowships (applications due Jan 15):
"The prestigious KSTF Teaching Fellowship is valued at nearly $150,000 over the course of five-years and supports aspiring teachers of promise as they embark on careers teaching high school science and mathematics. Designed to meet the financial and professional needs of beginning teachers, the Fellowship exposes educators to a variety of teaching resources, new curriculum materials, and research and experts in the field. Most importantly, the program fosters professional development within a community of high school science and mathematics teachers and prepares Fellows to become leaders in their field."Travelocity has worked to create a course on carbon offsets and wants help naming their eco-bunnies. This looks to be something fascinating for elementary teachers. Would love to hear what you think?
Past Issues - UI Design Newsletter
As you design web pages for use with your students -- do you wonder why they don't sometimes SEE what you're putting in front of them -- it is because of eye movement. It is design!!!
This paper writes about the effect of website design on eye movement. Those who are desigining online curriculum need to understand this.
My sister, Sarah, has been an onlien professor for Savannah College of Art and Design for a while, ,and this is something she talks about in her courses and shares with me. This is why I emphasize wiki layout and design w/ my students (like having a table of contents and white space.)
If it is not attractive, it just doesn't exist, because it IS NOT READ! Educators will do well to remember that!For those of you who teach health and wellness at the elementary level, this is a really cool website -- the "Scrub Club" teaches proper handwashing techniques. You can use hand sanitizers all you want, but the best way to prevent disease is still good old soap and water.
AEI - Events - Educational Entrepreneurship: What Do the Candidates Think?
Organizations are holding events about "educational entrepreneurship"- however the term isn't really used in the way I like.
I think that all teachers IN PLACE should be empowered to be teacherpreneurs -- to innovate where they are. Instead of creating NEW organizations free of regulation, why not pull constraints and requiements off of the organizations in place?
I don't have a problem w/ competition. Competition is great and I'm all for it. However, I am also FOR every classroom being a gGREAT classroom and the empowerment of teachers.
Although I am a private school teacher, I find the way that public school teachers are being micromanaged to death insulting and bothersome. Sure, there are teachers out there who are not good, but there are also politicians, business people, and others who aren't ethical either.
Shall we judge all corporate execs by Enron and total mismanagement at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
In the ariline industry we hear about the plane crashes, but we do not hear about the hundreds of thousands of planes that fly safely every day.
I'm all for entrepreneuship in education -- I'm not opposed to it -- I just say ALONG with this, transform existing organizations into entrepreneurial ones as well.
