education
The Death of the Amateur Mathematician
Posted by David Wees on Aug 31, 2010
Knowledge has always been advanced in human culture based on the ideas of others. Our entire knowledge structure today is based on what we, as a species, learned in the past. Each generation learns what the previous generation already knew, and then expands upon this base of knowledge for the next generation.
Eight Videos to Help Teachers Get Started Using Twitter
Posted by David Wees on Aug 26, 2010
Here are eight videos to help teachers get started with using Twitter. The idea for these videos is to make them short and to the point and provide specific instructions on how teachers can use Twitter.
How to sign up for Twitter
Most effective teacher in my friend's school
Posted by David Wees on Aug 21, 2010
My friend, whom I met when I worked in an international school in Bangkok, worked in a bilingual school in Thailand before the school where I met him. He said it was an interesting job, but he was glad to be working at a school with a different emphasis.
The school he worked at had pretty good test results, some of the best in the country. Students would consistently score well on the state standardized tests held all over Thailand. So my friend went to observe the best teacher in the school, as measured by how well her kids did on the standardized tests.
What the Math class can learn from the Arts class
Posted by David Wees on Jul 23, 2010
I just read this article from 2007, originally posted in the Boston Globe, but available here online. The point of the article is that participation in an Arts class helps students learn skills which may not be present elsewhere in their school as a result of a narrowing focus of schools on standardized testing.
A 21st Century Learning Proposal
Posted by David Wees on Jul 20, 2010
Here is a great video shared on the Edweek blog.
Working on a new podcast for educational reform
Posted by David Wees on Jul 13, 2010
This afternoon I had a great conversation with David Miles and Fred Mindlin. David works as an Academic Coordinator in a private school in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Fred works as an educational consultant for the Central California Writing Project.
Both of them are extremely articulate and intelligent people who have a lot to say about education. I've known David for about 5 years now ever since we worked together in London, and I met Fred for the first time this afternoon.
I asked David through Skype, and I invited Fred through Twitter, and we all met in a Skype group chat. We decided to continue the conversation from #edchat and talk about educational reform.
This idea for a Conversation With Educators is from the podcast @betchaboy does, The Virtual Staffroom and is something I hope more teachers do. Talking with educators from around the world about what we do is a terrific experience. I hope to chat with more of you next week.
For now you can listen to this podcast episode below, or subscribe to this podcast in iTunes here. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike license so please feel free to remix it and share it, so long as you give proper attribution to the original work.
For those of you who are curious about the production of this podcast, it was recorded using a program called Skype Call Recorder on Windows, and slightly edited using Audacity.
Arguments for an against Internet Filters in schools
Posted by David Wees on Jul 7, 2010
A common problem that is discussed on Twitter between educators is that they don't have full access to the Internet due to a filter installed either at their school or at the district level in their area. There are a number of arguments for and against the existence of these filters, summarized in the table below.
The Waste at ISTE 2010
Posted by David Wees on Jul 1, 2010
First, I want to preface what follows with the stipulation that although I had the complaints listed below, I really, really enjoyed attending ISTE and will attend again. I'd just like the conference to be more environmentally conscious.
Using and Teaching Blender - an Open Source 3D Modeling Program
Posted by David Wees on Jun 30, 2010
Sitting in an Open Source lab with a bunch of computers set up as thin clients from a central server. Has the advantage of easy updates to software since it is all done on a single computer but the particular set-up in the Open Source lab room was apparently having issues all day and crashing fairly easily. My own client choked half-way through the tutorial on Blender, so I had to switch to my laptop, but I was really glad I brought my laptop.
Participating at TEDxDenverEd tonight
Posted by David Wees on Jun 28, 2010
Tonight I had a really amazing opportunity. I got to attend a TED conference for free, here in Denver. We really had some amazing speakers lined up for us, and it felt like a real privilege to listen to these people speak, who traveled from all over the United States to give their talks.
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