It’s really nice to see traditional rivals like Apple and Microsoft working together on something as important as accessibility. Hopefully this partnership is fruitful and the two companies (along with other tech industry leaders) continue to work to make computers and technology more accessible for those with different kinds of impairments.
â Read on www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/microsoft-apple-usb-if-accessibility-braille-display-standard/
This is going to put me at odds with many of my more liberal friends, but I do see the justification for the argument here as well as “The Case Against Education.” Education is big business and we’re not educating our children (or adults) in the US in a way that best suits their future or the future of our republican democracy.
So what is really going on? Caplan offers plausible evidence that school functions to let students show employers that they are smart, conscientious, and conformist. And surely this is in fact a big part of what is going on. Iâve blogged before one, and in our book we discuss, some other functions that schools may have served in history, including daycare, networking, consumption, state propaganda, domesticating students into modern workplace habits.
On the topic of whether parents should post about their kids’ college acceptance on Facebook, but a good reminder for all of us parents who grew up in a time before social media and are still figuring out its long term impacts on ourselves and our children:
“This isnât your moment, as much as it may feel that way. Let your kids bask in their own glory. By letting your children tell people about an exciting achievement on their own, you let them practice humility. They can take time to be empathetic and consider what their peers are going through. Youâre teaching them to value accomplishment for its own sake, and not for the attention it brings. Youâre raising an adult who can connect to other people and make lifelong friends. A wise parent once said, âMy main job is to make sure my kid doesnât become a douche.â We canât always succeed, but letting them spread the news selectively is a great start.”
After two happy years as a WordPress self-hosted install, I’m moving our 8th grade science class site/home/hub, GriffinScience, to Blogger:
GriffinScience: “Because we’ll be using Blogger as a main platform of interaction with the 8th graders next year due to our school Google accounts making that a no-brainer, I’ve gone ahead and moved GriffinScience from a self-hosted WordPress install to Blogger.”
I don’t think the students will mind or notice much, and it does make a good deal of sense to eat my own dog food if I’m going to encourage students to make use of our school’s Google Apps accounts and use Blogger (or Google Sites) as their digital portfolio’s home (of course I don’t mind if they want to venture out into WordPress or Tumblr or Posterous land as well).
For some reason, this makes me sad in a “but I’m a real geek!” way. It’s not that Blogger isn’t a proper blogging engine or geeky enough site… but I’ve always encouraged folks to dive into code and make their own templates or sidebars. Those are possible in Blogger, but it’s a little too graphical and “easy” in my mind. I need to get over myself, clearly.
Nevertheless, here’s to another few good years of GriffinScience.
So incredibly proud of my students…
Science project takes off for Spartanburg Day School students | GoUpstate.com: “Nearly a month of calculated planning and scientific research flew up, up and away Friday afternoon over the Spartanburg Day School athletic fields and into a cloudy sky.”
Go read the whole thing.
So how do we as teachers cultivate and encourage creativity in a human existence that doesn’t require as many gigs of organic memory?
LRB · Jim Holt · Smarter, Happier, More Productive: “It’s not that the web is making us less intelligent; if anything, the evidence suggests it sharpens more cognitive skills than it dulls. It’s not that the web is making us less happy, although there are certainly those who, like Carr, feel enslaved by its rhythms and cheated by the quality of its pleasures. It’s that the web may be an enemy of creativity. Which is why Woody Allen might be wise in avoiding it altogether.”
Fascinating read.
She is reading along with the book portion, watching the embedded videos and recording her voice as the narrator. It’s really something to observe. Then she dips into the coloring book part of the app where she colors on the iPad while describing the scene from the book she just read.
I’m hopeful that books she reads and interacts with in school will capture her imagination in the same way.
If not, our “one size fits all” edu system is doomed.
Well worth your time time to read:
How We Know by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books: “The information flood has also brought enormous benefits to science. The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries. Wherever we go exploring in the world around us, we find mysteries. Our planet is covered by continents and oceans whose origin we cannot explain. Our atmosphere is constantly stirred by poorly understood disturbances that we call weather and climate. The visible matter in the universe is outweighed by a much larger quantity of dark invisible matter that we do not understand at all. The origin of life is a total mystery, and so is the existence of human consciousness. We have no clear idea how the electrical discharges occurring in nerve cells in our brains are connected with our feelings and desires and actions.”
A big thanks to Joe Bower for pointing these links from Alfie Kohn out on Twitter today:
I also have to thank Joe for being one of the inspirations for my own “de-grading” trend in the classroom this year as I continue my search for more authentic learning environments for my 8th graders and move away from traditional grading as a means of assessing what they might or might not be achieving.
Instead, we’re sending cameras into space. I’ll take that trade off anyday.
This short video sums up what I’ve learned about teaching over the last six years… get out of the student’s way and let them point you to real discovery.
Camera Into Space – a set on Flickr
“Hey, that worked!”
Exactly.
Thank you, Caroline and Ethan.