Tag: teacher

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Professional development that hurts

Yesterday I wrote about a report on What Works: Effective Technology Professional Development. Today, unfortunately, I have the other side of the story. Yes, it’s possible to do professional development that actually decreases the chance that teachers will integrate technology into the classroom.

This is from the Student Speak Up survey project, where students, parents, teachers, and administrators answer questions about technology in their academic and personal lives.

Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, who runs the Speak Up project sent me this input from a focus group of 40 high school students in California in March 2009 (and gave me permission to publish it.)

Students told me that they had better access to technology at school before we (meaning education agencies and groups) trained all the teachers how to use technology.  The students said that their teachers were very fearful of the dangers of Internet use in particular and concerned about their own liability.  The perception of the students is that their teachers were therefore making conscious, deliberate decisions to use technology and in particular providing Internet access less than what they had done previously.

This is not that teachers don’t have technology skills. This is a deliberate stance taken by teachers who LEARN about technology, but are so confused, scared, or disempowered that their practice retreats to use LESS technology.

Professional development that doesn’t empower teachers is no solution at all.

Sylvia

PS Registration is still open for the 2009 Student Speak Up until Dec 23 – share your voice!

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Constructivism in practice – making lectures work

Posted with permission from The Institute for Learning Centered Education – Don Mesibov

If you must lecture, please don’t do it early in the lesson.
Most teachers begin a lesson with a launcher, anticipatory set, ice breaker, bell ringer or an exploratory activity (which we recommend). Each of these often motivates students to think something good might happen during class; some of the students actually begin to look forward to what might come next.

Unfortunately, just as students are beginning to think they might not mind being in class, the teacher too often launches into a lecture and all momentum is lost. It’s like the dead scene in a play that interrupts the flow of excitement generated earlier.

Why do teachers lecture early in a lesson? It’s because we have new information we want our students to learn and we want to start by telling them what we want them to know. But it isn’t effective. If the content is completely new to students it is hard to follow the words of a speaker. It is like trying to learn the rules and procedures of baseball when you’ve had no previous knowledge that such a game existed. If you want to teach someone baseball, hand them a glove and have a catch. Put a bat in their hands and pitch to them. Then you can start to explain how the game is played – after, not before, you have actively engaged them.

I’ve sat in the back of the room as teachers have tried to explain to students what they want them to learn. I’ve noticed the faces of the disinterested students. They have no hooks to hang their thoughts on – no context for understanding what the teacher is saying. Sometimes what the teacher says early in the lesson would be more effective if said near the end when the students have been engaged with the new information. The lecture might be more effective as a summary. Once you’ve tried hitting a ball with a bat for fifteen minutes, a mini-lecture on how to stand and how to hold the bat has much more meaning.

Here are some examples of how to engage students with new information BEFORE beginning your explanations.

  • BILL OF RIGHTS: Don’t explain or describe them. Distribute a one page summary of the Bill of Rights, pair the students and ask each pair to prioritize them in order of importance. Then ask each pair to justify its prioritization. There is no right or wrong and it doesn’t matter how each pair prioritizes. What is important is that the students have been challenged to think about each article and what it means.
  • TOO, TO, AND TWO: Pair or group students and ask them to design an ad for their favorite TV show or DVD, or food using each of these words correctly at least once.
  • MIXTURES AND SOLUTIONS: Give students different substances to mix and ask them to share conclusions they reach based on the results.
  • PERCENTAGES: Ask students, in pairs or groups, to share their perceptions of what’s good and what’s bad about buying with credit cards. This can lead to a lesson on percentages that students perceive as relevant when you ask them to assess whether the purchase of a sale item, using a credit card, will actually save money when the interest payments are taken into account.

You can probably come up with more and better examples. My only point is that after you grab the students’ attention with a good opening, don’t blow it by losing the momentum with a lecture that the students probably won’t understand anyway.

Please know that your work in the field of education is as meaningful to our society as anything anyone can possibly do. Thank you for caring about the future of our children!!!!

Don Mesibov October 2009
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Copyright (c) 2009, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All rights reserved.

The Institute is currently registering teams for the 2010 summer constructivist conference, July 19-23, at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. More information at The Institute for Learning Centered Education.

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Only a few seats left for Northwest Constructivist Celebration

If you are located in the Seattle area and want to spend a day learning about creativity, constructivism, and technology, be sure to check out The Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration.

Pacific Northwest Constructivist Celebration
Saturday May 16, 2009
Puget Sound ESD (Renton, WA – Seattle area)

Participants will enjoy the day’s activities, complimentary creativity software and a hearty lunch all for just $55. This event is a joint effort between the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE), and the Constructivist Consortium.

Dr. Dennis Harper, founder of Generation YES will be there too!

Go to www.constructivistconsortium.org for more information and to register. There are only a few seats left so don’t delay!

Sylvia

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Free NASA opportunity for California math/science teachers

NASA Ames Education and the Lewis Center for Educational Research, is conducting a special workshop for up to 25 science and math teachers from local schools February 26 – 28, 2009 at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA.

This 3-day training program provides teachers with all the necessary tools to remotely access and control the Lewis Center’s, 34 meter, Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) from their classrooms. The GAVRT program involves American students throughout the world in real science using a hands-on, standard-based curriculum that helps middle and high
schoolers reach for the stars. Students participating in the GAVRT program will assist NASA by monitoring the progress of the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) during its mission to the moon in 2009.

The GAVRT training is normally $600 per teacher. However, due to a unique LCROSS scholarship opportunity, this workshop is currently FREE to 25 teachers! And, these 32 hours of professional development are recognized for state, district, and NCLB requirements. If you are teaching science or math in your classroom, you are qualified to apply for this unique program.

The training will include a special NASA Ames tour at that is not normally open to the public. Andrew Chakin, world-renown author of Man on the Moon – the basis of Tom Hanks’ miniseries From the Earth to the Moon will meet with the teachers to share his experience inspiring students.

For more information about the LCROSS Mission and the Lewis Center and GAVRT program visit : http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt and http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/

Applications are now being accepted for this exciting program. To enroll, immediately contact: Barbara Patterson at NASA Ames Research Center: barbara.e.patterson [at] nasa.gov 650-604-0494

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Technology Literacy and Sustained Tinkering Time

Yesterday I was reading a handout by Dr. Stephen Krashen called 88 Generalizations about Free Voluntary Reading. It summarizes the research and benefits to literacy of Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), also called Free Voluntary Reading (FVR). You give kids books, and time to read them, and they read.

Dr. Krashen is an activist for giving students more access to books, more time to read, and less coercion to do so. His credentials are impressive: professor emeritus at USC, a linguist and expert on literacy, language acquisition and reading. He’s in the International Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame.

I have no trouble admitting that his articulate positions and research resonate with me.

It struck me as I looked at this list that it’s a lot like what I believe about children and computers: that student choice, plus time for unstructured access to lots of different computing experiences is crucial to developing literacy and fluency with computers. My vision includes a teacher or mentor modeling passion, collaboration, interest in the subject, and offering experiences that challenge students without coercion, tricks, or rankings. If I had to come up with a catchy acronym, I’d call it Sustained Tinkering Time (STT).

Picking through his generalizations about reading, it occurred to me that some of them are very applicable to students using computers, and some seemed not to translate too well at all.

Hallmarks of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) (adapted by me from Krashen’s list)

  • Free access to lots of different kinds of books
  • Comic books and magazines are OK, hard and easy books fine, minimum censorship
  • The teacher reads too
  • No tests, book reports, logs, comprehension quizzes
  • Comfortable space to read
  • More often and short is better than long, but rare
  • For all kids, not a reward or remediation
  • Supplement with interesting experiences about reading – trips to library, discuss literature, conferences, etc. (not skill building)
  • Good readers tend to be narrow readers (they stick to one genre)
  • Look for “home run” books

So, looking at this list, there are some things that seem really relevant to the kind of computer fluency I would like all students to have. Wouldn’t it be great if students had:

  • Free access to lots of different kinds of books software and hardware
  • The teacher reads works on computer projects too
  • No tests, book reports, logs, comprehension quizzes
  • Comfortable space to read work on computer projects
  • and that this was for all kids, not a reward or remediation?

I’ve skipped over some hard questions…
But not everything seems to perfectly translate. In FVR, the students are allowed to read pretty much anything (within reason). But for technology, I certainly would hope that aimless surfing or watching random YouTube videos isn’t what happens.

Is this being hypocritical? Is this just a way for me to pass judgement on applications that I like and think are “important” vs. ones I deem trivial and a waste of time? If I say, “no games” – am I just doing the same thing as a teacher demanding that kids only read “good” books for SSR, and thereby undermining the process?

I know in my head what I’d like to see – mindful interaction with the computer, making good things, focused collaboration, working on projects. Something that rises above drill and practice, clicking on stuff, or just watching. But what about chatting? Looking at email? What about playing “good” games? If you want technology literacy, does it matter if one student becomes fluent in making Wordles and another learns to program?

What’s the verb?
What is it that the student is doing that’s equivalent to reading? If you show language literacy by reading and writing, you show technology literacy by … what? Computing? Touching a mouse? Technologizing?

There’s something I’m trying to capture here that goes beyond the mere physical presence of a child sitting in front of a digital device. I really think this elusive concept is at the heart of what many have been struggling with as we all try to define “technology literacy.” Especially if we try to make the definition more than a checklist of skills.

You can smell collaboration in the air (especially in middle school)
There are other pieces of Sustained Silent Reading that really don’t work for technology, like the “silent” part. Sustained Silent Computing sounds terrifying. When I think about the kind of collaborative technology experience I’d hope to see, the kind I’ve seen in too few classrooms, it’s anything but silent. It’s purposeful, joyful noise, and you can tell the difference. But how do you articulate that?

It’s simply not good enough to say, “I know it when I see it.” But I’m not sure what to call it without tying myself up in semantic knots.

Pinning these experiences down with precise language deadens them like a pithed frog. (I was going to say a pinned butterfly, but when you can use pithed frog in a sentence, I believe it’s mandatory.)

What do you believe about learning?
And even if we got the words right, would it actually result in improved technology literacy? Would the lack of coercion raise the general level of technology literacy or lower it? In SSR, if one student is reading a comic book and another a chapter book, do they influence each other?

And is that part of the teacher’s job – to offer other activities that generate interest in more complex work? To model curiosity and trying new things? To facilitate collaboration and challenge students?

Without technology literacy skill tests, lessons on tools, and assigned projects, will students take more risks and try more complex things? Or will they do the least amount possible? I think this boils down to what you believe about learning – is it natural or does it have to be coerced.

Depth, not breadth
If you’ve stuck with me this long, do you see the technology corollaries to:

  • Good readers tend to be narrow readers (they stick to one genre) – is this about depth? Letting kids explore one application or theme deeply rather than the usual if-it’s-tuesday-it-must-be-spreadsheets overview of office products?
  • Look for “home run” books – is this about helping kids find the thing they really like to do? If a kid LOVES Comic Life, do you let them use it exclusively? Does the positive experience then open the door for that student to attempt other things? Or does it narrow the range of what that student will ever figure out how to do?

Yes, you…
So I’m throwing this out there to you, the dozens of folks who read this blog. Does looking at FVR help with defining technology literacy?

What would Sustained Tinkering Time look like to you?

So many questions…

Sylvia

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The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant – NYTimes.com

The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant – NYTimes.com.

Today’s New York Times features an article about student participation in teacher-parent conferences. Good news: good facts and stories woven into a compelling article that supports student empowerment by including them in their own education. Bad news: it’s not new, and leaves out the mountains of research and practice about student conferences.

But, Google to the rescue! Here’s a great collection of resources from Education World (and hurray, recently updated) about how to plan and implement successful parent-student-teacher conferences.

Sylvia

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Ten to ask – How to predict the Web 2.0 winners

In the last few years, it seemed like there was an endless stream of new Web 2.0 applications. If you didn’t like one, twenty new ones would appear. Now that party is over. A while back I wrote a post about this, Web 2.0, the meltdown, and education.

But it’s not at all clear cut who will make it through the tough times. There’s a lot of good stuff out there that is great for classroom use. But we know that lots of these tools are made by companies that are simply going to pack up and go home in the near future. So how can educators figure out which of their favorite tools will remain standing?

Here are ten questions and thoughts to ponder.

1. Do they make money?
Here’s the big question. A company with no visible means of support is not living on love. Someone is taking home a paycheck. Someone is paying the server bill. These companies are either someone’s home brew project in mom’s basement, or they have investors. Investor money runs out eventually, and there isn’t going to be a lot of new investment anytime soon. If there is no revenue, they have less of a chance to survive.

Ad revenue is almost as shaky as no revenue, since in a recession, ad rates tend to fall like a rock. Who clicks on banner ads anyway? People stop kidding themselves about these things when the money runs out.

Some small, individual projects can be very useful, but if they are cursed with popularity, they will need more people, servers, and other stuff that costs money. Maybe the key is to keep your favorites to yourself. Stop sharing! (OK, probably not the best answer.)

2. Spend some time with your favorite search engine.
All US public companies have to file documents with the government that give details on their finances. These are available online. Plus, if they are large, analysts and the press write about them. Stock price is an indicator too, if it’s gone down (worse than most!) that’s an indication something is wrong. In cases like Yahoo, all the bad news about failed mergers, the CEO leaving, and things like this are an indication of a company in crisis. It’s not smart to depend on them.

A non-public company is harder to find out about. But in my book, the more self-aggrandizing publicity a company has gone after, the more likely they are in it just for a quick flip. So for me, I’ll take the company with less news about awards, big PR blitzes, and showing up at every social media event.

For example, look at Zoho, which makes productivity and collaboration web applications. They just continue to crank out good, solid products and services. Plus, they have a business model – they sell their premium services. And they make money. Check out this interview with Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu, about how he and his brother bootstrapped the company (meaning no outside investment) while his wife earned enough money to support the family. Smart, sensible, and pragmatic.

Are they a better long-term bet than Google Docs for web-based productivity tools? Who knows?

3. Do they have investors and how long will the money last?
Try searching on the company or tool name plus words like “invest”, “funding”, “owner”, “sell”, “layoff”, or “round”.

For example, if you are thinking about starting a local district professional development network using Ning as the basis, you might be very worried that they will just disappear. Google “Ning funding” and you find several sites that confirm that Ning received $44M in July 2007, and another $60M in April 2008. This article makes some guesses about how much money Ning makes – only $2M per year on subscriptions and ads, so they certainly need to figure out how to make money. However, $100M is a whole lotta money to skate on while you figure things out, so they may make it through to the other side.

A company that’s trying to go big but got a less than $5M investment more than a year ago might be having serious problems.

Another measure is how many employees they have. A completely rough estimate is that every employee costs $100,000 – $200,000 per year. The high side is companies that need vast server farms or other exceptional costs. As a rule of thumb, a company with 10-20 employees, a $2M investment, but no income can only last a year.

Linden Labs, the makers of Second Life, says they are doing great with 300 employees. They raised $11M in funding in 2006, and $8M a few years before that. Obviously they are making enough money from Second Life to sustain themselves or they would have gone out of business already. This blog from a venture capital firm estimates their revenue at $8M per month, or nearly $100M per year. This blog does the same calculation and guesses their expenses are about $30M for employees, plus another $10M for office space, servers, and other stuff. So, if these guys are right, Linden Labs is making at least $40M profit per year on Second Life.

The question is, if you are a school about to drop a lot of money and resources on a Second Life presence — will the economy, or some newer, sexier virtual world cause their subscriptions to drop and sales to slide? Most of their money is made on virtual land sales, not subscriptions, and if I had to guess, only new subscribers buy a lot of land. After a certain amount of time, people tend to “settle down.” But still, $40M a year is a nice cushion. It’s hard to be sure if all the speculation is true, since Second Life is not a public company. But my guess would be that Second Life will still be around for a few years. And better yet, will still have time to cultivate educators and cater to their special needs.

Yes, I know Second Life is not technically a Web 2.0 app, but neither is Google Earth or Twitterific or half a dozen others — everyone lumps these things together. Who am I to try to untangle the misunderstanding of what Web 2.0 is?

4. Layoffs?
Actually, this is a mixed bag. Layoffs can be the sign that a company is intelligently trimming its sails to ride through the storm. However, layoffs that cut to the bone are a sign that the company is about the crash and burn. How do you know which is which? That’s hard, especially with small, startup companies. There are sites like TechCrunch that watch the technology industry, but layoff news is often full of unsubstantiated rumors.

5. Gut check — does this make sense?
C’mon, who really thought a social network for people who love their sneakers was a good idea. Let’s get real, this was simply a couple of guys trying to cash in on the social media craze.

Not to keep picking on Yahoo, but there was a recent announcement that Yahoo for Teachers has been shut down. This was going to be a social networking site for teachers offering portfolios, networks, and other free goodies. Now the service has been cancelled by Yahoo, and the former URL (teachers.yahoo.com) redirects to the main Yahoo page. But a new site, called Edtuit, says it “… picks up where Yahoo! for Teachers left off.” But look around the site, there are no names, no explanation of who they are, or why a teacher should believe any of this. If Yahoo couldn’t make it work, how will they?

To me, this kind of announcement sends up a big red flag. Call me when they go live in “Fall 2008” — oops!

6. How big are they?
Strangely, the ends of the continuum will win. Big, big companies tend to have resources and deep pockets. Small companies can survive like cockroaches. People can work virtually, keep their day jobs, live in mom’s basement, or on a spouse’s paycheck. Some of these are student projects. Medium size companies have problems. Keeping 10-150 people employed is one of the toughest jobs ever.

Take Wordle, for example. Wordle is a web toy that makes pretty word clouds out of text. On the Wordle website, there is one person’s name listed with an email address. The blog says he’s an IBM engineer who wrote the code in his spare time. No investors, no PR and marketing budget, just a guy who likes words. My guess is that Wordle will survive.

Will little, one programmer projects like Wordle survive? Sure, until he or she loses interest (or graduates from high school.)

7. What’s your exit strategy?
If you are in love with ustream, Qik, Flickr (uh oh, owned by Yahoo!), or any free service for that matter, don’t assume that their business model will stay the same, and that your use won’t be affected. A few will just disappear without a word. But there is no doubt that all these companies will have to make money off these services to survive. Don’t expect them to send out a memo, these people are fighting for their lives. When you find Viagra ads embedded in your “free” videos in the middle of a class project, that’s when you’ll find out how they decided to monetize their service. You know you are supposed to back up your hard drive, now you have to back up your “cloud” too!

8. Is it great? Would you pay for it?
If this is something you already use, you know quite a bit. Does it just plain work or are there a few too many “we’ll be back soon” messages? Was it easy to learn and use? Do you honestly have good enough connectivity at school? Does it do a little more than you actually need? If you are going to be teaching it to others, they will probably have different needs than you. Will it stretch for them?

And if the company starts to charge for it, would you pay something, anything for the service? What would you do if the company went out of business or changed the service drastically in the middle of a class project? Is it simply a toy you would toss out and find a different way? If this is the case, maybe it’s too trivial to bother with for the long run.

9. What do your friends do? What do your friends know?
It’s not just about being trendy. Other teachers you know can be good sources of information. If you know someone using the tool you are interested in, ask them not just how it works, but how has it changed over time. Have they had any issues that required tech support and did they get an answer? Have things changed recently? Were there a lot of promised features that have not appeared yet? Are unexpected, unannounced changes occurring?

Check out places where teachers using Web 2.0 hang out –Twitter, Plurk, and Classroom 2.0 come to mind, but if you only have a Facebook account, ask your friends there!

And don’t forget to check if there is a company blog – a blog that hasn’t been updated is a bad sign. A blog with regular, informative updates and truth about service interruptions is good. A blog with special mentions of classroom use is better!

10. But education is so important! Teachers are special! They can’t do this to us!
Well yes, yes they can. Schools are a small niche market. We want free stuff. And not just free stuff, but ad free and adult content free. Free stuff with extra controls and settings that help teachers manage student accounts, work with tricky firewalls, and other extras that no one else demands.

The only way most of these Web 2.0 companies will survive is to get a lot of users and get bought by someone, quickly, before the money runs out. We all know the low penetration rate of new technology in schools. If you feel like the only one on your block using Web 2.0 technology, it’s because you are. So if a company has a choice of reaching, say, a million Twitter users vs. the tiny fraction of teachers using Web 2.0, which would you choose?

Really – Do I have to do all this work?
Nope – you can just keep using what you are using and stay nimble. Lots of this will be based on luck, not cold analysis. But if you are recommending these tools to others, spending money and time implementing them, planning lessons, or shifting your “business” to them, a little time invested now may make a big difference later. You may decide instead to use tools you can really own, like a do-it-yourself open source implementation, or tools from a company you can trust. They might cost a little more time or money up front, but give you peace of mind as bubbles burst all around us.

This too shall pass.

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Heavy-handed filtering is a problem, not a solution

I recently saw an email on the WWWEDU listserve by Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, that I thought really needed to be shared. Nancy has given me permission to reproduce it here. Nancy is one of the sanest and smartest voices regarding youth and online safety. Her latest book on Cyberbullying (available at Amazon) is a must read for parents and teachers. I really respect her knowledge on this subject and feel that her approach, based on real data and work with real kids is far superior to the current climate of fear and scare tactics surrounding education in an online world.

In this email, Nancy answers questions about filtering and school responsibility for online safety.  If you are an educator dealing with unreasonable filtering that hampers your ability to teach, I urge you to explore her website and buy her books.

We must use knowledge, not fear, as our guide to face the opportunities and dangers of the 21st Century.

Sylvia

—————– The rest of this post is all Nancy —————–

We will NOT be able to effectively prepare students for their education, career, and civic responsibilities in the 21st Century if the technical services directors in schools throughout this country continue their heavy handed filtering.

It is essential to shift how the Internet is being managed from a primary reliance on filtering to more effective monitoring – in an environment where education – not social – use of the Internet is expected, and supported with effective professional and curriculum development.

Q: Dear Nancy, does the law specifically state how tight the filter has to be set. Do we have to set it at its most restrictive setting can’t it be at its least restrictive setting?
A: All you have to do under CIPA is set it to block pornographic material – obscene material and material harmful for minors. There is NO liability for schools if they choose not to set it to block an area and something “inappropriate” happens to appear on that site. The CIPA regulations mentioned the understanding that filtering is not perfect.

There is absolutely NO justification under CIPA for the heavy-handed filtering that is preventing effective instruction in schools today. The problem is that schools are overly reliant on filtering when they should be shifting to more of a focus on monitoring.

The other problem is the non-research-based fear-mongering about internet risk. Just about everything you hear in the press – or from politicians – about online sexual predators is not supported by the research data.

They are not targeting children. They are not tracking down teens based on personal contact information they post. 1 in 5 or 7 young people has not been contacted by a predator. There are not 50,000 predators online at any given time prowling for victims. There are legitimate concerns of adults who are preying on emotionally vulnerable or “seeking” teens. But the arrest rates for sexual abuse of minors have actually been going down in the last decade.

Q: Our district (actually most of the state) went to web washer and we are even more restricted now than we were before.
A: No one at the filtering companies is held accountable for the decisions that are being made. 8e6 has a close relationship with the American Family Association!!! Think of the objections if the American Family Association was the organization deciding what books would be allowed in schools. No one knows what biases the other companies might have.

It is OUTRAGEOUS that tech directors and administrators would think that these companies are better at selecting sites for their appropriateness than librarians and teachers!

Q: The person setting the filter is not an educator but an IT tech with little or no classroom experience.
A: This is a major concern. The people who are making content based decisions on what categories should be blocked should be the librarians and curriculum specialists. The IT folks should be involved only on decisions related to security and bandwidth issues.

Further EVERY librarian and ed tech specialist in the schools should have the authority to override the filter and provide access to a site that has been inappropriately blocked – based on the educational determination of its content!

Further, EVERY counselor, administrator, and school resource officer, should also have the ability to override to investigate online material that presents safety of student well-being concerns. (And they may need some help from more tech savvy folks to be able to do this.)

I am working on professional development resources to address both youth risk online and effective Internet use management for a Web 2.0 World. Should be available January. These will be narrated slides presentations with reproducible handouts – with CLE credit available.

Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://www.embracecivility.org/
http://cyberbully.org

Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social Aggression, Threats, and Distress (Amazon)

Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use the Internet Safely and Responsibly (Jossey-Bass) (also at Amazon)

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Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge 2009

Ever question why technology seems to have gone missing in so many math and science classrooms? What happened to the “compute” in computing? Wondering what STEM really looks like?

Yes, technology, math, and science can be friends!

Constructing Modern Knowledge is organizing a one-of-a-kind educational event for January 22, 2009 at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge is a minds-on institute for K-12 teachers, administrators and technology coordinators looking for practical and inspirational ways to use computers to enhance S.T.E.M. learning. Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge is a pre-conference event for Educon 2.1, an innovative conference and conversation about the future of education.

The presenters represent high-tech pioneers and seasoned veterans at the forefront of innovation in math, science and computing. Read more about them here.

Come to Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge and stay for Educon 2.1!

  • Early-bird registration (before December 15) – $100
  • Regular registration – $130

You may register for both Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge and Educon 2.1 with one click.

Sylvia