A Random Collection of sites

The Padagogy Wheel visual places the idea of motivation and capabilities at the center, which gets at one of its more compelling characteristics as a model – the meshing of technology, thinking, and student motivation. Many of the failures in #edtech are failures in #edtech integration, and frameworks like the Padagogy wheel attempt to clarify the relationship between “big picture” elements. Seeing the pieces–tablets, apps, learning goals, cognitive actions, etc.–and how they work together is everything. Without that vision, any bit of #edtech is limp and lifeless.

Extracted from te@chthought blog post: The Big Picture Of Education Technology: The Padagogy Wheel published 12 Dec 2014

When the above quote was published I was excited. It is such a succinct explanation of what the Padagogy Wheel is trying to achieve. It has been 2 years since V3 was published and over a 100,000 copies of the PDF poster have been downloaded from this blog, I am truly honoured by the interest in the model. Two years is a long time in the development of technology enhanced education and tablet app development has come a long way. It is time for the next generation of the Padagogy Wheel. Today V4.0 goes public…. yeeess!

“For those who came in […]

A fraudulent smartphone app claiming to coordinate the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement has circulated online, a group of programmers said on Wednesday.

The spyware is disguised as an application for Android smartphones or tablets, Code4HK, a group of coders trying to improve government transparency in Hong Kong, said.

A screenshot of the information requested by the application.

Activists first received a link to the application in messages from a phone number unknown to them on Tuesday. “Check out this Android app designed by Code4HK for the coordination of Occupy Central!” the message read.

Lau Sau-yin, a spokeswoman for Occupy Central, said the organisation had nothing to do with the spyware. Code4HK also said that none of its members developed or distributed the application. “None of the Code4HK community has done any application on [Occupy Central] at the moment nor sent the message,” the statement read.

What are the reasons for it? Many primary teachers have rather low levels of mathematical subject knowledge and confidence. Given this, it is not surprising that they prefer the burden of learning to be placed in the hands of pupils rather than having it in their own.

Intellectuals of all persuasions love to claim the banner of science. A vanishing few do so properly.

Science is the process through which we derive reliable predictive rules through controlled experimentation. That's the science that gives us airplanes and flu vaccines and the Internet. But what almost everyone meanswhen he or she says "science" is something different.

To most people, capital-S Science is the pursuit of capital-T Truth. It is a thing engaged in by people wearing lab coats and/or doing fancy math that nobody else understands. The reason capital-S Science gives us airplanes and flu vaccines is not because it is an incremental engineering process but because scientists are really smart people.

This platform is 100% built on a pay-what-you-want philosophy.

We firmly believe that science education and communication is crucial for the advancement of science. Tools and resources that facilitate this process should be as free as possible, easy accessible and easy to share and spread.

We know that this platform can only remain to exist, grow and ultimately excel, if you -the user- step up, support, honor and trust the system.

We’ve created these resources for everybody, regardless of your financial situation. If you can’t afford it, take it now. If you love it, chip in later when you can. If your financial situation allows you to contribute you’re helping others to get access to this material that normally couldn’t afford it.

Would you be willing to help by giving a donation? Every cent will help!

And we will keep on creating more and better resources.

Once you have it, share it, copy it, breathe it, spread the virus! YOU are science education!

Help us build the first #NoSpyProxy datacenter out of NSA reach!

Our military grade 256-AES encryption prevents cybercriminals from stealing your personal passwords, bank account, credit card details and documents. With CyberGhost VPN no one can get hold of your identity, location or IP address. We replace your personal IP address with one of ours, so you become truly anonymous on the web- undiscoverable, unidentifiable and fully secure. We constantly improve our product and offer solutions for Windows PCs, Apple Macintosh, iOS and Android devices.

Parents should seek out educators who have outside intellectual lives, follow the data and ask terrific questions.

As students trundle back to the classroom, many parents will recognize my neighbors' frustration—and the anxiety that comes from trying to give your child the best possible education (especially if you can't afford to send them to private school). But in a landmark book this year, two sociologists, Angel L. Harris of Duke and Keith Robinson of the University of Texas at Austin, found that many things parents obsess over—checking homework nightly, volunteering at their kids' schools—have no measurable impact on student achievement.

Economists have discovered that teachers with high SAT scores or perfect college GPAs are generally no better for their students than teachers with less impressive credentials. But teachers with large vocabularies are better at their jobs because this trait is associated with being intelligent, well-read and curious.

Effective educators reject the idea that smarts are something that only some students have; they expect all children to perform at high levels, even those who are unruly, learning disabled or struggling with English.

According to the scholar John Hattie, when teachers focus lessons on concepts that are broader than those on multiple-choice tests, children's scores on higher-level assessments—like those that require writing—increase. How can you identify a high-quality question in your child's schoolwork? It tests for conceptual, not factual, understanding—not "When did the Great Depression occur?" but "What economic, social and political factors led to the Great Depression?"

Install the OS X 10.10 Yosemite without ruining your Mac by following these step-by-step instructions.

Today, we want to expand upon that report with the first of two reports that emerged from our own PLAY (Participatory Learning and YOU!) project, discussing core insights we derived from a year-long program working with teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District to develop more participatory approaches in their classrooms. The teachers spanned both grade-levels and curricular categories, allowing us to develop new approaches together that work in a variety of contexts.

The first of these reports, Shall We Play?, was written by Erin Reilly, Henry Jenkins, Laurel Felt and Vanessa Vartabedian. It represents a revisiting of my original MacArthur white paper, Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture, and lays out what we see as core principles for participatory learning. It includes some core reflections on what has happened in the Digital Media and Learning movement over the past six years as we have sought to bring a more participatory spirit to those institutions and practices that most directly touch young people’s lives.

The UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) organises its X International Seminar, which  will take place in Barcelona (Spain) on December 1-2, 2014.

Australian private school students spend two hours a week more on homework than their public school counterparts but do not perform better academically when socio-economic advantage is taken into account, according to a major OECD report into educational performance. 

Dating and Auditioning is a web series that chronicles the highs and lows (but mostly lows) of dating and auditioning (shocker) in New York City. Alice works to discover herself and what she wants for her career and her love life - sound like any of the 20-somethings you know?  Six different actresses play the role of Alice throughout the 12 episode web series, in order to emphasize that “Alice” represents more than one girl; her experiences with dating and auditioning are universal for NY's 20-somethings.