Israel's Time To Know Aims To Revolutionize The Classroom
This is the story of Time To Know, an enigmatic Israeli startup that has somehow managed to remain under the radar of Israel’s tightly knit startup scene. What makes this feat wondrous is not only because of the daunting challenge the company has chosen to meet, but that it has quietly ramped to 350 employees and no less than $60M in funding—all without attracting attention. Time To Know is the realization of a single man’s vision to un-root teaching methodologies from their 19th century origins and thrust them into the 21st century. The entrepreneur is Shmuel Meitar, co-founder of Israeli hi-tech posterchild Amdocs. The basic thesis Time To Know is operating under is that today’s current classroom is following a teaching paradigm designed in the industrial age, i.e., a teacher standing in front of a class, a blackboard on the wall and students at their desks. Infrastructure: Every student must be allotted a laptop or netbook with a headset.
A high school course of study with free, quality learning materials. - Charlotte Homeschooling
(This article was last updated on 1/11/13. For continued updates, please sign up for my free monthly newsletter.) I've been compiling a list of links to free resources on the web that I use myself or that have been recommended. As I'm sure you all know, buying curriculum, especially at the high school level, can amount to hundreds of dollars per course. For many families, this can be cost-prohibitive, especially If you have more than one child in the upper grades. I try to mix and match as much as possible, carefully picking and choosing what I buy, and using free material if I can find it. Fortunately, "free" does not mean you have to compromise on quality. I thought I would share what I have to try to cut down on the time we all spend searching. First, some links to sites that offer free material in a wide array of core and elective subjects. For a list of 150 free textbooks, click here. Okay, onto the specifics for North Carolina. I will continue to add to this list. 10th Grade Lit/Comp
LMS Vendor/Textbook Publisher Partnerships
Today Moodlerooms announced a partnership with Cambridge Global Grid for Learning that allows faculty and students to access content from Cambridge University Press, Reuters, Corbis, and other content providers from within Moodlerooms’ Joule platform. As far as I can tell, this partnership is roughly similar to ones that Blackboard has previously announced with McGraw Hill and NBC. I expect to see more of these going forward, so it seems worthwhile to take a little time and look at the details of how these deals work for everybody. Let’s start with why these deals are happening. For the LMS providers, it’s a revenue stream. They get to charge content providers for access to the students and teachers. The publishers are essentially paying for storefront access. What does this integration look like? Blackboard and McGraw Hill advertise that their integration is accomplished through the IMS Basic Learning Tool Interoperability (BLTI) standard. Google+ Comments
50 Really Cool Online Tools for Science Teachers
A 21st-century education revolves around the Internet for everything from collaboration, tools, lessons, and even earning degrees online. If you are looking for ways to integrate online learning into your science class or science degree programs, then take a look at these cool online tools that are just perfect for both teachers and students. Science Tools to Use with Students These tools offer opportunities for learning about climate, cells, the human body, nature, and more. ChemiCool. AP Tools Whether you are setting up a new AP curriculum or are just looking for additional material to use with your AP science students, these tools will help. Advanced Placement Biology. Websites and Resources for Science Teachers These websites are chock full of amazing resources and tools for science teachers. Discovery Education. Calculators Use these informative environmental calculators with your students. Ecological Footprint Quiz. Online Games Online Science Games. Google Earth Google Earth Ocean.
Replacing a Pile of Textbooks With an iPad
Inkling When I’m not blogging away about technology for the Bits Blog, I’m also an adjunct professor at New York University in the Interactive Telecommunications Program. The program is a technology-focused graduate course, so it came as no surprise when four of my students walked into class in early April with fancy new Apple iPads in hand. After the students got past the novelty factor, a debate ensued about how the iPad would fit into their school life. One factor the students discussed was the ability to carry less “stuff” in their backpacks: the iPad can replace magazines, notepads, even a laptop.
The Biology Corner
Hey, What About the ‘Net? | Symtext
Interesting post this morning in The Chronicle of Higher Education. An opinion piece from David Lewis (dean of the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis University Library and assistant vice president for digital scholarly communications at Indiana University) makes the by now well-known case that we need to lower textbook costs. The Chronicle’s tweet goes a tad further: @chronicle Textbook system is broken: high costs, poor info for students, bad books David’s basic case is this: we all know the system isn’t working. reduce costs, enhance pedagogy, increase student success, and change how textbooks and related course materials are created, distributed, and used. No disagreement here, quite the opposite, actually! Digital creation and distribution of educational content will utterly transform the textbook industry.
BiologyJunction
The line between book and Internet will disappear
A few months ago I posted a tweet that said: The distinction between “the internet” & “books” is totally totally arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years. Start adjusting now. The tweet got some negative reaction. But I’m certain this shift will happen, and should happen (I won’t take bets on the timeline though). It should happen because a book properly hooked into the Internet is a far more valuable collection of information than a book not properly hooked into the Internet. It will happen, because: what is a book, after all, but a collection of data (text + images), with a defined structure (chapters, headings, captions), meta data (title, author, ISBN), and prettied up with some presentation design? An ebook is just a print book by another name Ebooks to date have mostly been approached as digital versions of a print books that readers can read on a variety of digital devices, with some thought to enhancing ebooks with a few bells and whistles, like video. An API for books For instance:
What is science?
The word "science" probably brings to mind many different pictures: a fat textbook, white lab coats and microscopes, an astronomer peering through a telescope, a naturalist in the rainforest, Einstein's equations scribbled on a chalkboard, the launch of the space shuttle, bubbling beakers …. All of those images reflect some aspect of science, but none of them provides a full picture because science has so many facets: Science is both a body of knowledge and a process. In school, science may sometimes seem like a collection of isolated and static facts listed in a textbook, but that's only a small part of the story. Just as importantly, science is also a process of discovery that allows us to link isolated facts into coherent and comprehensive understandings of the natural world. Science is exciting. This section describes what makes science science. Or just click the "Next" button to dive right in!
