My 3 immediate goals were for attendees to share:
1. How to find people to follow
2. What "chats" to join
3. How to use a hashtag

I showed Jerry Blumengarten's (@cybraryman1) ridiculously comprehensive list of educational chat hashtags: http://www.cybraryman.com/chats.html

In attendance today were:
Kathryn Kaiser (@110kaiser), Primary Division Head (K-2)
Kevin Fittinghoff (@kfittinghoff), Intermediate Division Head (3-5)
Belinda Nicholson, Middle Division Head (6-8)
Don Buckley (@donbuckley), Director of Innovation
Cristina Martinez (@cmfinlay), Server Manager Extraordinaire
Karen Blumberg (@SpecialKRB), Technology Integrator (5-8)
Stacy Bolton, Director of Communications
Nadine Renazile (@infobirdie), Librarian (5-8)
Nancy Wong (@scampnyc), Math Liasion (K-2)
Joyce Tsang (@jyc_nyc), Kindergarten Teacher
Catherine Georges (@CatherinGeorges), 7th Grade Social Studies Teacher
Clarisa Leal (@leal_cm), Spanish Teacher (multi-grade)
Talia Gonzalez (@TaliaGonzalez2), Spanish Teacher (multi-grade)

Based on the success of today's gathering, Don (my boss) suggested holding another share in two weeks. :)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This week's Technology Review, published by MIT, has a hack article about the Eyeball. It is described as, "a globe studded with cameras captures a panorama if you throw it in the air."

If you toss this foam-covered ball skyward, an accelerometer inside determines when it has reached its maximum height. At that moment, 36 cameras are triggered simultaneously, creating a mosaic that can be downloaded and viewed on a computer as one spherical panoramic image. The ball was created by researchers at the Technische Universität Berlin after one of them, Jonas Pfeil, labored to create panoramas while on vacation in Tonga. On that trip, he tried a cumbersome process that required snapping pictures in different directions and stitching them together later in a photo-editing program. Now he hopes to license the camera-ball technology for commercial production.

Full article here: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39196/

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Don Buckley and I presented "Collaborating With New Media Literacies" at Educon today.

Slideshow from our presentation:

Slideshow with talking points:

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Last week, a Flickr contact of mine congratulated me on having one of my photos printed in The Village Voice. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said it was one from my No Pants Subway Ride series. [More information about the No Pants Subway Ride, dreamed up by Charlie Todd and Improv Everywhere, is on their official blog post describing their event.]

My friend was sorting his recycling, and in the process of gathering his newspapers, he happened to skim the January 4-10, 2012 issue of The Village Voice and recognize my photo and my name. It's all so incredibly serendipitous. When I got my hands on his issue and saw my photo in print, I was delighted with the half-page size, their treatment of it, and my (albeit teensy) byline, but I was sincerely shocked and confused.

Clearly, anything I post online is public. I've been telling my students to forget "public versus private" and instead consider "public versus less public." It is comically easy to go online and copy/download/steal an image, a song, a movie, a book, etc. The hard part is to make wise choices and consistently cite sources or seek permission.

Here's the thing: I license most of my photos on Flickr with Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial. So, that means I expect credit for my work and for others not to benefit financially for something I am offering freely. As The Village Voice charges for subscriptions and advertising, they are a commercial enterprise and use of my photo is clearly for commercial purposes.

I left a message John Dixon, Art Director of The Village Voice, saying that I appreciated the photo credit in the paper, but I was surprised no one contacted me or asked permission to use it. He wrote me the next day with a really nice apology, explaining that my chosen Creative Commons license "fell thru our quality-control cracks." John offered standard compensation for a half-page re-use photo ($100) and to send extra hard-copies of the issue as it was no longer available at newsstands. I was amazed and gratified by John's response, and my respect for Creative Commons grew. As per their About Page:

Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to keep their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work — a “some rights reserved” approach to copyright — which makes their creative, educational, and scientific content instantly more compatible with the full potential of the internet. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law. We’ve worked with copyright experts around the world to make sure our licenses are legally solid, globally applicable, and responsive to our users’ needs.

Original photo here: 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

I popped in on a 6th Grade Spanish class led by Clarissa Leal. Her students are using Google Sketchup to design Islamic structures using similar characteristics they noted from their analysis of La Albambra.

6th grade studies Mecca for the first trimester: They read Habibi in English, learn Arabic counting games and melodies in Music, discuss The Crusades in Social Studies, construct geometric tesselations in Math, and examine the historical, political, and cultural significance of Islam in Social Studies (and throughout our integrated curriculum).

Unfortunately my Google Sketchup skills are weak, and I'm relying on the old "ask three people before you ask me" trick. I'm also modeling how to use the online help menu to answer questions. There are a couple of kids making hand-drawn models...

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

In terms of building their 3D designs, Jaymes prefers Tinkercad over 3DTin. He says Google SketchUp isn't designed to create 3D files natively - for that, you need to install a plugin. 

lasercutter.m4v Watch on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Pretty fascinating to see how the various Wikipedia pages chose to address the SOPA protest blackout today: 

See the full gallery on Posterous

And the front pages of other sites including Google, BoingBoing, Reddit, Craigslist, etc.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Don Buckley posted a link to an article via @abc: "Wikipedia Blackout," SOPA and PIPA explained

Meredith Stewart wrote a clear explanation of today's events: Why is Wikipedia Going Away for a Day

(I read Meredith's piece because of something Basil Kolani wrote: dead air space)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

But in reality it is a far larger and more varied group, one that includes podiatrists and actuaries, executives and entrepreneurs, the self-made and the silver spoon set. They are clustered not just in New York and Los Angeles, but also in Denver and Dallas. The range of wealth in the 1 percent is vast — from households that bring in $380,000 a year, according to census data, up to billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates.

There is a linked infographic that sort of blew my mind: The Top 1 Percent: What Jobs Do They Have?  I love that on the lower left it includes: School teachers don't earn enough to make the top 1 percent on their own, but many live in 1-percent households, primarily through marriage.

At the bottom of the infographic, it says information was sourced from IPUMS. I Googled IPUMS and found out it stands for Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The Wikipedia entry about IPUMS (yes, Wikipedia is usually my first resource) taught me:

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) is the world's largest individual-level population database. IPUMS consists of microdata samples from United States (IPUMS-USA) and international (IPUMS-International) census records. The records are converted into a consistent format and made available to researchers through a web-based data dissemination system.

IPUMS is housed at the Minnesota Population Center, an interdisciplinary research center at the University of Minnesota, under the direction of Professor Steven Ruggles.

IPUMS-USA draws on every surviving United States census from 1850 to 2000 (with the exception of 1890 census, which was destroyed in a fire) and from the American Community Survey of 2000-2009. During certain years, IPUMS-USA also makes available over-samples of African-Americans, Alaskans, American Indians, Hawaiians, and Hispanics. The IPUMS provides consistent variable names, coding schemes, and documentation across all the samples, facilitating the analysis of long-term change.

IPUMS-International includes countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America for 1960 forward. The database currently includes 159 samples from 55 countries around the world. IPUMS-International converts census microdata for multiple countries into a consistent format, allowing for comparisons across countries and time periods. Special efforts are made to simplify use of the data while losing no meaningful information. Comprehensive documentation is provided in a coherent form to facilitate comparative analyses of social and economic change.

Additional databases in the IPUMS family include: (1) the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP), (2) the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS), (3) the Integrated Health Interview Series (IHIS), and (4) the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-Current Population Survey (IPUMS-CPS).

The Journal of American History described the effort as "One of the great archival projects of the past two decades." The official motto of IPUMS is "use it for good, never for evil." All IPUMS data and documentation are available online free of charge.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

There's a pretty great post on The New York Times's website about texting while walking. Casey Neistat (@caseyneistat) created a video and explained its context:

"I wanted to make a movie about this issue for years, and got started after a discussion with my friend Benny Safdie on the proper, courteous way to text while walking.   By mastering the etiquette of texting, I hope we can gain more control over our increasingly electronic lives.  Let’s stop acting like hollowed-out zombies, with BlackBerrys and iPhones replacing eye contact, handshakes and face-to-face conversations.  It’s time to live once again in the present and simply be where we are"

-- Casey Neistat is a New York-based filmmaker. He has made dozens of short films released exclusively on the Internet and is the writer, director, editor and star of the series “The Neistat Brothers” on HBO.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I immediately assumed there was an error and expected a retraction. I also felt kinda guilty for tweeting almost exclusively about my many overindulgent meals consumed during winter vacation...especially after reading the really kind explanation for why they considered me:

Education, photography, and travel are just a few of the topics that @SpecialKRB covers everyday. Offering her followers a number of really great tips, @SpecialKRB is the ideal influencer to follow for anyone who loves mixing creativity and education.

I'm still grappling with how to navigate online social spaces, even as I have the chutzpah to teach my students how to do so. I predominantly post projects I work on in school, articles that interest me, stuff I learn about at conferences, weird NYC sightings, and things I do on my travels. Contrary to how it may seem, I make attempts to filter what I share and hope to avoid oversharing or banality. Additionally, I try to balance the whole professional/personal stream of information. Clearly, I've made bad choices, but I try to learn from each mistake. My New Year's resolution is to prevent my boss, my best friend, or my mother from confronting me with something that would jeopardize my job, relationship, or inheritance. Here's hoping I can stick to that for at least the duration of 2012...

DistanceEducation.org's list includes the following educators on Twitter:

Chris Lehmann @chrislehmann, Tom Barrett @tombarrett, Kevin McLaughlin @kvnmcl, Alec Couros @courosa, Kim Cofino @mscofino, Graham Stanley @grahamstanley, Joyce Seitzinger @catspyjamasnz, Jabiz Raisdana @intrepidteacher, Larry Carver @lcarver, Colette Cassinelli @ccassinelli, Karen Blumberg @SpecialKRB, Education.com @JustAskEdu, Anita Harris @iTechSpec, Angela Maiers @AngelaMaiers, Kathleen K. Manzo @kmanzo, Carrie Schneider @lattesc, Berni Wall @rliberni, Urban Education @UrbanEducation, Dr. Steve Perry @DrStevePerry, Alexander Russo @alexanderrusso

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Yesterday, I was in Yoshiko Maruiwa's art classes to help 6th graders add three posts to their personal digital portfolio (created in Google Sites). Yoshiko takes photos of all their finished work and creates albums on The Gallery. (The Gallery is our internal photo server powered by Drupal.) Kids include an image of their work along with an artist statement that explains their process, idea, challenges, successes, curricular connections, and anything else they want to include to curate their work. For today's class, the students made a post for their Art Self Portrait, Art Tessellation, and Art Circle Design.

To organize all the posts from their 6th grade year, kids created an Announcements page named 2011-2012. As each post is written, it snaps into place in the sidebar index and is arranged alphabetically. Hence, I have them title their posts starting with the subject. I like this better than creating a new page/section for each subject. This way there are less clicks to get to examples of their work, and there is no danger of having pages without any projects on them.

During the course of our discussion, we talked about:

1. Their invisible audience - while access to the kids' digital portfolios is limited to users on our school's GoogleApps domain, everyone in the community has an account. At any moment, their work could be viewed by students, teachers, administrators, parents, and anyone with access to a username/password. This should influence what they write (informative without being super personal) and how they write (grammatically correct).
2. Appropriate commenting - write a comment that is specific and/or can initiate a discussion. Something like, "I liked your use of color" or "I see you painted a guitar. Do you play any other instruments?"
3. Inserting an image by linking to the URL of the image online rather than taking a screen snapshot or dragging a copy of the image to the desktop. By using the URL, students can simply point to something else online. The alternative is to copy/take/steal a version of it which is tantamount to theft (depending on how the work is licensed).

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The Packer Collegiate Institute hosted Scratch Day yesterday. It was a low-key informal day of sessions and open spaces devoted to exploring ways to program in Scratch. 

As per Scratch's About Page:

Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

Thank you to Jason McDonald and Chris Kavanaugh from Packer, Michael Tempel from The Logo Foundation, and a team of generous organizers and instructors for designing such a successful event. It was fun to pop in on sessions led by people I know and admire: Steve Farnsworth from UNIS, Jaymes Dec from Marymount, Hope Chafiian from Spence, and Francesca Zammarano from UNIS.

A highlight was the UPod team from Rutgers University led by Michael Littman. In a session entitled, Towards a Scratchable Home, they shared their site http://scratchabledevices.com and showed how they are interfacing with physical appliances using BYOB (BYOB = Build Your Own Blocks and is an advanced offshoot of Scratch...)

The schedule of sessions is on the wiki's home page:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Pong.mov Watch on Posterous

Movie of a drum sequencer:

drum.mov Watch on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Sabrina Goldberg is the 7th grade Math Teacher at The School at Columbia University. She has a classic project she initiates every year with her students:

Box Project

A rectangular box is made by folding an cutting an 8"x10" shet of paper. The Flap EF equals the height AB of the box.

EF + ED + DC + BC + AB = 10"

DC + CR + RS = 8"

Parameters:

The 8"x10" sheet of paper costs $4.00.

It cost $0.02 per inch to cut the paper.

You can sell scrap paper at $0.06 per square inch.

It costs $0.20 per inch to tape up the corners.

You can sell the finished box for $0.30 per cubic inch.

Make such a box with a depth of 1.5 inches.

If you make cut AB = 1.5 inches, find:

volume of the box

cost of the cuts

value of the scraps

selling price of the box

profit

surface area of the box outside, not including the flap

Build expressions above using AB = x inches

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Scroll through the videos from the YouTube playlist above or click below to watch individual videos from our speakers at TEDxYouth@TheSchool on 11/19/11. All the speaker bios are on the website.

Don Buckley
Charles Wilson
Lucas Ward
Dickson Despommier
Shannon Durugordon and Kate Scheuermann
Charles Colten
Monica Louie
Mauricio Salgado
Sharon Unis
Ben Hirschfeld
Nonsequitur

Thank you to all who presented, attended, sponsored and organized this second annual TEDxYouth@TheSchool!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

TEDxYouth@TheSchool is Nov 19th, 2001 (this Saturday)! A group of faculty members and I gathered speakers that I hope will inspire and empower our attendees (middle schoolers, siblings, parents, teachers, guests). There are over 100 events happening worldwide this weekend as part of TEDxYouthDay coinciding with Universal Children's Day

Our website: http://tedxyouth.theschool.columbia.edu
Our Twitter: http://twitter.com/TEDxYTheSchool
Our Facebook: http://facebook.com/TEDxYouthTheSchool

Our speakers are listed below and their talks will be live-streamed and viewable from the TEDxYouth@TheSchool website:

Ben Hirschfeld
The Lit! Solar Lantern Project
http://litlanterns.org
Ben Hirschfeld founded the Lit! Solar Lantern Project as a high school freshman in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Lit! provides solar lanterns to students without electricity in the developing world, replacing their kerosene lamps. Kerosene smoke contributes to diseases like asthma, pneumonia, and even lung cancer, and contains carbon dioxide that leads to global warming. Lit!’s research shows that children receiving lanterns are better prepared for school, while their families can buy much-needed food now with the money formally used to buy kerosene. By providing solar lanterns, Lit! is preventing global warming at the same time as helping children gain literacy, better nutrition, and better health. Ben is passionate about the Lit! Project, flannel, and the outdoors.

Charles Colten
Aikido in the Schools
http://www.aikidointheschools.com
Charles Colten is the founder and chief instructor of Aikido in the Schools, which is dedicated to bringing the benefits of Aikido into public and private schools. After decades of practicing Aikido and working as a classroom teacher, he brought these two streams together, and has been sharing Aikido in schools for the past four years. Charles began his Aikido training in 1986, currently teaches Aikido to adults and children in New York City, gives seminars around the USA and has also taught/practiced in Asia, Europe and Latin America. He earned a Masters Degree in Organizational/Educational Leadership at Columbia University Teacher’s College and sits on the Board of Aikiextensions, an international organization dedicated to applying Aikido principles in business, law, mediation, health-care, arts, education, play therapy, and international development. Charles is passionate about learning, play, Aikido, and the “places” where they all happen together.

Charles Wilson
co-author of Chew On This
www.google.com/profiles/charleswilliamwilson
Charles Wilson is the co-author, with Eric Schlosser, of the #1 New York Times bestselling children’s book, Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist. He is the collaborator with the Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen on The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People and Communities, a book to be published by Gotham/Penguin next May. Charles is passionate about reading, his friends and family, and long-distance running.

Dr. Dickson Despommier
Vertical Farm
http://www.verticalfarm.com
www.trichinella.org
www.medicalecology.org
Dr. Dickson Despommier was born in New Orleans in 1940, and grew up in California before moving to the New York area. He earned his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Notre Dame and conducted laboratory-based biomedical research with NIH-sponsored support at Columbia University for 27 years. An Emeritus Professor, Dickson has always been interested in the environment and the damage we have caused by the simple act of encroachment. At present, he is engaged in a project to produce significant amounts of food crops in tall buildings situated in densely populated urban centers.  There are now five vertical farms up and running: Korea, Japan, Holland and two in the U.S.A. Dickson has received numerous teaching awards and has lectured on the subject of vertical farming to engineers, professors, and government agencies all over the world. He has given a TED talk, and three TEDx talks (Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Bermuda). Dickson is passionate about fly fishing, teaching, and photography.

Don Buckley
The School at Columbia University
http://donbuckley.info
Don Buckley has transformed learning spaces so they work for teachers and students and not just architects, he has transformed textbooks so that they work for students and teachers and not just publishers, and he has transformed new media resources so that they work for students and teachers and not just programmers. He has advanced degrees from leading European universities, is a former industrial chemist, published photographer and consultant to MOMA. As well as teaching a graduate course at Columbia Teacher’s College in Educational Technology and directing the Communications Technology program at The School, he is an author for Pearson’s Interactive Science Program (a K-8 Science series for 21st century schools). Don is passionate about Travel, Architecture, Design, Change, The Future, and Innovation. He is a scientist, technologist, educator, author, traveler, futurist, innovator, and dual citizen of Ireland and the United States. Don is passionate about architecture, travel, and design.

Lucas Ward
8th Grader
www.facebook.com/Ninjazentertainment
Lucas Ward is an 8th grader at The School at Columbia University. He writes music as well as recording and producing his own songs and music videos. He created the music group Ninjaz Entertainment, which already has three songs on its YouTube channel, but more are coming. He enjoys using Flash to draw, design graphics, and animate. He also draws freehand and especially likes to draw cartoons. He hopes you enjoy his presentation. Lucas is passionate about music, drawing/cartoons, and animation.

Mauricio Salgado
Artists Striving To End Poverty
http://www.asteponline.org
As the Director of Domestic Programming for Artists Striving To End Poverty, Mauricio Salgado handles volunteer recruitment, training and coordination, program management, and curriculum. Originally from Miami, Florida, Mauricio graduated with a BFA from The Juilliard School of Performing Arts. Mauricio has been invited by organizations around the world (the Dominican Republic, South Africa, Peru and India) to teach the ASTEP methodology of using the arts as a catalyst for mentorship and education. In 2005 and 2006, Mauricio was hired as a teaching artist for Dreamyard to work with New York City public school children. He currently teaches annual Social Justice through the Arts workshops at Santa Clara and Juilliard Universities. In March of 2009 Mauricio was presented with the prestigious Martin E. Segal Award in recognition of his outstanding work with ASTEP. Mauricio is passionate about story-telling, compassionate service, and his wife.

Monica Louie
Engineers Without Borders
www.ewb-usa.org
Monica has been volunteering with Engineers Without Borders NY Chapter (EWB) for 3 years. EWB is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides engineering services to developing communities. Monica’s involvement brought her to Cambodia with the design and construction of a dam that provides water for irrigation to 9000 residents, and Kenya, for a clean water distribution system. She has actively been involved in promoting the organization’s vision and mission as a member of the executive board. The recently formed EWBNY-Education Committee promotes engineering and global development to students K-12 in NYC. Monica is passionate about international development, travel, and food.

Namgyal Wangchuk Trichen Lhagyari
High School Junior
www.bykids.org/tibet.php
Born and raised as a Tibetan exile in India, Trichen is currently at boarding school in the United States. Last year, he made his first documentary film about his life as the descendant of the Great Kings of Tibet and the struggle of the Tibetan people in exile. His film, My Country is Tibet, was made through BYkids and has screened to critical acclaim at film festivals around the world. The film will be distributed by Discovery Education to half the schools in America. The Dalai Lama has recommended he go to college in the United States, so Trichen is passionate about studying, teaching people about Tibet, and rowing.

Nonsequitur
A cappella group from Columbia University
http://columbiagroups.org/nonsequitur
Nonsequitur is an a cappella (without music) group from Columbia University. Founded in 2000 by five Columbia students, the group was originally formed as an all-male group specializing in alternative rock. Nonseq (as it’s popularly known) quickly grew to include all genders and genres, eventually becoming Columbia’s hippest group. Students come together to combine awesome vocal harmonies and killer choreography. Over the last eleven years, they have toured Canada and the East Coast, and performed with renowned a cappella groups from across the country, and in 2009, took first place in the quarterfinal round for the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. Nonsequitur has also enjoyed great success off the stage. In 2007, they won the Columbia Organizational Achievement Leadership Promise Award for being the student organization with the best potential for positive impact on Columbia’s campus.

Sharon Unis
Pop-Up Adventure Play
http://popupadventureplay.org
Sharon Unis co-founded Pop-Up Adventure Play and serves as the Managing Director of Business Development. Pop-Up Adventure Play is a US/UK social enterprise advocating for children’s hands-on and self-directed play within communities of supportive adults. Working internationally to catalyze free play opportunities, her team operates both globally and regionally, promoting low-cost, place-specific solutions for optimizing community organizing on behalf of children’s play. Sharon’s other recent experience includes work with the New York Coalition for Play, the Children’s Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the NYU Child Study Center. She earned a BA in Economics and Environmental Science from Barnard College at Columbia University. Sharon is passionate about children/youth, nature, and playing/laughing.

Shannon Durugurdon, Kate Scheuermann
8th Graders
http://insideoutproject.net
Shannon and Kate are part of a group of 8th graders at The School at Columbia University participating in JR’s InsideOut Project as an Art elective. They will explain the project and their inspiration. They are both scholar-athletes and integral members of The School’s community. Shannon is passionate about sports, acting, and taking care of others. Kate is passionate about lacrosse, training wild mustangs, and skiing.

Conrad Milhaupt, co-host
8th Grader
Conrad is an eighth grader at The School at Columbia University, and is currently the President of the Student Government. As President this year, he hopes to empower the students of The School and prove that students of all ages can make a difference in their communities. He is an athlete, learner, and devoted community service volunteer. He is looking forward to co-hosting the incredible TEDxYouth@TheSchool event this year. Conrad is passionate about baseball, math, and smiling.

Brandon Bell, co-host
8th Grader
Brandon is an 8th grader at The School at Columbia University, and is Vice President of the Student Government. One of Brandon’s campaign promises was to work on the need for additional community service projects in his school so that kids can make a difference by helping those in need. He is looking forward to co-hosting TEDxYouth@theSchool. Brandon is passionate about swimming, running, and reading.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Every middle school faculty member needs to chaperone at least one dance during the year. I figured this was as good a way as any other to celebrate 11/11/11.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

In this brief unit, we verbally discussed how a vector is a geometric object (in this case, a segment) that has both a direction and distance. They notice the "di" in the beginning of each word. I also tell them that translating is the same as sliding, and both words have an "sl". We talked about angles of rotation, indications of symmetry, interior angles of a triangle, and reinforced vocabulary: equiangular, equilateral, congruent, parallel lines, etc.

I always start off by showing them works by M.C. Escher. On the site, there is a link to a gallery of his symmetry drawings. I marvel at how Escher painstakingly drew his incredibly intricate and fascinating tesselations component by component. I imagine his pile of pencil stubs and eraser shavings, and reinforce for the kids how we can create infinite variations with GSP in a matter of seconds by clicking and dragging.

I posted something about last year's activity here.

There is a great PDF with multiple activities put out by Key Curriculum Press (@keypress) embedded below or you can click here to download it. We use pages 7-8 for the translation activity and pages 9-10 for the rotation activity.

Tess_Activities.pdf Download this file

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Toontastic shared by Gina Marcel, K-3 Technology Integrator (@fpgina)

SymmetryShuffle shared by Amy Liebov, Kindergarten Teacher (@AmyLiebov)

SoundLiteracy shared by Ibijoke Akinole, K-2 Learning Specialist

JibJab Jr. Books shared by Tabitha Johnson, K-4 Librarian (@tabletj)

ShowMeApp shared by Aletha Haynes, 2nd Grade Teacher (@ahaynes16)

7Billion shared by Nadine Renazile, 5-8 Librarian (@infobirdie)

CharacterPad shared by Nancy Wong, K-2 Numberacy Liasion (@scampnyc)

Cube it 3D also shared by Nancy Wong

Permalink | Leave a comment  »