Recent articles
NASA wants students to help predict real-world disease outbreaks
04/01/2019
Topics: STEM
They’re the bane of summer campouts, cookouts and evening strolls. They’re also the world’s most dangerous animal, causing more deaths even than humans. Yet most people don’t think about mosquitoes until they’…
NASA resources: A universe of learning at your fingertips
05/20/2019
Topics: citizen science, STEM & STEAM
Searching for resources on the NASA website to challenge and inspire budding scientists can be a bit like exploring the universe: You’ll find a vast expanse of interesting data, visuals, stories and creations.…
The maker movement: A learning revolution
02/11/2019
Topics: Makerspaces, Project-based learning
The impulse to create is one of the most basic human drives. As far back as the Stone Age, we were using materials in our environment to fashion tools for solving the problems we encountered. And in the millions of years since then, we have never stopped creating. In fact…
Gamify any lesson, class or curriculum
02/07/2019
Topics: Gamification, Gaming
I'm not a gamer, never even owned a console. That's probably why I'd never been very interested in game-based learning and was not excited when I found myself…
No device needed to teach kids to code
01/29/2019
Topics: Coding & robotics, Computational Thinking
Leka DeGroot can relate to teachers who would like to bring coding to their classrooms but just can’t fathom fitting it in.
“Teachers often tell me, ‘It sounds great but I don’t have time, or I don’t have the skills,’ but you don’t have to be a computer scientist to teach coding,”…
5 myths of online student privacy
01/28/2019
Topics: Digital Citizenship
One of my greatest challenges as a technology integrator is helping teachers overcome their fears of letting students engage with the digital world around them. Students want to use the…
Blogging to meet CCSS and ISTE Standards
07/11/2014
Topics:
Technology enters our classrooms at a sometimes head-spinning pace. As educators, we want technology to inspire student learning and creativity. That's what led us — an instructional coach and English teacher at Kirkwood High School in Missouri — to design a rigorous learning experience…
Design an engaging virtual learning experience in 5 steps
07/21/2014
Topics:
What does an engaging learning experience look like? You probably know it when you see it. Most likely, you'll find teachers,…
Build an awesome class website with Google Apps
07/23/2014
Topics:
Let's face it: Teachers can use all the help we can get. To have the most impact, we need to form partnerships with those other educators who spend even more time with our students than we do — their parents.
Parents haven't always been welcome in schools as partners. In the past,…
Teach physics with Angry Birds
09/04/2014
Topics:
Many students think physics is too hard for them to grasp. And many physics teachers reinforce this notion by using a lot of linear instruction techniques, demanding that they take notes and memorize, and focusing on drill and practice for standardized tests.
To make matters worse,…