Programming With Kids

During my undergraduate work there was a 'required' programming course that I actually took during the winter session which was much shorter and higher speed. I can't remember which programming language was taught, nor can I write any code. Much of this is changing and the NY Times ran a great article about Programming With Kids.

The article talks about a site called Scratch which teaches kids to create their own interactive games and such. It's more of an 'intro' to programming and another option as young children develop their 'language' skills.

Alice is another option from Carnegie Mellon that was mentioned in the article. If we're going to bridge this Digital Divide and our App Gap, it's our responsibility as educators to open these options with our students and to bring them along!

Worth Watching

Not technology relevant....but Worth Watching for obvious reasons. We average fifteen bikes in our rack each day, with 1,120 students enrolled, that's a very low percentage.

The Digital Promise

Created by: Online Schools

Great info-graph I found from edtechvalley.blogspot.com......

Disney and YouTube

Disney and YouTube have announced a partnership for a video deal that will be based on an app called, 'Where's My Water.' Disney will produce a series of web videos, and of course the partnership means they'll be hosted on YouTube.

The YouTube partnership with Disney is coming off some recent announcements of additional channels on YouTube covering numerous topics. It will be interesting to see how YouTube grows and what they grow into? Will they someday take on television? Apple TV?

Sesame Street - Video Production With Our Kids

It was 4:00am this morning and my seven-month old daughter decided she wanted to hang out with dad and work on the computer. I was browsing some Sesame Street videos on YouTube and had some nice flashbacks to my childhood when my older brother and I would watch the show. (We only had seven channels growing up and the public station was one of them!)

Browsing the videos which are all on YouTube had me thinking about video creation at my school and that our students should be doing much more video creation. I'm going to talk with our Student Council president about ideas and creating a weekly/monthly video for our school!

Here's the expert from this YouTube video....

The Sesame Street Muppet from the hit song "I Love My Hair" now sings "Change the World," an inspirational song empowering children with the idea that they can be anything they want to be!

Another 'all-time' favorite of mine :)

Cellphones - Lift the Ban

Cellphones are everywhere, in most backpacks at school and nearly every teachers pocket or desktop. There are SO many articles/opinions out there about allowing cellphones in schools, and how to utilize them in class.

The NY Times has a newer section called SchoolBook that I've written about before, and there was an interesting article yesterday about lifting the cellphone ban in public schools. Lifting the ban is a great idea, in any district/city, however there needs to be Professional Development provided or in place in order for this to be successful. This is the missing piece in many cases....

S.T.E.M. Careers

I'm not reading quite as many books as I like these days, but I was checking out the ISTE store and a new S.T.E.M book looks good. There have been so many articles in many different newspapers about S.T.E.M. careers and the huge deficit our country is going to face with not enough of our students going into the field and choosing a S.T.E.M. major in college.

Connecting our students to those careers is the first step, and I'm hoping this book does just that.