Author Archive

Technology Today: the Virtual Big Brother by Vaishnavi Agrawal

Monday, July 20th, 2015

Technology Today: the Virtual Big Brother by Vaishnavi Agrawal offers a warning of how one’s Internet activity can result in negative consequences for anyone intent on even minor mischief. Her Big Brother metaphor is as scary as it is accurate. The good news it that the Internet has allowed me to collaborate with someone on the other side of the world (India).

Vaishnavi Agrawal

Vaishnavi loves pursuing excellence through writing and has a passion for technology. She has successfully managed and run personal technology magazines and websites. She currently writes for Intellipaat.Com a global training company that provides e-learning and professional certification training.

Caring for Your Digital Fingerprints

For last couple of years, it has often been suggested that you should not lie about yourself or your intentions online. You are not only leaving digital fingerprints on your device, but also on the device of every individual involved in the conversation. This also includes a number of other servers on the Internet. Considering the immorality of lying, one may argue that this particular advancement is not for the good. Under the veil of recreation, you may see information pertaining to a particular individual in immense quantity, which is more often than not voluntarily broadcasted. This means that we must consider the fact that our digital existence can supersede our organic one in many ways.
For many of us, our digital lives make us seem better looking, more popular, better qualified, have a better profession and even a better lifestyle. This can make one wonder if it’s possible to fathom the relevance of this relatively redundant activity. I see that it is not just a matter of tangibility, but also of concentration and focus. Now the amount of time and energy that is dedicated to creating, maintaining, and sustaining a digital life eats away at the basic necessity of doing the same for the real one.

Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel T. Willingham

Tuesday, July 7th, 2015

Why Don’t Students Like School (© 2009) by Daniel T. Willingham answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. Daniel’s nine principles are still fresh and can guide teachers to become more effective. The chart in the last chapter summarizes the principles and belongs on every teacher’s wall. Click at the bottom of any page to get copies for any teachers you know.

Daniel T. Willingham

Daniel has a B.A. in psychology from Duke and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Harvard. He is currently professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1992. His research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-12 education. He writes the Ask the Cognitive Scientist column for American Educator magazine. Check out his website and follow him on Twitter at @DTWillingham.

1. Why Don’t Students Like School

The big question is: Why is it difficult to make school enjoyable for students? The kind of thinking that is required to solve problems is difficult. To understand why, Daniel explains how thinking happens in a part of our brain called working memory. Working memory draws on two resources to solve problems. The first is information from the environment such as sensory information or facts presented by another person or some kind of media. The second is information and procedures stored in long-term memory. In order to solve a problem, it has to be not too difficult. It also helps keep things interesting if the problem is not trivial. If problems are in this Goldilocks Zone, student curiosity will thrive. It helps if the content in question is interesting to the students, but that is not enough as Daniel demonstrates by telling of a middle school teacher who made the subject of sex boring.
With this in mind, it’s easy to see why the teacher’s job is daunting. Problems just right for some will be too easy for some and to hard for others. This implies that it is self-defeating to give all students the same work. It is also necessary to make sure that students have the necessary background knowledge in long-term memory. You also need to avoid overloading working memory with multistep instructions, lists of unconnected facts, long chains of logic, or the application of a just-learned concept. Ideally the problems can be made more interesting by being relevant to the students’ life outside of school.

Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015

Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica ©2015 offers advice for educators and policy makers that can bring rigorous, personalized, and engaged education to everyone. As a leading voice in education, it’s vital that anyone interested hear what Sir Ken has to say. If you haven’t seen his number one TED Talk check that out too. Click at the bottom on any page to purchase this necessary book.

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD and Lou Aronica

Sir Ken is an English author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to governments, non-profits, education, and arts bodies. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education. He is the author of The Element, Finding Your Element, and Out of Ours Minds. His 2006 TED Talk How Schools Kill Creativity is the most watched in history with over 33 million views. Originally from a working-class Liverpool family, Robinson now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Marie-Therese and children James and Kate.
Lou Aronica is the author of three novels and the coauthor of several works of nonfiction, including the national best sellers The Culture Code, The Element, and Finding Your Element.

Introduction: One Minute to Midnight

The current reforms are being driven by political and commercial interests that misunderstand how real people learn, and how great schools work. As a result they are damaging the prospects of countless young people. The standards culture is harming students. In response, Sir Ken continues to push for a more balanced, individualized, and creative approach to education. Instead, schools take children with voracious appetites for learning and see to it that their appetites are dulled as they go through school. Current efforts focused on raising standards through competition and accountability do not work, and compound the problems they claim to solve. If you design a system based on standardization and conformity, you suppress individuality, imagination, and creativity. Schools that were designed to produce factory workers resemble factories with their assembly line approach. Current reforms stick with this approach only to be less in tune with the circumstances of the 21st century. Sir Ken thinks that schools need to be transformed not reformed, and that we know how to do it even though we aren’t.

How to Cheat on State Standardized Tests and Not Get Caught by Dr. Doug Green

Monday, June 1st, 2015

Yesterday this article was posted at Education Week Online. My goal in writing it is to do my small part to take down a test and punish system that just about any educator I know thinks is bad for kids, and by extension our society as a whole. I encourage my readers to look for opportunities to do the same. I hope you enjoy it and please leave a comment if you can. My thanks go out to my editor Starr Sackstein (@mssackstein) for believing in my work and doing such a fine editing job.

How to Cheat on State Standardized Tests and Not Get Caught by Dr. Doug Green

Also, be Sure to Check Out My Recent Book Summaries and Guest Posts.

Ball or Bands: Football vs Music as an Educational and Community Investment by John Gerdy (©2014) uses research to support the notion that due to costs, injuries, its focus on elite male athletes, and a negative impact on school cultures, support for high school football can no longer be defended. He also makes a case for why music and the arts in general need more support.

On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting by Thomas R. Guskey explains to all teachers why their grading practices are probably wrong for many reasons.

Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count by Richard Nisbett shows how intelligence is mostly determined by one’s environment and provides concrete things that parents and teachers can do to make kids smarter.

Why Would Anyone Let Their Kid Play Football or Anything Else? This is my latest article posted at Ed Week Teacher’s online site yesterday. Thanks to Starr Sackstein for the great edits. @DrDougGreen @mssackstein @EdWeekTeacher

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Ball or Bands: Football vs Music as an Educational and Community Investment by John Gerdy
Monday, May 18th, 2015

Ball or Bands: Football vs Music as an Educational and Community Investment by John Gerdy (©2014) uses research to support the notion that due to costs, injuries, its focus on elite male athletes, and a negative impact on school cultures, support for high school football can no longer be defended. He also makes a case for why music and the arts in general need more support. He comes at this topic as a musician and an athlete with a brief career in the NBA. Click at the bottom of any page to get copies for your board of education members, and be strong if you take on king football.

John R. Gerdy

John is founder and executive director of Music for Everyone. A former all-American and professional basketball player, he served at the NCAA and as associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. He is author of Sports: The All-American Addiction and Air Ball: American Education’s Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics.

John’s Journey Through Sports and Music

The first two chapters outline John’s background experiences in athletics and music. While his father was a physics teacher, he was also the head football coach. Much to his father’s disappointment, John chose basketball and went on to become the leading career scorer at Davidson College followed by a brief professional career. He then went on to get a PhD and work several jobs as a sports administrator. His music life started in eight grade where he quit the school chorus because the director wouldn’t do any Beatles songs (1971). In high school he picked up the guitar, and over time gradually learned percussion and saxophone. As he moved around, he looked for opportunities to play in pick up bands and perform in clubs.

When his kids started school he volunteered to perform and teach, and even went so far as to develop a seven-week blues curriculum, which culminates in an assembly where children sing and play percussion to a blues song that they have written. John sees little difference between open mic and pick up basketball or other team sports. Each group is striving toward a common goal, which is to figure out where everyone’s talents can contribute.

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