Renegade high school English teacher Connie Heermann was suspended without pay for 18 months for using the book The Freedom Writers Diary in her class.
posted on Jul 9, 2008 - View this thread

Wordchamp lets you view foreign-language web pages with definitions in your language as mouseovers (registration-only).
posted on Jul 5, 2008 - View this thread

These are the documents that started it all. The Charters of Freedom. As the USA celebrates another Independence Day, the National Archives presents the historical development of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and their impact upon the nation and the world.
posted on Jul 4, 2008 - View this thread

Web Designer Wall is the personal weblog of Nick La who is N.Design Studio. He talks about design ideas he has, design tutorials from Photoshop to CSS, etc., and trends in modern web design. (see previous)
posted on Jul 3, 2008 - View this thread

The Employable Web Designer ― Andy Rutledge at Design View constructs a list of suggestions to help aspiring designers better craft their own preparedness and, if necessary, adjust their degree plans toward a more effective and responsive result in the web design field. (previously)
posted on Jun 28, 2008 - View this thread

95% of degree courses in video gaming at British universities leave graduates unfit to work in the industry, according to Games Up?, an organisation set up to address the UKs video games skills shortage. Maths skills are a particular weakness.
posted on Jun 24, 2008 - View this thread

Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town.
posted on Jun 19, 2008 - View this thread

William Deresiewicz examines the pitfalls of an Ivy League education Apparently, the Ivies prepare you for... mediocrity.
posted on Jun 18, 2008 - View this thread

The Scholar Ship , an international floating university stewarded by top universities in Morocco, the United Kingdom, China, Australia, Mexico, USA, and Ghana, have temporarily suspended all voyages due to lack of funds - mainly caused by the withdrawal of main sponsor and initiator Royal Caribbean International. The program ran two voyages in 2007 and 2008 before shutdown. Alumni and prospective students on Facebook and Ning are busily sourcing options to revive the organization, while Semester at Sea is offering spaces to students who were accepted for the now-cancelled voyages.
posted on Jun 14, 2008 - View this thread

The Dark Side of Literacy - Indian education reform organization Shikshantar, who aims to encourage concepts of "Swaraj", or self-rule in local education, argues that current education and literacy models do not take into account local cultures and languages and gives too much credit to the Western alphabet. They also argue that there are many serious flaws in what they describe as UNESCO's campaign of "McEducation For All".
posted on Jun 13, 2008 - View this thread

ilovebacteria.com explains science to people who do not necessarily have a scientific background. You'll find a selection of DIY experiments like egg osmosis, and strange facts like the ever popular why does asparagus make your wee smell? And don't forget to meet the microbes.
posted on Jun 11, 2008 - View this thread

Smart Shorties is a new CD being marketed to teachers that takes the beats from popular rap songs and rewrites them to the multiplication tables, with the intent of improving kids' math skills. Forbes has a nice roundup on it's history, and NPR has done a featurette on it as well At the very least, it's certainly worth a listen for the chuckle potential, but in addition to that, it's an interesting example of the now-booming Edutainment industry, something that not only spans CD's, but also computer games and even standalone video game consoles.

also, Smart Shorties is certainly not the only "Hip-hop in the classroom" product out there, nor is it the first.
posted on Jun 8, 2008 - View this thread

Please Vote for Me (official site) is a documentary about Chinese third-graders electing a class monitor.
posted on Jun 1, 2008 - View this thread

Explore the playful side of invention and the inventive side of play in Invention at Play. Learn how play connects to the creative impulse of both historic and contemporary inventors.
posted on Jun 1, 2008 - View this thread

Assemble a rocket from main engine to payload fairing. Rocket Science 101 shows the basic parts of the launch vehicle, how they are configured, and how they work together to launch a NASA spacecraft. More Friday Flash Fun.
posted on May 30, 2008 - View this thread

Meet Joules the climate change-sceptic robot. Joules is employed to teach 8-14 year-old school children in the UK about energy use. Joules says: "oil and gas could be in short supply in about 50 years time. The earth is believed to be getting warmer and sea levels apper to be rising. Energy Chest is funded in part by the world's biggest oil company: ExxonMobil.
posted on May 27, 2008 - View this thread

KnowHow2Go wants you to take on the tough classes - such as Biology, Foreign Languages, and Algebra II - to prepare yourself for college.
posted on May 26, 2008 - View this thread

HistoryWorld is a general-knowledge website, designed for anyone above the age of about twelve with an interest in history. I found the site searching for dance history, but it includes 400 broad topics with more added all the time. It approaches history as a narrative, making full use of chronology. This is for the student as well as the researcher.
posted on May 23, 2008 - View this thread

The Atlantic: Is college necessary? Fascinating article on a growing concern. Does college really generate a good ROI?
posted on May 21, 2008 - View this thread

16% of US science teachers believe human beings have been created by God within the last 10,000 years. 25% of science teachers spend some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. 12.5% teach it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species". 2% say they do not cover evolution at all. Teachers who have taken more science courses themselves devote more time to evolution - "This may be because better-prepared teachers are more confident in dealing with students' questions about a sensitive subject."
posted on May 19, 2008 - View this thread

Teams of student entrepreneurs around the world had six days to add value to a stack of Post-It notes as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The results are documented in Imagine It!, which aims to promote creative thinking.
posted on May 7, 2008 - View this thread

This story from NPR's morning edition discusses a program in a Georgia middle and high school that pays students $8 per day to go to after school study sessions twice a week. Jackie Cushman is the originator of the project. She is also Newt Gingrich's daughter.
posted on Apr 22, 2008 - View this thread

See Saturn this Saturday April 12 is the second annual International Sidewalk Astronomy Night, a worldwide event coordinated by the Sidewalk Astronomers. The group, founded in 1968 by John Dobson (subject of this documentary), is dedicated to a sort of guerrilla astronomy -- experienced stargeeks bringing their really good telescopes out to places where people are. So even on your way to the bars, the shows, and the honky-tonk you can see stuff like this and this - like these people did.
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - View this thread

The antidote to LOLbushsuxx0rs. Over the course of the past week, Slate ran a ten (10!)-piece series, "Fixin' It", in which various writers postulated how the course of various aspects of the United States' military, culture, and policies could be redirected for the better. Although the articles are not entirely devoid of Bush criticism, there's mostly a fairly rare focus on the positive actions to be taken from here onward by the next President (whether it be McCain or Obama or Clinton).
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - View this thread

“…if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done — I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.”
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - View this thread

Learn (or teach) fundamentals of computer science, without a computer. Provided as hands-on exercises suitable for children, or even CS-illiterate adults. (If this is too basic for you, go here.)
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - View this thread

What's one of the best ways to break into UK radio? Hospital Radio of course! There are over 408 radio stations in the UK that originate from hospitals. Fully staffed and loaded with volunteers, they are a lifeline to patients and produce modern, original programming. Who got their start on hospital radio? Hundreds of legends in the UK radio industry! Including Chris Moyles, Scott Mills, Jacqui Oatley, and Heena Tailor.
posted on Apr 9, 2008 - View this thread

Pay to play. The children of big-donor Harvard alums are systematically given preference over legacy offspring of lesser means. Additionally David Karen, now a professor at Bryn Mawr, concluded that alumni children at Harvard lose most of their admissions advantage if they apply for financial aid.
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

The things they teach kids in school today. Details in the pdf. From science to history to law, evidence of increasing political bias in education.
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

Three columns on technology and eduction by Robert Cringely: the clash between those who grew up with computers and those who didn't in War of the Worlds, Amish Paradise looks for learning models in unexpected places and Ozzy knows best talks about how important digital games, not video games, could be to education.
posted on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

Something about the library inspires one to jump.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

Slate asks, "What's behind the boom in homeland-security and emergency-management majors?"
posted on Mar 29, 2008 - View this thread

Here's an interesting chart showing tertiary education attainment by age group, for OECD countries. Compare and contrast what Japan and Korea have been doing with education to the USA and Germany. (And my aren't those Canadians smart?) Here's the (.pdf) report it's drawn from (Kirkegaard 2007). C/- Clive Crook's blog.
posted on Mar 28, 2008 - View this thread

An associate professor and former librarian is collecting education copyright infringement cases in a database.
posted on Mar 27, 2008 - View this thread

Speaking of speeches, David Eggers delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (mefi consensus) it's a great example of nervous energy microphilanthropy, social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection, machines of loving grace. [previously]
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

Teaching to Testosterone. Dr. Leonard Sax is promoting his version of single-sex classrooms in public schools based on inherent biological differences between young boys and girls.
posted on Feb 29, 2008 - View this thread

Free math courses online, from very basic to brainiac.
posted on Feb 26, 2008 - View this thread

Virginia Woolf: A feminist's view on why we go to war.
posted on Feb 24, 2008 - View this thread

Fun and games with mathematics and mathematical puzzles (e.g. heart basket, Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Magic, hypercubes, and more) in both English and (with yet more content in) German.
posted on Feb 18, 2008 - View this thread

Harvard's Faculty of Arts & Sciences voted unanimously last week to mandate "Open Access" to published articles - a first at a U.S. university, though the dean will apparently grant a waiver to anyone who wants to opt out. More to follow? Peter Suber's Open Access News is tracking reactions.
posted on Feb 17, 2008 - View this thread

Did You Know 2.0 (Youtube 08:19) Facts about education, population, globalization.
posted on Feb 13, 2008 - View this thread

The Primary Review has published three research reports about primary school education in the UK and elsewhere. The Structure of Primary Education: England and Other Countries. Primary Curriculum and Assessment: England and Other Countries. Press release summarising some of the findings.
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

The First Women Barefoot Solar Engineers Of The World ( youtube ) trained at the Barefoot College in Rajasthan. Using traditional puppetry as an educational medium, Sanjit Bunker Roy's school has been causing a quiet but sure revolution in sustainable development for over 30 years. ( previously )
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - View this thread

Remember when TV raised us right? Time for Timer taught us about cheese, carrots, breakfast, and oral hygiene. The Abominable Snowman taught us about lunch, money, advertising, and the Food Group Disco! Woodsy Owl taught us to Give a Hoot! and keep America lookin' good! and Mr Yuk SCARED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF US.
posted on Feb 1, 2008 - View this thread

Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules. A truly inspirational set of values that could add everything to the life of anyone in education. What makes this set of rules even better is that they came from the students themselves. But they couldn't have done so without the pioneering work of Sister Mary Corita
posted on Jan 30, 2008 - View this thread

10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online.
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - View this thread

Skip The Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - View this thread

Saddam's Confessions - Given Saddam Hussein's central place in the American Consciousness over the last couple decades and particularly in recent years, I found 60 minutes' interview with FBI interrogator George Piro pretty fascinating.
posted on Jan 27, 2008 - View this thread

Basic Concepts in Science: A List A regularly updated list of blog entries explaining the basics of science and mathematics.
posted on Jan 25, 2008 - View this thread

Ricardo Cortés has a new book talked about here and here. Previously, he wrote It's Just a Plant, talked about on O'Reilly and previously here. He also plans to write a children's book about cocaine in the near future.
posted on Jan 10, 2008 - View this thread