December 2010 Blog Posts (6)

Canadian 15-year-olds achieved respectable results while their American counterparts plummeted on the latest international rankings of mathematics, science and reading skills. On the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests released December 7, 2010, Canada finished 8th among 65 OECD countries in mathematics, 7th in science, and 5th in reading. Americans were stunned by the latest results, placing their students 31st in math, 23rd…

I've been working on ideas for the Online Progressive School this week. Took a little break from that to write this open letter to Steve Jobs. 

http://fredbartels.posterous.com/an-open-letter-to-steve-jobs

Very much enjoying the unstructured free time that a long break brings.

Fred

What's on your Top 10 list of free web-powered software for communicating, playing, and learning online? Here are a few of my favorites. The last four are new to me in 2010.

1. Google Apps for Education (in a class by itself): gmail, docs, calendar, blog, video chat, maps, earth, picassa, sketchup, groups, & more, all free for educators and accessed from one…

Ethics and Leadership 2   - Grade 10

For the past four years, the sophomore sections of Ethics and Leadership 2 spend three classes preparing for a researched presentation to their peers. This is done during the first semester. The ninth grade semester focuses on the MKA Character Expectations. We focus on responsibility, courage/confidence, and justice. We discuss where these character standards are viewed and practiced in our own school community as well in our…

Backwards by Design

I remember being excited when I first heard of the concept of “backward design.” It made intuitive sense to start with your goals, think about how you will know when you’ve reached those goals, and then figure out how to get there. To some extent, this concept continues to underlie the unit design work my students do in the Humanities 7 course. For having brought this concept to me through their book Understanding by Design, Grant Wiggins and…

Light Immersive Platforms ... an example

http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/ict/lip/



This is a recording of an event that took place online in a

"Light Immersive Platform"



Virtual (online) Photography Event http://www.pdnvirtualevents.com

This one day online event (8 Dec 2010) was focussed on the Photography…