An Interactive Learning Design Blog

An Interactive Learning Design Blog

Oct 30, 2007

We miss the California Academy of Sciences most in the winter

The San Francisco Chronicle has a great article and this wonderful video which I've posted below shows what we can expect when the California Academy of Sciences reopens in Fall of 2008.
This video reminded me of how much our family, like so many others, is waiting for the Academy to reopen. I can't remember how many field trips I've helped organize: for reptiles, dinosaurs, bird skulls, earthquakes-the list goes on and on. What a great science resource we'll have to use again when it reopens! And in the meatime, isn't it great that the technology enables us to see what's coming and gives us a way to share it with kids.

Oct 25, 2007

Google Earth takes to the Stars

I just read in my e-school news that Google Earth has added a "sky" button which turns your gaze outward to the stars and galaxies above. You have to download a new Google Earth, and then you have to notice the new little button at the top of the Google Earth screen. It looks like this cool little Saturn button; that is, if you're looking at your screen with your telescope. In reality it's so small it looks like you splattered oatmeal on your LCD.
But once you know it's there it's very cool. Here's a movie that shows how it works.

It's these kind of tools that can make all the difference in the use of educational technology in schools. Hopefully science teachers will be inspired to explore this tool and use it to bring dynamic elements and current data into their lessons. The database alone, with information on each object in the sky, is incredible. And if teachers don't get time to to bring it into their classrooms, I imagine the students will probably bring it in for them.

Oct 22, 2007

Weather or not to Blog


5th Grade is researching weather, and naturally the research was on extreme weather.
The Offical United States Hurricane Centerwas a very popular jumping off spot. Also popular was the Weather Undergroundtropical storm center, and Weather Whiz Kids.Some people liked How Stuff Works.

Many people wrote about tornadoes. Hail was another popular subject. One group studied vulcanism and it's effect on the weather. I saw one report on lightning. We found some interesting videos on hurricanes. Finally, a california classroom would have to have at least one report on the "El Niño / La Niña". weather phenomena. More detailed information can be found here.

Oct 18, 2007

We go bats in the lab

This week, the third grade team decided to research Bats. Some of this research was done in the Rancho lab. We especially enjoyed viewing Batworld, Bats4kids, Megabats, and Vampire Bats.

Our favorite bats are the Vampire Bat, the Fruit Bat, and the Pallid bat(also known as the groundfeeding bat).
Our favorite bat facts are
"Vampire bats suck blood".
"When they suck blood,the animals don't wake up."
"California has lots of brown bats"

Here's a picture of our favorite bat:

Hope this doesn't drive you batty!

Oct 16, 2007

More on YouTube and UC Berkeley



One thing about the UC Berkeley lectures on YouTube is that we all have been inspired by great teachers at different times (though generally few and far between). But the YouTube lectures give us a chance to see great speakers who love their subject area and have a wealth of engaging stories and examples that really help us learn. If K-12 teachers had time to listen to expert lectures on topics related to their curriculum, they could acquire new knowledge and stories that create the context that makes learning stick. Here's a lecture on gravity from the "Physics for Future Presidents" course taught by Richard Muller, in which he shows a model of how gravity acts on a stream of water. He then has us consider what would happen if the stream shot out so far that it missed the earth on it's way down. This is the kind of question that would be a great opener in a classroom or around the dinner table with the kids. Bottom line: If you look at the four and five star lectures, you're bound to pick up some great information.

Oct 11, 2007

UC Berkeley has a YouTube channel

The San Francisco Chronicle had an article last week :
Cal offers full courses on YouTube - but not for credit

Ellen Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, October 4, 2007

You don't have to be a UC Berkeley student to be educated like one.

UC Berkeley has begun to publish its lectures on YouTube, the first university to team up with the video-sharing site to offer full courses online. It's the latest move to bring higher education to the masses through the Web.

Other institutions have used YouTube to broadcast occasional classes, but UC Berkeley is the first to offer full courses online, school officials and YouTube said Wednesday....

Some 200 clips have been uploaded to YouTube so far, representing eight semesterlong courses, including Marian Diamond's human anatomy class and Richard A. Muller's Physics for Future Presidents.


I watched one physics course and kept visualizing Science Teachers in High School assigning these for extra credit, or teachers refreshing their own knowledge; but I also wondered how this would affect the bandwidth in a High School Campus, and the fact that most Schools currently block YouTube at School. Then Margo came by and said "It's great, but if you just sit and watch it without a way to ask questions or get background info, it's kind of boring. Is this the way we learn science?" I guess like anything you have to find the good stuff. For instance, here's a clip from a UCB Search Engines Technology & Business course. It's a lecture by Sergey Brin, founder of Google. This provides a great opportunity to hear the perspective of someone you probably wouldn't get to hear otherwise.


Oct 10, 2007

Pulled from TechCrunch without comment

Pulled from tech crunch with out comment

kerpoof is aiming to become a leading destination site for children through a suite of activities that are enriching as well as entertaining. On Kerpoof, kids can create art, stories, and animated movies using a simple 3D interface, and when done, can save it to their gallery, share it with others, and vote on their favorites.

Krista Marks, CEO for Kerpoof presenting. Aims to change the way kids interact with the computer. Most of what kids do today is mindless, a waste of time - Kerpoof wants to change this.

Goal: to be a site where fun is not separate from learning, but integral to it. Kids can create art through the site, write their own stories, create their own movies.

Parents are no longer buying software for their kids with the explosion of broadband - they are turning to websites for them. Neopets and Club Penguin are very popular, but are not as educational as they could be. At the same time, CS majors are plummeting. Bizworld saw this trend and came to Kerpoof to create software to educate children using the web.

Easy tool for kids to make their own picture scenes - cool effects when you add particular elements to the scene (add a moon and it becomes night, etc.). You can share your pictures with friends.

To make a movie, pick a scene then a backdrop. CEO claiming the movie creator teaches kids object oriented programming. You put objects in a scene and then make the objects do things (objects and methods). Looks like a basic Flash applet creator. Still, looks impressive. You can add music to the background. You can add multiple scenes to an entire movie.

If you want to add interactivity to a movie, you can have prompts at different points in the movie that change how the movie proceeds (makes it more like a game created by kids).

Kerpoof is live and freely available now.

Oct 5, 2007

Sailing with Call of the Sea

On Thursday, October 4th, we went sailing with the wonderful people from Call of the Sea. It was a evening cruise for educators in an attempt to spread the word about what a wonderful program they have for kids. We boarded the 82 foot Sloop Seaward at 5 and returned to the dock at 7. Here are some pictures we took:

Oct 3, 2007

The best students in the world


I'm at Willow Creek Academy with "the best students in the world." They're telling me what to say as I show them how to make a blog for their 8th grade projects. They also want to add: "And Willow Creek is cool."

Their Social Studies teacher has an ibook with the camera in it, so as I showed them how easy it is to make a posting we turned on "photobooth" and they all leaned into the screen to take this picture.