Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Sites of the Week

I looked back at the eSchool News Site of the Week page over the weekend and found a couple of items that might prove useful in the classroom. Free math software helps students from elementary school to college tells about the GeoGebra site and application "that joins geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics, and calculus in one easy-to-use package." GeoGebra is available as a web app, an applet, or a downloadable application that "can do constructions including points, vectors, segments, lines, and conic sections as well as functions, which can be altered dynamically by mouse afterwards." Broken Airplane's 7 Steps to Interactive Math with Geogebra: The Basics adds to the considerable online documentation available.

A second goodie comes from Arcademic Skill Builders releases free educational video games that tells of a bevy of "web-based video games that help students practice basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills while in the classroom or at home." The Arcademic Skill Builders games include good directions embedded in each online application.

Oh, my!

Commenting on his advocacy for private schools and home schools, Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction told a county Republican club on Monday, "I should be an advocate for all of our public — for all of God's children.” All students ‘my public,' schools chief says tells of the most recent blubberings of Governor Mitch Daniels' clueless puppet for privatizing Indiana schools.

Liz Ciancone's MS. TAKES: Aren't public schools in need of our attention offers a little balance to Bennett's embarrassing comments.

Diane Ravitch unloads today on the powers that be in An Age of Hypocrisy on the Bridging Differences blog:

In an earlier post, I questioned whether we live in an age of national insanity. I did so because it seems insane to think that we can improve our nation's schools by attacking teachers and the education profession and by turning public funds over to the private sector. After I reflected a bit more, I began to wonder if we actually live in an age of national stupidity, because our policymakers are pursuing policies that have no evidence to support them; this is what they think of as "innovation." When a policy fails again and again (like merit pay) and you push it through anyway, that's not "innovation," it's willful ignorance and stupidity.

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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Finding the Fun in Immunology

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist using one of the catch phrases for the Immune Attack (IA) learning game for a headline. In the free learning game, students "must navigate a nanobot through a 3D environment of blood vessels and connective tissue in an attempt to save an ailing patient by retraining her non-functional immune cells." The creators of IA are looking for classes of middle and high school students to play and evaluate IA 1.0 to help guide the development of version 2.0. And while the title Find the Fun in Immunology is a bit geeky, FAS's Melanie Stegman does make her case for it well:

Immunology is fun. Immunology involves watching cells identify and destroy other cells. These cells appear to be very similar to every other cell in the universe. These cells have outer membranes, nuclei, DNA and proteins that are almost indistinguishable from every other cell.

The questions are why this particular cell kills bacteria. Why doesn't this cell kill all types of bacteria? Why does this cell in some people, not kill bacteria? The answers involve making endless comparisons between healthy and sick patients, between pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria, between humans and mice and between mice and flies.

So, Immunology is a puzzle.

I sent Melanie an email this morning that prompted some good news. Since my newest PC is too old to run Immune Attack (I tried.), and I work primarily on a Mac, her prompt response was welcome: "You will love Immune Attack 2.0. It will be PC, Mac and Browser based. :-)."

Einstein's Theory Fights Off Challengers

The NASA Image of the Day, Einstein's Theory Fights Off Challengers, uses a composite image of the Abell 3376 galaxy cluster to illustrate that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity "is still the best game in town" for explaining "the properties of gravity on cosmic scales."

From the Image of the Day descriptor:

Two new studies have put Einstein's General Theory of Relativity to the test like never before, using observations of galaxy clusters to study the properties of gravity on cosmic scales. These results, made using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, show Einstein's theory is still the best game in town. Such studies are crucial for understanding the evolution of the universe, both in the past and the future, and for probing the nature of dark energy, one of the biggest mysteries in science.

This composite image of the Abell 3376 galaxy cluster shows X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the ROSAT telescope in gold, an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey in red, green and blue, and a radio image from the VLA in blue. The bullet-like appearance of the X-ray data is caused by a merger, as material flows into the galaxy cluster from the right side. The giant radio arcs on the left side of the image may be caused by shock waves generated by this merger.

Chandra observations of galaxy clusters have previously been used to show that dark energy has stifled the growth of these massive structures over the last 5 billion years and to provide independent evidence for the existence of dark energy by offering a different way to measure cosmic distances.

And one of the always cool things about astronomy photos, even if you don't get the science (like me sometimes), you can still enjoy the pretty picture.

Memidex

A press release today reminded me of a site I covered in our The Freewares of 2009 feature story. Since publication of that story, the free Memidex online dictionary and thesaurus has grown up quite a bit. As you can see at right, Memidex still uses its own definition derived from the WordNet database developed by Princeton University, but now adds definitions from lots of other sources. They also offer some tools which might be helpful for some users, and thankfully, provide audio pronunciations for those of us who haven't fully memorized a pronunciation key.

Odds 'n' Ends

Valerie Strauss writes today about a student and her brother who donated their savings to help save teacher jobs at their school. Kid donates $300 life savings to protect teachers' jobs should have made me feel good about how that family values teachers and education, but it instead made me even more frustrated at the machinations of those who would subvert our public schools for their personal gain.

An editorial in today's Terre Haute Tribune-Star, Schools chief must be strong advocate for state's public schools, tells that "The perception dogging Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of public instruction, is that his reform agenda is meant to dismantle the state's public school system." Trib-Star editor, Max Jones, winds up his excellent editorial with a strong admonition for Tony Bennett:

Indiana has more than 2,000 public schools. Bennett’s title is superintendent of public instruction, and the job of upgrading those 2,000 public schools is big enough to merit his full commitment. Remember, private schools have served the Hoosier students and families who choose them for decades without the passionate advocacy of the state government’s superintendent of public instruction.

Bennett and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels aren't the only ones openly shilling for vouchers to support private schools with public monies. A recent Los Angeles Times editorial, Not-so-public education, tells of a Colorado voucher program that "seems more likely to benefit middle-class children and religious schools than low-income public school students, and to worsen inequities in education."

I was gratified this morning to see some perceptive comments from fellow Hoosiers following the AP story, Bennett: Education Changes Sorely Needed. Bennett testified (under oath?) before the Indiana Senate Appropriations Committee this week that "state-funded vouchers for private schools and a shift of money to charter schools are necessary steps in the effort to improve Indiana's education system."

"Sarah" nailed what is going on in her comment:

Is anyone else very tired of hearing this man talk. He never quotes research, but the research does not support any of what he wants to do. I just wish he would Shut up, Shut up, SHUT UP -- and go away.  
 
There is nothing wrong with 90% of the schools in this state, just like any other state. So, in order to SAVE 10% of our schools, he is going to take down the entire system.

Most Hoosiers are fairly pleased with their local schools and the education their children are receiving. Of course, charter school and voucher advocates have produced their own polls showing otherwise.

Jerry Case, who taught for a couple of years in an Indianapolis high school, commented:

I listened to a radio program that had a round table of education experts and Bennett. All the participants agreed that with lack of parent involvement and accountability that students weren't going to do well, except for Bennett. He fails to accept or recognize that students and school performance can't be resolved without having student and parent involvement and accountability.   

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