Too many people see science and math as bodies of knowledge only, instead of looking at them as ways of knowing. You have a lifetime to learn facts and figures, but the earlier you learn how to learn the more sense those facts will make... the less you'll have to memorize in order to "know" anything.
Your organization focuses on using models and simulations to teach math and science. How good of an understanding do you have about how scientists use models and simulations to pursue their inquiries? Are you introducing models and modeling in an authentic way, or are you just presenting models as additional means of presenting "factual" information?
In my own experience developing science instructional materials and methods, I've found that even science graduate students do not have a good grasp on the role that models play in pursuing a line of inquiry. Too many people mistake them for "reality" instead of "representations". Models tend to be presented as facts and often are not examined for where they fail or breakdown. Most of all, models are almost always presented and students are rarely asked to develop their own models.
If you are using an inquiry-based approach already, having students build their own models and develop simulations can naturally follow from basic inquiry activities. In fact, a lot of "hands-on" instruction fails in that it never gets to "minds-on". After conducting a series of basic inquiries, examining your data to look for patterns or build some sort of explanation is something that can be done by building an explanatory model or developing a simulation to reproduce observed phenomena in a controlled way. That is what doing science is, and I've done it with kids as early as 4th grade.
Using "standard" models still has its place, for several reasons. First of all, children aren't going to understand what a model is without a "model". For example, modeling the flow of electricity as water flowing through pipes is pretty common. If you can guide students through investigations that show electric current is directional and that it can branch, you can present this model as a means for pulling together different investigations under one big idea. The water-through-pipes model has problems, though, and this is something that should be brought out. Although the model has explanatory power, it is not identical to reality and there is a chance that other models might either complement or surpass it in explaining the observed phenomena.
One of the other things that standard models can provide is a "scaffold" for putting together the big picture. Are you familiar with the work of Lev Vygotsky? One of the things he stressed was how we learn best when the target of our learning is (1) just beyond our reach on our own but (2) achievable when given a little bit of help (what he calls the Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD). The ZPD is most often talked about when kids work with other people, but models and simulations can also be used to extend the range of what kids can accomplish. When you can construct an explanatory model, you are building a device to help extend your understanding. If students can't quite build a model on their own, presenting them a model and helping them make the connections between the model and their own investigations can boost their understanding of the subject.
A lot of comments above have pointed out motivation in both positive and negative senses. A lot of the negative comes from people conflating "motivation" with "rewards". There is a lot of research show that rewards can have a negative impact on meaningful learning. Having student develop their own models, on the other hand, can be motivating in one of the most powerful ways: through presenting a challenge. If you have students doing experiments by gathering data in open-ended inquiries, trying to figure
You obviously don't watch enough late-nite TV. Don't you know that you can buy cars and homes siezed from similar low-lifes by the FBI, IRS, repo men and other organizations? Auctions are being held right now near you! You can also obtain financing for your low-life auto auction purchase!
...it may take several centuries but one day, Microsoft will be gone. There's still hope for our children's children, or maybe our children's children's children's children, or.....
It'll be interesting to see how many copycats appear over the next few weeks.
Sure, as other people have noted above, there may have been other efforts similar to Trailblazer out there as early as 1995, but computer power has increased considerably since then. CPUs are faster. We have more and faster RAM. Hard drives (for caching) are faster and larger. Display instructions are getting dumped off to graphics card processors, leaving CPUs to handle other tasks. Tighter integration with the core OS may, one of these days, also make browsers faster... tho comparing WinIE or Safari against Gecko shows this point comes up short right now.
The one thing that might make something like Trailblazer usable is the scrollwheel. I've heard the complaints about how "people don't scroll" and that may have been true in 1995, even 2001, but I'd wager that scrollwheels have changed that considerably. If I had to constantly move my cursor from links in the body of a web page to the window's scrollbar and back, I wouldn't scroll either. But being able to scroll vertically and horizontally without having to move my mouse a millimeter changes scrolling from a bug to a feature.
I agree with others here that history lists aren't used in general because no one has come up with a good way to access this information. Personally, I use the History menu in Safari far more often than the Bookmarks menu -- largely because I don't want to spend the time searching through hundreds of bookmarks for something I accessed four hours ago, nor do I want to spend the time figuring out how to organize those hundreds of bookmarks.
As a mac user, Trailblazer and Expose seem like a killer combination. With Expose, having separate windows open instead of tabbing those windows works better for me. Having one of those browser windows being a graphical representation of my history list would be killer.
Sequels sell. If people want to buy sequels, then what should game designers produce? Hmm... that's a tough one.
[Personally, I think any good game should be given at least one sequel chance. Why bi-yatch about Halo 2? Why not pick on Final Fantasy XI... I mean, FINAL fantasy ELEVEN?! What's so final about that?]
Girardi wants a court order to prevent Google from using PageRank. He said members of a class action could include anyone also allegedly libeled by the search engine.
But I agree with Oscar Wilde that if there's anything worse than being talked about it's not being talked about. Since Google isn't libeling me, I'm going to sue!
CNN has an interesting article titled Bluetooth: back with a vengeance from the business perspective rather than a pure tech perspective. Toyota and DaimlerChrysler putting Bluetooth into cars? It must be dead.
Intel's (chief technology officer Pat) Gelsinger stressed that ultrawideband is not meant to be a competitor to already established wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Ultrawideband allows higher amounts of data to be wirelessly transferred than Bluetooth but has a smaller range than Wi-Fi.
and
On top of the ultrawideband foundation will be various wireless interface technologies, such as wireless USB and wireless 1394, so devices with USB and 1394 built in can connect, then send and receive data. Ultrawideband could support Bluetooth, Gelsinger said, but even further down the road, it could ultimately replace Bluetooth.
Meanwhile, Enderle says:
At the Intel Developer Forum on Wednesday Intel announced the company was giving up on the deadlocked Ultrawideband IEEE task group and going it alone with a derivative offering they are calling Wireless USB. This initiative, for them, does everything that Bluetooth does and, effectively means that for PCs Bluetooth is all but dead.
Was Enderle at the same conference as everyone else?
All I can say about Bluetooth is that my Mac syncs just fine with my Nokia 3650, and I've never had to punch in a new contact into my phone directly. Different technologies have different uses: my Palm Pilot connects to my Mac via USB, my iPod via Firewire, my phone via Bluetooth. And because all those technologies work together through my Mac, I have identical data for my Address Book and Calendar on all four of those devices.
Hmm... refute Enderle with a report out of the Register? Why not!
According to this article, Intel is putting Bluetooth into the Centrino 2. From the article:
Speaking during his IDF keynote, Sean Maloney, Intel general manager of the company's Communications Group, revealed the chip maker is to offer a "specially designed low-power... integrated Bluetooth/Wi-Fi device".
Hmm, on one hand, we have Enderle's "analysis" -- on the other, a direct quote from an Intel exec. Which to chose....
Man, with all this Primary crap, the Democratic National Committee is definately calling too many people. I'm glad they finally have a list of people to call, and I'm glad I'm not on it!
[glad I read all the way to the bottom... was going to say this myself]
A number of Mac sites have been pointing this out recently, with a number of articles looking at Mac's lower TOC vs Wintel machines. Most cite the installed base for Macs at 10%.
Slashdot Mirror
Just imagine how much the Pentagon pays for Humvee headlights!
Too many people see science and math as bodies of knowledge only, instead of looking at them as ways of knowing. You have a lifetime to learn facts and figures, but the earlier you learn how to learn the more sense those facts will make ... the less you'll have to memorize in order to "know" anything.
Your organization focuses on using models and simulations to teach math and science. How good of an understanding do you have about how scientists use models and simulations to pursue their inquiries? Are you introducing models and modeling in an authentic way, or are you just presenting models as additional means of presenting "factual" information?
In my own experience developing science instructional materials and methods, I've found that even science graduate students do not have a good grasp on the role that models play in pursuing a line of inquiry. Too many people mistake them for "reality" instead of "representations". Models tend to be presented as facts and often are not examined for where they fail or breakdown. Most of all, models are almost always presented and students are rarely asked to develop their own models.
If you are using an inquiry-based approach already, having students build their own models and develop simulations can naturally follow from basic inquiry activities. In fact, a lot of "hands-on" instruction fails in that it never gets to "minds-on". After conducting a series of basic inquiries, examining your data to look for patterns or build some sort of explanation is something that can be done by building an explanatory model or developing a simulation to reproduce observed phenomena in a controlled way. That is what doing science is, and I've done it with kids as early as 4th grade.
Using "standard" models still has its place, for several reasons. First of all, children aren't going to understand what a model is without a "model". For example, modeling the flow of electricity as water flowing through pipes is pretty common. If you can guide students through investigations that show electric current is directional and that it can branch, you can present this model as a means for pulling together different investigations under one big idea. The water-through-pipes model has problems, though, and this is something that should be brought out. Although the model has explanatory power, it is not identical to reality and there is a chance that other models might either complement or surpass it in explaining the observed phenomena.
One of the other things that standard models can provide is a "scaffold" for putting together the big picture. Are you familiar with the work of Lev Vygotsky? One of the things he stressed was how we learn best when the target of our learning is (1) just beyond our reach on our own but (2) achievable when given a little bit of help (what he calls the Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD). The ZPD is most often talked about when kids work with other people, but models and simulations can also be used to extend the range of what kids can accomplish. When you can construct an explanatory model, you are building a device to help extend your understanding. If students can't quite build a model on their own, presenting them a model and helping them make the connections between the model and their own investigations can boost their understanding of the subject.
A lot of comments above have pointed out motivation in both positive and negative senses. A lot of the negative comes from people conflating "motivation" with "rewards". There is a lot of research show that rewards can have a negative impact on meaningful learning. Having student develop their own models, on the other hand, can be motivating in one of the most powerful ways: through presenting a challenge. If you have students doing experiments by gathering data in open-ended inquiries, trying to figure
TBL may have come up with HTML, but pr0n made the web what it is today....
Not only can you buy silence, you can buy applause -- like this, for instance. Do a search on "applause"
You obviously don't watch enough late-nite TV. Don't you know that you can buy cars and homes siezed from similar low-lifes by the FBI, IRS, repo men and other organizations? Auctions are being held right now near you! You can also obtain financing for your low-life auto auction purchase!
...it may take several centuries but one day, Microsoft will be gone. There's still hope for our children's children, or maybe our children's children's children's children, or.....
"Perhaps if we installed Linux in a large, wooden badger...." -- Sir Bedevere
It'll be interesting to see how many copycats appear over the next few weeks.
Sure, as other people have noted above, there may have been other efforts similar to Trailblazer out there as early as 1995, but computer power has increased considerably since then. CPUs are faster. We have more and faster RAM. Hard drives (for caching) are faster and larger. Display instructions are getting dumped off to graphics card processors, leaving CPUs to handle other tasks. Tighter integration with the core OS may, one of these days, also make browsers faster ... tho comparing WinIE or Safari against Gecko shows this point comes up short right now.
The one thing that might make something like Trailblazer usable is the scrollwheel. I've heard the complaints about how "people don't scroll" and that may have been true in 1995, even 2001, but I'd wager that scrollwheels have changed that considerably. If I had to constantly move my cursor from links in the body of a web page to the window's scrollbar and back, I wouldn't scroll either. But being able to scroll vertically and horizontally without having to move my mouse a millimeter changes scrolling from a bug to a feature.
I agree with others here that history lists aren't used in general because no one has come up with a good way to access this information. Personally, I use the History menu in Safari far more often than the Bookmarks menu -- largely because I don't want to spend the time searching through hundreds of bookmarks for something I accessed four hours ago, nor do I want to spend the time figuring out how to organize those hundreds of bookmarks.
As a mac user, Trailblazer and Expose seem like a killer combination. With Expose, having separate windows open instead of tabbing those windows works better for me. Having one of those browser windows being a graphical representation of my history list would be killer.
Sequels sell. If people want to buy sequels, then what should game designers produce? Hmm
[Personally, I think any good game should be given at least one sequel chance. Why bi-yatch about Halo 2? Why not pick on Final Fantasy XI ... I mean, FINAL fantasy ELEVEN?! What's so final about that?]
Mr. President: we cannot ALLOW
A related article over at The Register made this point rather effectively:
... damn! I forgot that all the subscriptions I have for them are free.
From another article:
But I agree with Oscar Wilde that if there's anything worse than being talked about it's not being talked about. Since Google isn't libeling me, I'm going to sue!
To take it to Best Buy, you insensitive clod! Didn't you read the parent post?!
Sony should have invested in the porn industry....
Doesn't that reasoning make copyright kinda like military intelligence or jumbo shrimp?
...as opposed to propeller-powered gliders, I guess. Sounds like something military intelligence cooked up....
... how visionary Harold and Maude was! Odorifics, anyone?
CNN has an interesting article titled Bluetooth: back with a vengeance from the business perspective rather than a pure tech perspective. Toyota and DaimlerChrysler putting Bluetooth into cars? It must be dead.
CNET also has some news from IDF including a piece on its ultrawideband strategies. Some interesting quotes from the article:
andMeanwhile, Enderle says:
Was Enderle at the same conference as everyone else?
All I can say about Bluetooth is that my Mac syncs just fine with my Nokia 3650, and I've never had to punch in a new contact into my phone directly. Different technologies have different uses: my Palm Pilot connects to my Mac via USB, my iPod via Firewire, my phone via Bluetooth. And because all those technologies work together through my Mac, I have identical data for my Address Book and Calendar on all four of those devices.
Hmm
According to this article, Intel is putting Bluetooth into the Centrino 2. From the article:
Hmm, on one hand, we have Enderle's "analysis" -- on the other, a direct quote from an Intel exec. Which to chose....
Try "tax-cut and spend"
Man, with all this Primary crap, the Democratic National Committee is definately calling too many people. I'm glad they finally have a list of people to call, and I'm glad I'm not on it!
[glad I read all the way to the bottom ... was going to say this myself]
A number of Mac sites have been pointing this out recently, with a number of articles looking at Mac's lower TOC vs Wintel machines. Most cite the installed base for Macs at 10%.
Hey! I happen to like the taste of burnt wood! Maybe Cliff does as well. Zheesh!
Man, THAT'S what we need -- a mini-robot piggy-backed on the rover who's sole function is to hit the reset button!