Snacks4theBrain!

Welcome, Snackers!

S4theB! episode 81 shares a remarkable article about using Science to teach Science. It’s such an important and clearly expressed advocacy of research-based pedagogy that I need to share it!

When a colleague at school shared it with me several weeks ago, I swore I’d do so with my listeners. Since then, I’ve recorded the 30 minute recording, edited it down, and laced it together with the podcast show elements to make it work, but I’ve been stymied by a choice for music. Today, I am happy to say it’s a show, and it’s yours! You can read it at the Change Magazine website, of course. But, would you rather listen on your walk, your commute, or while cleaning up the kitchen at home? Snacks4theBrain! Episode 81 is here for you! If you so want to read, or even if you want to pursue some other articles from this excellent resource for teaching and learning, here’s a link directly to the article. The editors of Change, a media outlet of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, graciously granted me permission to podcast, and podcast I will!

Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?
Too many students don’t learn enough from traditional methods of teaching science, but using the practices of science itself—gathering objective data, building on demonstrated effectiveness, and fully utilizing modern technology—can significantly increase learning, by Carl Wieman.

This article is adapted from his lecture at the Carnegie Foundation’s Centennial celebration at the Library of Congress and, as I mentioned, is shared with permission.

Oh, the music? It’s Baroque guitar from guitar master James Edwards’ Le Tresor dOrphee by Antoine Francisque at Magnatune.com!

Download Snacks4theBrain! Episode81 HERE!

Cheers!

At the request of my wonderful Center for Science Outreach Director Dr. Virginia Shepherd and with the blessing of School for Science and Math Director Dr. Glenn McCombs, a dozen or so staff and faculty from both institutions gathered for an hour in the School’s classroom on the Vanderbilt University campus to witness my best shot at explaining why I think Second Life (and by extension Virtual Worlds) have a great deal to offer for teaching and learning.

I started off by welcoming the assembled and introducing a guest, Digital Collections Archivist at the Vanderbilt University Library, and archivist for its DiscoverArchive.

Then I proceeded a bit unconventionally (no, not moi!) by viewing most of the ten minute ISTE in Second Life video that describes how that 85,000 member International Society for Technology in Education built a virtual community (of over 4,000 members, at current count) inside the 3D platform of Second Life, after which I launched into my Powerpoint presentation. True to Murphy’s Law, I failed to hit record on my little Olympus voice recorder until we were discussing the Peggy Sheehy slide, so I will append this dialog to the beginning of my very first “Slidecast” at Slideshare.net. This’ll be a long ‘un, so take from it what you will, and my hope is that it remains as a resource for innovative educators for a good while to come.

NEW! Here’s the Slidecast RIGHT HERE!

I’ll also be glad to travel with this show or one like it, upon delivery of a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills (just kidding).

Okay, if you want the full experience, visit the link to the ISTE video in the Episode 80 blog post at blogs.vanderbilt.edu/s4theb and watch it, then pop on into the slidecast. Settle back with a bowl of popcorn and let the ‘cast cast it’s spell.

THE LOST NARRATION

I believe that there are two kinds of people: 1) the kind who say there are two kinds of people, and 2) the others. I hope I am in set number 2. That said, I have in recent years noticed a clear dichotomy in the world between people who readily latch onto the value and potentials of online Virtual Worlds and those who pretty much refuse to entertain the possiblilty. There is also, thankfully, a broad spectrum in between those two camps. Hopefully, sharing this with you will help you sort things out for yourself and your school or business.

There is more text in this presentation than I would like there to be, but I include it because it’s important. Feel free to multitask as you will by reading as I’m blabbering.

TechTipTidbit comes to you via the COMPUTER TIP OF THE WEEK from Dr T — RTemlak4dds@aol.com, in turn by permission from the CompletelyFreeSoftware online newsletter.

Finally, the lovely music that plays you out of the episode is from master guitarist David Modica, courtesy of Magnatune.com (”We are not evil!”) and just one of the absorbing tracks on his beautiful CD, available at Magnatune, “Acoustic Earth, Electric Sky.” Thanks, David!

Download S4theB! episode 80 here!

Welcome to Episode 76, reporting out the November meeting of the Vanderbilt Web Spiders. There’s so much going on at Vanderbilt that I wonder if we’ll ever run out of topics for S4theB? Could that ever happen? I doubt it, Monty!

Case in point: Every month or so a group of 25-50 people who are interested in the Internet get together somewhere on Vanderbilt’s campus to share thoughts with one another. In the words of fearless leader Melanie Moran, Associate Director of the Vanderbilt News Agency, “Vanderbilt Web Spiders is a group of people interested in Web development from across Vanderbilt University that meets once a month to share ideas, identify needs, and ask and answer questions of each other about the latest and greatest in Web use and development.” Ms. Moran maintains a website at vanderbilt.edu/spiders which elaborates, “The Web has revolutionized the way Vanderbilt communicates with the world, and the number of people developing Web sites at Vanderbilt has exponentially increased. The Web Developer Group was started to provide a forum for networking, sharing, and learning. Anyone who is a member of the Vanderbilt community — student, faculty, or staff — can join the group. There are no dues.

Web Spiders meet for one hour each month, with topics ranging from browser compatibility to content management systems. We also have an email listserv where members can get meeting notices and post questions or tips for other web developers on campus.

Web Spiders archives an audio podcast for those who can’t make the meeting and I got permission from Ms. Moran to excerpt from that for this episode of s4theb. If you want to listen to the entire meeting you can get on over to http://blogs.vanderbilt.edu/spiders and do so, but I thought it’d be of service to post a bit from each of the three mini-presentations I got to participate in, including one from me about Education in Second Life. That day I shared a little video of the new Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach presence in Second Life, located on Lighthouse Learning Island, and the video can be accessed at blogs.vanderbilt.edu/s4theb, in today’s shownotes.

Let’s get into some music first, then I’ll share from PodSpiders! Since at least a portion of my shareout this episode certainly heralds a “new age,” let’s just stay with the “New Age” theme. I use a portion of Adam Fielding’s wonderful song “Traveling Light” from from his cd, Distant Activity, available for purchase and download at Magnatune.com, and then play you all out with another of his songs, this one a vocal entitled “Nostalgia.” I love his innovative rhythms and cadences, and I will reference him again, I’m sure.

I think that for brevity we’ll only share out two brief portions of presentations at the Web Spiders meetup. The first is from the Director of the Vanderbilt News Archive, John Lynch The Vanderbilt News Archive is an online-searchable database and collection of video recordings collected since 1968, find out more about it at tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Mr. Lynch talked for around 20 minutes and I want to share a portion of his engaging chat from somewhere around its middle. Mr. Lynch shared a particularly amusing set of news spots from NBC News about one Buster Lee Blevins, then got all techie with us with some explanations about some of the things we saw in them.

I also share a portion of my piece, Education in Second Life, and lead you out with another tasty treat from Adam Fielding, master of new age ambience. Go listen, purchase, and download Adam’s indie music at magnatune.com.

Download S4theB! 76 here!

Finally, here’s the slideshare from my Web Spider’s shareout. You can visit slideshare for a larger display, and all the links are hot as hot can be!

Are you a teacher? Visit the ISTE Educators’ Portal online to get started in Second Life! See ya next time!!!