Displaying posts written in

October 2009

Oct
26
2009

Abstinence-only Web Education

So I came up with this term a couple of minutes ago, and was surprised when I Googled it to find it didn’t exist.
So here it is. And here is what it expresses — my utter shock that when talking to some otherwise intelligent adults about the fact that we are not educating our students [...]

Oct
26
2009

Polymath, Blogging, and HE

I really don’t know what it will take to show higher education how anti-intellectual their dismissal of Web 2.0 has been. But one might think this speech from Fields Medalist Terence Tao might have an effect.
Very recently, software tools have become available to allow easier collaboration by large numbers of authors from across the world.  [...]

Oct
12
2009

Core Knowledge, Magellan, and the Great Man Theory of History

I guess in honor of Columbus Day the Core Knowledge Blog has put up a list of questions about the Age of Exploration. The first question is this:
1. Who was the first explorer to circumnavigate the world?
The answer they list below is:
Ferdinand Magellan
This is going to sound like nitpicking, but this answer is wrong. Magellan, [...]

Oct
8
2009

Common Core, Bloom's Taxonomy, and Thinking Historically

I’ve just read what is hands-down my favorite article this month. It’s so good that I hate to excerpt or summarize it, so please read the whole thing whole thing if you can.
Ok, for those of you that don’t take orders well — the core of the article deals with a well-educated AP student that [...]

Oct
8
2009

NBC + Blackboard makes me want to hurl

Oh, please make it stop. Check out the newest deal “inked” by Blackboard:
Blackboard is providing academic users with access to historical multimedia resources from NBC Learn. The two companies today announced that that they’ve inked a deal to make historical and current events materials from NBC News accessible within the Blackboard Learn platform.
Through NBC News [...]