Written By Becky Koza When I entered my first classroom, I was taken aback. Not because I was excited to make the classroom mine, not because I was anxious to rearrange […]
Read MoreSahil Doshi is a 14-year-old freshman at Upper St. Clair High School in Pittsburgh. He also won “Top Young Scientist” in the 2014 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which inspires students to come up with innovations that could earn them scholarships and recognition. Doshi’s invention, the PolluCell, converts carbon dioxide into electricity (by way of silver-plated guitar strings) to bring power to places that wouldn’t otherwise have it. (…)
Read MoreVideo games are a collaborative effort. They bring together different people and cultures that would normally never communicate with one another. Hordes of players from different continents and time zones ‘game’ for a shared goal. Despite many of the popular video game titles being interlaced with violence and vulgar material, many games have been published for an educational purpose and can bridge different cultures and teach tolerance and peace. Written by Ryan Schaaf and Nicky Mohan, this is an InfoSavvy21 original. (…)
Read MoreAre our school systems really in need of innovation? The reformers say so. This is the story told by the media and at education conferences. The most common narrative argues that schools are stuck in an outdated paradigm–the ‘factory model’ of education may have been useful in the 20th Century, but not so much as we settle into the 21st. (…)
Read MoreSeveral years ago I attended a Discovery Education Teacher Institute in San Francisco, and was pulled into the adventurous world of geocaching. It was there, near the windy shores of the San Francisco Bay, that I experienced my first techy treasure hunt. After giving a speedy lesson how to use a GPS device, facilitators helped split attendees into groups of three as we locked in a given set of coordinates to begin our search for a series of “caches,” or containers with coupons for free swag hidden inside. (…)
Read MoreAround a billion and a half people all play video games of some sort. That’s more than 20% of the world’s population. Video games have become a part of life. They are now more than just leisure and entertainment. They are mainstream media, an everyday method of storytelling and representation. Games have become a common form of rhetoric for the 21st century. (…)
Read MoreCombine hard work and deep fun in classrooms with digital game-based learning. Students of the always-on generation gain information through different tools and learn differently than generations before them. Discover how to incorporate digital games and use them to craft engaging, academically applicable classroom activities that address content standards and revitalize learning for both teachers and students. (…)
Read MoreMaximilian Dichtl reads the news just like anyone else. He’s seen what politicians, psychologist, and concerned parents have to say about video games and their impact on children—that games cause violence, bad grades and depression. (…)
Read MoreWhile educators have been busy trying to understand and teach to Millennials and Generation Y over the past several years, a new generation of mobile natives has been growing in the background.
Generation Z, which includes those born after 1995, now fills our K-12 classrooms, and they’ve brought their mobile habits with them.
Read MoreFor years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy.
Only far eastern countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. Politicians and education experts from around the world – including the UK – have made pilgrimages to Helsinki in the hope of identifying and replicating the secret of its success.
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