In a 2011 telephone survey, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 30 percent of teenagers who were regularly online had shared a password with a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend.
Sure it’s a symbol of trust, but we don’t need much of an imagination to see how this can go horribly wrong.
Spock was always messing around with his Tricorder when the Enterprise crew explored a new planet but everyone knew that it was a tool that could help the crew learn.
It would be "illogical" to go without it
Just imagine if Spock’s Vulcan school had restrictions like our cell phone bans when he was growing up.
Have you tried Wordle? If you provide the text, Wordle will create a word cloud that will display each word used in the source text in a font size based on the frequency that the word appears in the source. The more the word is used, the larger it appears. Take a look at Wordle’s gallery to see some examples.
Some have criticized Wordle by suggesting that Wordle’s only attribute is that it is eye-catching.
I’m okay with that. I can work with eye-catching. Below is a Wordle I made using all the text from a recent test.
Wordle the test at Wordle.net
A few days before the test, I shared this with my students. They were eager to hypothesize as to how words like “astronaut” or “gravy” would be used to access there knowledge of friction and momentum. Some student suggested possible questions that used the terms from the word cloud. A few of their questions were so good that I plan to use them next year.
While Woodle wasn’t able to teach physics, it was able to start a conversation. That’s perfect. I can take it from there.
Usually, I never do this. But recently I didn’t have time at a computer to type up a quiz for my physics students so I did it the old fashion way. I (gulp) hand wrote their quiz.
Sure, it is faster sometimes- especially if you have an elaborate drawing or graph. However, revising and archiving materials is not easy unless you start with a digital copy.
Nevertheless, the quiz went out to students and I jokingly made the comment that I used a special font for this week’s quiz.
There’s no software to download and install, all you need is a printer and a scanner. Simply fill in the font template, scan and upload it to our website, and download your completed font. The fonts you create using fontcapture.com can be used on both Windows and Mac computers.
As I typed out my own letters for the first time, my seven year old son explained to me that he could do a better job with his letters. I think this might be a fun activity for elementary students too.
Between fatherhood and teaching science, Dale Basler is
a Technology Curriculum Integration Specialist, independent consultant, podcaster, and web page designer who specializes in work for
institutions and organizations in education.
