Vicki Davis

kbkonnected:

…or for those of us getting used to the recent facelift.

Tips for working on a tumblr blog.

• Web 2.0 Smackdown @ ISTE11

  RT @joycevalenza: Web20 Smackdown @ #ISTE11 http://bit.ly/pYRwR5 #tlchat #edchat

  tags: ISTE11 tlchat edchat twitter education

• The Night It…

roughdrafts1:

One of the most popular sessions at many Edcamps is the Web 2.0 Smackdown, a session that is usually held at the end of the day where attendees share their favorite web 2.0 tools/resources. However, due to the schedules of some of the attendees who could not stay for the whole time, we put the smackdown first and it was a great generator of conversation/topics for the rest of the day.

I like the list of resources this principal put up on his blog, as well as liking the idea of doing some version of a Web 2.0 Smackdown as part of a PD. I know some of the teachers in my building are woefully unaware of the web resources out there, and as a result, so are many of the students who just wouldn’t necessarily think to look for these types of resources. 

How a pd for teachers started with a smackdown. Great strategy! I have to teach you all how to do web 2 Kung Fu!

• 12 Interesting Ways* to (possibly) use Google+ … - “Google Docs”

  A google presentation about the interesting ways to use Google+ - it is public and people can add to it. Some great…

gjmueller:

This is a collection of BBC radio shows about math (one specifically on statistics) and individual mathy episodes of the show In Our Time. As if my podcast queue isn’t long enough… 

via therationalradical

Collection of BBC shows about math.

This is a very useful post on how to use Evernote as a blogger.

(via Instapaper)

Facebook video calling by skype. We use skype in the classroom now. If Facebook would get their PRIVACY ACT TOGETHER SO WE COULD USE THE DOGGONE THING IN SCHOOL it would be a great tool. For now, our hope is on Google+

world-shaker:

Skype makes its first big step on the Web with Facebook video calling powered by Skype bit.ly/pDJAnj

A public google doc of 12 interesting ways to use Google+ in #education - this list is growing. Add yours.

gjmueller:

This is in Google Docs. It’s growing, and you can add to it as well!

via world-shaker

This excellent post on calculus is good. I know of an engineering school that removed calculus because “engineers don’t need it anymore” and they are dead wrong. I had three semesters of calculus in college and the fundamental understand is important to me even now. I may not take derivatives in my current work but calculus is important - especially for engineers.

therationalradical:

Reddit.com’s /r/math community is a wonderful source for a lot of my posts on this blog. As is often the case on Reddit, the comments are the best part of the post. This post is a great example of this. One user asked why many US college students are required to take Calculus (there was debate later about how true this is). Many answered, but the user commonslip (aka Vincent Toups who runs the blog Dorophone) offered this

Calculus is among the most definitive cultural productions of your civilization (which I presume is western civilization, but all this is also true of the human race at large). In terms of cultural and social impact it is quite arguable that nothing from literature or philosophy is greater. Classical Physics, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, all of which tore down and rebuilt the philosophical order which shapes your every thought, depend on Calculus. One can make the case that Calculus marks the beginning of the modern era, if it doesn’t in some sense directly cause it. For an example closer to the present, the transistor, a remarkable technological artifact which could not have been invented or exploited without Calculus, (and from an example of which, I might add, you’ve probably never been more than 500 feet away in your entire life), is the Atlas upon which contemporary society thrives.

You shouldn’t know calculus because its useful (although it is useful to you every day, though perhaps not in a way that requires you understand it). You should know it because it is revolutionary, a prominent jewel in the crown of western civilization. In my view, it is absurd that high school students inevitably encounter Shakespeare in the course of their education, but can escape without knowing any Calculus. College, which should be a place where the student is inaugurated into her intellectual heritage as a member of the human race, ought to teach it with almost religious fervor.

Whoa. 

Can you think of a better reason? I think it’s unlikely.