Yearly Archives: 2012

Temple Run Meets Algebra: CK12′s New Approach

December 17, 2012 | 11:36 AM | By

Temple Run

What does the popular video game Temple Run have anything to do with algebra? Just a few clicks into CK12′s free educational content site, you’ll see it’s leveraged as a real-world application of using algebra to compare the difference between the top scores of the game.

The simple tactic of using references like Temple Run in explaining math concepts is one of CK12′s new offerings to its open education resources — free content that teachers can customize for their classes. The company, which has been offering its online digital content through FlexBooks for several years, has recently added more interactive resources to its offerings, including quizzes, videos, and real-world application examples.

In the Biology category, for example, under Proteins, students and teachers will find written explanations, practice exercises, discussion questions, and relevant links to many more online resources. They’ll also find a short video of an educator explaining what proteins are created by MindBites, and one of the better built-out multimodality resources on the site. Other concepts include Khan Academy videos, as well as content from PBS’s NOVA, and any other content that helps explain subjects. Check out these series of video that explain how Egyptian pyramids are related to congruent triangles.

“We give kids all these big concepts, but they don’t know what it means,” said Founder Neeru Khosla. “If you start showing them how they’re applied, it becomes more meaningful.”

Khosla says the more advanced iteration of CK12′s offerings is meant to help educators and students find all the resources they need in one spot, and to help them contextualize it. Each broad

“If you start showing them how they’re applied, it becomes more meaningful.”

subject is broken down into concepts — smaller, bite-sized chunks — and so far, the site provides more than 5,000 concepts. Educators can also create a dashboard and see how students are developing along each of the concepts.

“It’s provided in one container so you can learn it many different ways,” Khosla said. “And it’s in smaller chunk, which kids prefer. What we’re moving away from is that grade-based, artificial Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech, CK12

Why Nate Silver Can Save Math Education in America

December 14, 2012 | 11:38 AM | By

Ian Hill/Thinkstock/Penguin

By Nikhil Goyal

Call it “The Triumph of Nerds.” Poll statisticians have risen to rock star status. One of the most famous is New York Times’ wunderkind Nate Silver — or as Jon Stewart put it, “Lord and god of the algorithm.” He may be best known for predicting the 44th president, but Silver could be the one man who can save mathematics education in America.

Silver, who first gained notoriety for forecasting the performance of Major League Baseball players and for correctly predicted the winner of 49 of 50 states in the 2008 election, can save the tattered reputation of math subjects.

For students across the country, there’s clearly an engagement deficit in the subject. Paul Lockhart, a math teacher in New York, writes in A Mathematician’s Lament [PDF] that if he had to design a system for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, he couldn’t possible do a better job than is currently being done. He explains that he simply wouldn’t have the “imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.”

He has the potential to telegraph an important message to kids: It’s O.K. to be a math nerd.

Across the land, kids hate math. You can hear it in their constant groans and see it in their deranged faces. They ask their teachers, “When am I ever going to use this in life?” On most occasions, they never will. Even President Obama agrees. He recently said on the Tonight Show, “The math stuff I was fine with until seventh grade. Malia is now a freshmen in high school and I’m pretty lost. It’s tough.” And no wonder — the system is suffering from a tragic case of nostalgia. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, math

The Top Google Search Terms in 2012

December 13, 2012 | 1:00 PM | By

At the risk of plugging Google search, this short, impactful video touches on much of what consumed public attention in 2012, according to the mega-giant search engine. Whether or not it’s factually reflective of the top search terms of the year, the most inspiring clips are about stories of people who pushed their own boundaries and conventional ideas of success, a nod to innovators in their own right.

FILED UNDER: Culture

Should Work Experience Come Before College Education?

December 13, 2012 | 10:26 AM | By

Della Rollins

By Steve Henn

Eighteen months ago Eden Full was finishing up her sophomore year at Princeton University. She was on the crew team as a coxswain. She had spent the previous summer in Kenya building an innovative, low-cost contraption to make solar panels more efficient.

Full was glowingly successful — the kind of college student who ends up profiled in alumni magazines.

But Full had decided to drop out.

“There is this huge media hype around dropping out of college and what is the value of college. But I think college means different things to different people. And, you know, the reason college is quote, unquote ‘overvalued’ is because people don’t know how to use it effectively,” Full says.

Back then, that was Full’s concern. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to leave college forever, but she also wasn’t sure she was getting the most out her time there.

And she had this itch. That contraption she built in Kenya to make solar panels more efficient — she called it the SunSaluter, and she was convinced it could have a big impact.

“Go back to college when you are more mature and not so distracted and actually go and finish and make something of that experience.”

“The SunSaluter is kind of like, a sunflower. It follows the sun from east to west throughout the day, and that will give you up to 40 percent more electricity from your solar panel,” Full says.

Full thought this idea could help bring affordable, sustainable electricity to the 1.5 billion people in the world who don’t have it.

Full had more than an idea — she had a product. But she couldn’t imagine building a business Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Higher Education, Thiel Fellow

The U.S. State Department Gets in the Education Game

December 12, 2012 | 8:00 AM | By

Trace Effects

The U.S. State Department is jumping into the ed-tech world with an online game meant to help teach “American English” to kids between the ages of 12-16 in more than 30 countries. Meant to provide players with a view of American life and culture different from the typical portrayal in movies, Trace Effects officially launches today. It’s part of a bigger effort from the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to revamp its website and materials to today’s technology, as well as offer an interactive tool to engage English learners abroad.

Trace Effects tells the story of Trace, an androgynous male character who returns from the future to visit the United States charged with changing the world for the better. If he’s unsuccessful, he won’t be able to return to his own time. Throughout the course of the game, Trace travels the U.S. to sites like New Orleans and the Grand Canyon, learning about the unique cultures, interacting with local people and completing missions. The missions are related to key themes woven throughout the game that include entrepreneurship, community activism, empowering women, science and innovation, environmental conservation, and conflict resolution. Students can choose Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Teaching With Tech