Why students need to fail | University Affairs

This is incredibly interesting, for a number of reasons. First, this is far less typical in a higher ed setting than a K-12 one. Second, having said that, how about some real similar structure and rigor for this type of activity in a K-12 setting.

What do you think?

Why students need to fail | University Affairs:

'via Blog this'

Online learning allows farmers to connect from the paddock | The Rural

All I could think of when I read this was, "make way for John Dewey."

Online learning allows farmers to connect from the paddock | The Rural:

'via Blog this'

MOOCS and Students

I was especially interested in the discussion of students as active participants in MOOCS.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&nv=1&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://spilloneso.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/%25C2%25ADlearning-is-not-simply-a-process-of-reception-and-filtering/&usg=ALkJrhj-I8qriXNpc9gk46XBuBaOgZTcdw

Mathematica on Raspberry Pi for free!

This is incredibly interesting.
What happens when students have easy access to all this computing power?
http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2013/11/putting-the-wolfram-language-and-mathematica-on-every-raspberry-pi/

Fake and Real Student Voice | Ideas and Thoughts

This is absolutely worth reading.
I was particularly interested in this author's exploration of student voices -- those fake and those authentic.

Fake and Real Student Voice | Ideas and Thoughts: 'via Blog this'

Revisiting Chess

This is really interesting:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-03-chess-2-the-sequel-how-a-street-fightin-man-fixed-the-worlds-most-famous-game

As I was reading it, I was imagining this as a STEM project. Learning to build something while actually building it.

Look. Over There. Is that Bigfoot?

After going through a period of extreme crankiness about the flood of uninteresting education-related articles I receive via various lists daily (a topic for another post perhaps), I came across this article describing a teacher, Shane Donovan, who is having his students work in a self-directed fashion.

The article's title comes from a comparison that this type of learning and teaching is as rare as a sighting of Big Foot.

I added a comment, which I repeat here:

I really appreciated this article. As a middle school Science teacher, I developed a self-directed curriculum for an 8th grade Biology course, and delivered it over two years. It was an amazing experience, watching the students learn to work independently, and then going so far beyond what would have normally happened (in terms of depth of understanding) in a typical classroom.

What do you think? Have you seen Big Foot where you are?