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More liked postsInteresting piece by Ann about giving students access to the Internet during tests - just like during all their lessons. I agree!!
Whilst the article focuses on USA and Finland, I’m sure we can all pick out little nuggets for other countries and systems.
Computer games for social studies - suggestions please!
This is a general call for help! If anyone has suggestions of computer/video games that can be used for teaching social studies I would love to hear them. I am going to finally finish my Masters (end of August) and my thesis will be an analysis of a number of games and their suitability and possible uses for the social studies classroom. They can either be games specifically designed for teaching/learning/education or commercial off-the-shelf games that can be used/adapted for teaching.
I’ll try to keep the blog updated with my progress, so those interested can follow what I am doing (and tell me where I’m going wrong!).
So here in Sweden, and seemingly for the USA and some other unfortunate countries, the measure of the education system is standardised tests. Results go up, as absolute values they always do - grade inflation (lots to read if you’re interested, maybe here or here to start?), although that’s different from the relative results of PISA - another discussion entirely (start here?).
But none of that was really the point of this link! What I wanted to say was shouldn’t achievements like this be used to measure a system of education? Entrepreneurship? Carabi + Co founded by a former student within 3 years of graduating. I suppose we can only hope that the education system, and our school, had at least some positive influence on this outcome!
Liked the pic! Related to my wonderings about the difference between oldies who talk about the “real world” and the “virtual/online world” with associated “real life” and “virtual/online life”, and youngies who talk about one world and their life.
When the telephone first became common was there a discourse regarding the difference between “real conversations” and “virtual conversations”? Before my time, but I think not. Why then the discourse now? Is it the digital medium? Or the asynchronous nature of the medium?
Or maybe this was yesterday’s discourse and we think of one world; one life that incorporates analogue, digital, face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous?
Random musings on a Saturday afternoon…
“Do we want a market economy, or a market society?”
Michael J. Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard, author of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, The Atlantic (article), TEDTalk
On Thursday 1 December we had the honour of hosting the Rwandan Ambassador to Sweden, Venetia Sebudandi. The Ambassador spoke to the gathered students about Africa, the East Africa Community (EAC) and Rwanda. She covered a wide range of topics from the history of colonialism, the development on economic and trade integration in the EAC, the leadership roles played by a number of Rwandans in international organisations, as well as providing a glimpse of the rich cultural history and wildlife in the East African region.
What a fantastic way to bring the world into school!
Catering to your audiences?! This is how TIME Magazine did it for their issue of December 5, 2011.
