8 Tech and Science Projects for Your Kids

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Gizmodo – James O’Malley

Here are some ideas for some technology and science projects you and your kids.

Squishy Circuits

Did you know that it is possible to make dough that is both conductive and non-conductive of electricity? Brilliantly, what this means is that rather than faffing about with fiddly “breadboards” it is possible to teach kids the basics of electronic circuits using LEDs, battery packs and what is essentially Play-Doh.

Raspberry Pi

If your kids are budding coders, be sure to pick up a Raspberry Pi. What looks like a small circuit board is actually a fully functioning computer. Just add a screen, keyboard, mouse and a memory card to act as the hard disk and you’re good to go. What’s brilliant about the Pi is not just that it is affordable at £25 but that it is very difficult to go wrong. If the kids break the Linux installation on the SD card, it is easy to just wipe the memory card and start again, or have multiple SD cards for multiple OS installs.

Raspberry Pi is specifically built with teaching in mind. The default OS, Raspbian, comes with a visual programming application called Scratch, which helps kids build apps, but more importantly helps explain many of the key logical concepts found in computer programming.

Musical Coat Hangars, Soap Boats, and More

If you have younger kids, the Royal Institution has created a tonne of video demonstrationsof simple experiments you could carry out at home using normal household items.

One super-easy example requires just a piece of string and a bunch of metal objects, and can be used to demonstrate the idea of variables, showing how switching the object on the end of the string means that it makes a different noise when bashed against a chair.

Another experiment is demonstrated by TV’s Rufus Hound and his son, who investigate some freaky behaviour caused by soap.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Minecraft Teaches Kids To Code as They Play

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Wired – Klint Finley

LIKE MANY NINE-YEAR-OLDS, Stanley Strum spends a lot of time building things in Minecraft, the immersive game that lets your create your own mini-universe. The game has many tools. But Stanley is one of many players taking the game a step further by building entirely new features into the game. And, more than that, he’s also learning how to code.

He’s doing this with a tweak to the Minecraft game, called LearnToMod. Modifications like this, called “mods,” are a big part of the game’s runaway success. But this particular mod helps kids learn to create their own mods. For example, Strum built a teleporter that whisks him to a random location within the game world. Another lesson teaches kids to write the code to create a special bow that shoots arrows that become “portals” between different locations in the game, allowing them to reach spaces that would otherwise be quite difficult to access. It’s like being able to create your own cheat codes.

Strum is one of 150 students who are now tinkering with LearnToMod, an educational add-on teaches you the basics of programming while creating tricks and tools that you can use within the Minecraft. The mod will be available to the general public in October, and its creators hope it will help turn Minecraft into a kind of gateway drug for computer programming.

“Kids are already spending ridiculous amounts of hours on Minecraft,” says Stephen Foster, the co-founder of ThoughtSTEM, the company that’s built the LearnToMod module. “So we thought this would be a good way to help them learn skills.”

ThoughtSTEM started out offering in-person classes in San Diego, Granite Bay, and Oakhurst, CA based on a game called CodeSpells that Foster co-created as a PhD student at the University California. The idea was to hook students on CodeSpells so that they’d be motivated to learn the programming skills they needed to advance within the game. But Foster and his co-founders Sarah Esper and Lindsey Handley soon noticed that many of their students were already avid Minecraft players, and it would make more sense to create a class that would harness the passion their students already had for Minecraft. So they launched a class for kids between the age of eight and 15 that teaches kids to code their own modifications to Minecraft — and even earn college credit at the University of California in San Diego while doing it.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Helicopter Parenting and Its Long-Lasting Effects

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YellowBrick

When it comes time for emerging adult children to head to college, the separation process can be anxiety-inducing and confusing for everyone involved, especially when there have been developmental challenges and struggles throughout the years growing up. Often, the transition to college triggers all family members’ vulnerabilities as they struggle with the feelings attached to this milestone event.

Unfortunately, one pattern for the ways in which families sometimes adapt to this circumstance has been termed “helicopter parenting.” Coined in 1969 by Dr. Haim Ginott, the phrase accurately describes parents’ actions, but it doesn’t sufficiently address the well-meaning intentions behind these behaviors, or the fact that the behaviors are often carried out by the entire family system. Everyone contributes to the “helicopter” outcome.

The phrase became especially popular in the early 2000s as baby boomers and Generation X parents began sending their children to college. College administrators noticed parental behaviors such as calling to wake their children up for class or complaining to professors and administrators about grades on their children’s behalves. That same helicoptering behavior has even impacted the children’s job searches; in fact, 30% of recruiters have had a parent submit a resume for a child, and 15% have had a parent complain when their child wasn’t hired.

Helicopter parenting is thought to be on the rise, and it’s self-reported most commonly in the Northeast and West Coast (especially in urban areas). Generally, helicopter parenting follows three principal patterns: parents do for their children what the children can do for themselves, parents do for their children what they can almost do for themselves, or parenting behavior is motivated by their own egos.

The signs of helicopter parenting typically revolve around obsessing over their children’s activities and well-being. Helicopter parents may feel emotional pain when they’re not around their child, and they may also keep tabs on their children at all times (whether in-person or electronically). They may express wanting the best for their child by spoiling him or her and also piling on too much praise. Helicopter parents are also well-known for lobbying for their children to various authority figures, such as professors and bosses.

However well-intentioned this parenting style is, it can have detrimental effects on the children. In 2013, 95% of college counselling centers reported that the number of students with significant psychological problems is a growing concern on their campus. Helicopter parenting has been linked to “problematic development in emerging adulthood… by limiting opportunities for emerging adults to practice and develop important skills needed for becoming self-reliant adults.”

For example, college students with helicopter parents self-report significantly higher levels of depression and less satisfaction in life. Also, a 2014 study found a correlation between highly structured childhoods and a lack of executive function capabilities, suggesting that emerging adults don’t have the ability to decide their goal-directed actions on their own. Finally, helicopter parenting is associated with a low self-worth and an increased tendency to engage in risky behaviors such as smoking or binge drinking.

 

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Kids Don’t Want To Code. They Want To Solve Problems.

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The Register – Mark Pesce

“Grandpa is getting pretty old. Out there all alone on that farm, he has no one to look in on him, just to see if he’s ok. He’ll use the landline, but he’s beyond of the range of mobile, and he’s never been really great with computers. No Skype or emails. Grandpa does have internet. So I built this for him.”

The girl points down to a small box with a few wires coming out.

“I can bring up a web browser, and take photos inside grandpa’s house. Has he moved his coffee cup today? Is the telly on? At least then we’ll know he’s okay. And I can even type messages” – she changes focus to a textbox inside a web form – “that show up on top. We used ImageMagick for that part…here, you can see it in our code.”

Fingers fly across the keyboard, and now I’m reading the source code for an index.php page, another marriage of convenience between HTML and PHP. How’d this girl – all of eleven years old – learn to do this?

“A lot of it was trial and error.” Both she and her project partner blush a bit. “The PHP bits were kinda hard. But we found a lot of stuff on Google,” she confides.

After assuring her that grownups also find answers to their coding problems on Google, I had a good look at the code. Nothing spectacular, but readable enough.

Neither girl had written a line of code before this. They knew nothing about how to build a computer-controlled camera, or drive a computer-controlled display. But with Google’s help – and Raspberry Pi – they prevailed.

When the Raspberry Pi shipped to a planet excited geeks in the middle of 2012, it changed the way we taught IT. That had always been the intention of creator Eben Upton. Give the kids the goods and they’ll do the rest.

At first, it seemed as though the grownups were more excited than the kids, creating all sorts of wacky Pi-based projects. Fortunately, those grownups – eager for the respect of their peers – shared everything they learned, posting to blogs, StackOverflow, and thousands of other websites. Want to know how to blink an LED? Drive a motor? Read a sensor? Set up a web server? Within the first year, all of that was out there, all of it indexed, searchable, and useful to kids.

I was one of the lucky few who got their hands on one of the first Raspberry Pis to hit Australian shores. That first Pi gave me all sorts of ideas of a world where powerful computers had become cheap enough to put almost anywhere. It’s giving kids the same ideas.

For the last few years I’ve been a judge for Young ICT Explorers, a nationwide competition and celebration of kids who get bitten by the IT bug. Back in 2013, we saw a range of web-based projects, with one or two Arduinos thrown into the mix. Last year, a few more Arduinos, and a single Raspberry Pi project. That project – with the most sophisticated crontab I’d ever seen, and also built by an 11 year-old – won the big prize.

This year, that project would barely rate.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

3 Ways I’ve Seen Bullying Stopped

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The CoolCat Teacher – Vicki Davis

Four and a half years I lived bullying. I cried every day after school when I made it to the respite of my room at home. I often ask myself what I would have done if my bedroom weren’t my solitude? What if I couldn’t get away? Even if bullying “goes away” the scars don’t. How can I be in my forties and still be feeling the aftershock of when I was 14?

“What are several real ways you’ve seen bullying reduced?” This month’s question as part of Cathy Rubin’s Global Search for Education is hard. I’ll share three things that worked with a disclaimer. I am sharing what I’ve seen WORK. Consult with a counselor (like I have) if you’re helping your children through bullying. Every situation is different. If your child is depressed or suicidal GET HELP IMMEDIATELY. Bullying is serious. Don’t ignore it. These are three things I’ve seen work. They may not work in your situation.

1 – Learn to Defend Yourself

When bullied between fifth and ninth grades, no one came to my rescue. I came to my rescue. I remember the day it happened. I bounded into homeroom in ninth grade. “Miss Mean Girl” made a cutting remark about my outfit as she did every day. I looked at her and said,

“You know what – I don’t care. I honestly don’t care what you think anymore.”

And I didn’t. And that was it – I was free. I don’t know where the ability to no longer care appeared. Was it the self-confidence my parents instilled in me? Was it prayer? Was it maturity?  When dealing with mean taunts – bullies often select people who care what they think. When you stop caring, they may stop bullying you. For me, it stopped when I stopped caring.

We let my son take Tae Kwon Do lessons. His bullying ended the day he stood up for himself. Again, this is controversial and doesn’t work for everyone but it helped him. They stopped hitting him when he hit back one time.

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What’s Inside The Mind of a Teenager?

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The Telegraph – Tanith Carey

There isn’t a parent with a teenager who hasn’t been told ‘You’re ruining my life’ or ‘I hate you’ at some point. But if that’s not bad enough, their behaviour can get even worse if we fail to understand the brain changes triggering these outbursts. A major new study, just published by Berlin’s Max Planck Institute, is the latest to find that teenagers go through the same rewiring between the age of 13 and 17 as they did when they were toddlers. Second time around however, when they match you for size and are using much more colourful language, it can be much harder to handle.

As a parenting author, looking at the bigger picture of children’s mental health, I know we can also end up losing our connection with our teens when they need us most. So if you want to know what NOT to do, here’s five sure-fire ways to salvaging your relationship with your teen, and make this period even more turbulent.

1. STOP asking “What’s wrong with you?”

There’s nothing wrong with this question, if you genuinely want to know. However all-too-often, it’s a rhetorical outburst, blurted out by parents who have run out of patience.

Worse still, it sends the message you think there is something fundamentally defective about your child, which can never be changed.

What’s actually ‘wrong’ with teens is that the frontal lobes in their brains, which controls impulses, reasoning and planning, are the last to be rewired for adulthood.

While this re-arrangement is going on, decision-making is re-routed via the amygdala, a primal part of their brain which reacts instantaneously and emotionally to any perceived threat.

Neuroscientist, Dr. Frances Jensen, author of new book ‘The Teenage Brain’ says: ‘Teenagers make much more sense when you understand that the frontal lobes of the brain – the part responsible for judgment, impulse control, mood and emotions – is the last part to fully develop.

‘So the brain just doesn’t know how to regulate itself yet. They’re like Ferraris with weak brakes. ‘

Of course, it’s easy to assume that this doesn’t matter because teens never listen anyway, but, on the contrary, they are hypersensitive to our opinions of them. Pretending not to care is their defence mechanism.

To confused adolescent, such despairing comments from the parent who is supposed to love them the most, can cut deep.

Such messages get turned inwards into negative self-talk.

These voices can be very hard to silence once they take hold in a teen’s malleable brain, just as it is laying down the pathways which will influence their future mental health.

Instead one of the greatest gifts you can give your teen at this age is not only an understanding of what is happening inside their mind, but also the concept of ‘a growth mindset.’

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Code School or University?

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TNW News – Harsh Patel

By the time the calendar turns to 2020, there will be one million unfulfilled computer programming jobs in the United States. For anyone looking at their career path over the next decade, coding offers plenty of creatively fulfilling, high-paying, and secure opportunities.

The best part about this? Anyone can do it. The stigma of programming belonging only to a select few intellectuals has gone by the wayside as people of all ages and backgrounds discover the inherent logic – and beauty – of coding.

It’s more accessible today than ever before, and those interested in computer science jobs have several different paths to getting a formal education. Which is right for you? Let’s review the pros and cons of two very different options: coding schools and four-year universities.

Coding Schools

Pros

Coding schools are the ultimate fast-track path to a job in computer science. In months, not years, students build a solid career foundation that is often times a fraction of four-year costs.

Considering that many universities cost $50k – $200k and require general education courses over four or five years, the $10k – $20k investment for a code school can be far more economical — and graduates can start earning immediately.

In fact, graduates from coding schools are already writing books, speaking at conferences, and winning competitive hackathons.

Coding programs feature a small group of dedicated instructors that focus on real-world skills and hands-on experience, such as version control and test-driven development, all handled in a peer-driven environment. All of the tools used will be current and job-related, and most programs will also provide guidance on resumes, job interviews, and placement.

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Rethinking Data & Creating a Holistic View of Students

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MindShift – Mark Barnes & Jennifer Gonzalez

The excerpt below is from “Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes For Every School,” by Mark Barnes and Jennifer Gonzalez. The following is from the chapter entitled, “Hack 10: The 360 Spreadsheet.”

Collect a Different Kind of Student Data

For at least a decade now, the driving force behind education reform has been data. We talk about collecting data, analyzing data, and making data-driven decisions. All of this data can certainly be useful, helping us notice patterns we might not have seen without aggregating our numbers in some way, looking for gaps and dips and spikes, allowing us to figure out where we are strong and where we need help. In terms of certain academic behaviors, we can quantify student learning to some extent and improve our practice as a result.

And yet, we know this is not enough. We know our students bring with them so many other kinds of data. So many other factors contribute to academic success: the atmosphere in their homes, the demands of their out-of-school school schedule, the physical concerns that distract them, the passions and obsessions that consume them. These things are much harder to measure, so we don’t even try, focusing instead on the things we can convert to numbers.

In the spring of 2015, Denver elementary teacher Kyle Schwartz asked her students to complete this sentence in writing: “I wish my teacher knew . . . ” The student responses were so unexpected, so moving, Schwartz shared some of them online, igniting a movement that went viral within hours. Teachers everywhere asked their students the same question, learning in late spring things that had troubled their kids all year:

“I wish my teacher knew how much I miss my Dad because he got deported to Mexico when I was 3 years old and I haven’t seen him in 6 years.”
“I wish my teacher knew that I’ve been having trouble balancing
my homework and sports lately.”
“I wish my teacher knew I don’t have pencils at home.”

The overwhelming response to this idea illustrates a significant gap in the data we collect on our students. Despite our efforts to carefully examine student performance and choose instructional interventions that best meet their needs, the truth is, we need to be collecting, organizing, and analyzing more robust data on our students—facts about their home lives, their likes and dislikes, their learning preferences—the things that really matter.

THE HACK: COLLECT DATA ON THE WHOLE CHILD

Most teachers make an effort to get to know their students, and many regularly distribute surveys at the start of each school year to speed up that process. The problem is, most teachers read these surveys once, then file them away. Sure, they might have every intention of returning to the surveys and reviewing them later, but far too often, that time never comes. We rely on our day-to-day interactions for relationship building, and although we get to know some students quite well this way, others just fade into the background.

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Rise of the Teacherpreneur

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Edudemic – Leah Levy

You’ve heard the term “entrepreneur.” You’ve probably even heard the term “edupreneur.” But do you know what the term “teacherpreneur” means? As you can probably intuit, “teacherpreneurs” are teachers who create their own educational product or service to fix a problem they or their colleagues have encountered in the classroom. This is distinct from an edupreneur, which can be interpreted to mean any entrepreneur working in the education space – teacher or not.

There is no doubt that our educational system could benefit from this kind of internal entrepreneurialism – from that creativity, innovation, and lust for change. Ed tech companies, outside think tanks and nonprofits are an important force in creating and fostering these changes. But when innovation begins with educators who not only recognize the issues at hand, but who also have an immediate, textured, nuanced, and concrete firsthand experience with those issues in action, the solutions they develop have the potential to be extremely powerful, comprehensive, and long lasting.

Few know this better than, Charles Best, the former History teacher and founder of the popular classroom crowdfunding site, DonorsChoose.org. Best’s idea for this site came not out of any particular desire to start an organization, but simply because he and his colleagues were spending their own money on school supplies, and constantly felt frustrated at not being able to fund their more creative and exciting ideas for field trips and art supplies. As of the publication date of this article, 238,354 teachers had found funding for a total of 589,880 projects so far. As such, there is no doubt Best’s fellow educators were looking for similar solutions.

Says Best: “When you turn to people on the front lines and ask them to come up with projects for the exact people whom they’re serving, [they] will come up with better targeted, more innovative micro-solutions than those someone would come up with in the district office or in the ivory tower.”

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No Child Left Un-Mined? The Age of Big Data

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The Intercept – Farai Chideya

On Facebook, it’s the season where parents are posting pictures of K-12 graduations, including moppets in tiny mortarboards. But unlike a generation ago, today’s smallest graduates are amassing a big data trail. Just as medical and government files have been digitized — some to be anonymized and sold; all susceptible to breaches — student data has entered the realm of the valuable and the vulnerable. Parents are paying attention. A recent study by the company The Learning Curve found that while 71 percent of parents believe technology has improved their child’s education, 79 percent were concerned about the privacy and security of their child’s data, and 75 percent worried about advertiser access to that data.

The fear is that the multi-billion-dollar education technology (or “ed-tech”) industry that seeks to individualize learning and reduce drop-out rates could also pose a threat to privacy, as a rush to commercialize student data could leave children tagged for life with indicators based on their childhood performance.

“What if potential employers can buy the data about you growing up and in school?” asks mathematician Cathy O’Neil, who’s finishing a book on big data and blogs at mathbabe.org. In some of the educational tracking systems, which literally log a child’s progress on software keystroke by keystroke, “We’re giving a persistence score as young as age 7 — that is, how easily do you give up or do you keep trying? Once you track this and attach this to [a child’s] name, the persistence score will be there somewhere.” O’Neil worries that just as credit scores are now being used in hiring decisions, predictive analytics based on educational metrics may be applied in unintended ways.

Such worries came to the fore last week when educational services giant Pearson announced that it was selling the company PowerSchool, which tracks student performance, to a private equity firm for $350 million. The company was started independently; sold to Apple; then to Pearson; and now to Vista Equity Partners. Each owner in turn has to decide how to manage the records of some 15 million students across the globe, according to Pearson. The company did not sign an initiative called the Student Privacy Pledge, whose signatories promise not to sell student information or behaviorally target advertising (151 other companies including Google have signed the non-binding pledge).

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I Want My iPad! Are Our Kids Getting Addicted To Technology?

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The Conversation – Joanne Orlando

Are toddlers really becoming addicted to technology? There’s certainly a lot of media hype to suggest that they are. And there’s no question the footage of small children breaking down when their tablet is taken away is unsettling:

Footage such as this is often aimed at showing the evils of technology and the myriad ways digital devices engender bad behaviour among children.

Viewers are often put in a position where they naturally try to apportion blame for such behaviour. In this case, the apparent targets are the technology and even the parents.

Scare tactics

As an expert in children, technology and learning, I question the purpose and proper interpretation of content such as this, regardless of whether it’s presented on prime time TV, headlining a newspaper or a new addition to a parenting blog.

In recent years society has been inundated with scare tactics around children’s increasing use of technology. To date, media articles have blamed technology for various ills in society such as obesity, insomnia, violence, aggression and language development issues.

Unfortunately, these scare tactics often succeed because they cause a sense of guilt among adults and perpetuate a sense of loss of control.

But this type of thinking doesn’t make sense. It suggests that by removing technology from their lives, children will be fitter rather than overweight, and mental health problems such as aggression and depression will diminish. Children’s health and happiness are essential goals, but magic wand thinking is not going to get us there.

The other obvious target of blame when watching the above footage are the parents themselves, and their seeming lack of ability to control their children’s use of technology.

But, as any parent knows, young children can have tantrums over many things. At this age they’re often not psychologically equipped to delay gratification, so we shouldn’t be surprised at their response to technology. In addition, just because they can’t delay gratification now doesn’t mean they won’t develop the capacity later in life.

Embracing technology

Blaming parents for indulging their children is easy, yet many parents correctly recognise that technology is an essential part of modern life. Many professions now require the use of multiple devices over the course of a working day.

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‘Play This Video Game And Call Me In The Morning’

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NPR – April Dembosky

I’m driving through a frozen world, where the roads are paved in ice. As I swerve left to avoid a miniature iceberg, a red fish flashes at the top of my screen. I’m supposed to tap all the red fish that pop up, but not the green fish or the blue. And I have to do this without crashing the car.

An unidentifiable, omnipresent game-meister says: “Doing one thing at a time is easy, but doing them both at the same time is where the magic happens!”

As I get better at the game, my brain is being trained to ignore distractions and stay focused — or, at least, that’s the hypothesis of the neuroscientists who designed it.

The brain networks that control multitasking overlap with networks that control working memory and attention span. So some scientists believe that by playing this game — Project Evo — you can improve a range of cognitive skills and, by extension, relieve a range of symptoms associated with cognitive disorders.

“We’ve been through eight or nine completed clinical trials, in all cognitive disorders: ADHD, autism, depression,” says Matt Omernick, executive creative director at Akili, the Northern California startup that’s developing the game.

Omernick worked at Lucas Arts for years, making Star Wars games, where players attack their enemies with light sabers. Now, he’s working on Project Evo. It’s a total switch in mission, from dreaming up best-sellers for the commercial market to designing games to treat mental health conditions.

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Why I Failed as a Student and Succeeded as an Entrepreneur

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Inc. – Peter Economy

It takes more than a college degree to be a successful entrepreneur. Donny Zanger has got what it takes.

Donny Zanger is the founder and CEO of All Week Walls, a New York-based pressurized wall company. In addition to All Week Walls, he has started up a number of other businesses too. I talked to Donny recently about his experience as an entrepreneur, and what it took for him to create a successful business.

The words that follow are all Donny’s.

# # #

According to my high school report card, I shouldn’t be where I am today. My college GPA will concur. Ask around among my teachers and former classmates and they’ll probably recall me as a below average student, at best, and “that kid with learning disabilities,” at worst.

Growing up with dyslexia is no walk in the park, and it’s an open secret that schools are built to cater to one specific type of student. For the rest of the world–the creative thinkers, the talented artists, the energetic athletes–sitting at a desk for hours on end, memorizing lists and analyzing information in a test-taking format, doesn’t necessarily compute with our skill set.

Personally, I found the theoretical nature of school studies antithetical to my own way of thinking. Who cares if Adam has ten green apples and Sarah has four less? The main question is, could Adam get Sarah to buy those apples from him for more than he paid? Now that’s my kind of thinking.

I never could pick up on the etymology of obscure SAT words, and doing spelling homework with dyslexia is like trying to sew on a button with your toe–it just ain’t equipped for a job like that. But here’s the catch, the covert information that no one tells you as you suffer through years of feeling second class: succeeding in business requires completely different areas of proficiency than succeeding in school.

Most of the information that you learn in school is entirely irrelevant when you go out into the real world. I don’t even use half the stuff I learned in my business marketing class and I spend all day marketing my businesses.

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7 Behaviors Your Children Will Learn from You

Lego Gets 6-Year-Olds To Rebuild Their Own Country

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CNET – Chris Matyszczyk

When 6-year-olds look at the current standard of political discourse — especially, say, in the US — they must be appalled.

Put them in charge of decision-making, I say.

You might think me a trifle Trumped. However, this is exactly the experiment that Lego performed. To celebrate 50 years of Singapore’s existence, Lego built a futuristic version of Singapore.

Then it asked 6-year-olds to come in and redesign it.

Stunningly, these kids were less fascinated by the idea of more skyscrapers and more keen on building a home close to their dad’s office, so that they could see their dads more often.

They were less moved by, say, robots, and more interested in building parks and ensuring that the whole family could eat together at home.

Of course, the clip is shamelessly manipulative. But in a good way.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Scientists Say Child’s Play Helps Build A Better Brain

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NPR – Jon Hamilton 

This week, NPR Ed is focusing on questions about why people play and how play relates to learning.

When it comes to brain development, time in the classroom may be less important than time on the playground.

“The experience of play changes the connections of the neurons at the front end of your brain,” says Sergio Pellis, a researcher at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. “And without play experience, those neurons aren’t changed,” he says.

It is those changes in the prefrontal cortex during childhood that help wire up the brain’s executive control center, which has a critical role in regulating emotions, making plans and solving problems, Pellis says. So play, he adds, is what prepares a young brain for life, love and even schoolwork.

But to produce this sort of brain development, children need to engage in plenty of so-called free play, Pellis says. No coaches, no umpires, no rule books.

“Whether it’s rough-and-tumble play or two kids deciding to build a sand castle together, the kids themselves have to negotiate, well, what are we going to do in this game? What are the rules we are going to follow?” Pellis says. The brain builds new circuits in the prefrontal cortex to help it navigate these complex social interactions, he says.

Learning From Animals

Much of what scientists know about this process comes from research on animal species that engage in social play. This includes cats, dogs and most other mammals. But Pellis says he has also seen play in some birds, including young magpies that “grab one another and start wrestling on the ground like they were puppies or dogs.”

For a long time, researchers thought this sort of rough-and-tumble play might be a way for young animals to develop skills like hunting or fighting. But studies in the past decade or so suggest that’s not the case. Adult cats, for example, have no trouble killing a mouse even if they are deprived of play as kittens.

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Education Technology Makes The Most Impact In The Least Recognized Places

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Forbes – Jordan Shapiro

People often ask me for specific examples of how technology is impacting global education. I suspect they are looking for super glossy examples of futuristic classrooms. They hope I’ll describe some design innovation or a revolutionary adaptive algorithmic trick. They expect video games, virtual reality, and robotics. But things often don’t look as shiny as you expect. The most significant impact can be inconspicuous. Consider, for example, Camfed’s pioneering partnership with Worldreader.

Camfed is well known. They are an international non-profit that “invests in girls and women in the poorest rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, where girls face acute disadvantage, and where their education has transformative potential.” They are currently working in “119 of the poorest rural districts across five African countries.” They create thoughtful partnerships with local communities, breaking down “the barriers to girls’ education by providing and catalyzing the different resources required for girls to go to school, succeed and lead change.” Their work has been recognized by the OECD for being among the best at taking development innovation to scale.

Worldreader is also an international non-profit. Founded in 2010 by former Microsoft and Amazon executive David Risher, and former Marketing Director at Barcelona’s ESADE Business School Colin McElwee, Worldreader uses eReaders and other mobile technologies to distribute books to places where they are scarce. They have already reached over 2.2 million readers, and plan to extend that reach to 15 million readers by 2018. Recognizing that information technologies have the potential to deliver content in ways that were previously impossible, they “work with device manufacturers, local and international publishers, governments, education officials, and local communities to bring books to all.”

Just consider what it would take to build first rate libraries all over the world, to guarantee that civilization’s archive is universally accessible. Then, realize that Worldreader has essentially provided the kinds of resources that philanthropists used to reserve only for elite Universities to some of the most impoverished parts of the world.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

My Biggest Regret When Raising Young Children

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By Jesse Eubanks

Parents of young children: listen up.

I once heard a friend say, “the days are long but the years are short”. I wasn’t sure what they meant. You can now ask any parent that just dropped off their youngest child at all-day elementary school and they will explain.

Our home is now quiet during the day. The sounds of our infants crying as they wake from a nap are long gone. The milestones of four word sentences have been replaced by chattiness and existential questions. We read to our children less and less as they read to us more and more. Their little round chubby faces have grown long as each of their baby teeth have dropped out to be replaced by the longterm varsity players.

This morning, I held my daughter’s hand as we walked into the school. She reached over with her free hand and slowly removed each of my fingers one at a time, smiled at me and then gently said, “I want to walk on my own”. Her hand slipped out of mine as her pace quickened and she moved freely ahead of me. She then took a knife out, stabbed me with it and backed over my body with a cement truck. The second series of events was less painful than the first.

I keep telling my wife that I don’t have any specific regrets about the years my kids were younger except this: I wish I had appreciated it more.

I squandered a lot of beautiful moments with my kids simply by allowing the longing for more personal freedom to poison my attitude. (I REALLY wish I had believed Jesus when he told us to trust God and not to worry about tomorrow so much.) Now that I have more freedom to choose what do with my time and energy, I find myself realizing I’ve already had what I really want. I want to connect with my children.

The cruelty of parenting is that we have to share our energy with other people besides our children. By the time our careers, responsibilities and other relationships take their cut, we find ourselves showing up with a fraction of what we’d envisioned to give them. This is disappointing as parents. But I think our kids are far more gracious about this than we realize.

Kids don’t want our perfection. They want our presence.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

What Does It Mean To Have Your Whole Middle-School Curriculum Designed Around Games?

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

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Johnathan Chase, Learning From Lyrics

The Common Core English Language Arts standards emphasize text-based instruction and call for “shifts” that state;

“…The reading standards focus on students’ ability to read carefullyand grasp information, arguments, ideas, and details based on evidence in the text… Students should be able to answer a range of text-dependent questions, whose answers require inferences based on careful attention to the text…Further, it is vital for students to have extensive opportunities to build knowledge through texts so they can learn independently.”

The Common Core’s focus on independent mastery of text does not establish fair conditions or standards of learning that will provide equal opportunities for all students to be successful.

Learners who are delayed and disabled should have the same possibility to develop and demonstrate their diverse talents and abilities, rather than being continually tested, sorted, and rated according to their weaker reading skills.

Successful entrepreneur, Donny Zanger recently described his school experiences as a student with dyslexia.

“Growing up with dyslexia is no walk in the park, and it’s an open secret that schools are built to cater to one specific type of student. For the rest of the world–the creative thinkers, the talented artists, the energetic athletes–sitting at a desk for hours on end, memorizing lists and analyzing information in a test-taking format, doesn’t necessarily compute with our skill set…

But here’s the catch, the covert information that no one tells you as you suffer through years of feeling second class: succeeding in business requires completely different areas of proficiency than succeeding in school…

To those out there who think success in school is a measure of future accomplishment, I am here to say, it is NOT. Don’t look at your grades, your test scores, or your teachers’ opinions. Don’t focus on your learning disabilities or your inability to remember immaterial dates and numbers. Not everyone is cut out for success in school and that’s okay: it’s not a true measure of what you can achieve.

If you’ve got drive, creativity, motivation, passion and the ability to push up your sleeves and get to work, then come join the Entrepreneur’s Club. We’ll be happy to have you and we don’t need your SAT scores to let you in; we know you can succeed no matter what number the College Board gave you.

I certainly did.”

Unfortunately students who are delayed and disabled are often scheduled into additional remedial and intervention classes to focus on their below grade-level reading or math skills at the expense of arts and enrichment classes that will cultivate equally important academic, emotional, social, and vocational skills.

The Common Core Standards and test-based accountability policies dictate“what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade” and diverse learners who don’t acquire skills in a standardized and synchronized way are being subjected to an unfair narrowing of the curriculum.

Reading comprehension skills are very important, but they do not supersede or trump student agency and the “soft skills” that help people to overcome the real “tests” in life.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Parents Don’t Need To Worry About ‘Screen Time’ Anymore

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Forbes – Jordan Shapiro

A recent study suggests that “hyper parenting may increase the risk of inactivity in children.” Apparently, parenting styles like the so-called “tiger moms who push for exceptional achievement” and “little-emperor parents who shower children with material goods” are “associated with lower physical activity in 7- to 12-year-olds.” I find this study puzzling. In my own experience, it usually takes a push from Dad to get my kids outside and engaged in physical activities.

What’s more, I find the study’s categorization of parenting styles troublesome. We should all be hyper parenting, but that doesn’t mean we should be pushing too hard, protecting too much, or spoiling them with material goods. Instead, we should practice “intentional hyper parenting.” By which I mean, we should be constantly thoughtful about all the decisions we make. We should understand that we are always teaching our kids habitual ways of being in the world. Both by example and by prescription, we are demonstrating to the next generation of adults our own best practices for being good people, for living fulfilled lives, for interacting with the world around us. It seems important, therefore, that we make sure we’ve thought through our actions, that we’re intentional about our decisions. Parenting, after all, is the most direct way we make an impact on humanity and the world’s future.

It takes active parenting to create intellectually, physically, and emotionally active kids. I have learned that if I did nothing, my kids would be glued to their devices—laptops, iPods, tablets—all day long. I imagine most parents these days have discovered the same thing. Digital media is super stimulating; it moves fast, and it is designed to be easy and seductive. This is why it is common to hear people complain about video game addiction; they worry that the evil temptations of screen time will draw their children into an underworld of lonely, geeky, solitude. This is, frankly, absurd. Most children would also eat ice cream and candy all day long if their parents let them. Still, we don’t blame bad nutrition on the temptations of junk food. Instead, we expect parents to get involved. They should structure their kids’ diets. We create healthy, fulfilled, and happy kids, we don’t just leave them alone and we don’t surrender responsibility to the environment.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

The Importance of Music for Children

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Epoch Times – Pat Kozyra

This series of 10 articles on ‘How Children Learn Best’ is written by Canadian Citizen Pat Kozyra who has been teaching in the classroom for more than 50 years. In the series she will cover a range of topics likely to be of interest to both parents and teachers – topics include Children’s Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, the Importance of Music, the Importance of Play and other topics. During the series questions can be posed to Pat and she will choose one to answer each week.

A very big part of any pre-school program is music, but nowadays with schools on tight budgets and cutting back or even cutting out music programs, perhaps this statement should say “should be music” and not “is” – unfortunately! The gift of music is one of the best things we can give our children.

Music is an integral part of our culture. Music has been everywhere since the beginning of time – the singing of the birds, the gurgling sounds of a rushing stream, a crackling fire, the pitter-patter of the rain, the solo in the morning of the barnyard rooster, the chorus of the chickens in the brood, the whispers of the gentle breezes and probably a favourite to many is the washing of the ocean waves onto the sand. Music stimulates thinking and provides a creative outlet for children and they can express their individuality in so many ways. Music cheers us up. Music can be soothing. It can provide a future career when a musical talent is recognised and fostered. Someone once wrote that “music is a health food that nourishes our soul”. What would this world be like without music?

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Hey Kids, What Makes a Good Teacher?

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By Tom Scarice and Luke Arsenalut

There are 7.2 Million Teachers in teh United States.

43,593 Teachers in Connecticut…

and 320 in Madison…

all pondering the best way to be assessed…

so we dared to ask our students…

What Makes a Good Teacher?

“Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them.  They remember what you are.” – Jim Henson

by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Has This Generation of Kids Forgotten How to Play?

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Babble – Suzanne Jannese

It’s week 3 of the kids’ summer school holidays and I feel murderous. If I have to break up ONE more argument between my 9-year-old son and my 4-year-old daughter over our iPad, I may well run away with the circus.

My son is nothing short of addicted to some game called “Clash of the Clans,” while my daughter is obsessed with watching bizarre videos of people unwrapping Kinder surprise eggs (WHY? I have no idea). Not a day goes by without him screaming that it’s his turn, or else she screaming that he’s been on it too long. I have debated throwing out the darn thing, except I like to read the Sunday papers on it.

Just last week, UK kids’ TV show host Michaela Strachan said that today’s youngsters “don’t know what they’re supposed to do” when left to their own devices outdoors. Speaking to the Daily Mail, she called for the “re-wilding” of children who spend too much time playing with gadgets:

“Before we had all this technology, children would just be left outside to play and entertain themselves with their own imagination — they knew what to do. I think now an awful lot of children, when they’re told to go outside, go, ‘Okay, now what do I do?’ They don’t actually know what do to when they are out there. That’s not their fault. It’s because they live their lives behind a screen all day.”

I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, we have what is best described as a “courtyard” garden and when my kids head out there, they kick a ball for about two minutes before it lands in the neighbors’ yard. They squirt a couple of water pistols until one of them gets squirted in the eye and cries. Then they bemoan that they have nothing to do. I feel eternal guilt that I haven’t provided them with a bigger garden, but at the same time, I’m not sure that even if I had one they would think of things to do in it.

Thinking back on my own childhood, I spent my summers leaving the house at first light to play with two boys who lived across the street. We’d make kites, run around a local athletic track, build dens or go-carts, climb trees, play soccer, and make daisy chains or rose “perfume.” We were outside — weather allowing — all day. We only came inside to eat or use the bathroom, and then we’d dart out again. At dusk we would beg to stay out until dark and then we would have a bath (to clean all the cuts we endured on our knees) and fall asleep exhausted. Our imaginations knew no bounds as we created game after game. One summer I played hopscotch every single day and taught myself (with the aid of a broom) how to roller-skate. I played tennis against the wall of my house until it got so dark I could no longer see the ball!

If I ever got bored, my mom would tell me to get outside and think of something. I always did. Even playing alone (I was an only child), I built rock gardens, planted seeds, collected frogspawn, set myself running targets with a thrilling new digital watch (that lit up in the dark!), and biked everywhere.

But today, my children are constantly looking to me to be entertained — they seem unable to do so alone, without the aid of a technical device of some sort. While I know it’s important that kids understand how to use computers and tablets, I also think that it’s important that kids today get bored and start using their imaginations to find ways of keeping entertained. I don’t want my kids to live unhealthy lives, sprawled in front of the TV or iPad, rather than getting fresh air, some physical activity, and using their creativity.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

What Do Sixth Graders Say About Learning With Games? It Works

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MindShift – Alexandria Neason

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about technology in the classroom.

NEW YORK — One morning, just before classes at New York City’s Quest to Learn Middle School broke for lunch, Etai Kurtzman found himself transformed into a lemon tree.

It was a warm day in late April, and his chatty sixth-grade class had been corralled from a narrow hallway into a classroom at the end of a short hall. Etai, tall and lanky, lugged a gray backpack to a desk that had been pushed up against a wall.

Each student had been cast for a role-playing game either as a honeybee sent out from the hive or as a plant. In a flurry of organized chaos, the students simulated the pollination process: student honey bees, wearing pipe-cleaner antennae, approached classmates pretending to be plants and received small, colored building blocks. When a plant ran out of blocks, it meant their flowers had been pollinated. But the bees had to be careful: some of the plants randomly gave them white blocks, which represented pesticides and caused the bees to die.

Their teacher, Kate Selkirk, was using this game as a starting point for an eight-week unit on math concepts — data analysis and graphing, proportions, probability and slope. But what does a beehive or a lemon tree have to do with any of that?

The designers behind Quest to Learn believe that student engagement is so significantly enhanced by narrative role-play, analog games and digital games that every subject — from health to math — begins or ends with a game.

A lesson about power and privilege, for example, might begin with a card game in which some players are deliberately and arbitrarily more disadvantaged than others. This type of simulation creates real empathy, which helps to make abstract concepts more concrete — and boosts engagement as a result.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out

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Slate – Julie Lythcott-Haims

Recent studies suggests that kids with over-involved parents and rigidly structured childhoods suffer psychological blowback in college.

Excerpted from How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott-Haims, out now from Henry Holt and Co.

Academically overbearing parents are doing great harm. So says Bill Deresiewicz in his groundbreaking 2014 manifesto Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. “[For students] haunted their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure,” writes Deresiewicz, “the cost of falling short, even temporarily, becomes not merely practical, but existential.”

Those whom Deresiewicz calls “excellent sheep” I call the “existentially impotent.” From 2006 to 2008, I served on Stanford University’s mental health task force, which examined the problem of student depression and proposed ways to teach faculty, staff, and students to better understand, notice, and respond to mental health issues. As dean, I saw a lack of intellectual and emotional freedom—this existential impotence—behind closed doors. The “excellent sheep” were in my office. Often brilliant, always accomplished, these students would sit on my couch holding their fragile, brittle parts together, resigned to the fact that these outwardly successful situations were their miserable lives.

In my years as dean, I heard plenty of stories from college students who believed theyhad to study science (or medicine, or engineering), just as they’d had to play piano,and do community service for Africa, and, and, and. I talked with kids completely uninterested in the items on their own résumés. Some shrugged off any right to be bothered by their own lack of interest in what they were working on, saying, “My parents know what’s best for me.”

One kid’s father threatened to divorce her mother if the daughter didn’t major in economics. It took this student seven years to finish instead of the usual four, and along the way the father micromanaged his daughter’s every move, including requiring her to study off campus at her uncle’s every weekend. At her father’s insistence, the daughter went to see one of her econ professors during office hours one weekday. She forgot to call her father to report on how that went, and when she returned to her dorm later that evening her uncle was in the dorm lobby looking visibly uncomfortable about having to “force” her to call her dad to update him. Later this student told me, “I pretty much had a panic attack from the lack of control in my life.” But an economics major she was indeed. And the parents got divorced anyway.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Can Video Games Make You Smarter?

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Intel IQ – Dana McMahan

New gaming technology is an increasingly important learning tool for kids and adults.

Watching his boys play video games, Karl Kapp wondered how he could leverage their immersion and engagement.

“I kept thinking: Why is online learning so boring and gaming is so exciting?” said the professor of instructional technology at Bloomsburg University and author of The Gamification of Learning and Instruction.

“Is there anything we can borrow from games to make learning more exciting?”

Or the bigger question: Can video games make you smarter?

As it turns out, the answer to both is a resounding yes. Kids and adults can reap serious educational benefits by integrating gaming technology and play into the learning process.

The Institute of Play was founded in 2007 to address issues around youth engagement in learning, said Robert Gehorsam, the Institute’s Executive Director.

“Research shows kids can be tuned out at school, but they’re super-engaged in productive ways around digital media and games,” he said.

The organization set out to extract what makes games so appealing and transfer that into learning.

“The results are very intriguing when you think about what you want kids and adults to be in the 21^st century,” Gehorsam said.

Just what is it that we want people to be in this century? And how exactly do games help that?

“The way we look at information in society is changing,” explained Ross Flatt, assistant principal and founding teacher at Quest to Learn, an Institute project in New York public schools.

“It is really more about how we work with it. It’s less about what we know and more how we can use it.”

These abilities call for deeper learning skills, Gehorsam said, like systems thinking, collaboration and higher-order life skills. “And that was something game-like learning could foster.”

More traditional learning structures that focus on the acquisition of basic skills and content knowledge don’t always teach those capabilities. “[It’s] not like you can take an SAT for these competencies,” Gehorsam said, “but employers want them.”

Game-Changer

While the idea of gamification has recently gained traction, it’s not a new one. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, chess was used to teach war strategies to noblemen, according to the Institute of Play.

These days, even though play continues to be a part of learning, it’s often consigned to early childhood. All too soon, learning becomes a serious matter.

“What’s happened in the digital era is playfulness has extended into adulthood,” Gehorsam said. “As a result of wonderful research in cognitive science, we’re actually able to associate real learning benefits to effective design of games.”

Think about how games work, he continued.

“You’re typically faced with a challenge where you don’t know the answer. You have to call on a lot of skills — strategic thinking and collaboration — to solve problems, rather than regurgitate facts, which has been the dominant model of education.”

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

How to Cut Children’s Screen Time? Say No to Yourself First.

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The New York Times – Jane E. Brody

Parents are often at fault, directly or indirectly, when children and teenagers become hooked on electronic media, playing video games or sending texts many hours a day instead of interacting with the real world and the people in it. And as discussed in last week’s column, digital overload can impair a child’s social, emotional and intellectual growth.

This sad conclusion of many experts in child development has prompted them to suggest ways parents can prevent or rectify the problem before undue damage occurs.

“There’s nothing about this that can’t be fixed,” said Catherine Steiner-Adair, a Harvard-affiliated psychologist. “And the sooner, the better.”

As Susan Stiffelman, a family therapist, put it in The Huffington Post, today’s parents are unprepared “to deal with the intense pull and highly addictive nature of what the online world has to offer. As parents, we have an opportunity to guide our kids so that they can learn habits that help them make use of the digital world, without being swallowed whole by it.”

Two experts at the Harvard School of Public Health, Steven Gortmaker and Kaley Skapinsky, offer a free guide, “Outsmarting the Smart Screens: A Parent’s Guide to the Tools That Are Here to Help,” as well as healthy activities to pursue to counter the weight gain that can accompany excessive screen time. Young children should not have their own cellphones or televisions in their bedrooms, they say, adding that even with teenagers it is not too late to set reasonable limits on screen time.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Which Apps Are Educational And Why?

Girls Dropping Math? Blame Teachers

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Bloomberg View – Cass R. Sunstein

The U.S. has a pressing need to increase the number of well-educated graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, pretty much everyone agrees. Jeb Bush contends that we’re not producing “anything approaching the numbers we need to sustain and grow our economy, much less to maintain our leadership in global technology.” President Barack Obama says “we’ve got a whole bunch of talent” that’s being wasted — because we’re not getting enough girls interested in these fields.

But why, exactly, aren’t more girls focusing on math and science?

It’s a persistent questions and, over the years, many people have answered it by suggesting that girls are simply less interested. Others have said boys have more talent; maybe their spatial skills are better (perhaps for evolutionary reasons) and that gives them higher aptitude in math. Still others suggest that boys and girls respond differently in competitive situations and that, in math and science, high levels of competition end up advantaging boys.

A new study points in a different direction. It indicates that much of the problem lies with biased primary school teachers, who have major and enduring influences on female achievement. That’s really hard to prove, but Victor Lavy of the University of Warwick and Edith Sand of Tel Aviv University found a way by studying children in Israel.

In primary schools there, boys and girls are subject to two kinds of tests: a “blind” external exam, graded anonymously, and a “nonblind” internal exam, graded in the classroom. It is well-established that the difference between blind and nonblind assessments is a good measure of sex discrimination — at least if the two tests are gauging the same basic thing. In this case they were, so Lavy and Sand could compare the outcomes to see whether teachers showed any tendency to downgrade girls.

In tests on Hebrew language, the researchers found no bias on the basis of sex; girls did a bit better than boys on both external and internal exams. In math tests, in contrast, girls did better on the external exams, but worse on the internal ones — a strong suggestion of bias.

Moreover, some teachers showed a significant bias, whereas others showed none. Because students are randomly assigned to teachers within primary schools, Lavy and Sand were able to investigate the consequences, for both boys and girls, of having a biased primary school teacher.

The biased teachers turned out to have significant effects: Girls who had a biased teacher in primary school were less likely to continue with math and science in high school. In contrast, boys with biased teachers were more likely to complete the advanced math and science studies.

That’s an important difference, because those courses are a prerequisite for university schooling in a number of fields, including computer science and engineering. Thus, a biased fourth-grade math teacher can limit a woman’s career opportunities. And if significant numbers of primary school teachers show a sex bias, they will reduce the total number of female students who pursue science, technology, engineering and math.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Should Schools Prepare Students To Lead The Pack Or Be A Pack Leader?

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Johnathan Chase, Learning From Lyrics

Many education reformers are determined to test, rate, and sort children to identify and reward those students who lead the pack rather than nurture, respect, and support all learners to cultivate future pack leaders.

This misguided obsession on continually evaluating and comparing student performance using a narrow set of numeracy and literacy skills will leave our children unprepared for the social and emotional challenges and “tests” of adulthood and employment.

“Imagine two wolf packs, or two human tribes,” Mr. McIntyre said. “Which is more likely to survive and reproduce? The one whose members are more cooperative, more sharing, less violent with one another; or the group whose members are beating each other up and competing with one another?”…

This does not mean that alpha males are not tough when they need to be. One famous wolf in Yellowstone whose radio collar number, 21, became his name, was considered a “super wolf” by the people who closely observed the arc of his life.

He was fierce in defense of family and apparently never lost a fight with a rival pack. Yet within his own pack, one of his favorite things was to wrestle with little pups…

One year, a pup was a bit sickly. The other pups seemed to be afraid of him and wouldn’t play with him. Once, after delivering food for the small pups, 21 stood looking around for something.

Soon he started wagging his tail. He’d been looking for the sickly little pup, and he just went over to hang out with him for a while.

Of all Mr. McIntyre’s stories about the super wolf, that’s his favorite. Strength impresses us. But kindness is what we remember best…”

“Tapping Your Inner Wolf”, Carl Safina 6/5/15 

Education reforms are mistakenly focused on rigorous standards and standardized testing to measure how students compare to each other instead of providing vigorous learning experiences and diverse opportunities for students to test their limits.

School should be a safe environment for students to practice and learn how to care for others. People must first learn to care, if they are going to care to learn.

Ensuring that children are college and career ready begins with activities and experiences that help students learn to be compassionate and caring ready.

Empathy is not just important in the classroom. The ability to empathize in the workplace has a direct impact on performance and the ability to lead and inspire others.

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Meet the 12-Year-Old With a Higher IQ Than Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein

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Yahoo Parenting – Rachel Bertsche

A 12-year-old in the U.K. has received a perfect score on her Mensa IQ test, ranking her two points above both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking in the society’s elite group of members.

Nicole Barr took the test at the same time as her father did a couple of weeks ago, and got her results — a score of 162 — on Thursday, easily beating his score. Her father, Jim Barr, says he had a hunch that Nicole would be admitted to Mensa, despite the low acceptance rate — the honor is extended only to those who score in the top 2 percent. “I was expecting her to do well. I knew she had a quick mind for working out problems and puzzles,” Jim tells Yahoo Parenting. “I didn’t want to put any pressure on her, so we went for the fun of it. I had the idea in my mind that she would get into Mensa, but when I got the results back, I thought, ‘Wow that’s a high score!’ It wasn’t until later that I learned it was the top score possible on that test.”

STORY: How to Raise a Genius

Ann Clarkson, communications manager for British Mensa, confirmed Nicole’s score to Yahoo Parenting. “[A score of] 162 puts her in the top one percent of the population, so it is exceptional by any definition,” she says.

Barr says he decided to sign his daughter up for the test because he thought she’d have fun. “She’s always loved numbers and puzzles, and she’s always been excellent at math, performing several years ahead of her age group in school,” he says. “It’s just the type of thing she likes to do. She likes challenging herself.”

STORY: 10-Year-Old Prodigy Just Enrolled in College

And throughout the test, Jim could tell that Nicole was having an easy time of it. “It was split into several sections, each with a time limit, and she finished each one early,” he says. “In the last section, at the four-minute warning, I quickly glanced up to see if Nicole was feeling the pressure, and she already had put her pen down. There were questions I didn’t finish at all.”

In the end, Nicole scored significantly higher than her dad. “She was rubbing my face in it a bit,” Jim says, laughing. “She obviously beat me by a long way.”

Nicole has showed an above-average aptitude for problem-solving since she was very young. “Before she was 2, she was adding numbers up and doing calculations,” he says. “At 2, she could use a Nintendo DS with absolute ease — it would amaze family and friends how easily she could work anything technical.”

And while Jim says his daughter enjoys reading and solving math problems in her spare time – even during summer break – he points out that her interests aren’t all academic. “She likes playing soccer, and she’s performing in a Shakespeare play coming up,” he says. “She does enjoy acting, and she loves singing — even if it’s just to herself.”

As for how Nicole plans to use her superior IQ down the line, her father says she wants to be a doctor and “maybe invent a new medicine.” It’s a career path he thinks would suit her. “She often thinks outside of the box,” Jim explains. “She sees things with a different point of view, even when many adults might be scratching their heads.”

Jim, of course, is an exceptionally proud dad, though he says that has nothing to do with the test. “I was always proud,” he says. “The test hasn’t changed anything.”

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by MindMake via MindMake Blog

Cell Phone Parenting

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Common Sense Media

Getting a cell phone has become a milestone for most kids. We can help you lay the groundwork for responsible cell phone use, and manage the challenges and opportunities they bring. Learn how to:

1. Decide when your kid is ready for a phone
2. Set rules
3. Choose the right phone
4. Choose the right service plan
5. Stay on top of what your kid is doing on his or her phone

See More at Common Sense Media

by MindMake via MindMake Blog

MindMake, the World’s First Comprehensive Digital Parenting Tool, Launches Kickstarter Campaign

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Press Release

Los Angeles, California, August 13, 2015 — With the unrelenting growth of children’s access to smartphones, tablets, social media, apps, games and videos, MindMake is introducing groundbreaking tools to help parents manage and maximize their child’s online activities. Today, MindMake launched a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of raising $75,000 to fund the remainder of its software development for iOS and Android apps.

The percentage of households with a child between ages 4 and 14 owning a smartphone skyrocketed to 71% in 2014 from 55% in 2012.¹. And, 92% of today’s teens report going online daily – including 24% who say they go online “almost constantly”².  MindMake is positioning itself to take advantage of this evolution, with the goal of empowering parents and families to navigate this emerging and complicated digital world.

“I have two children and I’m raising them in a very different world from the one I grew up in,” says MindMake co-founder Kellie Lakamp. “In our home, we have computers, TVs, tablets, smartphones, and we’re adding new devices all the time. It’s challenging to parent in this digital world, where it’s necessary to know what devices my children are using, the time spent on them, and the types of content they are consuming. That’s where MindMake comes in.”

MindMake is creating a secure, easy way to manage a child’s online activities, keep them cyber safe, and understand their media world. The team has already launched a beta for iOS, which can be accessed at mindmake.com, and they are adding powerful, new features, including usage reporting and location tracking. MindMake is currently developing production-ready apps for both iOS and Android.

When complete, parents can use MindMake’s Parental Monitoring for iOS and Android to:

• Remotely manage their child’s screen time on iPads, iPhones, iPod Touches and Android tablets and smartphones
• Easily monitor and filter their child’s online activities, including internet browsing, apps, games, social media and videos
• Prevent in-app purchases to avoid a surprise bill
• Create schedules and time limits to teach their child how to self-regulate their screen time
• Track their child’s location
• Receive weekly email reports showing which apps are on the child’s device; which were used the most and for how long; as well as what websites were visited, when they were visited and how frequently

“We have the remaining development mapped out, and we have a great team to do the work. That’s why we launched the Kickstarter campaign,” says MindMake co-founder Ed Seibold. “As a Father of 3 boys, I am excited each day by their curiosity and immersion in technology. It’s what inspired us to create MindMake, and why we’re asking for everyone’s support to help us raise the funds needed to complete our first apps for iOS and Android.”

MindMake’s founding team and partners have over 100 years combined experience in developing new digital products.  They have witnessed firsthand the growing need for tools to help parents manage and influence their children’s online activities, and have partnered with some of the best minds in education and child development to make it a reality.

David Cook is an industry leader and market influencer with over 15 years of business and innovation in digital media and e-commerce. Prior to MindMake, David was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Rovi Entertainment Store, where he led the launch of retail VOD services for Target, Best Buy, Sainsburys, Warner Bros., and others.

Jesse Keane brings a wealth of experience in technology and a strong business background. Prior to MindMake, Jesse was CTO Rovi Entertainment Store, where he led several industry-leading and first-to-market product launches for DRM, VOD streaming and download to connected devices, DECE/UltraViolet, Disc-to-Digital, and many others.

Ed Seibold is a seasoned business leader with over 19 years of highly successful digital media development, marketing, sales and operations experience. Prior to MindMake, Ed was Vice President of Marketing and Professional Services for the Rovi Entertainment Store, where he was responsible for multiple, global teams involved in the development and deployment of digital media applications for consumer electronic devices.

Paul Henderson, Head of MindMake’s Child Development Board, has more than 30 years of experience in international academics and education. Prior to MindMake, Paul served as Secretariat of Education Reform, Prime Minister’s Office, New Zealand; he was the former Chair of English Language Subject Committee, British Council; University of Cambridge.

Kellie Lakamp is a digital media veteran. Kellie founded Fluxe, an advisory firm, to guide and lead innovation in digital entertainment. Kellie has led business development, content strategy, content acquisition, and deal negotiations for startups and established companies, including BestBuy, Rovi Entertainment Store and Mubi.

About MindMake: MindMake is a groundbreaking service for families, and the only solution that provides parents with tools to manage, monitor and optimize their child’s online activities across multiple devices and platforms.

1 The NPD Group, Kids and CE: 2014 Report (Children in the U.S.)
2 Pew Research Center’s Teens Relationships Survey, 2014-2015

Media Contact:
Ed Seibold
ed@mindmake.com
www.mindmake.com

by MindMake via MindMake Blog