It's Not Too Early to Think About Summer!

Cold and damp as it is in Nashville this mornin', I'm hoping that some portion of my 5 readers (just kidding--see the Clustrmap in the sidebar!) may be thinking about summer :)

I am offering four one-week workshops this summer, all of which are detailed in the "Web 2.0 for Us" wiki and three of which are still available for booking at your school. At the wiki, I describe the workshops pretty completely, so I won't repeat myself here. Isn't that refreshing?

Cheers!

Scott

U.S. Students Below Average in Science and Math

From THE Journal*, a favorite source for current trends, a report that I'll add to my resource bank for an upcoming presentation in San Antonio about university outreach to K12 schools. Go read the article, and what's up with Canadian science education that places it in the top 5? Mind you, results are based on one of my favorite whipping-boys, standardized testing. But still...

And in math...

See the line at 500? That's the international median line. Clearly, something's wrong with the long-running argument that the poor performance of our students in science and math is "urban myth."

We clearly need some work here. My sense is that there are a passle of well-meaning educators out there working as hard as they can with out-dated tools and restrictions to teach kids content and skills, but if they were to be set free to innovate and energize the imaginations of their students, engage them, draw them into the larger context, "performance" would follow. What we need is teachers who are knowledgeable in both the current collaborative learning technologies and in ways to make sure that new ones don't fly under their professional radars. Wheels turning again...

*Nagel, Dave. "U.S. Students Below Average in Science and Math." THE Journal December 200712 December 2007 1,2. 12 December 2007 .