Kevin M. Gong's blog

#140edu Liveblog Day 2

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 09:05:19 -0400

Day 2 liveblog of the #140edu conference.

9:03am - Ariel and I are in our seats, power cords plugged in, and listening to Jeff Pulver welcome everyone back.

#140edu Liveblog

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:32:58 -0400

9:28am - Jack Hidary describing students at a public school where 9th and 10th graders are required to write 15 page theses every 10 weeks and present to an external panel.

9:34am - Jack Hidary explains how a group of students learned about science by building paper planes in front of the head of NASA, got feedback, and re-built their planes to fly further.

9:45 - The audience is challenged to make a flying object out of 5 business-card pieces of balsa paper!

9:58 - Louis Wool injects some pragmatism and perspective. "People resist change, and there is a huge pushback against early adopters."

10:12 - Rebecca Levey, a public school teacher, highlights that parents get almost no information from their kids on what they are learning in schools and the projects they are working on. In order to have more parental engagement. parents need to be informed about what happens in the classroom.

mSchool course: NYC Startup Scene for Interns

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:27:45 -0400

I'm currently working on a mSchool course titled NYC Startup Scene for Interns. This course is intended to give tech-minded interns working in NYC over the summer an overview of where to find and how to network in startup and tech events.

Course link here. (in progress!)

EdLab Review: Edmodo

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:32:43 -0400

Description
Edmodo is a microblogging platform aimed towards teachers and students that allows them to store and share files, events, assignments, and grades. The platform also enables teachers to keep a class calendar, maintain a public RSS, and conduct polls. Additionally, teachers are able to connect with other educators around the world and view their professional experiences.

140edu Conference Only $1.40 for Educators

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:51:12 -0400

If you're an educator/teacher, you can attend the 140edu conference on August 2-3 for only $1.40.

Application can be found here.

Spread the word!

10 Rules to Stop Email Overflow - from Chris Anderson of TED

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:32:24 -0400

Full article here .

The Long and Winding Road to a PhD (Warning: depressing)

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:38:37 -0400

Larger version here

2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Better Classroom Design

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:51:57 -0400

The Open Architecture Network hosted a design challenge two years ago focusing on desiging classrooms of the future. Nearly 400 entries were submitted, and you can see them all here.

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Swellr: A Worthwhile Alternative to Donors Choose

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:18:11 -0400

Many of us are already familiar with Donors Choose, the Kickstarter-like platform for teachers and classrooms. An upcoming startup called Swellr aims to provide an alternative approach towards crowd-funded education projects.

Instead of targeting donors, Swellr focuses on harnessing the power of local consumer spending. After teachers post their needs to Swellr, local businesses post vouchers on the site, offering 5% - 25% of their sales towards the teacher projects. Swellr allows businesses to promote themselves while giving Swellr 10% of their sales (as opposite to 50% for Groupon and other deal programs). Swellr also adds a competitive/game layer to their model, again targeted towards businesses. Consumers will be able to see how much each business gives back to its local community, allowing consumers to choose the businesses that are most generous.

How TOMS and Buy-One-Give-One Really Help

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:16:00 -0400

This article from GOOD analyzes the impact that buy-one-give-one programs like TOMS and Warby Parker have on communities in developing nations:

"Goods donations are worthwhile when they:

-Meet an immediate need as well as have along term impact
-Are based on actual, observed needs
-Work in partnership with the community
-Support local initiatives
-Good intentions are not enough; in fact, they achieve nothing on their own."

How Color Affects Our Purchases

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:26:53 -0400

MIT Ideation Lab Portfolio Resources

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:20:05 -0400

Just stumbled across this design resource from MIT. It has some sample portfolios, as well as project-guiding questions that are useful.

Photos: Of Pictionary and Hackathons

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:26:44 -0400

Some were NOT happy with the Pictionary results...

But we did get free pizza!

Nothing? Aww...

In more serious matters, Ankit, Ariel and I attended the Donors Choose hackathon on Saturday, hosted by the General Assembly.

(Ariel and I pretending to be programmers. Ankit is actually programming.)

Aviary, Foursquare, and several other companies presented their APIs to the crowd, and Donors Choose then challenged attendees to create projects that would enhance the organization through data analysis, javascript projects, or a variety of other categories.

(more photos after the jump)

Should Students Be Able to Grade Their Teachers?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:59:10 -0400

This article from GOOD takes a look at the new measure recently approved by Memphis City Schools, allowing students opinions to account for 5% of a teacher's evaluation.

The demographic breakdown of Memphis City School students is 86% African-American, 8% white and 6% other races/nationalities.

The article takes the position that students may not have the skill or maturity to recognize a good teacher, and that they may too easily be influenced by favoritism or popularity.

What are your thoughts on this?

Minority Youth Consume Significantly More Media Than White Counterparts

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:26:56 -0400

This article reports on the divide in media consumption between white and minority youth. Minority children ages 8-18 average 13 hours of media content a day, versus 8.5 hours for white children. The increased media consumption is fairly evenly distributed across all content types, including TV, videos, music, internet, and video games.

The article posits that the increased consumption is the media equivalent of obesity: There is a lot to consume, but very little is nutritious. It is worthwhile to further explore how students, and minority students in particular, can benefit from media-based learning tools.