Please share this invitation with your students. Mr. Parkins reports that many Piedmont students attended the free event last year and enjoyed it.:

IT-oLogy Cyber Saturday – March 8 at CPCC.
Register your middle school students for the March IT-oLogy Charlotte Cyber Saturday from 9 – 12 pm, sponsored by Time Warner Cable Connect a Million Minds and hosted by CPCC.

Date:                     Saturday, March 8, 2014
Time:                    9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location:             CPCC Central Campus,  Levine Technology Building, 1125 Charlottetowne Ave.  5th Floor
Parking:               Student Parking Garage,   Corner of Randolph Rd and Charlottetown Avenue.

Note:                    Cyber Saturday will be held on the 5th Floor.

To register, click on this link:   http://mscharlottemarchcybersaturday2014.eventbrite.com


About Cyber Saturday
Cyber Saturday is a free monthly program run by IT-oLogy partners where students can learn more about IT. These creative sessions cover a variety of IT topics including hands-on activities as well as presentations from IT professionals. The content covered on a particular Cyber Saturday rotates each month. The goal of this program is to give students the opportunity to explore and experience technology in new ways, learn about careers in technology, and inspire students to continue to learn through critical thinking so that they increase their proficiency in STEM.

This month, we will continue our hands-on coding exercises.

http://www.clttechevents.com/events/290

For you OR your students: Click this image to be taken to a form to submit the link to any work you are proud of.  (if the work is not digitized, see me and I will publish it on the web via google drive, youtube or a website.) Whenever we have Piedmont guests, I can show them your work and the work of your students.

I originally made this link for teachers for open house, but so many amazing projects and events happen all year, that I'd like to keep a running tally.

 Many of you use Today's Meet and Socrative. The chart below was made by my favorite tech blog - Free Tech for Teachers. Click on the photo of it and you will be taken to the hyperlinked version on that blog. As of this writing, unfortunately you may have to click from a non-school computer to see the hyperlinked image.

Annie Murphy Paul Posted this today.
I think it is worth reading just to think more broadly about what defines a worthwhile lesson. Sometimes we judge ourselves too harshly when there is not a harvestable product within a short amount of time.

Also sometimes we feel good when we prepare a lesson in this beautiful package but that doesn't necessarily grow the child's brain in ways they need for their future.I am not personally sure where to go on this. Scores and other outward, quantifialbe "appearances of learning" often do mean more in today's academic world than real, long-lasting learning,  but, when we really think about what children need, we need to start thinking very long term. It doesn't have to be an either/or but if we are focused too much on measuring crystallized intelligence, fluid intelligence development may suffer. Think past just "get the scores up" or "get them into college" because that is no longer the gatekeeper to economic or social mobility it once was.

Upshot: Beware educational strategies that make it too neat , easy and "step by step" The short term satisfaction and payoff may only be illusions of transferrable knowledge.

Related ideas, which I'd love to know your opinions on are:

1. "If students can Google it don't ask (test) it."
   
2. "If you can't reasonably expect students to recall what you are teaching them 20 years from now, you are wasting your time."

This was in Sunday's NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html

When I hear teachers making pedagogical choices for how students should show mastery of material based on "but they'll be asked to do it this way in college (or high school ) -I am getting them ready now" it is articles like this that make me question the value of that kind of decision making. It used to be that there was some ethics in that - they needed to learn to jump through the hoops bc a degree was some kind of guaranteed ticket to a good job- but that is just not the case now in more and more fields ! It is putting a lot of precious eggs into a very old basket riddled with holes - wouldn't it be best to protect each egg according to its unique size and shape ?

The quote from Google that GPA and test scores mean absolutely nothing to them- they don't predict anything and are ignored in hiring- means we may be not looking far enough into their futures when we are saying that education is to make a child college -ready.

Student need a core base of knowledge but there is just not a single universal canon anymore. We as teachers are kidding ourselves if we think there is and there probably never was- just a few class markers if anything. Students need to be skilled and flexible for their futures. We need to give them the opportunity for lasting learning -not the kind that goes away after the test.. That kind of game is just not worth playing anymore.