Gamification STEM learning

Gamification, for those of you too busy earning a living and raising a family to keep up with the new words added almost daily to the popular tech lexicon, is a term first used by Nick Pelling a British computer programer in 2010. According to Wikipedia the term has come to mean "the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems".

So what does that mean in the context of STEM learning?

Report Discusses Teaching with Technology - In Which Percentile Are You?

It should come as no surprise that the results of a recent Pew Research poll of middle and secondary teachers across the United States showed that the use of digital technology has become an integral part of their teaching method.
Fully 92% of polled teachers admit the Internet has had a major impact on how they access classroom material. Almost half report using an e-reader or tablet to complete classroom assignments.

Perhaps more surprising is the number of educators willing to allow students to do research in the classroom with the cellphone. Apparently undaunted by fears of cell phone interruption or distracted students (or maybe just trying to make a virtue of necessity), 52% of teachers in upper and middle-class districts and 35% of teachers with lower income kids let them work on their assignments with smartphones.

Applying Math curriculum to real life using Google SketchUp

Math in practical use as opposed to being practically useless.
That’s the approach taken by more and more math teachers.
Of course math was always useful in the real world; the trick was convincing your students that that was the case.
Hard to do when the curriculum and available tools limited teachers to books and the blackboard...Oh, and let us not forget transparent plastic protractors for drawing straight lines on paper...at least that’s what most of us used them for.
The only angle we thought about was a guy’s agenda as in “What’s his angle?,” not “the space (usually measured in degrees) between two intersecting lines or surfaces at or close to the point where they meet.”

What’s happened to change all that? Technology!
Technology has made all the difference in turning math class into a learning experience as practical as woodworking or auto repair.
And that's what eighth-graders and their teachers discovered at Upper DuPont Area Middle School in Loyalton, Pa. while undertaking the redesigning and landscaping of the schools courtyard.

Augmented Reality practice in math classroom?

What the heck is “augmented reality?” That was my first thought when first seeing the phrase in a related post. No, I take that back; to tell the truth, like most people I asked,  I thought it was merely another way to say “virtual reality.” But It most certainly isn't...

This according to the Wikipedia: Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.”

Let’s put it another way: augmented reality is to The Minority Report with Tom Cruise as virtual reality is to Inception with Leonardo Dicaprio. Remember in The Minority Report when Tom Cruise stood facing a huge transparent computer screen manipulating images and data with gloved hands? That manipulation, a combination of real objects (gloved hands) and digital reality (data and images), makes for a perfect example of augmented reality (a teacher holding the control tablet from the RobotsLAB BOX in his hand can impose data on the real world the way Tom Cruise did--and he wouldn’t have to wear gloves!) On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio's avatar immersed in a simulated dreamworld, is a perfect example of virtual reality.

A Grant from SF CEO to SF City Schools

"Mayors just dream of these opportunities." 

That’s what San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said after he and schools Superintendent Richard Carranza met with Salesforce.com (SF) founder Marc Benioff. What they were asking for was some financial support for the city’s 12 middle schools to increase technology access. They wanted money to purchase several hundred Ipads for students and training for affected teachers. They thought their request was reasonable if expensive.

Marc Benioff Salesfoce founder

What they got was a surprise:  "You have to think bigger," Marc Benioff told them. At the end of the day what Mayor Lee and Superintendent Carranza actually walked away with was the Ipads they had originally asked for and a $100,000 grant to every principal at the 12 middle schools. The total donation came to almost three million dollars!  

Why kids take on adult math anxiety

Of course the answer to the question posed by the title of this article is simple: Adults!
Adults instill in children their own feelings about certain learning disciplines like math and science.
Studies show that children tend to follow the lead of the same-sex parent where learning is concerned. Mothers discouraging daughters, fathers discouraging sons.

KIPP Founder Sees Correlation Between EdTech and High Test Scores

In today’s RobotsLAB Blog we want to give three Cheers for one of this countries’ most successful ed-tech aware education systems! KIPP! KIPP! HOORAY! and... KIPP! KIPP! HOORAY! and one last time... KIPP! KIPP! HOORAY!

Okay, so that was a bit of a silly opening. But Hip! Hip! Hooray! is so last century and I wanted to get your attention to K-I-P-P, a definitely this-century system of over 140 schools administering to under-resourced communities across the United States. Google “KIPP” and you’ll be amazed at the number of big inner-cities with a KIPP school. (Or go directly to their website: http://www.kipp.org/ )

KIPP by the way, is an acronym which stands for Knowledge Is Power Program. To show how successful KIPP is, take a look at the record of KIPP Los Angeles, the highest performing elementary school in the LA system and one of the top ten in the entire state of California!

How do you get students from the worst school systems in the US to and through college

Now I know why LAS VEGAS says “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” The city isn’t really bragging, it is just embarrassed. There are probably a lot of reasons for that embarrassment, but here are the two I just discovered after watching this video:

First, they have some of the worst public schools in the entire country.

Second, some of those poor Las Vegas schools have no computers.

ROBOTSLAB NAMED WINNER OF THE RBR GAME CHANGER AWARDS

RobotsLAB BOX recognized for the innovation, creativity and delivery of a “Game Changer product” in the education market.

Santa Clara, CA, Wednesday, October 23rd 2013 - A panel of distinguished experts from NASA’s JPL, universities around the world, the investment community and Robotics Business Review, chose RobotsLAB BOX to join an exclusive group of products recognized for outstanding achievements.

The awarded product – RobotsLAB BOX, is a teaching-aid, designed to help educators demonstrate abstract concepts in math and science using robots.

RobotsLAB BOX won the Game Changer Award in the Education category, one of twelve categories honored by the Game Changers Awards. The distinguished awards are celebrating exceptional developments in technology, innovation, accessibility and delivery.

HOW THE U.S. CAN ENGAGE GIRLS IN STEM