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.
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.
Once upon a time...and not all that long ago, teachers found motivating youngsters to engage themselves in the wonders of mathematics a difficult proposition--which is not to say that educators here in the 21st Century have completely overcome all the difficulties. No, it still takes a committed teacher to break down the barriers both societal and unique to the child to get it done.
Prof. Alfred Posamentier, Dean and professor of mathematics education at Mercy College, NY suggests 9 strategies a teacher might use to engage students with mathematics:
An inspiring video created by WeUseMath.org team, featuring some of the brightests minds, and how they use math.
Most math teachers say they love math. And the best ones make a determined effort to inculcate their students with that same sense of the divine. How often do they succeed in this? We all know the answer is “not very often.”
And why not? Well for one thing as math professor Manil Siri recently said, “Math gets a bad rap.” Before we get to school our parents have already told us about math--and what they’ve told us about it wasn’t good. Math’s hard, it isn’t very useful in real life; and besides, you need a special mental aptitude for it to be successful. For another, even those teachers otherwise capable of making students fall in love with math are limited by their curriculum; or as high school math teacher Dan Meyer complains, to simply “memorizing procedures and performing them accurately and quickly.” A method requiring lots of boring homework far from that inspiring, charismatic teacher.
Do students need to fall in love with math to be good at it? Well, it certainly makes a teacher’s life easier if the students are enjoying what they are doing. This is true of every discipline from language to physics. But in the absence of ‘Love!’ most teachers would settle for students simply realizing how beautifully an understanding of math can help them interact with the real world.
Most of us are aware that blended learning means integrating face-to-face classroom instruction with online learning.
The benefits of blended learning are many, including allowing greater leeway for students to work at their own pace and take a lot more courses than they might otherwise have had access to at their own local schools. Think of it as an educational leveler.
But as Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education opined at a recent panel discussion, "Blended learning is not using technology to diminish the role of teaching, it enhances the role of teaching."
I found this test on the Washington Post Blog. It was originally given to Eighth Graders in Bullitt County, Ky in 1912. For what it is worth, I was impressed with what a fourteen-year-old kid had to know in that less-than enlightened day and age. Was a passing grade required to move on to the ninth as in today’s much-maligned end-of-the year tests? Don’t know; the blog didn’t say.
Before STEM Learning came along with its host of cool gadgets to inspire young people to undertake careers in science there was only math and passionate math teachers to bridge the interest gap. Jose Valdes was one of those passionate teachers, one of the best.
Teaching in East San Jose in the late 1980’s, this expatriate Cuban became disgusted with the number of bright Latino kids having trouble with math and dropping out of school. He decided to do something about it.
Who doesn’t like seeing Optimus prime fight Megatron? Or one of the robots in “Pacific Rim” use an oil tanker to fight one of the monsters? Well controlling a robot, large or small, involves the use of cosines, among other mathematical equations. However, cosines, like quadratic equations and vectors, are hard to understand using just a math book. Unless your students are really interested in figuring out how tall buildings are, they may not care to learn how cosines factor into things like designing and building a roof. RobotsLAB solves this problem by stripping down the concept of cosines to their core functionality, giving the students something physical (and pretty cool) to look at and makes the concept easier to understand.
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