What we learned this week #64
This week we had discussions on ethical parenting, the great outdoors and (most importantly) cake.
By Thor’s mighty hammer, more girls will study science!
The ‘Ultimate Mentor Adventure’ (catchy) is a scheme aimed at getting girls aged 14 and up ‘to embark on a journey that will allow them to explore their potential in the world of STEM.
How’s your literacy? Take the test (from 1918)
We worry nowadays about how all this technology stuff is affecting kids’ literacy, but if you want to really panic yourself, sit your kid – and then yourself – down in front of this test from the 1910s.
Flip learning: It really works! (A bit)
We’ve learned about flip learning and its pros and cons before, but a quick catch up: it involves kids doing learning at home, and then discussing what they learned at school. Crazy, right? And it works!
Getting kids into STEM, by Bill Nye
Host of a long-running titular PBS series aimed at teaching science to pre-teens, Nye’s ‘Rules of the Road’ can actually serve as a pretty good blueprint for getting kids excited by STEM (that’s the tricky Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects.
Codeathing: Learn HTML in 3 minutes
I know a thing or two about HTML. No, literally: I know how to format text and do paragraphs. That’s about it. Which is why I got a kick out of Code a Thing, a fun little website that just popped up.
What are the best back to school tech deals?
In the blink of an eye, the summer holidays are gone, and it’s back to school for our nation’s sprogs. Maybe you can coax them back to the classroom with this bunch of pretty great back-to-school deals on everything from tablets to printers to backpacks.
The analogue spellchecker
Are spellcheckers making our kids worse at noticing their own mistakes? Does autocorrect help or hinder development of literacy? The amount of typing kids do compared to physical writing must be having some sort of effect, for better or for worse; and if it’s the latter, might a digital pen be the answer?
Maker Camp: Fewer campfires, more Google
Free to attend Maker Camp from the comfort of your own home, organised by Google and the people behind Make magazine, there’s not a whole lot of ghost stories in cabins or jumping into freezing lakes – but a lot of cool projects and virtual visits to fancy high-tech labs!
Careers advice in schools is broken, here’s how to fix it
Claire Young is director of School Speakers and the brains behind Girls Out Loud. Not to mention former Apprentice finalist. She says careers advice in the UK is letting the next generation down.
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