Julie Evans is the CEO of NetDay/Project Tomorrow, an organization devoted to promoting innovation in the teaching of science, technology, and math. Net Day is known for its “Speak Up” surveys, which explore the attitudes of students and teachers. Julie is also a panelist at the “WebKids” session of the NSDL Annual Meeting, and she suggests these links for more information:
Click here for complete results from the NetDay Speak Up National Research Project.
NetDay’s 2005 National Report, “Our Voices, Our Future – Student and Teacher Views on Science, Technology and Education,” can be downloaded as a PDF file here.
Information about this year’s Speak Up for Students, Teachers and Parents (the surveys open on November 1) can be found here.
Click here to view this year’s survey questions from five different NetDay surveys – one each for students K-2, grades 3-5, grades 6-12, teachers and parents.
And here are the Top 10 Reasons to involve students in decision making about technology at your school — “because students are the real expert voices!”, says Julie.
I’d be interested in seeing if there are any programs or applications available to enable kids to get involved in the actual creation of simple games and simulations for educational use in the classroom. I recall teachers in both high school and middle school that assigned a group of students chapters or units from the textbook that had to be learned and taught to fellow students. This usually resulted in a powerpoint presentation, a series of handouts and the group of students lecturing from the front of the class. The creation of education objects that illustrate specific concepts could then be shared with fellow students as well as future students within the same school and across the country.
Do we know which instant messaging clients are popular among students. Do they still use AIM or are new clients such as google talk on the rise?
Hi sclark- There are are some really interesting projects out there creating tools for exactly what you describe: letting kids make their own games and simulations.
My lab, the Teacher Education Program at MIT, is currently developing StarLogo TNG. It’s a graphical programming environment that lets kids make their own 3D video games and simulations. Check out the latest preview release here:
http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/
Another one to check out is Scratch, also being developed at MIT. It’s not available to the public yet- here’s the URL:
http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/
There’s also a really cool environment called squeak, which has a language called eToys. That’s here:
http://www.squeakland.org/
Enjoy!