Sustainably Digital

I might not be quite the Google-ite others are, but I do use a good number of their tools, and I think their corporate structure and culture might have some lessons for the education world. As a result, I decided I’d like to see the Google in action at the Google Teacher Academy in NYC [...]

Chris Lehmann recently gave a presentation titled “School 2.0: Creating the schools we need” at an IgnitePhilly event. It’s probably the best 5 minutes video clip I’ve seen online¹. I’ve never heard someone explain things I’ve grown to believe so right on. Watch it. Love it. Do it! Mr. Lehmann gives his take on the [...]

A beautiful typographic video of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put out by the Human Rights Action Center: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Seth Brau on Vimeo. It amazed me how large a percentage of the world doesn’t enjoy the basic rights set forth in this declaration. In fact, even the United [...]

Amazing slow motion video of a lightning strike: Most people have an emotional response to lightning. Growing up, that emotion for me was fear¹. As I got older, the fear gave way to respect, awe, and wonder. Indeed, staring out at an approaching thunderstorm on a warm summer night, watching the constant flashes of light, [...]

Today marks the first time the Large Hadron Collider will attempt to circulate a particle beam. This new tool in the belt of particle physicists should help prove/disprove some current grand unified theories, including the existence of the Higgs Boson, thought to be responsible for giving mass to particles. While some people have been worried [...]

La Vie des Animaux selon des Hommes (a.k.a. The Life of Animals, as interpreted by Humans): It’s fun, it’s fluffy, it’ll at least make you chuckle. At least I chuckled. You can even LOL if you’d like.

Time lapse of slime molds and various mushrooms growing: Slime molds are crazy organisms. They live animal-like lives for much of the time, but will eventually “settle down” when it’s mated (if you can even call it that) and then release spores as if they were fungi. Some experts have argued that slime molds should [...]

In sifting through my feeds the other day, I came across this advertisement (91 seconds long): The Metaphors #1) The so-called experts (teachers, doctors, psychologists, etc.) immediately treat the student with a pathological mindset. Their first thoughts when they don’t understand are, “What’s wrong with him?” How often do we do this to students? Often [...]

I’ve taken to adding in “fun facts” to my class. I’m not sure if I got this idea from Dan Meyer in the first place, or if I stumbled upon it independently and then had my habit reinforced by his enthusiasm for a little fun unbound from the “standard” curriculum. They Pro-crast-i-na-tion: I’ve seen all [...]

This commercial gives me goosebumps. I think it sums up my thoughts on the world quite succinctly: “The World is Just Awesome.” My favorite parts: “I love hot magma!” (0:44) and of course you can’t go wrong with Stephen Hawking actually singing along (0:53)! Now only if it had Neil deGrasse Tyson (my favorite astrophysicist)…