I recently had the pleasure of visiting the space shuttle Endeavour (OV-105), now housed at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. As a big space nerd, getting to be in the presence of one of the space shuttles was an enormous thrill! Five years ago, I had traveled to Florida, hoping to catch the last …
Here's a list of resources for making the case for maker education that I've found helpful for a variety of contexts. MakeEd Resource Library Making and Learning site list of references Are there others out there that folks know about?
Me keynoting the Second Life Community Convention in 2006 Last weekend, I was at the Digital Media and Learning conference in Los Angeles, an intense, three day gathering of academics, educators, tech providers and funders who work in the digital learning field. The sessions started at 9am with meetings and receptions going late in the …
At the Digital Media and Learning Conference last weekend, one of the most powerful sessions was a talk on an "ecological view of equity" by Dr. Nichole Pinkard, founder of the Digital Youth Network in Chicago. Dr. Pinkard's talk was shaped and framed by the legacy of Brother Mike Hawkins, an educator, activist and spoken …
I’m jumping on a flight to LA for the Digital Media and Learning conference this weekend. But I am so so excited about our new “Color of Life” exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences. Opening June 12, “Color of Life” explores how living things use color to attract, hide, repel, and deceive. I just got …
Yesterday, in the California Academy of Sciences there was a buzz of excitement about a very rare occurrence in our swamp tank: one of our five alligator snapping turtles had managed to get onto the heated rock in the middle of the swamp! A turtle on a rock, big deal, you might say. Well, if …
Tonight I had the pleasure of visiting the amazing maker space at the software design company Autodesk on Pier 9, San Francisco. I was participating in a Bay Area Maker Educator meetup, along with 40 other teachers and education specialists from across the Bay. The invitation promised a visit to a maker lab that “we’ll all …
In just a couple of weeks, The Mix at the San Francisco Public Library is opening! The Mix is a youth-designed teen center open just for teens (ages 13-18) to hang out, explore technologies, work together, and learn from educators from around the Bay Area, including the California Academy of Sciences, the Bay Area Video …
I'm excited to share the news that episode one of the podcast "Object Oriented" is now out! As a reminder, "Object Oriented" is a monthly audio podcast featuring my friends Barry Joseph, head of digital learning at the American Museum of Natural History, Eve Gaus of digital learning at the Field Museum in Chicago, and myself. Each episode, we talk about a …
California Academy TechTeens Kate, Victoria and Emma created this video project inspired by the "Habitat Earth" planetarium show. They asked our visitors whether they thought if was possible for humans to get to zero waste. Here's what they found out. For more about the TechTeens see http://www.calacademy.org/techteens . For more about San Francisco's Zero Waste initiative, …