encouraging imagination and curiosity in kids

For you parents and educators on the blog.

Education Reform (?) Animated

I've been watching a few of these here and there. This was suggested by Mrs 'Panic. Consider this a post from her.

What's the most important story?

Psychiatric Tales Comic: Schizophrenia

Darryl Cunningham has posted the chapter on Schizophrenia from his upcoming comic book exploration of mental illness, Psychiatric Tales. Also, here's the chapter on Bipolar Disorder.

Obviously, I'm intrigued by this use of the comic medium. From Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and Google Chrome: Behind the Open Source Browser Project, to quirky but extremely effective hybrids like CommonCraft, the medium seems uniquely suited to taking the viewer through the "story" of understanding something by building up layers of concepts and making concrete visual connections. Or maybe I just think in pictures.

Also by Darryl Cunningham: The Streets of San Diablo on Act-i-vate.

Darwin's Interactive Tree of Life

This thing is everywhere, but I can't not post it. The video is clear and really beautiful, and the linked site has a sweet interactive cladogram, as well as swell resources for educators and scientists (and animators!). The project is at least a little creative commons and a little open source, too. All of it is downloadable, for classrooms with weak internet connections. All in all, this is a very good use of resources--not only is the content well-done and completely sharable; it's remixable, to boot. Great job, Wellcome Trust.

Teaching an Understanding of Science

As uncool as this may sound, I think I actually agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson here. Discuss.

Rubber Water-Filled Piggy Toy with Organs and Bones

Galspanic and I saw this at our last outing to Toys-R-Us. Its is a toy rubber piggy, with rubber organs and bones, filled with water. For some reason, Animal Planet has put its brand on this toy. It was marked down to almost nothing. So I bought it. It smells funny. I do not like it.

I would say that it walks the line between disgusting and educational, but the object itself makes a pretty good case that there is no such line. One completely defeats the other, and the piggy simply makes me uncomfortable.

One more thing. I left the pig in my office, on my two-week trip to NYC. You know who does like the piggy? The ants like the piggy. Goodbye, my Piggy.

BrainPop on Geek Dad!

Geek Dad is one of my favorite blogs, and look what they've just covered in one of their longest and most detailed posts to date!

One site that I discovered many months ago is BrainPop... You just can’t beat it when your kids are begging to learn!

I'm curious, did the folks at BP notice a spike in hits today?

Wired's Geek Dad

Cultural education 2

Your Cultural Education

From a teacher friend. Note truncated text at upper left. Also note bowl of motherfucking rice!