Can you imagine being in high school and getting invited to be special guest at a real rocket launch? That's exactly what happened to Sara Ma and Dorothy Chen, Michigan natives and winners of the YouTube Space Lab competition. As part of their prize package, the teenage friends got to travel to Japan, where they watched up close and personal as their very own experiments were shot up by rocket to the International Space Station. On the eve of the Space Lab finale, we asked them about this incredible experience. How long was your flight from Michigan to Japan? Did you have any interesting layovers? The flight was 13-14 hours long. We had no layovers. I couldn’t sleep on the plane at all, so the flight felt extremely long. What cities in Japan did you get to see? Any significant landmarks? I just saw Tokyo and Tanegashima on my Japan trip. I was most impressed with the different landscapes of Tokyo: you can see the old classic side in the Asakusa district, the modern electric city in the Akihabara district, and the fashion-forward/young-teen scene in the Shibuya district. Tanegashima was relatively isolated from modern activity, and I really was able to enjoy the amazing nature and calmness that you can’t get in the bustling city. Describe the overall experience, and emotions you felt, while watching your experiment launch on the JAXA rocket heading to the ISS. I was just drowning in...
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We’re excited to share the amazing and impressive work done by Grover Cleveland High School seniors from Queens, New York. This week they showcased more than 40 apps they developed as part of a mobile application development curriculum pilot program and competition by Lenovo and the National Academy Foundation (NAF). The students used our ThinkPad laptops and Android-based tablets to put their creativity and programming skills to the test, creating a tremendous range of apps. The results were astounding: Apps to help people with disabilities store their personal information, remember their medication schedule, exercise their memory, and even to more easily navigate public transit systems Educational apps including fun and easy-to-use ways to remember math equations, make your own learning flashcards, and children’s learning such as matching sounds to animals and countries to their shapes Apps focused on health and exercise including gauging BMI level, tracking exercise time, and learning new abdominal exercises, complete with pictures and levels of difficulty Game apps, including “Space Battle,” “Gnome Bridge,” “Balloon Popper,” “Catch the Manana,” “Squirrels vs. Chipmunks,” and “Samurai Sword,” which is a movement-based app that creates different sword...
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Photo by Judy Baxter (cc)
Well it's happened again. A couple of recent tweets have me thinking about my days in the classroom and my role as a mathematics teacher. In this tweet Karl Fisch is looking for advice to help his students overcome some challenges in their math class. Frustrated. I'm not being successful helping my students when they don't immediately get something. They just stop and give up. — Karl Fisch (@karlfisch) April 3, 2012 In particular he is struggling with creating a culture or a mindset for his students of determination. It also reminds me of the theme from yesterday’s #mathchat. The topic is: "How do/should we measure success in mathematics, and in schools?"#mathchat — Colin Graham (@ColinTGraham) April 2, 2012 In my days at Cary Academy I remember a conversation the math department had about what were the specific characteristics we wanted our students to develop through their experiences at Cary Academy. I have always felt that one of the most important skills (if it is even a skill) that we could encourage our students to develop is a sense of determination, a...
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Khan Academy
While the trending topics on Twitter over the past 48 hours have revolved around The Bachelor, March Madness, and NFL free agency, most of the people in my timeline, who tend to focus on education and technology, have been tweeting about Khan Academy and the recently announced TED-Ed video series. Last night I was caught up in a conversation among a few of my favorite math educators (Dan Meyer and Karl Fisch) and a supehero. Without doing the conversation justice, I’ll simply summarize it as a debate about the merits of online video lectures. Dan and the EdTech Hulk’s perceptions are that TED-Ed and Khan Academy are emphasizing lecturing as the fundamental purpose of educators. On the other hand, Karl was suggesting that it was a bit early to prejudge, especially in the case of Ted-Ed. If you haven't had a chance to visit the blogs of Dan and Karl, I strongly suggest that you do. Over the past several years I have followed the work of both men as they relate their...
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What would it be like to run a boat aground on Ellis Island, hitting the Statue of Liberty at 40 knots? A new ship simulator powered by Lenovo technology is helping students at the Maine Maritime Academy (MMA) experience just that, as well as other navigational challenges, without ever setting foot on a ship’s deck. As part of the curriculum for more than 800 students, the MMA incorporates lab time in the simulator into a variety of courses. We caught up with Simulator Tech Jim Sanders and User Support Manager Will Martell to learn more about how MMA students are using this amazing tool, which is propelled by a backbone of Lenovo ThinkStation E20 workstations and ThinkServer TS130 servers. Lenovo: How long has the ship simulator been around? Jim & Will: The simulator dates way back to a time when it was simply used as a basic navigation tool. Since the early 1990s it has undergone several technical updates, and the MMA simulator we use now is the 4thgeneration of its kind. What technology powers the ship simulator? Each instructor station has about eight to 10 ThinkStation E20 Workstations powering it, as well as one TS130 server. One of the larger stations has about 12 visual channels in the form of 55-inch flat screen LED panels. Each of the 14 student stations has two ThinkStation E20 WorkStations and three monitors--one monitor depicts a navigation panel, one shows the visual plot of the boat, and the third shows the...
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