Teaching class with Pinterest

A great idea to bring visuals into the classroom, from the Pinterest blog: Not only are these Pinners sharing their knowledge and talents with other people, but they’re also using Pinterest as part of their classes. The teachers will be using their boards for everything from lesson plans, organizing class inspiration, showing off the results …

The best sports photos of the week – Tough Mudder, Championship Hurdlers, Chinese Gymnastic schools for kids

   

Shaper Studios – create your own surfboard at the first-of-its-kind DIY studio

From the first board-shaping school. The art of hand-shaping surfboards is being threatened by machines. Shaper Studios is changing that. The Mission Valley shaping school is allowing everyday surfers the chance to glass and paint what they ride. We drop in on owner Chris Clark, who says the studio is luring everyone from pros to …

Infograph – homeschoolers are growing rapidly with better scores and graduation rates

We’ve all heard about the troubles in our public schools and maybe even know a few parents brave enough to homeschool their kids. But what are the effects of doing so? Is it only for the wealthy or those with teaching experience, and does it make your kids weird? A new infograph from college@home answers …

DIY: build your own Battlestar Galactica space flight simulator

Six families of makers from the Bay Area are working on building a fully-operational motion controlled flight simulator based on the fighter ship from Battlestar Galactica. Using the fuselage of a small plane, the team has already built a motion platform that rotates a full dizzying 360 degrees in both the pitch and roll axes. …

What’s inside the 26 ingredient school lunch burger?

A great piece from NPR. Makes me think twice about those fortified items that have extra protein or vitamins. What’s Inside The 26-Ingredient School Lunch Burger? Thiamine mononitrate Disodium inosinate Pyridoxine hydrochloride Why are these hard-to-pronounce ingredients added to everything from a burger served in schools to veggie burgers in the frozen food aisle of …

Kids in 3rd grade are 8 years old and 20% have cell phones

Kids in the third grade are, on average, eight years old. Nowadays, 20 percent of third-grade boys and 18 percent of third-grade girls already have a cell phone, according to a 2011 study of 20,766 Massachusetts elementary, middle, and high school students. By the time the kids reach fifth grade, 39% of the kids have …

Sweden leads the world in Heavy Metal bands

  Sweden has most heavy metal bands per 100,000 inhabitants. According to Metal-archives.com, it’s Scandinavia in general and Sweden in particular that has the most heavy metal bands in the world. According to their study there are 53.2 metal bands per 100,000 inhabitants in Sweden. Joacim Cans, singer in the metal band HammerFall, is not surprised. …

1:1 cost comparison of a tablet and textbook for elementary school children

  From a report by the FCC that included the technology companies and textbook publishers. More details at AllThingsD

iPads for every kindergartener – early results show a positive trend

This is the nation’s first public school district to give every kindergartener an iPad. And the implementation was done very carefully, with the research component built in from the start, not added as an after-thought. — This fall, the district randomly selected 8 of its 16 kindergarten classes to receive iPads. There’s been ongoing professional …