2008 – Page 20

Clever Circles

By Dan Meyer • July 6, 2008 • 3 Comments

Like yesterday, buying gas. I started spinning this credit card advertisement and something about it didn’t make sense. I stared at it, cocking my head back and forth like a magpie. Then I saw the two different radii and laughed at myself.

A year ago, that would’ve ended it, but nowadays – I don’t know. Even during the summer, I can’t turn this thing off, this thing which I tried to illustrate in my second vodcast. I grabbed my Canon PowerShot and shot some video. Then I dumped it into Adobe AfterEffects and added some clarifying visuals.

I’ll play it someday next year at some moment when I’d like them to scratch their heads over how one circle has more circles inside of it. I’ll ask them to make their own, maybe, or maybe we’ll just enjoy the moment, a moment when we brought the world into our math class with video.

Clever Circles from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

Awesome

By Dan Meyer • July 4, 2008 • Comments Off

Tracy W, on making sure your stick/carrot is really a stick/carrot:

The [student] gets to define what is a positive reinforcer and what is a negative reinforcer, not the [teacher].

Lots more where that came from in the most recent episode preview.

Amok

By Dan Meyer • July 4, 2008 • 1 Comment

Michelle Crisafulli:

Our students know more about technology and how to use it than we educators and administrators can even imagine. Let’s stop kidding ourselves; we will never catch up! And as each new generation arrives at our classroom door, we are yet further and further behind. So, I say, put the monkeys in charge of the zoo!

~~My comment there was deleted, so tread lightly and all that.~~

BTW: My comment was exhumed from the moderation pile.

MagCloud For The Masses

By Dan Meyer • July 3, 2008 • 12 Comments

In spite of my retrograde, contrarian stance on the potential of your Internets in my classroom, I’ve gotta say that if my job description put me anywhere in the humanities next year, I’d be on MagCloud like an NECC attendant on a 1GB flash-drive embossed with an itty-bitty Pearson logo.

MagCloud: upload a PDF and they’ll print it (full color! saddle-stitched!), sell it (40 cents / page!), and distribute it.

I’m serious, people. Get your kids into publishing. Start a literary magazine. Post a call for submissions for your student body’s best photo and print material. Make a contest out of it. Use InDesign. Avoid ComicSans. Put a PDF online for free. Sell a print edition through MagCloud. Turn a profit with any price point above the 40 cents / page minimum. Forget to disclose your earnings to the IRS!

It’s in beta. Request an invite here.

Full disclosure: this post has not been sponsored by MagCloud or Pearson, though the author is willing to negotiate with both.

Postscript: I’ll be sure to let you know when my own magazine goes live –