middle school

We talk about badges again on this episode of +Teachers Teaching Teachers. This is our second show of what promises to be more than a few this fall. On the first TTT about badges and learning goo.gl/97zku, we jumped into an ongoing conversation with educators who are developing a practical, pedagogical discourse between the heckling and the hype around badges.

+Paul Allison @paulallison, +monika hardy @monk51295, +Chris Sloan @csloan hosted, +Peter Rawsthorne @prawsthorne, +Andrea Zellner @AndreaZellner, +Vanessa Gennarelli @VGennarelli, +Elyse Eidman-Aadahl @ElyseEA, +Sheryl Grant @slgrant, +Sunny Lee @threeqube, +dave cormier @davecormier .

There’s only so much that this many thoughtful participants can say in an hour, so we invited everybody back and a few others for this episode of TTT

+Peter Rawsthorne and +Sheryl Grant from the first conversation are joined in this episode by: +Barry Joseph – goo.gl/EY6hc, +Doug Belshaw @dajbelshaw– goo.gl/x0x10 and goo.gl/YIued, +Myrna Rubel – vimeo.com/41312848, +Samuel Abramovich, +Kathryn Godwin, +Leora Wollner, and +Amy Lewark @fat4thought .

We welcome you to join us. We’ll continue these conversations about learning and the peril and possibility of badges this fall. We're live at edtechtalk.com/ttt on Wednesdays at 9:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM Pacific.

We’ll continue to focus on incorporating badges into K-12 education and beyond. There’s so much to say on the topic. What’s your favorite blog post, video, article, resource about Badges? Please add a couple of links in the comments below. We want to be open and flexile about all of the ways people are talking about the issues involved. And, we are interested in keeping it real. We’ve been developing some ideas around badges for Youth Voices youthvoices.net/play, and there’s more about this on P2PUgoo.gl/oKQ1R.

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Laura Beth Fay and Tim Baker join Susan Ettenheim and Chris Sloan to talk about Scratch and its uses in junior high.  Susan met Laura and Tim at the 2010 Scratch@MIT conference.  Tim’s interests in environmental education align with our ongoing Voices on the Gulf project; like Susan and Chris, Laura works with her local writing project – in Susan’s words “lots of overlapping pieces.”

Laura Fay is an 8th grade reading teacher at Fisher Middle School in Ewing, New Jersey; her students use Scratch to compose multimedia as part of her journalism curriculum.  Tim is a graduate student in interaction design at the University of Maine, and he’s helped create an environmental simulator for middle school students aid their understandings of ecosystems called Sim Stream.

Meet Laura, just the way Susan did at the MIT conference: http://kimpearson.net/?p=804 Laura is active with NWP@Rider - NWP@Rider is dedicated to supporting and developing literacy in the Mercer County, New Jersey area. Laura also works with literacy and Scratch and interactive journalism. 

Tim Baker came to MIT from Orono, Maine with his project Sim Stream. University of Maine Undergraduate researchers are developing a grades 6-8 virtual, educational system that poses environmental issues for students to explore in their own ecological system, drawing from diverse areas of study. By learning to use scientific observations, analyze data, and draw inferences in formulating decisions and policies, students develop an appreciation and understanding for natural resources, human-non-human inter-dependencies and the need for civic responsibility.

About Scratch: Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art – and share your creations on the web. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.