Welcome...

by Lee on July 13, 2010

...to my blog. I write about science education, radical/liberal politics, accessible web design, web support for small "brick and mortar" businesses, and a little about my life.

Since I write about such a broad spectrum of topics, you may want to click the category link (on the right) of the topic you are most interested in.

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Next Generation Science StandardsThe second draft of the Next Generation Science Standards were released this week. You can find them all here:

www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards

You can search them here:

www.nextgenscience.org/search-standards-dci

I have exported pages containing all DCI Arranged Standards - Public Release High School only.

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image

'A profound statement' by a famous person.

Most of us have probably done it. We see a great quote or other statement embedded in a photo on Facebook, Google+, or other social networking site. Maybe it's political, maybe it's insightful, maybe made us Laugh Out Loud. A quick click of the Share button and all our friends can read it...well, most of them. Maybe we have a friend with poor or no vision. This friend may not be able to join us in our appreciation of this statement. We didn't intend to exclude them, we just didn't stop to think about it. We often don't think about visually disabled people using the web--it's such a visual experience for us. But with screen-readers and other assistive technology, the internet has opened up the world to visually disabled people, perhaps even more than the internet has opened it up to "the rest of us."

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Something cute wwritten here

But sharing these images is so valuable you might say. I don't want to give it up.

Well, there is a way to share them and still let everyone read them. Here's how:

When you hit that Share button, you can add a comment. Take a few minutes to type in the text from the image into the Comment section. Yes, I know this will slow down your sharing, but it may also make you stop and ask yourself, "Is this really important enough to share?" (Come on, face it, you know you probably spend too much time on Facebook, much of it reading these quotes.)

Like most accessibility adaptations, we will all benefit from this (when was the last time you pushed a stroller/cart up a 'wheelchair' ramp, or used you butt to push the door opener when your arms were full?). Initally, typing in the comment may take us more time but, as we do it more, our Wall will probably end up less crowded. And, after a while, some will already have the text typed in by the previous person who shared it! Our Shares will also will be 'higher quality,' since we've already filtered out those not worth spending the time to type in the text.

So, perhaps make this one of your new year's resolutions.

Oh, and while you're at it, if it seems amazing, try Snopes to confirm it's not an 'urban legend' (but that's fodder for another post).

Happy networking,

Lee

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Results of online grading survey

December 3, 2012

Last week I posted a survey of online grading practices. I announced the survey through several email lists I participate in [1], as well as on my Facebook "wall". The survey was open for five days, and resulted in 164 responses. I make no attempt to pass this survey off as statistically accurate representation of [...]

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Survey of teacher use of online grading systems and their implementation

November 28, 2012

If you teach at a middle school or high school, please take a couple minutes to answer this survey. I will post results here in mid-December 2012. (Apologies for the multiple scroll bars.) I've reached the capacity of the free Survey Monkey site (100 responses!), so I'm making a copy of it. If the survey [...]

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How to assocaite .cls (class) files with GradeMachine in Windows 7

September 10, 2012

If you are installing GradeMachine in newer versions of Windows (7 for sure, I'm not sure about XP), the program will not automatically "associate" the .cls (class) files with GradeMachine -- the result is you cannot double-click on a .cls file and have GradeMachine open for you. The following steps, in Windows 7, will correct [...]

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Grading labs: A faster method using pre-printed return address labels.

May 18, 2012

Grading tends to be the biggest time consuming task for teachers. For those teachers who want students to complete lab write-ups that truly reflect discover and learning, providing feedback on labs can be an even more daunting task. This year I started using a system that has significantly sped up grading the mechanics of the [...]

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Newton's Laws and shopping carts falling out of truck

April 21, 2012

Watch the following video, the try to answer the questions below it: What is happening to the truck and the carts when the carts start following off the truck? What causes the carts to fall off the truck? While the truck is moving, the left row of carts doesn't fall off the truck. Can you [...]

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Modeling Instruction: Review of acceleration lab

March 15, 2012

I've been using Modeling Instruction in my physics class for the past five years, and keep wondering how to handle the problem of students who miss the whiteboard sessions (where students share their results and we reach class conclusions). These sessions are critical for student growth, as this is where they are challenged to look [...]

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Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol workshop at AAPT conference

February 5, 2012

At the AAPT Winter Conference, I attended a workshop on the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) (emphasis on "reformed teaching" not "reformed protocol"). Below are my notes on that workshop. [This workshop runs 8:00-5:00 on Sunday, and I'm live blogging this so, if you're reading during this time, reload the page for the most up-t0-date [...]

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The value of multi-modal trips

July 12, 2011

In transit lingo, "multi-modal" trips are those that use different modes to get to a destination. A common version is bike to bus/subway/rail, either taking the bike on the vehicle or locking it before one gets on. Today I had a wonderful trip that was multi-modal by accident. The "out" trip was planned as multi-modal: [...]

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