A scoville unit is a measure of capsaicin, the chemical that makes a hot pepper hot. Most capsaicin is found in the ribs and seeds of a pepper, which is why seeding a pepper makes its heat less potent. The scoville scale is a way to rate the relative spiciness of chili peppers so you can…
In our daily interactions, we often try to consider what elements combine to create real “wisdom.” The challenge is that wisdom is what we call a mental construct. That is to say that it is something that exists only in our minds. Other constructs include motivation, creativity, and intelligence. Mental constructs are hard to consider, yet…
On Sunday, June 4th, 2017 at 8 PM Central Time (9 PM ET) I guest hosted the #TXEDUCHAT. During the hour, we dove into some of my thinking about becoming a digitally agile educator. This post will share the genesis of my thinking about becoming a digitally agile educator. I’ll then share the prompts from…
I frequently work with educators and students in early childhood education classrooms to identify meaningful ways to integrate technology into instruction. In this work I meet with the classroom teacher to better understand the content and objectives for the upcoming weeks. We think about the content first, and identify easy ways to embed technology use…
This interview was conducted with Kurt Becker from the Department of Engineering Education at Utah State University. The discussion is part of the Literacy in the Disciplines interview project on Literacy Beat. The video is available here. You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below or listening to it on Soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/wiobyrne/kurt-audio Backup of the podcast The interview is…
The following is a collection of the correspondence and letters of support submitted to the UNH President, Board of Directors, and Education Department. These letters were submitted in response to the proposed “phase out” of the Education Department all programs. No alterations have been made to the content with the exception formatting after the copy/paste…
TL;DR version: What are the attitudes and aptitudes used by “experts” as we collaborate while “making” content online? How can this understanding of these knowledge, skills, and dispositions be used to inform pedagogy when we have students write, “make”, or collaboratively construct online content? To be involved in this work, please click here. This week…
Over the past couple of months I’ve been trying to help out on the community calls for Mozilla as they develop new Web Literacies and learning standards. To follow these developments and join in you can either view the archive of the meetings here, or the latest versions on Doug Belshaw’s blog. The structure and alignment…
Last summer my neighbors spent some time building rockets, and launching them off with their children. What I appreciate the most about this is the willingness to work with children to show them how cool, easy, and fun science can be. I was also intrigued by the really cool use of technology in documenting the…
Today we celebrate Digital Learning Day in a number of celebrations online and offline. The focus is on the authentic and effective use of technology in our classrooms. As always, the focus should be on using digital texts and tools to positively affect student learning objectives in our classrooms. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as excited as…