Girls In Tech

Those of you with young children, watch out! With computational information at their fingertips they will learn everything they need to know about the 3Rs (Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic) within six years. No Joke. In six years or so, expect to see more 11-year-olds graduating with same knowledge it took us years to acquire. This is the power of rapid cognition. The current tool that could make such a phenomenon possible: The search engine, Wolfram Alpha. On October 21st 12PM-2AM Central Standard Time, it will make its grand debut. This 12-minute screen capture and voiceover link says it all.

I know that I have blogged about the creative genius, Stephen Wolfram, but his invention accesses the ability of students to use their natural skills of rapid cognition. Combine this skill with a teacher’s knowledge and you will get students leaning collective concepts in two-days time that may have taken an entire semester to absorb. Wolfram Alpha is an educational tool worth using. (Yes, I am partial to this tool because it is the closest thing out there to what I pitched for funding a few years back—there were no business models at the time to make investors understand such a concept, but now there is, so have your children take advantage of it!)

Jing: Have you ever wished that your lessons could teach themselves. Well, Jing makes that possible. Create your introductory lesson plans with active screen capture and voiceovers and sit back. Let your computer do the talking and you and your students do the watching. And, Jing is free—within the budget of our teacher salaries!

Ning: I used to use Facebook as a teaching and homework support tool, but since our school—like many schools—blocked it, I had to find another social network. This past spring I introduced Ning to my staff. Ning is a great way to create a social network for your school community. It can be monitored by the community and have the same codes of conduct of your school: No cursing or writing foul remarks on the walls! Ning will also be featured in Wolfram Alpha’s debut on the 21st of October (see link for event listings).

W3Schools: Though this has been out for some time, it is a great way to offer your students a fun avenue to certification in HTML, JavaScript, XML and more. Forget the students, but an entire IT staff could become certified by learning simple coding at their own pace.

Until we teachers become obsolete, these are just a few tools that will keep your students loving your class and maybe even homework.