Category Archives: Uncategorized
quick thoughts on tutoring math
A friend of mine wrote me an email asking about my thoughts on teaching math. Having thought a lot about math (that’s what I did in college) and teaching, I’ve got lots of thoughts!
Below is a simple summary of my broad thoughts on tutoring math. I’m also working on making an instructable of a bunch [...]
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transparent projects: making things simple to learn with.
I just got back from Maker Faire Austin. It was so much fun! I had a great time!
Oh man oh man oh man.
One of the highlights of it for me was watching the reaction to an intro electronics kit that I’m working on. Here’s a pic someone took of it at Maker Faire:
You [...]
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Lightsaber Instructable!
I posted an instructable on making lightsabers: http://www.instructables.com/id/Make_your_own_lightsaber/
And I have my favorite picture from camp of lightsaber making to share:
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school’s biggest failure: taking away our sense of purpose and direction
One of the biggest concerns I have about the traditional school system is how little direction its students graduates with. Upon graduation students are either taking a job to support their new independence and the bills that come with it or in their first year at college. In both of these cases its alarmingly normal [...]
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July NUBtalk
A few weeks ago (July 27) I gave a NUBtalk about camp and its view on education. I had a lot of fun doing it!
NUBtalks are a lecture series organized by some friends of mine, who recently started a workshop called NUBlabs. They’ve been inviting people that they think are neat to come talk [...]
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a wonderful idea at the fountain
In 2007, camp was in Harvard Square, and pretty close to Memorial Drive. There was a park there at JFK with a fountain in it. I remember going there with a group of 5 kids on the first day of the second week. It was the beginning of a new week and so we had [...]
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decompression: giving kids the room to do nothing
Last year at camp, we had a 7-year old boy named Ben come for nine weeks of the summer — pretty much the whole thing. For the first three or four weeks of camp, he pretty steadily played with LEGOs, made a few close friends, and did very few, if any of our activities. He [...]
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making lightsabers with kids: the value of making your own stuff
For the past two weeks, kids have been crazy about making lightsabers. Red ones, blue ones (no one has ventured for a green one yet…). Watching kids make them has provided me with a really concret example of why making your own things (in this case, toys) is such a powerful thing to do.
Soon [...]
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intellectual identity
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the following exercise. I’m going to try it right now:
Take 10 minutes, and write down anything you’ve ever been really fascinated by (something you’ve had the urge to tell someone else about)
it’s 1:23
the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, Visual Complex Analysis, Taylor series, personal autonomy, Burning Man, free education, Seymour Papert’s [...]
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my own experiences learning: part 1 — Germany.