The Race to Nowhere: An Educational Experiment

Over holiday break Burlington High School has pledged to the Race to Nowhere. The Race to Nowhere is a pledge to no homework over vacation. This is meant to make the students less stressful over vacation and give the chance to spend more time with their families. Mr. Larkin saw the website for "The Road to Nowhere" and thought it was a good idea for the school to try out. Contrary to popular belief, the teachers from other schools that participated said the students felt recharged and ready to return to school. Burlington High School is going to try this out and if both teachers and students say it is successful, then it will be a plan to look at in the long term.

What is your Vision of a Perfect School?

      Would like to design your own school?  Ms. Gould's psychology class is doing just that.  They have been assigned to build a school, based on this criteria:


- How does your school make learning enjoyable?

- How does your school prepare learners for the future (college/work/life)?

- How does the research (sleep, teen brain, learning/memory, development) back up your choices?

     They have been using a free online program called "Posterous", to share their ideas with other classmates.  The school designing process is also based on what they have learned about the brain, that can help people succeed.  It is going to be very interesting to look at what school designs students produce.  Who knows, maybe their ideas could benefit our school? 

3D Brain: A Great Psychology Class App

   
       We have discovered another great free app.  The "3D Brain" application can be found in the app store on the iPhone and iPad.  Ms. Gould, a history and psychology teacher at BHS, has been using this great tool.  She does a Zombie project and has her students use "3D Brain" to help them with their projects.  "3D Brain" has 29 interactive structures to view and explore.  You can discover how each brain region works, what happens when it is injured, and how it is involved in mental illness. Each region of the 3D Brains comes with attached links to modern research.  "3D Brain" would also be a great app for science classes such as biology and human anatomy.  

StoryKit: Creating Books and Presentations

      
      StoryKit is a great app that can help you create books and presentations.  It is a free application, and is very easy to use.  I have created a presentation using StoryKit in the past, and plugged an AV adapter into a projector.  The project went very well because it allows you to save images from the web, and pull them into your presentations.  You can add text overlay, to read it aloud to the class.  One of the main reasons i love this app is that it is a great substitute for the PowerPoint program.  You can easily organize the slides you are presenting to the class.  StoryKit is a great application.