Does Africa need God?

Does Africa need Christianity?

I've had this thought many times when faced with amoral students. Some of us need the threat of punishment! All in all, it offers good moral lessons so I'm in favor of religious education. Thinking along the lines of Spore, it's just a step we have to make!

Will Wright's view of education

Thanks to Will Wright and his awesome game "Sim City", I know more about city planning than most people :)

Here's what he thinks about our educational system:


I've always been somewhat disillusioned with the educational system. Some people have said it was originally based on the idea that we're training factory workers, so it was very important to teach them to do some repetitive task for eight hours a day. What's going to be really exciting is when this Nintendo generation gets a little bit older and starts becoming teachers in schools. I think that's going to make a bigger difference than any kind of educational reform ever will. In the future a lot more learning will happen in the home.^[5]

Here I am as a "Nintendo generation" teacher and I'm still trying the same ol' open up your book nonsense! I'm learning more from Spore than from any book! The Sims! It's all about exploring!

Should we pay students to learn?

My first instinct is NO!

But...I was raised in a middle class home with many books and two college educated parents. Taking AP courses was no big deal and I had a desire to learn.

According to this research, it seems that paying students WORKS. What is the cut-off? When should we start paying students to learn?

Also, how can we be sure that teachers aren't fudging data to help themselves or their students? We might end up with another layer of bureaucracy?

Vocabulary Quiz!

In order to help students of all ages with their academic success, I have designed a vocabulary quiz with thousands of words (4,996 in total!). Anyone can gain something from a vocabulary refresher!

http://modernpedagogy.org/SATGame1.zip

It's made with Java so you'll need it installed to run. Don't worry, most computers already have it.

Here are the steps to run the vocabulary game:

1. Download the link above.
2. Unzip it.
3. Click on the 'Shortcut to SATGame' icon.
4. Enter your first name.
5. Test your vocabulary knowledge with any of the given categories.

Give me feedback at david.freer@gmail.com after trying it out!

Vocabulary project is coming along....

I've got organization now ! :)

The project is great. I'm happy. Can't wait to release it.

Learning at home

Bill Gates says he likes a geology course from The Teaching Company.

How can we increase curiosity in students? I'd love to see a standardized test do that.

Is there a correlation between curiosity and performance?