Here are some final posts of 2021 with a few from ’22 in the mix!
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I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here.
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No more annual flu shot? New target for universal influenza vaccine — ScienceDaily
Scientists at Scripps Research, University of Chicago and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a new Achilles’ heel of influenza virus, making progress in the quest for a universal flu vaccine.
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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Blur Backgrounds in Flipgrid Videos
One of my favorite new things in 2021 was Flipgrid’s addition of a background blurring tool. With this feature enabled everything behind you is heavily blurred when you’re recording a video in Flipgrid. A related feature is the option to use virtual…
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Game Studies – Beyond Winning: A Situational Analysis of Two Digital Autobiographical Games
This paper examines two digital autobiographical games, That Dragon, Cancer and Depression Quest. Autobiographical games are playable narratives based on the authors’ or designers’ lived experiences.
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New Insights Into the Timeline of Mammal Evolution With Precisely Dated Evolutionary Trees
The research describes a new and fast computational approach to obtain precisely dated evolutionary trees, known as ‘timetrees’.
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After years of helping tell stories about heroes and villains–both as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s favorite Bajoran dabo girl, Leeta, and in numerous other film, TV, and audio projects–Chase Masterson went on her own hero’s journey.
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All the Feelings Under the Sun: How to Deal with Climate Change | Science for All
All the Feelings Under the Sun: How to Deal with Climate Change by Leslie Davenport is a book written for kids that is designed to help them examine and work through their feelings and emotions about our changing climate.
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Long delays in updating state water-quality standards to protect orcas, fish and other aquatic species appears to have finally caught up with the Washington Department of Ecology and its federal counterpart, the Environmental Protection Agency. In a…
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Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network Study | Greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN)
The SCAN study is now available for Pierce County residents. Sign up here for a free, at-home COVID-19 test. To slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), we need to learn more about it. The SCAN study is providing free at-home testing for COVID-19.
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Incoming Kindergarteners Need to Know Key Life Skills
It’s no surprise that academic rigor has become the main focus of kindergarten in the United States. Kindergarten teachers are expected to teach a total of 98 academic standards to their class of 20+ five-year-olds.
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Nicole Fazio is a middle school ELA teacher in our district. I teamed up with her for my Go Beyond Challenge, completing a project for her 6th grade Learning Through Literature class. We decided to improve upon a writing project we’ve done a couple …
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8 1/2 Things That Have Been Working This Year & 6 That Haven’t (Opinion)
What is working and what is not during this school year? Guest editor Neema Avashia did a wonderful job bringing together responses to this question in a previous post.
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NSTA Sensemaking Toolkit | Science for All
The National Science Teacher’s Association (NSTA) has a collection of sensemaking resources called the Sensemaking Toolkit.
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After launch, the telescope will deploy on its 30-day, million-mile journey out to the second Lagrange point (L2). This video shows the deployment procedure, timeline, and location of the satellite during deployment. More about the telescope’s final…
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NASA Says Webb’s Excess Fuel Likely to Extend its Lifetime Expectations – James Webb Space Telescope
After a successful launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Dec.
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Space tourism took off in a big way this year: Two rovers and a helicopter explored Mars, while China advanced its space program with samples returned from the moon and the launch of the first module for their space station.
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Classroom Games and Tech – Ed-Tech to Engage and Inspire: Game Design Project in Mythology Class
Melinda Newcombe teaches the Mythology class at our high school. We teamed up earlier in the month as part of the Go Beyond Challenge I raised to myself and several teachers this school year. In this overview, I’ll link to a couple games that studen…
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Grades Tarnish Teaching as Well as Learning — Teachers Going Gradeless
Grade policies, rubrics, and templates are one type of transparency, prescriptive and authoritarian, but they all prove to be teacher/authoritarian-centered and to be mechanisms that reduce student autonomy and engagement in their own learning.
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Weather and climate are not the same thing. Here’s why that is important | CBC News
Even though it’s often considered small talk, weather comes with some pretty big linguistic baggage.
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Control Alt Achieve: Equatio: Yes You Can Type Math and Science in Google Docs and Forms!
As a previous math teacher, I have a soft spot for the pains teachers and students can feel when trying to use math symbols and expressions in technology. The same thing can be said in science when typing chemical formulas.
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Who Demoralized the Nation’s Teachers? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Who is responsible for the widespread teaching exodus? Who demoralized America’s teachers, the professionals who work tirelessly for low wages in oftentimes poor working conditions? Who smeared and discouraged an entire profession, one of the nobles…
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Online safety for 2022: 8 things we need to see – NetFamilyNews.org
What a year it has been for child online safety, right?! There was the adoption of General Comment 25, bringing all things digital into the global Convention on the Rights of the Child; the draft Online Safety Bill and Parliament’s response in the U…
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Learning Styles, The Lochness Monster, Yetis and Big Foot – Variability
The Lochness Monster. Yetis. Big Foot. Learning Styles. What do they all have in common? Yep, you guessed it. None of them exist. Yet, an article in the Atlantic, The Myth of Learning Styles, shares just how much we have been “snowballed” by this pe…
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Using the SLIME Method for Setting New Year’s Resolutions – John Spencer
Back in college, I started making New Year’s Resolutions. I would turn these resolutions into goals. Typically, I would start something entirely new and often I would finish my goal halfway through the year. Unfortunately, I didn’t always develop th…
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This is challenge presents six different scenarios to students in grades Kindergarten through fifth grade. Each grade level is tasked with a challenge to help someone stranded on a desert island.
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After purchasing way too many hot glue gun sticks last year, I was beginning to think my students thought hot glue guns were the answer to all their attachment needs.
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A new fossil discovery may add hundreds of millions of years to the evolutionary history of animals
Ever wonder how and when animals swanned onto the evolutionary stage? When, where and why did animals first appear? What were they like? Life has existed for much of Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, but for most of that time it consisted exclusivel…
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A New Wind Power Wall Could Produce Over 10,000 KWh a Year
Wind turbines are powerful sources of clean energy that provide cheap reliable energy in many areas. In the past, we have brought you news of this model that can power a home for two days with a single spin and this one that can power 20,000 houses …
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Japan’s First Esports High School To Open In Tokyo Next Spring
Do you like video games? Are you going to be a high school student in Japan? If you answered “yes” to both, have I got an academic institution for you. This April, as junior high school students across Japan enter high school, a new type of specialt…
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In 2021, Gaming Was Crucial and Also a Privilege | WIRED
As it comes to an end, it’s hard not to acknowledge 2021 was only a minor improvement over 2020. Covid-19, worldwide political turmoil, climate catastrophes—all the stresses of the previous year rolled over into the new one.
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Through keyboards clacking and wide eyes staring at computer monitors, the dedication to playing video games can be seen through every inch of The Stable, the University of New Haven’s esports suite.
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Usain Bolt: Mario Kart helped me become Olympic champion – BBC News
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Skeet Shooting Concepts – Classroom Powerups
I’m not a gun guy. All of which makes me seem like I’m anti-gun which I’m not. I just think that our country should have some reasonable restrictions to balance the “responsibilities” side of the “right and responsibilities” ledger.
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The James Webb Space Telescope Has Launched: Now Comes the Hard Part – Scientific American
The relief was as deep as the stakes were high. At 7:20 A.M. (ET), the rocket carrying the largest, most ambitious space telescope in history cleared the launchpad in French Guiana, and the members of mission control at the Space Telescope Science I…
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The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life.
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