Some Seats Still Available at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps

For the last five years the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps have drawn educators from all over the world to Maine. This summer the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp and the BYOD Camp will be held in July. There are still some seats available in each camp. You can register by using the forms below or by sending me an email to request purchase order processing. Learn more about the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps here.

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Fact Fragment Frenzy

Fact Fragment Frenzy is a free iPad and Android app from Read Write Think. The purpose of the app is to help students learn how to pull facts out of a passage of text. The app includes a demonstration video in which the narrator explains which words in a text represent facts and which words do not represent facts. After watching the demonstration video students can use the app to practice identifying facts in a passage.

Fact Fragment Frenzy lets students practice identifying facts in a passage by having them drag words from a text into a digital notebook within the app. The app contains five practice passages.

Applications for Education
Fact Fragment Frenzy could be a good app for elementary school students to use to learn how to identify the important facts in a passage. One downside to the app is that it doesn't provide students with feedback on the choices that they make in the app. You will have to review your students' choices in order for them to receive feedback.

Read Write Think offers some lesson ideas that incorporate Fact Fragment Frenzy.

Shuck 400 Oysters...Bus Huxley Shows You Can Learn Anything Online

Gardner Waldeier is one of the most interesting people that I know. We first met when he showed up to a cycling club group ride with a 20+ year old steel bike and a borrowed helmet while wearing cotton pants and sneakers. He then proceeded to crush almost everyone on the climbs and held his own on the sprints. I knew then that Gardner wasn't your average cat.

Gardner produces some fantastic videos that he publishes on YouTube under the screen name of Bus Huxley (that's also the name he uses on Strava). Lately he's been getting some press in New England for his videos including a recent profile that was aired on many National Public Radio stations. Listen to the interview and you'll hear some astute observations about learning and sharing in the digital age.

Gardner says, "I live my life by saying that I can do something that I can't." He then goes out and uses the Internet to learn how to do those things like shucking 400 oysters for a restaurant on short notice.

The end of the recent NPR story about Gardner closes with this valuable reminder for all of us; "once something is put out on the Internet, it is carved into digital stone."



Take a look at Gardner's videos and see what you can learn. And listen to the NPR profile, it has some gems for digital age from a man who seeming straddles the 21st, 20th, and 19th Centuries every day.