There are many benefits to teaching young people to code. As a musician starts learning a piece of music, the process can be daunting. Musicians, however, naturally start breaking the song into parts. By slowly mastering small Read more…
Last week I had the great opportunity to attend the annual conference of the National Association of Biology Teachers in Atlanta. I learned a lot and was pretty overwhelmed by the end of each day. For my next few posts Read more…
There are lots of ways to teach the craft of programming. I have done my share of teaching programming through a lecture or working through a tutorial. While the lecture has it’s place in learning, I enjoy learning new Read more…
How do we encourage our students to take ownership of their education? Over and over again I encounter students that want to sit passively in the classroom and receive knowledge. They expect me to tell them what they need to Read more…
Visual data analysis help organizations make decisions and learn faster by leveraging our natural ability to visually detect patterns quickly.This presentation reviews the motivation to visual analytics research. We also review demo visualizations from D3JS.org, Google Charts API, and other Read more…
David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and Read more…
This morning we had a DNA extraction exercise in my Introductory Biology course. I asked my students where DNA is located in our cells (answer: the nucleus). They stared at me blankly. We are more than halfway through the semester Read more…
Creative people enjoy sharing their craft with the community. The Atlanta Mini Maker Faire (AMMF) showcased creatives, craft makers, artists, inventors, and technologists from across Georgia and the US. The outdoor conference blended the best of an arts show and Read more…
All sorts of people walk into my classroom. One of the benefits of teaching is that you get to meet individuals that you might not otherwise encounter. This brings a richness to my own life for which I am Read more…
As one finishes college, students start to think about how they can “stand out from the crowd” to prospective employers. Employers use Google to research the background of potential candidates. It’s just part of the hiring process. If someone Googled Read more…