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• The Network for Citizen Science Projects & Resources | Science for Citizens

  Another citizen science network. There are a ton of citizen science resources available on this website including a project to help track and save American Robins. You can also add projects here and blog. Another great place for projects. This website lets one rate projects as well. There are many games on this website. This is a definite goldmine for science teachers!

  tags: science citizenscientist flatclassroom education

• CitSci.org - Project List

  One can also list projects on this website. It might be interesting for students to create their own projects.

  tags: education citizenscientist science

• CitSci.org - Home

  A citizen science project monitoring nature and contribute to colelctive biological understanding. Every science classroom should find an appropriate citizen science project to do in their classrooms on an ongoing basis. Become part of research.

  tags: education science flatclassroom citizenscientist

• For Citizen Scientists - NASA Science

  NASA calls for Citizen scientists to help map Mars and says that citizen scientists "have helped to answer serious scientific questions, provide vital data to the astronomical community, and have discovered thousands of objects including nebulas, supernovas and gamma ray bursts."
  
  It is time to join your classrooms into the citizen scientist movement. How would your students feel about science if they helped discover a star?

  tags: education science flatclassroom citizenscientist edu_trends techintegrator

• H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online

  A website supporting collaborative research at the highest academic levels. Run out of the University of Michigan this looks like a fascinating endeavor where one can network with other researchers.

  tags: education research globalcollaboration flatclassroom professionaldevelopment

• Journey North's Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project

  Join in Journey North's Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project this fall in North America. This is an excellent citizen scientist project.

  tags: education learning butterfly science

• Acceptable Use Policies in Web 2.0 & Mobile Era > Consortium for School Networking

  Acceptable Use policies in a Web 2.0 and Mobile Era: A guide for school districts is one of those things you'll want to read and reference as you make your decision. Please, NEVER just blanket adopt any acceptable use policy. It should be customized for your school and needs.

  tags: education acceptableuse policy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Kenneth Okoth writing in Migration Information Source stated that:

The challenges facing Kenya are not unique. Countries like China, India, and South Africa have developed different approaches for tapping into the expertise and other resources of their diasporas to meet their development goals and achieve global competitiveness. These countries are leading the way in turning the despair of brain drain into brain exchange and brain gain in different ways. Hopefully, a robust private-public framework that can facilitate productive linkages between Kenyan academics, researchers, artists, and investors at home and in the diaspora will emerge to consolidate the political and economic changes taking place in Kenya, as has been the case elsewhere.

Mr. Robbo the PE Geek is an excellent blogger and incredible teacher. Located in remote Australia, he has these students using heart monitors and high definition cameras to understand their sport. (Read his It's Now Possible blog post from today. This PE teacher taught me about QR Codes. A neat person too.)

We can talk about getting kids interested in science, however, science is interested IN them because it can unlock higher performance in the things they love. Taking science to the ballfield is only the beginning

For those of you who saw my Daily Education & Technology News For Schools this morning know that I'm having a bit of a traipse into Citizen Science.

Citizen Science is Becoming "Legitimate" Science
Authentic citizen scientist research work is becoming very useful to high level scientists. When I sat down with Dr. Geoffrey "Jess" Parker from the Smithsonian last year and the Microsoft Innovative Educator Forum in South Africa, he said that it is pretty easy to use statistical analysis to filter out "noise" of readings that have been taken in err.

Joshua Faulk helps students Treeband in south Africa at St. Cyprian's. Photo by Vicki Davis.

• It introduces students to the scientific method and data collection responsibilities.
  
• It introduces students to live science in action and makes it real. They can see questions before they have been answered and understand how science moves forward.
  
• It adds meaning to their work. No longer answering the same questions answered hundreds of years a go, they are answering questions that help our world NOW! You and your classroom MAKE A Difference. (The principle of glocalization talked about in Thomas Friedman's work - Think globally act locally.)
  
• As in the case of Mr. Robbo's lesson plan, they can use science to improve their performance which can show benefits on the field and also in their life as they realize science is in them, around them, everywhere.
  
• It is project based learning in action and can lead to other cross curricular activities including math, writing reflections, technology (using spreadsheets) and more.

http://scienceforcitizens.net/

Business Daily reports:

Kenya is to launch a diaspora bond to help it direct the increasing amount of remittances to development projects and act as a source of cheaper credit to the Government...The financial instrument to be developed will enable the Central Bank to use remittances as collateral for bond issues and loan securitisation.
...Dilip Ratha(covered earlier), senior economist responsible for migration and remittances at the World Bank told Business Daily that no African country has yet issued a diaspora bond, except Ghana which has recently announced a saving scheme that has elements of a diaspora bond.

Jeremy Weate writes:

...it might be an idea to begin to compare what the recent influx of diasporic Nigerians has done for the country's corporations. Compare and contrast with India.Ten years ago, Indians with Californian technology experience started to return home during the dot com consolidation that began in late 1999/early 2000.On the back of this migration, India's IT services sector began to boom from Bangalore to Pune, with the incumbent early-starters such as Infosys the tip of a large iceberg.What have diasporic Nigerians brought to Nigeria?

I am sitting in the main conference session for #gaetc11 but I lost my notes from the earlier session with Brent Williams. I am going to Pull out the highlights below. This has been done quickly.

They moved to wifi n on entire Kennesaw state campus and he believes it is as good a quality as wired when implemented correctly.

Talked about the nationwide "Whitespace" wifi network that is being created out of the abandoned bandwidth from the migration of tv to digital.

Brent says he thinks android devices have a major problem in k12 because the apps are not being vetted properly on the store.

He talked about the challenges and that parents are either great opponents of the move to ebooks and electronic devices or they want it to get rid of those 60 pound book bags.

Says a rumor going around that a 7" idevice in march around $250. Didn't say source of rumors.

He says every student should have an iPad if he has his wish. Says windows 2008 SP2 is client of choice for virtualization and stability. iPads can run virtualized copy of office on iPads this way.

I will come back to this but now moving to next presenter.


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