• Welcome!

    Your interest in the value of aligning and integrating mathematics, science and technological studies through design as a means to increase student achievement has brought you to this blog. Oakland Schools, in partnership with local school districts from across Oakland County, Michigan, have developed the Mathematics, Science and Technology through Design Middle School Initiative. Professional development activities for middle school teachers of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics/STEM subjects are organized to provide opportunities to work collaboratively to develop integrated units of study and related learning activities that are challenging and exciting for adolescents. Some of the units are posted on this blog. Use the blog for information sharing, inspiration, and a means to bring new practice to your classroom and lab. In order to streamline the name of this initiative, it has been labeled Project M/S/T through DESIGN
  • Pages

Resources from May 6th Meeting

May 6th offered the opportunity for a show and tell with L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland County Exeutive.

Big Ideas: In planning for our future-

  • develop 6 or more themes that we can ask for support from the county as offered by our visitor, L.Brooks Patterson. www.emergingsectors.org

sustainability, “smart” materials, biotechnology, renewable energy, green architecture

  • Focus on a hands on session, maybe a split day with debriefing after lunch at the OSMST center after a morning at one or more lab settings making things.
  • determine dates for meetings
  • grant writing
  • guest speakers from the emerging sectors
  • PTC ProEngineer/windchill

EcoTech

Abu Dhabi Carbon Neutral City

Wii Hack for interactive whiteboard

The Story of Stuff

Calculate your carbon footprint! Consumer Consequences is an interactive game designed to illustrate the impact of our lifestyles on the Earth.

Embedding files in a blog post

This is the way that you can embed a file in theblog

Go to “write a post” and scroll down to the upload window. Browse for your file and follow instructions and it will appar as a link like this.

Energy Jammers Rubric

This is me making a post as a contributor

It sort of looks the same to me as when I am logged on as an administrator but I don’t have the ability to change things about the site itself. I just tried to include a picture with this post but I need the url to do that….things that make you go hmm….

Oh, now I see that instead of the ability to publish this post directly, I have to “submit for review” which presumably means that me, as blog administrator, will have to accept postings made by contributors. Maybe I will change you all to “authors” and then you can post directly. The point of doing a blog instead of a website was that no one of us would have to maintain anything and we could all post freely.

What is design and technological studies anyway?

Design and technological studies is the dimension of school that involves an integration of processes, concepts, academic knowledge and skills, by connecting learning through design to the world beyond the classroom.  Design and technological studies provides exciting experiences that students view as meaningful.

For assistance with program development:

        ·      Curriculum

   ·       Instruction

        ·       Program review and alignment with the Standards for Technological

       Literacy:Content for the Study of Technology

Contact Jeff Bush

   Design and Technological Studies

   Curriculum and Instruction Consultant

   248.209.2376

   jeff.bush@oakland.k12.mi.us

How Wheels - MST and Wheel Chairs

A great video clip on the design and development of athletic wheel chairs. Part of Wired Science from PBS

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/video/140-hot_wheels.html

You will get an invitation to join soon

As administrator of this blog, I will invite you each to join as a “contributor”. Once you have signed in as a contributor, you will be able to upload files etc.

Thanks for participating!

Gina Sartor

MST Meeting March 13, 2008

A optimistic day! So many resources that we are learning to share with each other. I am going to try the embedding of video. At this point, you can only comment but I will make everyone a contibutor soon.

Here are some notes from our meeting:

  • bloglines.com is a way to keep track of all the blogs you want. A one stop shop that will allow you to check all the new entries in any blogs you subscribe to.
  • newkidwindlogogif MST Meeting March 13, 2008is a small company dedicated to improving the quality and quantity of wind energy science education throughout the US.  While we believe the web is a useful to we try to promote inclusion of wind energy in science classrooms through 1 - 4 day workshops where teachers can get their hands on wind energy! 
  • What is Ed.VoiceThread? ed_apple MST Meeting March 13, 2008It’s a web-based collaborative network that is simple, powerful and safe. Specifically designed for K-12 educators and students, Ed.VoiceThread enables rich collaboration around multimedia in a secure environment. More like a pencil than a software platform, Ed.VoiceThread is a space for creating digital stories and documentaries, practicing language skills, exploring geography and culture, solving math problems, collaborating with other students, or simply finding and honing student voices.
  • A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.
  • K12Grants.org Resources for grants.
  • http://del.icio.us  A great way to access all of your favorites from any computer and easily share with others.
  • www.teachers.tv A UK based site that has 15 - 30 min videos on many topics including Design and Technology

A few resources from Jeff Bush

STEM Education Coalition: http://www.stemedcoalition.org/

Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy www.nap.edu

Technically Speaking: Why all Americans need to know more about technology www.nap.edu

Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology www.iteaconnect.org

National Educational Technology Standards for Students: www.iste.org

Learning Institute for Technology Education/LITE: www.litesource.org 

“Shop Class” has benchmarks?

Isn’t it just the place where you make cool stuff?

The ITEA is the International Technology Education Assoc. and they have published the standards and benchmarks that have re-defined how tech ed is delivered across the country. To see more about the details of the association, follow the link.

Making a Catapult

Just one of many approaches-add details about your favorite.