Education: What Are We Doing When We Teach Computing in Schools? (CACM May 2015, pp24-26)

This article initally caught my attention with it’s graphic and caption “SCIENCE:Gravity makes haveier things fall faster.” The author goes on to recount her experience with just such a poster in a local elementary science fair and her lack of success in having it taken down. The point: we have started pushing instruction of computing …

Education: What Are We Doing When We Teach Computing in Schools? (CACM May 2015, pp24-26)Read More

Really installing Oracle Java on Fedora

This has nothing to do with astronomy at all, but I can’t find a good place to save this information. So… If you’re trying to install Oracle’s Java on Fedora, after you’ve done,so, the following will set up all of the alternatives links you want/need alternatives –install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/latest/jre/bin/java 200000 \ –slave /usr/bin/jcontrol jcontrol …

Really installing Oracle Java on FedoraRead More

NSTA STEM Expo 2013: Common Core and the NGSS

The first talk I attended had Steven Pruitt, a representative from Achieve Inc., and Juan Carlos Aguilar, from the Georgia Department of Education. I won’t bore you with all my notes on the talk, but there were a couple of interesting points made which warrant some comments. Pruitt pointed out that the Process Skills descriptions …

NSTA STEM Expo 2013: Common Core and the NGSSRead More

Globe At Night

It’s that time again. Actually, Globe At Night is running multiple campaigns, the first is going on right now, but there are others later in the year including later this month. Have a look. If you’ve never done this before, it’s a great way of participating in a citizen science project, learning a little about …

Globe At NightRead More

Beautiful Morning

This morning I managed to drag myself out for a pre-dawn walk/jog and enjoyed the view of a thin waning crescent moon east (below) a brilliant Venus. Higher up was Jupiter. The jog was nice, and the view was a nice extra bonus.