Who could resist reading an article titled In Praise of Irrational Exuberance? That's how Virginia Postrel leads off while pondering whether a flourishing economy depends on delusion. And wouldn't you be interested to learn when a child develops skepticism? As much as that's possible to know, Vikram Jaswal will tell you in his summary of current research.

All this and more can be found at Big Questions Online. This website features columns, blogs, videos, and Tweets.  It even features BQ Daily Links (today's feature is "Why Do We Love to Scare Ourselves?")  

Since I can't even remember who directed me to this website, I guess I'd better sign up for it.

 

Lumosity.com, developed by Lumos Labs, is an online tool for enhancing cognitive abilities - through brain games! Drawing on the newest developments in neuroscience, Lumosity.com offers brain training exercises that work, no matter how old you are.

 

It looks intriguing. There is a subscription fee, but they also offer a free trial period.

 

The FOSSweb is the official site for the inquiry-based FOSS science curriculum. It is a place for parents and teachers to find support, resources and fun activities for their students in kindergarten through eighth grade. 

 

The FOSS program has been supported over the past 20 years by the National Science Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley. Based on the notion that science is an active process, they have developed a curriculum that will excite and challenge students and teachers.  

 

Not everything on the FOSSweb is intended for the classroom. One of their suggested activities is to engage students in photography. The participant chooses a challenge from a list of options, takes pictures based on the challenge, then uploads their photos to Planet FOSS, which is then shared online. One of those options, for example, is called Force and Motion, and the challenge involves taking pictures of examples of high speed and low speed, or perhaps to photograph evidence of gravity.

Just for fun, here is a really good five-minute lesson to help you learn the difference.

 

 

Even while there is so much focus these days on improving overall educational performance in public schools, gifted students all too often are getting left behind. "Local school districts, with permission from the Legislature, have been systematically taking money from the [gifted] programs to cover budget shortfalls," says Jennifer Golan in her New York Times article, Gifted Programs Go on Block as Schools Must Do With Less. And, unfortunately, gifted children all over the country are paying the price.

 

The Reaching Forward National Conference on Gifted Education was held in Rotorua, New Zealand in March of 2009, with the theme focused on achieving sustainability in gifted education. Although the information submitted by the presenters is two years old, it is still completely relevant.

Everywhere in the world gifted education has had a history of fluctuating support. Yet if gifted children are truly to have their needs met, gifted education must become a permanent part of our education system.  

 

Speakers at the conference covered many issues within this topic, including research into placement and grouping, practical ideas for workable classroom programs, and other relevant topics. This website contains a full list of all speakers, their abstracts, and where available, access to a PDF, Powerpoint or written paper from their presentation.

 

Have you ever wanted to walk along the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles? Or perhaps to study Albrecht Dürer's Portrait of the Artist's Father at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence? Well, the Google Art Project is a website that will take you there. With floor plans that will take you to every room in the museums, and arrows that will walk you around all 360 degrees of each gallery, you can get up close and personal to each work of art. In fact, you can zoom in and count every whisker on Dürer's father's face. And you can save your favorites in your own personal collection.

This website doesn't feature every major museum in the world - the Louvre is missing, for instance - but the 17 museums do include such greats at the Tate Britain, the Van Gogh, the Metropolitan, and the Hermitage. So this website is quite a find, especially for students of art.