Online Safety, Why Do We Use Avatars?

At iGifted School we are often asked why it is that we use avatars for our students.  The answer is simple, to encourage intellectual risk and to ensure online safety for our students.  I want to share our thinking about online safety and how we implement it.  

As a student registers for any of our programs, we require that they create and name an avatar, and you will see examples above of their work.  Once we approve the avatar, the student is registered in the name of the avatar, and from that point forward is known to other students and teachers as the avatar.  However that is only the first step. 

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0 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 7:28 AM - Categories: Education | Methodologies | Technology | Virtual Debate Club

What If We Teach to Strengths of Students?

Our friends at Gifted Homeschoolers Forum recently posted an article today that speaks volumes. It is written by a school teacher who was trained to correct errors in the work of students. In this piece a thought is shared that perhaps we should be more focused on building strengths. Thanks to GHF for sharing this important thinking by a teacher... What if…and this is perhaps crazy talk…what if we instead began every single lesson and every single interaction, heck, every single moment just concentrating on finding their strengths? Finding out who they ARE, not who they AREN’T.

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3 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 3:48 AM - Categories: Education | Methodologies

More BAZINGA, Big Questions, And the Big Ideas Chat

Introducing the Big Questions and the Big Ideas Chat

iGifted School is pleased to tell you about the Big Questions from MIT Opencourseware.  A few years ago MIT offered a program where high school students could attend lectures on Sunday afternoons to hear about the Big Questions.  Big Questions include subjects like was there a beginning of time, what is the Big Bang Theory (not the TV show), can aliens exist, and so on.

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0 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 6:06 AM - Categories: Big Ideas Chat Room | Education | On Gifted Eduation

Big Questions, Big Ideas, BAZINGA!

MIT has really been focusing in on what we feel is an extremely important area of interest to young minds, namely presenting a free online course for pre-university students called “The Big Questions”.   Our experience at iGifted School is that Gifted and Talented students really enjoy discussing and challenging each other about important things in their lives.  It is really enjoyable for us to create places where these exchanges can take place, which is why we have recently created a Big Ideas Chat Room for our students.

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3 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 8:23 AM - Categories: Education | On Gifted Eduation

Honesty, Integrity, and High Ethical Standards in the Use of Facts and Evidence

Prof. William Colburn, iGS Board Member, Thought Leader iGS Debate Club

As is the case for all matters related to providing superior supplemental education to our gifted students, the leadership team of iGifted School hold matters of honesty, integrity, and high ethical standards to be of utmost importance.  In no arena is the call for honesty more important than in the use of evidence used by our students to support the work they do to complete their enriching exercises or thought-provoking assignments. On the heels of a political season, we are all left with feelings of disappointment over the use of "so-called evidence" presented by political figures at all levels of our government.  The necessity of using "fact checkers" to verify the voracity and/or legitimacy of information presented as "the truth" by the candidates is troubling to every citizen.  We can only wonder what impact misrepresenting or stretching the truth may have upon our youngest citizens, especially those who have not yet reached voting age.

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0 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 7:13 AM - Categories: Education | On Gifted Eduation | Parents | Virtual Debate Club

From the Founder- Bob Mandell- Why iGifted School?

When I first started thinking about Gifted education five years ago I was frankly amazed at the lack of resources being targeted towards this group of youngsters.  The No Child Left Behind legislation had been in existence for a few years and most of the nation’s educators were thinking about improving the academic performance of the lower performers in order to get High School graduation rates up. My research turned up a pervasive egalitarian notion when it comes to the education of Gifted students, and to some extent a kind of a negative elitist view.  To me it was all crazy and wrongheaded!

But I realized that we had to find a way to explain the situation Gifted education finds itself.  So if you will kindly indulge me – and if you think I am crazy or you have a better suggestion – please let me know – we are all ears!!

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0 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 6:53 AM - Categories: Board of Directors | Education | On Gifted Eduation

Fearless Learners and Explorers

Fear of technology is not an emotion that registers with the children of the world today. Kids teach themselves by exploring, using and, yes, fixing devices without a computer degree and without adult supervision.  Sounds pretty preposterous, right? I know.

Last month, GigaOm’s Matthew Ingram published an article: The disruption of education: How technology is helping students teach themselves. 

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0 comments - Posted by Birgit Pauli-Haack at 7:13 AM - Categories: Education | Technology