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For teachers looking to inject some excitement into their geography lesson, Skype might be the answer. Silvia Tolisano recently created a game she calls “Mystery Skype Call” that uses the video conferencing tool and some critical thinking to teach students geography in a new and exciting way.

Read more and see a video on the Spark blog…

Check out these interesting articles on kids and technology!

—Parents will enjoy these iPhone and iPad apps (Parents.com)

—Mom’s Facebook Community Helps Diagnose Her Ailing Son (Mommyish.com)

—New regulations for food, beverage advertising toward children (Healthkey.com)

—Using touch screens and apps to treat autism (mercurynews.com)

—The Internet Is Making Your Kids Think Differently, Not Less (Mommyish.com)

—Teaching Angry Birds In School (neatorama.com)

—Infographic Shows Top and Bottom States for Science Education (livescience.com)

For the latest on kids and technology, visit the Spark blog!

It’s no secret that state and local budget cuts have been putting pressure on education. A recently published New York Times article discusses one of the many outcomes of this pressure– decreased class time. It seems many institutions are dealing with a smaller budget by creating a shorter school day. “Thousands of school districts across the nation are gutting summer-school programs, cramming classes into four-day weeks or lopping days off the school year.”

This is a surprising development considering our current administration’s stance on education reform. At his 2009 confirmation hearing, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared,

“Our school day is too short, our school week is too short, our school year is too short.”

This view is based on several factors, among them our desire to compete with more education-savvy nations who enforce much longer school days. Many educators will also agree that over the summer months, many students forget what they’ve learned and need to be re-instructed come fall.

Read the rest of the story on the Spark blog…

Check out the interesting talk Mark Frauenfelder gave at TEDxKids in Brussels a few weeks ago.


Mark Frauenfelder is the Editor in Chief for Make magazine, a publication that uses technology to create do-it-yourself projects. As Mark explains in his talk, this same emphasis on design can augment the educational experience of children when used as a teaching tool. In Mark’s words,

“The problem with a lot of today’s schools is that they train kids to be scholars. They’re always preparing kids. Kids are learning how to research things through books and the internet. They’re writing reports about what they learned. They’re learning math as abstract concepts, not through practical knowledge. So kids are always preparing to do things but they’re not actually doing anything.”

The solution to this problem? To teach a curriculum focused on design and hands-on projects rather than abstract concepts.

read more…

Check out this neat tutorial on how to build a miniature robot using an Altoids tin.

Read these instructions and do it yourself! Robotics can be a great teaching tool and an easy way to get kids interested in the sciences. Several Spark funded projects involve robotics including Curious Creatures from Art Energy Design, Character Therapy from Interbots, and the Robot Algebra Project from Girl Scouts of Southwestern PA. Learn more about these programs on our Funded Projects page.

And stop by the Spark blog for more fun updates and posts!