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News:
October, 2008. THIS JUST IN!
We just announced a new contest for Middle and High School children that can be found here. The goal is for kids to identify a job that does not exist today, but might exist in the year 2020. They need to explain why this job may come into existence, what skills will be needed to do the job, and where these skills are likely to be found. Winners will receive an iPod.
August, 2008. Our first four pilot schools for the space exploration STEM program have just taken part in their first intensive workshops. The blend of inquiry and projects in support of developing interest and skills in the STEM fields is amazing to watch in action. You can keep up with the action here. In the meantime, our emphasis on helping educators reap the value of open source software and Linux remains strong. Be sure and look for Dr. Thornburg at major conferences in your area during the next year.
March, 2008. In addition to speaking at several conferences this month, we announced the creation of the Thornburg Center for Space Exploration, a new venture that is developing an after-school STEM curriculum based on space exploration. Initial response has been very good, and our development is proceeding at a rapid pace.
February, 2008. The Thornburg Center is preparing to launch a major new initiative on STEM skills. We will make an announcement during David's sessions at CUE in Palm Springs, this March, and we are very excited by this new development. Until then, we are preparing the announcement and have nothing more to say at this time. However, you can be sure that once this project is made public, you will be hearing a lot about it!
January, 2008. A New Year is at hand, and I hope it brings joy to you all! To start things off, I wrote a new briefing paper on the Sugar user interface - the first new computer interface in thirty years, one that was designed especially for children. You'll find it on the Briefings page!
Thanksgiving, 2007: Well there is a lot to be thankful for this season. I had the honor of participating on a panel session (free registration required) for Newsweek and Walden University on educational technology held at the national press club in Washington, DC. It seems I've been on planes every week for the last month. One upcoming conference for Indiana educational technology leaders has games as its focus. Each participant gets the new Sony PSP. To show how powerful this little box is, I've ported my presentations to that platform and will be giving my talks on the big screen using a device that fits in my pocket, and is cheap enough for many students to purchase on their own, and the conversion I figured out is amazingly simple. Check it out here.
After two or three more trips in the coming weeks, we head to our Brazilian office for a month to continue our work there, and return in time for some US events in January (including FETC).
November, 2007: October was a busy month for us. We had so many Thornburg Center presenters at the NSBA T+L conference, we were given our own strand. There are several new briefing papers posted here for your reading pleasure. These include a study of the use of Linux-based computers by students in Michigan City High School in Indiana. This report is "must" reading for anyone wanting to expand computer use by students.
By the way, I have decided to release the bulk of my new work under the Creative Commons license which provides far greater sanity than current copyright law.
October, 2007: It has been a busy time for us the past few months. There will be whole bunch of new open source resources posted soon.
Keep watching this page and we'll be posting new educational resources very soon!
If you are going to the T+L conference in Nashville, be sure to say "Hi!"
May, 2007: I'm in the process of adding some STEM resources to this site, and have just posted a Linux version of the programming language, Scratch, developed at MIT for Mac and Windows. The official MIT Linux version will be done later in 2007, but I think Linux users should have it now! You'll find it here.
I'll have some more podcasts soon, so check back in a few weeks.
Who we are:
The Thornburg Center is one of the oldest groups of consultants, speakers and authors whose primary focus is on education from Kindergarten to twelfth grade. Our members are experts in their fields of interests, and our services are in demand worldwide. Our offices are located in both North and South America, and our work reaches across several other continents. Thornburg Center speakers are commonly found on the programs and podiums of major conferences that focus on educational technology. We have worked across the spectrum from small schools to federal governments, with a common theme of enhancing student creativity and the mastery of subjects through the thoughtful use of modern technologies.
About this site:
We welcome you to this special website that provides additional support to the community of educators we serve world-wide. For general information on the Thornburg Center and its associates, please visit our main site.
This site contains special resources we hope you find to be of value.
For example, we will be linking and creating podcasts on a variety of education and educational technology topics, some of which we created ourselves, and some of which are interviews conducted by others.
Another topic of importance for educational technology worldwide is open source software. For that reason, we have a series of resources devoted to that topic, along with another section devoted to sample programs and resources related to the NetLogo language.
Come back and check regularly to see what we've added!