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

An Open Letter: A Progress Report to Parents

Hello and Happy New Year!

We are sending this Progress Report because of your interest in iGifted School. This is the first of a series of newsletters about the school and our programs. We hope you find it interesting and informative.

2012 was an exciting year for us. Organizationally we have begun to develop a Board of Directors, attract interest from outside leaders in the field of Gifted Education, and we received approval from the IRS which will allow us to raise funds and grow our programs. Educationally we introduced our Debate Club, and grew it through a test of our Learning to Debate Series, and then a further test in an Advanced Debate Group where students worked on how to better build arguments and present speeches in a competitive environment. Our Math Club has been in a hiatus due to a lack of resources, but we have had and are continuing to have discussions about what prominent mathematics professionals think we may be able to due to deliver a world class program in the near future.

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0 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 1:20 PM - Categories: Board of Directors | Methodologies | Parents

The First Presidential Debate: Learning to Judge

The Presidential Debates this year are providing a special learning opportunity for our students.  Our Debate Club Thought Leader, Prof William Colburn, has been studying Presidential Debates since they were first televised.  In order to help our Debate Club students prepare for the debates, we had a live class session about varying debate formats and in particular what the Presidential Commission had published as the debate formats as agreed to by both sides. 

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1 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 12:50 PM - Categories: Methodologies | Virtual Debate Club

Thoughts on Education: Homeschooling Philosophy

One of the segments of Gifted and Talented schooling is the area of Homeschooling.  I asked Christa Novelli of GalileoEducation.org to help me find information that can help those interested in homeschooling to learn more about the subject.  Christa contacted Lisa Rivero who has given us permission to post her writing about Homeschooling Philosophy.  Our sincere thanks to both Christa and Lisa for getting this discussion off on the right foot.  As always we welcome your comments and encourage discussion on the subject.

Developing a Homeschooling Philosophy: The Unschool Mambo -- By Lisa Rivero 

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0 comments - Posted by Jim O'Reilley at 12:20 PM - Categories: Education | Methodologies | Parents

Gardner's eight multiple intelligences.

It has been claimed by some researchers that our intelligence or ability to understand the world around us is complex. Some people are better at understanding some things than others.

For some of us it is relatively easy to understand how a flower grows but it is immensely difficult for us to understand and use a musical instrument. For others music might be easy but playing football is difficult.

Instead of having one intelligence it is claimed that we have several different intelligences.

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0 comments - Posted by Birgit Pauli-Haack at 8:23 PM - Categories: Methodologies

Method of Math Education Used

Math is primarily a logical Science. Students, who fit into the realm of logical/ mathematical learners, do well in any math program, but a student with gifts in the creative or visual/ spatial areas may have a more difficult time with some components of mathematics. 

The focus of iGifted School is to provide a program to meet the needs of all styles of gifted learners, so that they will learn and understand mathematics in their area of strength, yet also be exposed to math concepts in the less dominant areas, as well. 

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0 comments - Posted by Birgit Pauli-Haack at 8:05 PM - Categories: Methodologies | On Gifted Eduation | Virtual Math Club