Archive for ‘Edutopia’



George Lucas Blogs About Education

October 11, 2010

This week filmmaker George Lucas blogs for the first time and on The Huffington Post about The George Lucas Educational Foundation and why now is a great time to start an open dialog about how to change we all approach education for the better.

Lucas writes:

It’s time to have a conversation about what’s right in our schools, what’s working. And as we debate what to do to fix the problems, let’s remember that there are successes in education every day we can emulate. In districts of every stripe and demographic make-up, educators are dedicating themselves to providing their students with a high quality 21st century education and using new technologies to make it happen. They are showing kids how to find and analyze information and how to creatively deploy their analyses to solve problems.

These educators are beginning to reinvent the learning process, guiding students through rigorous, real-life projects that integrate core academic topics and personalize the learning experience based on a child’s strengths and weaknesses. They are building confidence and ambition in children, by supporting them emotionally and providing a safe, engaging environment to learn. Most importantly, these innovative educators are creating a next generation of citizens with academic knowledge and problem solving abilities that will serve our country for years to come.

Read his full blog entry here:
Beyond Superman

52-Pound LEGO Mon Calamari Star Cruiser

March 23, 2009

Star Wars and LEGO go together better than intergalactic peanut butter and chocolate. Case in point, this impressive 7-foot long model of the Mon Calamari flagship from Return of the Jedi — complete with integrated lighting!

Jesus Diaz from Gizmodo reports:

The stunning LEGO model — created by Thomas Benedikt — was created to scale from the official LEGO Star Destroyer, which is an impressive 3,104-piece beast on its own. According to Thomas, the ship was almost impossible to recreate in LEGO because of the difficulty of its surfaces: There are no right angles at all. After considering many building techniques, he decided to use studs joined by hinges, with transparent yellow studs to let the light from the Star Cruiser’s interior shine through.

Check out all the glorious photos here:
52-pound LEGO Mon Calamari Star Cruiser Can Kill Darth Vader on Impact (via Gizmodo)

George Lucas Talks Tech in the Classroom

September 19, 2007

Education has always been important to filmmaker George Lucas, as is obvious with Edutopia, a magazine and Web site published by The George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organization that encourages the merge of education and technology.

At Salesforce.com’s annual user conference — Dreamforce — Lucas said in his keynote speech that resources are short at many public schools and often times teachers are perplexed with how to properly utilize the computers that companies donate.

cNet News reports:

Edutopia’s focus is to help instructors learn how to organize a class, using technology to enhance the experience. Google Earth, for example, could be used to teach geography to students, Lucas said.”Don’t use the computers to teach Word Perfect…use them as a tool, like a pencil, to help the educational process,” Lucas said. He cited an example of having students build an airplane using a computer program, which, in turn, draws on their math skills.

“They learn math because they have to, if they want to build the plane,” Lucas said. “At some point, every kid will turn to their parent or teacher and ask them, ‘Why do I have to learn this? Why is it relevant to me?’”

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