A little brain food for lunch breaks

Thinking about this week, I was having a hard time trying to decide about things that I wanted to say.  Finally, I decided to let other people do the talking, because these are some people who know stuff, and I think it is the stuff that can be connected easily to education.

First:  Sugata Mitra Showing how education can be a self generated system.  

Ever wonder what kids can do without any good formal education?   This is the type of learning that was studied in India.  It is about a 20 minute video, but very interesting for thinking about the ability kids have to teach themselves. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Next up, Ken Robinson says that schools kill creativity.  Not much for me to say here, but this is a fantastic talk about how the school systems in the world are formed, with a question or two about how well formed they are.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Following that, math can actually be cool.

http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html

And last, Benjamin Zander on Music and Passion.  Piano piece with an interesting discussion about how we all actually love classical music.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

There's a few things that are nice and interesting, some real interesting things coming from me as we progress

We are starting to get everything in order

So we have been live for a week now, and I have heard about a couple of bugs that are in the current code.  We will be fixing them soon.  Right now, we are getting a few more worksheet programs built, which we should have all ready to go by next post.  One of them is Clock Reading, one of them is Currency, and the third is... well I haven't exactly figured out an elegant way to describe it yet, but it is another one.

I am going to be brief this week, because I have yet to figure out a few other things to get more visibility to us, including the small problem that is google not yet giving www.hekkoeducation.com in the search results yet.  So if you are telling people about the site, tell them to go to the site, not to search it, because I cannot make google work any faster.

By next week, I plan to start moving off of just talking about what is going on with the tech, and instead I plan on bringing up some actual topics of education that should be more thought provoking.  Until then, just keep using the worksheets on the site, and keep letting me know what else we should make.  Added to our list is a multiples sheet, which should be useful for more directed things relating to learning multiplication, and we are open to figuring out what the next thing should be.

Ready, Set... Here we go

I have almost finished everything I need, and can say that with 100% certainty that I will be bringing everything live tomorrow for the public.  Things will still be frequently updated, and changes will be moving quickly, but www.hekkoeducation.com.  Ship it!

Who am I, anyway

After my first post, there are 2 things that people seem to be wondering...

First, I said that I would have the main site live this weekend.  Unfortunately, due to a couple of issues that were out of my control, we have been pushed back a few days.  Hopefully, we will be ready to go today.  But this week for sure.  Unless something else happens...

Second, it has been suggested that I give a little background on myself.  I am the son of a Special Education teacher, who has always had issues with the way education in America is handled.  Because of how closely I have always seen the troubles that teachers face, I have wanted to find ways to help make their lives easier.  I have my BA from The Ohio State University, where I studied theatre outreach and education.  I founded outreach companies for volunteering students to help in low income schools.  Following college, I spent some time working on various projects in both theatre and internet commerce.  When I was approached with the opportunity to help fully realize the partially completed Hekko Learning System (www.hekko.com), I jumped at the idea, where I would be able to make a difference.  Without boring anyone with the details, here I am now, and I am very excited as I am working alongside my team to bring HekkoEducation.com online, as well as getting started on the very exciting new Hekko.com.  Be sure to check in on hekkoeducation.com this week, because we have some cool apps to release this week.

Nick

Only one first post

Since deciding to publish a blog alongside the Hekko Education website, I have spent the better part of a week trying to think of a clever, catchy way to write an impactful first post.  I have thought about writing an anecdote that explains just why it is so important to me that this business succeed.  I researched the incredible numbers that are in actuality the amount of money that teachers spend out of pocket every year to teach their classes.  But over and over, I would find myself half way through writing this post, and run squarely into a brick wall.  So I decided that I am not going to be clever.  For now, I will skip the stories from my own life.  I am just going to introduce you to what Hekko Education is about.


     Hekko Education is the start of a new way to support teachers.  No subscriptions.  No fees.  No charging to download or print.  No invasive advertising.  Alongside my modest team of developers and designers, I am making it my personal mission to make Hekko Education the best place for teachers on the net.


     In the upcoming days, weeks, and months, I will be elaborating on the ideas and philosophy of Hekko Education, describing the content that you will be able to expect to appear on our website, and bringing up points of conversation that I feel are interesting.  We are almost finished with the work to bring the website online for the public, so until then, take note of this blog, where I will be talking about the things that are forthcoming as we get online, and comment about the things that you think teachers need. Class Dismissed.

P.S. hekkoeducation.com should be online by this weekend, with a really awesome first piece of content.