Stephen's Untold Stories

I must say that I am not and never have been a big fan of the SAT. I am glad to see that some colleges are starting to agree with me on this.

Since Bowdoin and Bates dropped their testing requirements decades ago, more than a fourth of U.S. News & World Report’s Top 100 liberal arts colleges have made admissions exams optional, and new ones are joining the list at a quickening pace.

The new colleges include Mount Holyoke, Middlebury, Hamilton, Union and Dickinson. In recent months, George Mason, Providence College and Hobart and William Smith Colleges have also become test-optional.

Admissions officers said eliminating the testing requirement had increased both the size and diversity of their applicant pools, and bolstered their reputation as places personal enough to consider each applicant individually.

Hear, hear!!

Link to article

This is something that we can indeed be proud of here in GA. We all knew that our old standards needed work, and Georgia educators have worked very hard to improve them.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute released its report on all state curricula entitled “The State of State Standards” this week. The report gave Georgia’s curriculum an overall grade of B+, up from a C- in 2000, the last time a review was done. Georgia’s overall ranking jumped 16 points from 2000.

Link to announcement

We’re now number 46 in the country. Up from 50th last year. Progress is often too slow in these areas, but at least there was some progress. Here are the top 25 school in GA ranked by SAT score.

1.  Davidson Magnet School (Richmond County) – 1752
2.  Walton High School (Cobb County) – 1705
3.  DeKalb School of the Arts (DeKalb County) – 1679
4.  Northview High School (Fulton County) – 1670
5.  Trion High School (Trion City) – 1669
6.  Chamblee High School (DeKalb County) – 1666
6.  Chattahoochee High School (Fulton County) – 1666
8.  Roswell High School (Fulton County) – 1663
9.  Lakeside High School (DeKalb County) – 1660
10.  North Springs High School (Fulton County) – 1647
11.  Milton High School (Fulton County) – 1641
12.  Columbus High School (Muscogee County) – 1639
13.  Centennial High School (Fulton County) – 1638
14.  Lassiter High School (Cobb County) – 1637
15.  Pope High School (Cobb County) – 1634
16.  McIntosh High School (Fayette County) – 1629
16.  Brookwood High School (Gwinnett County) – 1629
18.  Druid Hills High School (DeKalb County) – 1622
19.  Lakeside High School (Columbia County) – 1605
20.  Starrs Mill High School (Fayette County) – 1605
21.  Savannah Arts Academy (Chatham County) – 1604
22.  Etowah High School (Cherokee County) – 1599
23.  Alpharetta High School (Fulton County) – 1596
24.  Duluth High School (Gwinnett County) – 1593
25.  Parkview High School (Gwinnett County) – 1590

Link to DOE announcement

I went to the Braves/Giants game on Tuesday night and got to see Barry Bonds hit two homers. Chipper also hit one, and here are some clips.

Barry goes deep

Chipper goes deep

I can’t say that this is high on my list of places I’d like to visit, but there is some real beauty there.

Link to gallery

Kudos to the team at Georgia Tech for getting this thing off the ground.

The largest unmanned aircraft to rely solely on hydrogen fuel has flown successfully during tests.

The plane, with a 22-foot-wingspan, is powered by a fuel-cell system that generates 500-watts—equal to five bright light bulbs.

The design and geometry of the aircraft and the controlling subsystem technology allowed the feat.

The plane flew as high as 12 feet and stayed airborne for up to a minute at a time.

Fuel cells create electrical current by converting hydrogen and oxygen into water. The advantage of this technology is that it’s pollution-free. These fuel cells, however, don’t produce enough power for the propulsion of larger aircrafts. But they may provide an alternative for smaller and slower vehicles such as the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Link to article

As promised, here is my Moodle podcast. Keep in mind I’m still refining my podcasting skills, so bear with me!

UPDATE…I’ve decided to re-record the podcast as I wasn’t happy with the quality. I’ll repost it in the next couple of days.

Here is the updated version!

Thanks!
Stephen

Okay, this is a little on the geeky side. The good news is that you will be able to insure opearbility between different WiFi devices as they get faster.

The Wi-Fi Alliance plans to begin certifying next-generation Wi-Fi products starting in 2007 before the 802.11n standard is fully complete, a decision that should ease consumers’ concerns about buying prestandard products.

The industry group, which has certified products for all the preceding 802.11 standards, including 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g, said on Monday that it is taking a two-phased approach to the 802.11n certification process.

Starting in March, after the IEEE’s (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) general membership has accepted the new draft proposal for 802.11n, the Wi-Fi Alliance will begin certifying products. Once it becomes a full standard, the alliance will update its certification process to comply with the standard. The group hopes to make sure that the standard products will also interoperate with prestandard products it certifies.

Link to article

Here is a nice WiFi finder. Sadly, there are no free spots in my town.

Link to site

I think (and hope!) this will lead to even more collaboration between two of my favorite products.

The two companies agreed to cooperate in making their presence and text chat functions interoperable between Google Talk and Skype, as part of a program to jointly enhance their “click-to-call” VOIP initiatives. Google will also become the exclusive text-based advertising provider for eBay outside the United States.

The agreement between Skype and Google is similar to that struck between Skype and Yahoo this March, which also involved an ads partnership. Executives said that the Yahoo agreement was restricted to the U.S., however, while the Google agreement is global.

Link to article

I’ve never heard of so many students being suspended for this, but I applaud the school for upholding its standards.

Classrooms were a little less crowded at Morton High School on the first day of classes: 128 students were sent home for wearing the wrong clothes.

Fed up with inappropriate outfits, the principal suspended the students for one day Wednesday, minutes after doors opened at the school. Those suspended represent more than 10 percent of the 1,200 total students.

The offending attire including baggy pants, low-cut shirts, tank tops and graphic T-shirts are banned from classrooms. Students were also cited for cell phone use.

Link to article

Thanks to the A Feed is Born blog for this one. This allows you to create custom RSS feeds for Apple’s iTunes. You can be kept up to date on new releases in any genre.

iTunes RSS generator

Taking a suggestion from David Warlick, I have added the Academic Citation Plugin to my blog. Look for the “view academic citations” link under each of my blog entries. Click it to see the different formats.

This WordPress 2.0 plugin generates academic citations in five common academic citation formats: AMA, APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA.

Academic Citation Plugin

This site is a competitor for YouTube and Google Video, but the difference is that it has MUCH higher quality videos. You can also download these videos. You do need the DivX plugin, but it’s easy and free.

Stage6 is the next evolution in digital media. What does that mean? It means we want to improve the experience for finding and viewing good media online. It means having access to high-quality video on the web that actually looks good in full screen, rather than the all-too-familiar choppy, pixilated, low resolution videos we are all accustomed to seeing online nowadays. It means being free to burn backups of our media and take it with us wherever we go. It means having the freedom to watch Internet videos anywhere and anytime we choose on any device we want, even on our TVs, without cumbersome digital rights management (DRM). It means having a voice in the content we consume. It means being able to easily share cool content with our friends, discover new content our friends think is cool and, perhaps most importantly, make new friends along the way.

DivX Stage 6

The last few days have been pretty exciting. Our department is switching to Moodle for some online professional development that we have been creating, and I had the task of purchasing hosting and setting up the Moodle environment on the server. I’m planning a podcast that will cover the highlights of the process, but I will extend a big thanks to Richard Kassissieh of the Kassblog for his Moodle advice.

Look for my Moodle podcast sometime early next week!

The fact that the guy was taken out of the classroom was completely asinine. At least they are going to let him back to do his job.

A geography teacher put on paid leave for refusing to remove Mexican, Chinese and United Nations flags from his classroom will be allowed to return to school today after district officials backed down.

Carmody Middle School principal John Schalk put Hamlin on paid leave Wednesday after the teacher refused three orders to take the flags out of his classroom.

The school district cited a state law prohibiting the display of any flag but the American, Colorado or local flags on public buildings, including schools. Temporary displays for instructional or historical purposes are exempt, but the school principal did not consider Hamlin’s display temporary enough.

District officials agreed Thursday that Hamlin could keep the flags up for six weeks, then exchange them with other flags from his collection of more than 50. The district said he could keep his next set of flags, 25 of them from Middle Eastern nations, up for 12 weeks.

Link to article

So much has happened since Katrina ravaged The Big Easy. Progress is being made, but there is still a long way to go.

 Canal Street

Industrial Canal

Link to complete gallery

Pat Harder has a great post detailing how her school originally bought only six iPods but later found out they needed more after finding some creative uses for them.

Our first iPods were the basic models, which had an iTalk microphone attached to the top. We began by using the recording feature right away. Students recorded interviews for a their social studies projects. They made digital stories based on poems they had written and used the iPods for getting the sound into their iMovies. Then I began using them to record student responses while giving individual reading tests. Audio books downloaded to the iPods have also been popular with students. By the end of the year, we had moved on to podcasting. One English class did a weekly podcast of the class newsletter for parents.

Link to full article

Thanks to TomMcMahon for this one!

The jaws of this tropical ant snap closed at 145 miles per hour! Ouch!

Link to article