Stephen's Untold Stories

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Very interesting read. Online learning is here to stay. I just hope our leaders realize that.

The report found that online learning continued to grow in the latter part of 2007 and the first half of 2008, in terms of both new programs and the enhancement of existing programs. Many states have passed new legislation to promote further growth in online learning, it says.

As of this fall, 44 states offer significant online learning opportunities for students.  Seventeen states offer significant supplemental and full-time online options for students, and many of those states have both a state-led program and full-time online schools. For example, Florida offers the supplemental Florida Virtual School and the full-time Florida Connections Academy and Florida Virtual Academy. Similarly, Colorado offers the state-led Colorado Online Learning program, as well as numerous full-time district programs and charter schools.

Twenty-three states offer significant supplemental opportunities but not full-time opportunities, and most have state-led programs, such as the Michigan Virtual School and the Illinois Virtual School.

Four states offer significant full-time opportunities, but no supplemental programs; these states have extensive charter schools and/or district online programs, but do not offer a state-led supplemental program that makes courses available to students across the state.

Link to article

Thanks, Scott!

Thanks to Tom Barret for sharing this at the Google Docs Blog.

See the original here.

Do we really need more tests? It seems like we have enough already, but it looks like there are more on the way.

Amid growing challenges to its role as the pre-eminent force in college admissions, the College Board on Wednesday unveiled a new test that it said would help prepare eighth graders for rigorous high school courses and college.

The test, which will be available to schools next fall, is intended only for assessment and instructional purposes and has nothing to do with college admissions, College Board officials said.

“This is not at all a pre-pre-pre SAT,” Lee Jones, a College Board vice president, said at a news conference. “It’s a diagnostic tool to provide information about students’ strengths and weaknesses.”

The College Board, which owns the SAT and PSAT, made its announcement when an increasing percentage of high school students are taking the rival ACT and amid mounting concern over what critics call the misuses of the SAT and ACT and other standardized tests in college admissions.

Those critics dismissed the new test for eighth graders as just what Dr. Jones said it was not: “a pre-pre-pre SAT.”

“Who needs yet another pre-college standardized exam when there is already a pre-SAT and the SAT test itself?” said Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, a nonpartisan group that has called for colleges and universities to make standardized tests optional for admissions. “The new test will only accelerate the college admissions arms race and push it down onto ever younger children.”

The new test, called ReadiStep, can be completed within two hours and is divided into three multiple-choice sections of critical reading, writing skills and mathematics.

It will cost less than $10 per student, College Board officials said, and schools and districts will pay for it. College Board officials described the test as voluntary and “low-stakes,” and said the results would be shared only with teachers, parents, students and schools.

Link to article

A Georgetown law professor bans laptops from his classroom.

Some years back, our law school, like many around the country, wired its classrooms with Internet hookups. It’s the way of the future, I was told. Now we are a wireless campus, and incoming students are required to have laptops. So my first-year students were a bit surprised when I announced at the first class this year that laptops were banned from my classroom.

I did this for two reasons, I explained. Note-taking on a laptop encourages verbatim transcription. The note-taker tends to go into stenographic mode and no longer processes information in a way that is conducive to the give and take of classroom discussion. Because taking notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, is so much slower, one actually has to listen, think and prioritize the most important themes.

In addition, laptops create temptation to surf the Web, check e-mail, shop for shoes or instant-message friends. That’s not only distracting to the student who is checking Red Sox statistics but for all those who see him, and many others, doing something besides being involved in class. Together, the stenographic mode and Web surfing make for a much less engaged classroom, and that affects all students (not to mention me).

I agreed to permit two volunteers to use laptops to take notes that would be made available to all students. And that first day I allowed everyone to use the laptops they had with them. I posed a question, and a student volunteered an answer. I answered her with a follow-up question. As if on cue, as soon as I started to respond, the student went back to typing — and then asked, “Could you repeat the question?”

Read the rest here.

What an interesting story. Students in Marietta City Schools can now text the police if they need to report something suspicious.

Students aren’t usually allowed to use their cellphones at school. But under the “Text a Cop” plan, Marietta High School students won’t face disciplinary action for their efforts to keep their school safe.

The Marietta school board voted 6-0 Tuesday night to allow students to send text messages to two police officers on campus.

“It’s just the way our students communicate these days,” said Marietta High principal Leigh Colburn, who said parents are excited about the progressive program. “Marietta wants to be out front of school safety.”

The idea is that students will be encouraged to report items of concern, whether it be rumored plans of other students, or something more personal, such as abuse.

Marietta Lt. Cliff Kelker said if something serious is happening on campus, text messages will provide quick response.

“We can get help faster than any other way we have out there,” said Kelker, who oversees school resource officers.

Link to article

I can’t say I would miss them if they were gone. The revolution continues!

College students communicate with text messages clicked out on cell phones. They take class notes on their laptops. Yet, when they take an American history exam, they do what students a generation earlier did:

They scribble in a blue book, pausing only to grimace and shake a cramping hand.

The blue book is widely loathed by students, who must write coherently without the benefit of a backspace key, and by professors, who must fight through a jungle of bad cursive. But no technology has managed to displace it.

Now UNC-Chapel Hill is trying to relegate the venerable school supply to the academic dustbin with a computer program.

So far, the blue book retains the upper hand.

A couple of dozen UNC professors are using word-processing software called Securexam, which locks all other applications on a student’s computer so there’s no way to cheat. Each exam is encrypted and cannot be reopened once the student completes it, unless the professor OKs it.

“They can’t surf the Web,” said Andy Lang, director of information services in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. “All wired and wireless connections are shut off.”

The college is spending about $30,000 a year on the software, and last semester about 1,000 students took exams with it, Lang said.

Joseph Wittig, who teaches medieval British literature at UNC, is using the software and loves it.

“I can read and grade 40 exams in one full day,” he said, adding that with blue books that task takes two to three times as long. “At a certain point, you’d start skimming because you’re worn out. It’s a huge advantage for students and teachers.”

Link to article

Growing up in Georgia, I have had the pleasure of enjoying Krystal burgers. I’ve never had White Castle, but my northern friends swear by them.

Which is your favorite?

Red states have Krystal only. Blue states have White Castle only. Green states have both.

Lots more information here.

Yes, that’s exactly what Eddie Adcock did.

A musician who underwent brain surgery to treat a hand tremor played his banjo throughout to test the success of the procedure.

Eddie Adcock is one of the pillars of Bluegrass Music and realised his tremor could threaten his ability to perform professionally.

Surgeons placed electrodes in Mr Adcock’s brain and fitted a pace maker in his chest which delivers a small current which shuts down the region of his brain causing the tremors.

A surgeon filmed the operation at the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Click here for the video.

Interesting article about a school in Georgia that is doing some innovative things for these kids.

On a typical Monday morning at an atypical high school, teenage boys yanked open the glass doors to the First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga. Half-awake, iPod wires curling from their ears, their backpacks unbuckled and their jeans baggy, the guys headed for the elevator. Arriving at Morning Meeting in the third-floor conference room, Stephen, his face hidden under long black bangs, dropped into a chair, sprawled across the table and went back to sleep. The Community School, or T.C.S., is a small private school for teenage boys with autism or related disorders. Sleep disturbances are common in this student body of 10, so a boy’s staggering need for sleep is respected. Nick Boswell, a tall fellow with thick sideburns, arrived and began his usual pacing along the windows that overlook the church parking lot and baseball diamond. Edwick, with spiky brown hair and a few black whiskers, tumbled backward with a splat into a beanbag chair on the floor.

What makes the Community School unusual is not its student body — plenty of schools around the country enroll teenagers with an autism spectrum disorder. But, like about only two dozen schools in the country, it employs a relatively new, creative and highly interactive teaching method known as D.I.R./Floortime, which is producing striking results among T.C.S.’s student body. (D.I.R. stands for developmental, individual differences, relationship-based approach.) The method is derived from the work of Stanley Greenspan, a child psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry, behavioral science and pediatrics at George Washington University, and his colleague Dr. Serena Wieder. D.I.R./Floortime can be effective with all kinds of children, whether they have developmental challenges or not. As applied by T.C.S., it is an approach that encourages students to develop their strengths and interests by working closely with one another and with their teachers. The goal for students is neurological progress through real-world engagement.

Read the rest here.

I’d love to see more places start something like this.

Hoping to combat the “snitch” label that often leads to silent suffering, six Utah schools have introduced a Web site that allows students to anonymously report bullies.

A Brigham Young University student, Justin Bergener, created the site, which also lets students post information about thefts, drugs and harassment.

Bergener said he hopes students who might otherwise be too scared or shy to speak up will be willing to post on the site.

“There really is this culture and code of silence that’s particularly prevalent in middle schools and high schools,” Bergener said.

Many students may not want to be seen in the office talking to an authority figure, said Rosanna Ungerman, principal of Provo’s Dixon Middle School.

“It allows students to have an outlet and avenue to report things they might otherwise not have reported,” Ungerman said.

Nearly 50 schools in other states are also using the Web site.

Link to article

I thought this would be especially relevant considering all the bad economic news lately.

• Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
• Being poor is your kid’s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
• Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner.
• Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
• Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Here is the entire list.

I wonder how many other universities will join.

Twenty three universities have agreed to share and combine their digitized content, including millions of scanned books and documents, in one gigantic, 78-terabyte library that launched Monday.

Called the HathiTrust, the depository contains digital content from 11 University of California libraries and a 12-university consortium that forms the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which includes the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago.

Link to article

I have been recommending OpenOffice to schools for a few years now, but there haven’t been many takers. They just released version 3.0, and it is definitely worth another look.

It’s actually gotten to the point that as of this writing, their download servers are overloaded. You can keep trying at http://openoffice.org as I’m sure it will be fixed soon.

Trust me when I say that this will be a big part of the future for EdTech.

Cloud computing is one of those great buzzwords in IT that, so far, has meant very little to the average Ed Tech customer. We all have a pretty good idea what it means: lots of computers somewhere (we don’t actually care where) doing lots of processing to deliver services to our desktops via the Internet. On the other hand, with the maturation of virtualization technology, the idea of virtual desktops and virtual servers is certainly rearing its head in education as we try to cut energy costs, ease management, and consolidate resources.

While students/schools won’t necessarily need to purchase new dedicated computers for use with this technology, some sort of presentation hardware will be necessary for the virtual PC to be displayed to the student. However, any computer, netbook, nettop, thin client, MID, or, potentially, even a smartphone with a high-speed connection can provide a student with access to their PC in the cloud. Thus, no matter how old the computer (or how “thin” the device), as long as it can run graphical Linux with Firefox, can access a virtual PC via SIMtone’s “WebSNAP” portal. Similarly, slightly newer machines running Windows XP (or even Vista) can use terminal emulator software (called SoftSNAP) to access the Virtual PC.

Link to article

I’ve always thought that the NAEP exam was one of the best ones out there, and I’m glad to see this development.

For the first time ever, technological literacy will become part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, the test’s governing board has announced.

Beginning in 2012, the test will measure students’ proficiency with technology in addition to reading, math, science, history, writing, and other subjects. The new test will mark the first time students’ technology literacy has been assessed on a national level.

NAEP’s Technological Literacy Assessment comes at a time when there are no nationwide requirements or common definitions for technological literacy.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed a set of National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students, and the No Child Left Behind Act requires that students demonstrate technological literacy by the end of the eighth grade.

Yet only a handful of states have adopted separate tests in this area, even as a growing chorus of business representatives and policy makers voices concern about the ability of American students to compete in a global marketplace and keep up with quickly evolving technology.

Link to article