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You are browsing the archive for 2009 February.
by Stephen
Snow??
February 28, 2009 in Current Affairs, Georgia by Stephen
The National Weather Service says we could get 1-3 inches this weekend.
I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ll even post some video if it happens.
by Stephen
by Stephen
by Stephen
Chinese Bluegrass?
February 25, 2009 in Music by Stephen
An awesome performance by some Chinese musicians using their instruments to play some American bluegrass.
by Stephen
by Stephen
Music-Memory Connection Found in Brain
February 24, 2009 in Education, Music, Science by Stephen
I used to play a lot of music when I was a classroom teacher. Most of the students seemed to enjoy it once they got used to it. Maybe it was even more beneficial than I thought.
People have long known that music can trigger powerful recollections, but now a brain-scan study has revealed where this happens in our noggins.
The part of the brain known as the medial pre-frontal cortex sits just behind the forehead, acting like recent Oscar host Hugh Jackman singing and dancing down Hollywood’s memory lane.
“What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head.” said Petr Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at University of California, Davis. “It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person’s face in your mind’s eye.”
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Baseball in 1864
February 24, 2009 in Humor, Sports, Video by Stephen
I posted this a couple of years ago, but it deserves a repeat. Conan O’Brien found a baseball league that plays in vintage 1864 costumes and uses rules of that period.
by Stephen
by Stephen
Name that Law!
February 23, 2009 in Blogs, Current Affairs, Education, Humor by Stephen
There are those who wish to rename the No Child Left Behind act because of the negativity surrounding it. Over at the Eduwonk blog, they are having a contest where you can submit your suggestions. Some are pretty funny.
Some examples:
- The All American Children Are Above Average Act
- Double Back Around To Pick Up The Children We Left Behind Act
- No Child Left Untested
- The Hail Mary With Two Seconds Left on the Clock Act.
by Stephen
by Stephen
Class Size
February 21, 2009 in Current Affairs, Education by Stephen
In these tough economic times, school districts are looking to increase class sizes. Georgia is certainly having to deal with this issue, and this article from New York seems to apply to just about everywhere.
In many circles, class size is considered as fundamental to education as the three R’s, with numbers watched so carefully that even a tiny increase can provoke outrage among parents, teachers and political leaders. Alarms went off in New York and California last week, as officials on both coasts warned that yawning budget gaps could soon mean more children in each classroom.
But while state legislatures for decades have passed laws — and provided millions of dollars — to cap the size of classes, some academic researchers and education leaders say that small reductions in the number of students in a room often have little effect on their performance.
The debate has continued for decades, with some consensus forming that class size matters most in the youngest grades, and that the effects are most profound when there are fewer than 20 students in a class.Dan Goldhaber, an education professor at the University of Washington, said the obsession with class size stemmed from a desire for “something that people can grasp easily — you walk into a class and you see exactly how many kids are there.”
“Whether or not it translates into an additional advantage doesn’t necessarily matter,” Professor Goldhaber said. “We know that teachers are the most important thing, but teacher quality is not stamped on someone’s forehead.”
A Tennessee study in the late 1980s, widely regarded as the most influential study on class size, found that in kindergarten through third grade, students in classes of 13 to 17, particularly poor and minority students, performed better than those in classes of 22 to 25. In some cases, the benefits extended through high school.
But since then, as many states and school districts have rushed to reduce class sizes, usually to the low 20s, student achievement has not consistently improved markedly.
by Stephen
by Stephen
links for 2009-02-20
February 20, 2009 in Delicious by Stephen
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Hopefully not too many of you will need this!
by Stephen
links for 2009-02-19
February 19, 2009 in Delicious by Stephen
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Launch the Gtalk gadget here.
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Using Document Cameras in the Classroom
by Stephen
