When Books Break the Bank The prices for textbooks are high enough, and publishers have added the more recent practice of bundling texts with guides or CD-ROMs, and the net result is a cost to students far out of proportion to the value they receive....
The Learning Communities Catalyst is bringing together learning resources to assist all Australians to make the most of the 21st century. Learn what the concept of 'learning community' means... Discover where learning communities are in Australia and the stories behind them... Explore a repository of research papers, policy documents, links and other materials... Use resources and practical tools designed to assist both developing and established learning communities... Interact and share your community's experiences with others... Create an online presence for your community. (Share with Mark / Urusulla / Lauren)
The Next Killer Ap in Education -- RSS Feeds - by Mary Harrsch "Like many technology specialists, I have been looking for the next "killer app" for quite some time. I define a killer application as a program that gives average people the capability to use technology to solve everyday problems and enrich their lives. E-mail was the first killer app. Its usefulness has been demonstrated clearly by its being embraced across the entire spectrum of computer users."
"Grammar on the way back? "Systematic teaching of sentence structure has been long discouraged in education circles, but concerns about writing skills are leading many to reassess. Trying to change course, the board will add a new 800-point section to the SAT test two years from now in which students spend 25 minutes writing an essay and equal time answering multiple-choice questions on grammar, including such matters as subject-verb agreement and sentence construction. The test will have three 800-point sections: math, verbal and writing/grammar."
Over the past 40 years, researchers who have attempted to measure the effect of schools on student achievement have often come to the conclusion that student background characteristics (e.g., race, parental education, income) exert a greater influence on achievement than do the schools; perhaps the best known of these studies was the 1966 Coleman Study. Some studies that followed the Coleman Study have found stronger school effects; however, the effects still tend to be relatively small and outweighed by student characteristics. More recently, a body of research has begun to emerge that does support the contention that schools, and specifically teachers, do have a significant impact on student learning. In his research, William Sanders has found that teacher effectiveness is "the single biggest factor influencing gains in achievement, an influence many times greater than poverty or per-pupil expenditures." http://www.ascd.org/publications/researchbrief/volume1/v1n11.html (PEN Weekly NewsBlast for May 30, 2003)
This report summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The report, which is required by law, is an indicator report intended for a general audience of readers who are interested in education. The indicators represent a consensus of professional judgment on the most significant national measures of the condition and progress of education for which accurate data are available. The 2003 print edition includes 44 indicators in six main areas. This edition also includes a special analysis on the reading achievement and classroom experiences of kindergartners and 1st graders. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2003067(PEN Weekly NewsBlast for May 30, 2003)
A NATION AT RISK: The Next Generation CHAT TRANSCRIPT
Read the transcript from EDUCATION WEEK on the WEB's first online chat, marking the 20th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the National Commission on Excellence in Education's influential rallying cry for raising expectations and improving performance in American schools. The chat featured guests Michelle Fine, Milton Goldberg, and Theodore Sizer, discussing what's right and what's wrong in American education today. Find the transcript here:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/tb/tblive/risk_transcript.htm
"To the best of our ability to discern, we have included only links to electronic journals that are scholarly, peer-reviewed, full text and accessible without cost. We have excluded professional magazines that are largely not refereed, and commercial journals that may only allow access to a very limited number of articles as an enticement to buy. By restricting membership in this way on the list that follows, we hope to do what little we can to promote free access world wide to scholarship in education." http://aera-cr.ed.asu.edu/ejournals/index.html
Close to 40 percent of U.S. fourth-grade children score below grade level in reading assessments, and 10 to 15 percent of children have been diagnosed with dyslexia; faculty member Tami Katzir shares some important background about dyslexia, its prediction, and appropriate interventions.
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/features/katzir05012003.html
Ten Ways Online Education Matches, or Surpasses, Face-to-Face Learning
by Mark Kassop - ... an examination of the many ways in which online learning is superior to its traditional counterpart.
Any chance that our high schools could take advantage of this program for AP courses -- our education dollars seem to be diverted to other causes -- could we share?
All branches of the military are implementing some form of Internet training, but the Army has gone further by enabling soldiers to enroll in degree programs and take college courses via the Web. Its two-year-old "EArmyU" (www.earmyu.com) enrolls 34,924 soldiers, including some who have continued attending virtual classes while in the Persian Gulf.
What do you need to know in order to be successful in college? Tough question, isn't it? But it is an essential one to ask because most high school students have no clue what college is like and most college freshmen are shocked and surprised by the knowledge and skills that university professors expect of them. So, back in 1998 the Association of American Universities [with the assistance of the Pew Charitable Trusts] decided to identify what students need to know and be able to do in order to succeed in entry- level university courses at America's research universities. Five years later, the results have been published in a free, 82 page booklet and accompanying CD-ROM titled "Understanding University Success." Included in the booklet is something called "Knowledge and Skills for University Success" [KSUS],
a comprehensive listing of what university faculty expect from
students in entry-level courses. KSUS is divided into six
academic disciplines: English, mathematics, natural sciences,
social sciences, second languages and the arts ...
... To ensure that the material is widely available, the project
is mailing the ... booklet and accompanying CD-ROM to each of
the nearly 20,000 public high schools in the nation, as well as
to state education departments and university leaders.
In addition,
The College Board has licensed Knowledge and Skills for
University Success to be used as a foundational element in the
development of College Board examinations, including the SAT,
PSAT and Advanced Placement exams.
So, how can you get *YOUR* hands on a copy? Easy! Just point your Web browser to
Understanding University Success
You can download the entire booklet for free in Adobe Acrobat PDF
format or order the booklet (US$15.00), CD-ROM (US$5.00), or both
(US$18.00). If you do decide to download the booklet, I have two
small warnings:
1. The booklet is 4.2 Mb so it will take about 10 minutes to
download over a 56K modem and 20 minutes over a 28.8 modem.
2. The downloading process is a little convoluted -- it requires
two pop-up windows and then you can't really right-click and
save as. Your best bet is to either get the zipped version or,
after the PDF file has loaded, click on the floppy icon in
Acrobat (under your browser's address bar) to save the PDF
file to your hard drive.
No matter what way you use to get the booklet, note that each subject
area has two subsections:
1. Foundations -- a macro-level look at the skills and attributes
of successful students in this subject area.
2. Standards -- specific subject area knowledge and skill sets
The standards lists for each of the six subject areas are probably the
most important educational documents to be produced in a long while.
These lists show the skills and knowledge that America's research
universities expect from entering freshmen. Not to put too fine a
point on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if, over the next couple of
years, most states begin to align their K-12 curriculum to align with
the standards in this booklet.
By the way, one thing that the CD offers that the booklet doesn't is
a library of more than 250 work samples and syllabi that
illustrate the quality of work that AAU-university professors
expect of freshmen in entry-level courses.
According to David Conley, Director of the Standards for Success
project,
We have collected real-life examples of student work from
freshman classes along with course syllabi, assignments, lab
exercises and tests ... Teachers can use the course syllabi,
assignments, and student work samples as reference points as
they devise their own curricula.
Just choose the subject area on the left side of the page. You'll still have to navigate the two pop-up windows, though. And if you thought the booklet was big, wait until you try to download the work samples. [The English work sample book has 480 pages and weighs in at a staggering 6.9 Mb.]
Cutting Back on TV By John Rosemond Why you might want to consider hitting the OFF button.
Creating and sustaining thoughtful improvement is a high priority for school leaders. But it can be an elusive goal, especially as schools struggle to strike a balance between longstanding practices and experimentation to fix problems. And resorting to a familiar top-down form of leadership doesn't always yield the desired results. Peter Senge is one of the world’s leading experts on how organizations can develop new ways to communicate and grow. He knows too well the damage that can be done when an organization gets caught up in the "fad cycle" -- where a new idea holds leaders’ imaginations for just a year or two, instead of the five or even 10 years that might be necessary for true reform. Senge believes that, to educate children well, school superintendents and cafeteria workers alike need to scrutinize how they think about their jobs. They must become aware of deeply ingrained assumptions they may not even know they have -- but that can inhibit their performance or blind them to new possibilities. According to Senge, "Only by changing how we think can we
change deeply embedded policies and practices. Only by changing how we
interact can shared visions, shared understandings and new capacities for
coordinated action be established."http://www.aasa.org/publications/sa/2003_05/SengeQ&A.htm
The biggest security breach in recent memory in this small central New Jersey school district happened when a parent forgot to sign in at the office before delivering cupcakes to a child’s classroom. So it was somewhat of a surprise when the Plumsted district’s three schools became the test site for a cutting-edge eye-recognition security system designed to keep out strangers...
http://msnbc.com/news/904218.asp?0cv=TB10
"Join EDUCATION WEEK on the WEB on Tuesday, April 29, at 11:00 a.m. EST, for our first live, online chat marking the 20th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the National Commission on Excellence in Education's influential rallying cry for
raising expectations and improving performance in American schools. The chat
will feature the distinguished guests Michelle Fine, Milton Goldberg, and Theodore Sizer, who will be discussing the report, and answering your
questions.
To submit questions in advance, go here:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a17
Don't forget to join us, Tuesday, April 29, 11:00 a.m. EST, for this exclusive
discussion:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a20
Twenty years ago this week, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a rallying cry for raising expectations and improving performance in American schools--and part of its message was addressed directly to students. For the 20th Anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," EDUCATION WEEK looks more closely at teenagers' views on what's wrong--and what's right--with the nation's public schools.
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a7
Includes:
Quantity of Coursework Rises Since 1983
Two decades after the publication of "A Nation at Risk," students are taking
more academic courses than before. But research shows it's the level and
quality of courses that count, and by that standard, significant gaps remain.
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a10
20 Years Later: Two Views
Perspectives on the impact and failings of "A Nation at Risk" by educator-
authors John I. Goodlad and Theodore R. Sizer.
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a8
Princeton University has unveiled what it calls "the world's first fully interactive, Web-accessible digital archive of policy-relevant data on culture and the arts." Visitors to the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA), a project of the Princeton University Library and the university's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, can access both current and past research findings, such as public opinion, city-specific data, and statistics dealing with the arts. Resources available are currently broken down into four categories: artists, audiences, organizations, and support for the arts. Information Today, 14 April 2003 - http://www.cpanda.org.
"A university will spend hundreds of $millions on dormitories, i.e., places for students to drink beer and sleep together. Why is there is no budget for cubicle farms where students in the same major could do their homework together, asking for help from the person at the next desk and, if necessary, raising their hands for help from roving teaching assistants?" Read More...
"A promising strategy that may truly alter how teachers teach and children learn is called "lesson study," an idea that has recently migrated to the U.S. from Japan.1 Teachers work collaboratively as they develop lessons. Then they teach the lessons while observing one another to see how well their lessons work. This feedback enables teachers to make a series of refinements. Lesson study is a continuous cycle of classroom problem solving -- a Plan, Do, Check, Act process -- that is carried out by teachers themselves. The approach is routinely used in Japan to make improvements in teaching, and it is growing in popularity in the United States." Read more...
Should we be looking at this now? The barriers to widespread adoption of voice over IP on enterprise networks have fallen one by one. After years of development, the technical and economic roadblocks are down; VOIP is now practical and offers excellent performance at low cost. Read More...
"All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don' need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance." (p. 13) From Good to Great by Jim Collins
Heard this on NPR this morning as part of National Poetry Month -- An Interview with National Endowment for the Arts Chief, Poet Dana Gioia -- Listen to Morning Edition audio "We don't need art, but it is what we yearn for, and without it we starve." Also hear and check out his book of essays on poetry.
Emergent Democracy a very thoughtful new paper by Joi Ito called Emergent Democracy that gets into the practical and theortetical issues of making web-enabled democracy happen. Good concepts and good examples.
A map of Iraq showing where all journalists are located -- click on a location and the list of journalists will come up -- click on the journalist and read the stories. http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=27071
Christopher Lydon of Harvard Law reviews the "great writers who anticipated the contemporary crisis." The bookstores are full of interesting perspectives on globalization — the food, music and ethics of it all, as well as the politics and economics. Some of the basic books I've found helpful are:
Joseph Stiglitz, "Globalization and Its Discontents."
Tom Friedman, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree."
Amartya Sen, "Development as Freedom."
Benjamin Barber, "Jihad Vs. McWorld."
Naomi Klein, "No Logo."
In learning about the world consciousness out there, I have revelled in a marvellous website (originating at the National University of Singapore) on Post-Colonial Literature: http://www.postcolonialweb.org/
For anyone who thinks the arts in our schools are frills... Creating is an important source of our inner peace. By creating we are able to contribute to the shared pool of peace that exists in the world.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~estutz/linkp&p.html