EVERGREEN PARK, Ill.— Students at one suburban Chicago high school might have to hold it or risk staying after school.
A policy at Evergreen Park High School gives students three restroom visits during class per semester. After that, they have to make up any missed class time after school.
Principal Bill Sanderson tells the (Tinley Park) SouthtownStar (http://bit.ly/qWWm4L ) that the policy is designed to make sure that students don't miss valuable class time. He says it deters them from using restroom visits as an excuse to miss class.
Each teacher gets to decide whether to enforce the policy in their classes.
But some students argue that they don't have time to stop at the restroom otherwise because they only get five minutes between classes.
I think that the Apple TV – yes another consumer device – once referred to as an Apple “hobby” project – may be the next big technology tool for education.
The release of true wireless mirroring in iOS 5 will allow teachers to have it all. Using an Apple TV, whatever you are teaching and having students disseminate can be shared with the entire class. Apple has made the process simple and powerful.
Do you want any of these for your classroom?
Teacher led instruction + student note taking = Use the iPad to lead the instruction from the front of the room
Mobile web enabled device + Apps for any curriculum area = Student centered classrooms
Individualized stations + student centers = Use apps and share student work through the Apple TV
Digital curriculum + Less reliance on printing = Paperless classrooms
Apps like ShowMe + Cheap stylus = Individual dry erase boards with the ability to display on screen for the entire class
Apps like Socrative + Ability to have individual classroom response “clickers” = Ongoing and truly “live” assessment
While there will certainly be competitors to the Apple TV and iPad mirroring set up – and there already are some – we must always consider our students and teachers when looking at how well a product works and how simple it is to use.
Although the United States spends more per student than any other country except Luxembourg, Marc Tucker explains why the U.S. K-12 education system doesn't add up.
What do the top-10 nations do that the U.S. doesn't do?
1. Put more money behind their hardest-to-educate students than those who are easier to educate.
2. They have developed world-class academic standards for their students, a curriculum to match the standards, and high-quality examinations (not cheap multiple-choice tests) and instructional materials based on that curriculum.
3. Focus on teacher quality
- Raise Requirements - They greatly raised the standards for entering their schools of education to the point that they are accepting only one applicant for every six to 10 young people who apply.
- Knowledge of Content - They insist all teachers at least minor in the subjects they plan to teach at the elementary level and major in those subjects at the secondary level.
- Internship - They also make sure teachers know their craft; aspiring teachers often serve under the supervision of a master teacher for a year before beginning full-time teaching.
- Professional Level Compensation - They ensure initial pay for teachers is comparable to initial pay in the high-status professions like engineering.
"The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students.
The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003).
The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments.
Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below."
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keyword or topic in a Tweet. Any Twitter user can categorize or follow topics with hashtags.Those hashtags (usually) mean something and are a great way to get a tweet to appear in search results or discussion monitoring.
For example, the popular #edchat hashtag is used by thousands of users every Tuesday. It makes it easy (sort of) for people to monitor what’s happening in the conversation rather than having to try and guess what topics you should search for. By having a conversation on Twitter using hashtags, you also make it easy for any other Twitter user to join in.
The following highlights are excerpted from and article by Valerie Strauss and filtered for the benefit of busy school leaders.
The two largest school systems in the country — New York City and Los Angeles — conceded this week that they are failing too many English language learners and promised to improve.
ELLs Increase 51% in a decade
In the last decade, the number of English language learners enrolled in public schools across the country has skyrocketed, from 3.5 million in 1997-98 to 5.3 million in 2008-09. That’s a 51 percent jump, and many school systems have not had resources to meet the needs of these children.
ELL Performance
- 7% of the New York City’s English language learners were found to have graduated on time and ready for college and careers in 2010. And reading and math standardized test scores for these students were far below city averages.
Apple's finalized the next version of its operating system, iOS 5, and it's a pretty big upgrade. Here's a look at all the new stuff you can expect when you install it on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Teachers are taking professional development into their own hands with Twitter "edchats." In this post we explain, and interview four hosts of some popular weekly chats.
Teachers are turning to Twitter to collaborate, share resources and offer each other support.
Many, in fact, are using it to take professional development into their own hands, 140 characters at a time.
Each week, thousands of teachers participate in scheduled Twitter “chats” around a particular subject area or type of student. Math teachers meet on Mondays, for instance, while science discussions happen on Tuesdays, new teachers gather on Wednesdays and teachers working with sixth graders meet Thursdays. (Jerry Blumengarten, Twitter’s @cybraryman1, posts this helpful list of educational chats.)
By using hashtags — that is, words or phrases preceded by the # symbol, like “#Scichat” for science educators — users can organize, search and find messages on a particular topic all in one place.
Anyone can participate, and joining is easy: just go to Twitter, search for the hashtag of the chat that appeals to you, and start to read the stream of messages. When you’re ready to add your own thoughts or share resources, just append that same hashtag to your Twitter message. (For more tips, visit our “Nuts and Bolts” and “Resources” lists.)
For instance, as I write this, an English teacher could dip into the #Engchat stream and find a link to a list of five-minute grammar lessons, a query about how to use stations in literature classes, and a note from a high school teacher about how she did a rap for her sophomores on reading strategies to the tune of “Ice, Ice Baby.”
If you wanted to write your own Twitter message and add it to this stream, you’d just say something brief, and put #Engchat at the end of it. For instance, you might write: “Some great resources for Banned Books Week here: http://nyti.ms/9qPVku #Engchat.”
We chose three of the chats where New York Times and Learning Network resources are most often shared, and interviewed the founders about what they do, why and how.
1. #edchat - Below, you’ll find a question-and-answer session with Thomas D. Whitby and Shelly Sanchez Terrell, the founders of #Edchat, a place for educators of all kinds to gather
2. #SSchat the grandfather of the education Twitter chats; Greg Kulowiec, co-founder of #SSchat for social studies teachers
3. #Engchat - Meenoo Rami who created #Engchat for English teachers.
This site contains hundreds of ideas for Writing Prompts.
"These are some of the daily writing prompts that I use in class. The prompts and pictures are scraped together from so many sources - forgotten websites, old journals, overheard conversations, the crusty recesses of my hard drive - that attribution is difficult.
Calculators in high school math class? That’s so last year. This fall, it’s all about the handheld at Harrisburg High School.
The TI-Nspire CX calculates, analyzes data and graphs. The device from Texas Instruments also allows teachers to share documents with students, give pop quizzes and tests and call on individuals to show their work to the class without the use of a chalkboard.
But there’s no danger of students using the handhelds to send messages to each other; they can only communicate with the instructor.
He said math is not one of his favorite subjects, but the new instrument might change that.
“I think it could definitely raise up my grade,” he said. “I think I’d enjoy class a little bit more with the calculator than without having it.”
One concern, however, is that the calculators must remain in the classrooms and cannot be used to do homework. If students have Internet access, they are able log on to a remote site, but it is a cumbersome process and the remote site does not have all the features of the actual device.
Focus has pulled together an infographic on the most disruptive companies in tech. It should come as little surprise that many of the innovations are cloud-powered, or cloud-dependent. ...
The latest enthusiasm about new Common Core State Assessments "may be justified."
Why?
1. A Common Reference Point - Instead of 50 different sets of tests based on 50 different sets of standards, we have assessments based on one set of standards agreed upon by 46 states--from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
2. Improved Quality of Assessments - Instead of "multiple guess" these standards "anticipate a focus on higher-order thinking, problem solving, and inquiry, which will encourage teachers to focus more energy on that kind of teaching."
3. Building Teacher Capacity - There already is a decided increase in professional development that focuses on improving the quality of classroom instruction. "Schools and districts are already doing widespread professional development for teachers and administrators on the new standards."
4. Cross-Fertilization - States and districts can share strategies and curricula because they "can have some confidence that a curriculum they created and successfully evaluated in Maine would also fit standards in Arizona and Oregon."
5. Improved Instruction - The CCSS will necessitate a fundamental change in classroom instruction. "Adopting new standards and assessments does not automatically improve outcomes for students, but it can provide opportunities to improve teaching and learning."
But the new graduation requirements raise concerns about the equity of access to online learning tools and the technological costs of supporting such measures.
Two years ago, Tennessee’s Putnam County school system adopted an online-learning graduation requirement for its high school students.
Unequal Access
The lack of even access has forced states and districts to take a more flexible approach.
But district officials realized that not all students had high-speed Internet access at home, or even computers, so they came up with a variety of options to allow students to fulfill the requirement.
But concerns remain about issues of student equity, particularly in rural areas, where high-speed Internet access may be uncommon or difficult. Some cash-strapped school districts may also view such a state policy as an unfunded mandate.
“Districts have fixed costs and structures, … and equity can be a major issue,” says Bruce Umpstead, the state director of educational technology and data coordination for the state department of education in Michigan, the first state to make online learning a requirement for graduation. “But for us, [the requirement] was a signal to schools that online learning is a legitimate way of delivering instruction, and students are going to have to know how to use online learning to get ahead.”
Flexibility In Fulfilling Requirement
The state of Tennessee already mandated that all students take a class on personal finance, so Putnam County put its version online, complete with the district’s own online teachers. Students can complete the course independently before they enter 9th grade; do it at school, in a computer lab with the support of an in-house coordinator, during their four high school years; or take the course in a computer lab that includes both an in-class teacher and an online instructor. Students can also fulfill the requirement with online Advanced Placement courses or online credit-recovery classes, says Kathleen Airhart, the director of the 11,000-student Putnam County schools, based in Cookeville, Tenn.
Online Learning: A Reality of Life
The goal is to make sure students get an online-learning experience in a low-risk, supportive environment, Airhart says. “The reality is, when a student leaves us, whether they’re going to a four-year college, a technical college, or going into the world of work, they’re going to have to do an online course,” she says. “This helps prepare the students.”
Requirement To Graduate, But Not Credit-Bearing
In 2002, Michigan began instituting its requirement that students complete 20 hours of online-learning experience to graduate. Students can start collecting hours in 6th grade, and most are satisfying the requirement through an online career-planning tool used to devise an Educational Development Plan, called for by state education policy, Umpstead says.
Initially, the intent was to have the online experience be a credit-bearing course. But concerns that such a requirement could be interpreted as an unfunded mandate by local governments—something prohibited by state law—resulted in a scaling-back, Umpstead says.
Other states have followed Michigan’s model. Alabama makes an online-learning “experience” one of the criteria for high school graduation. New Mexico has a similar requirement, but it provides students with the option of meeting the criteria through an alternative method.
The latest phone from Apple sets a record, as sales worldwide for the first three days double those for its predecessor, the iPhone 4. Read this blog post by Don Reisinger on The Digital Home.
“We need to give educators and administrators the tools and resources they need and have them decide what’s best for their students.”
"Teachers who have been frustrated over blocked access to YouTube educational videos in school can take heart. YouTube is rolling out a pilot a program with schools that will redirect all YouTube links to educational content on YouTube.com/education. In addition, comments will be disabled and related videos will only be educational, both of which are a source of anxiety around exposing kids to inappropriate content.
Each school and district has a different kind of filtering system, but this workaround allows schools that block YouTube at the domain level to access it through YouTube.com/education, according to Angela Lin, head of YouTube Edu. Schools interested in participating in the pilot program can sign up at YouTube.com/t/education."
One of the quieter new features of the new iOS 5 operating system release is the expansion of its AirPlay functionality. You may already be familiar with Airplay. It's the feature on your iPad or iPhone that allows you to wirelessly stream photos, video and music from your iOS device to any external display such as an HDTV (through an Apple TV connection). It's a wonderful feature and its only limitation is that it has been restricted to only streaming media wirelessly - it could not be used to display apps or your iPad screen. As a consequence, AirPlay streaming has been utilized predominantly at home rather than in the classroom. That has changed with the release of Apple's new iOS 5 operating system.
These highlights are excerpted from The Quick and the Ed for the benefit of busy school leaders.
The Harkin-Enzi bill, however, does specify 3 categories of schools that must be included in each state’s accountability system:
1. Blue Ribbon Schools – to recognize 5% of schools that have high levels of student achievement or have made impressive gains in the number of students ‘on track’ to be college- and career-ready or graduating from high school;
2. Persistently Low-Achieving Schools – to identify 5% of schools that have low levels of student performance or growth or have low graduation rates; and
3. Achievement Gap Schools – to identify 5% of schools that have the largest achievement gaps between student subgroups or that have low achievement or low graduation rates (in other words, schools that have no gaps because they are 100% minority could still be designated based on low student performance).
Persistently Low-Achieving Schools
For its Persistently Low-Achieving (PLA) schools, districts will choose from a series of 6 options – similar to those in the SIG program – to improve their students’ academic achievement, college and career readiness, and graduation rates.
PLA schools will have 5 years to implement a school improvement strategy of their choice. If they are still identified as a persistently-low achiever after that, the school gets another five years… but the school must either close or choose the “restart” strategy where they reopen as a charter school, a magnet school, or some “other” innovative school model.
Consequences for failure?
There are no consequences for districts if schools don’t improve enough after five years. The bottom line: consequences for failing to improve as a PLA school fall on the school, and schools get a second chance.
Achievement Gap Schools
AG schools...only have 3 years to improve and close achievement gaps that have existed since we began been measuring them.
Consequences for failure?
After three years, if the same schools are identified, the entire district is penalized, not the school.
That district will lose priority or competitive preference status when it applies for grants under any part of ESEA – including the Teacher Incentive Fund, Race to the Top, Promise Neighborhoods, the College Pathways Program, i3, and the Charter Schools Program.
Incentives to "Game the System"
So if when 1 of New York City’s 1,700 schools continues to have large achievement gaps, the entire district could lose out on funding for other key school programs. This creates incentives for districts and states to game the system and avoid designating the same schools after three years.
The Bottom Line
If I were a school leader, I’d much rather be classified as Persistently Low-Achieving than as an Achievement Gap School. Your reaction here should be: huh? Persistently Low-Achieving sounds like the harsher label of the two. But not in reality. There is less guidance for how AG Schools will be improved and less time to make these improvements, with tougher consequences if improvement doesn’t happen.
With college admissions officials relying on social media to make admissions decisions, it would be behoove every student to read this article and take the appropriate action today!
1. Check your digital trail and keep it clean.
24% of admissions officers in Kaplan's survey said they have visited applicants' pages, while 20% Googled them to learn more – and 12% said what they found negatively impacted their admissions chances. Search yourself on Google, Yahoo and other search engines, and clean up anything that doesn't put you in a positive light!
2. Limit your profile searchability.
Facebook's default settings allow anyone to find your profile online. You can disable this so that search engines won't link to your profile. Go to Account - Privacy Settings - Apps and Websites - Public Search (Edit Settings) and uncheck "Enable Public Search". Or, if you just want to limit parts of your profile, go to Edit Profile and select the privacy level (Public, Friends, Only Me, Custom) for each profile data point using the dropdown boxes to the right.
We've long recommended filing away email into folders for better organization, but a study by IBM Research finds that just using the search function can be much faster than navigating through folders to find old messages.
"In the end, though, finding those emails by digging through folders took 58 seconds, on average, while merely searching for them took 17 seconds."
The following is a summary of the above article published in Learning Solutions Magazine. To read more, click on the headline above.
"A learning community is “a group of individuals who collaboratively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct meaning and confirm mutual understanding.” (Garrison, 2007) As such, you base learning communities in constructivist principles. A learning community is directed toward learning in a social environment, not socializing.
"The figure above describes the relationship between the three elements of a learning community.
Teaching presence - is the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes toward the goal of meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.
Social presence - is the ability of participants to identify with the group, communicate in a trusting environment, and develop social relationships by way of expressing their individuality.
Cognitive presence - is the exploration, construction, resolution, and confirmation of understanding. Cognitive presence is the process of inquiry by the group – active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in terms of supporting evidence and the conclusions or consequences that follow (Garrison, 2007). Cognitive presence is carried out, ideally, in four phases:
All three elements (Social, Cognitive, and Teaching) are very important to the learning community. Without all three, we have something less than “learning” + “community.” There is, however, a hierarchy of need, so to speak. Teaching and social presence are more foundational to basic learning tasks. We could say that cognitive presence takes learning beyond basic knowledge and into deeper understanding, application, and appreciation.
Because social presence addresses our most basic needs for security and belonging, we could argue that social presence is the most foundational to a functional learning community. However, as the model shows, the instructor/facilitator is most responsible for establishing the appropriate climate. Increased comfort levels create the conditions that allow for open expression of individual opinions, ideas, and positions.
Of special note is the finding that once social presence is established, as measured by the frequency of supportive messages, the group moves on toward higher expressions of group cohesion as supportive messages decrease in frequency (Garrison, 2007). Social presence remains, but becomes the backdrop, not the focus.
Met-needs reinforce attention and learning whereas unmet needs distract us. When social presence is high, learners are more satisfied, perceive the instruction as more effective, and their achievement is improved. Lack of social presence can lead to high levels of frustration, disengagement, critical attitudes toward the instruction, and lower levels of learning. Gorsky & Blau (2009) cite a number of studies attesting to the importance of teaching presence. “The consensus is that teaching presence is a significant determinant of perceived learning, student satisfaction, and sense of community.” At the least, the instructor is first among equals. Students rank instructor modeling as the most important element in building online community (Vesely et. al., 2007).
Group size
Quite a bit of research has focused on the ideal group size (Berry, 2008; An, et.al. 2008, Cann, et. al.; 2006, Caspi, et. al., 2003). The goal is to have a sufficient number of members to encourage ongoing interaction without having so many that individual voices disappear. While there is no “perfect” number, the research appears to have settled on two answers. For general discussions that begin and end with exploration, the recommended group size is 10-15, where members can see a sufficient diversity of views. Smaller groups of 4-6 are recommended for structured group assignments, encouraging higher-order thinking, and problem solving.
To find out which cellular carrier will provide the fastest iPhone 4S service in the U.S., OpenSignalMaps gathered data from 46,600 speed tests from real-world users.
"As you can see in the map above, the iPhone 4S on AT&T will be the speediest in 31 states in the U.S., with Verizon coming in a distant second in 6 states. Sprint didn’t win any states at all."
High School Begins "College Night/Day" Program to encourage students to explore postsecondary opportunities.
"After intense planning New Milford (NJ) HS held its first annual college mini-fair on Thursday, September 15, 2011. The not so mini, mini-fair took place in our main gym with more than 70 colleges from across the country attending.
"All students in the school had the opportunity to visit with college reps, fill out response cards and some students even applied to schools on the spot. The event was a huge success in creating awareness about different types of universities, majors and minors, and reinforcing the fact that there is a college for everyone."
"Debate continues to rage over the effectiveness of technology in learning, and how best to measure it. But it is difficult to tell that from technology companies’ promotional materials."
"School officials, confronted with a morass of complicated and sometimes conflicting research, often buy products based on personal impressions, marketing hype or faith in technology for its own sake."
"Amid a classroom-based software boom estimated at $2.2 billion a year, debate continues to rage over the effectiveness of technology on learning and how best to measure it. But it is hard to tell that from technology companies’ promotional materials.
Many companies ignore well-regarded independent studies that test their products’ effectiveness. Carnegie’s Web site, for example, makes no mention of the 2010 review, by the Education Department’s What Works Clearinghouse, which analyzed 24 studies of Cognitive Tutor’s effectiveness but found that only four of those met high research standards. Some firms misrepresent research by cherry-picking results and promote surveys or limited case studies that lack the scientific rigor required by the clearinghouse and other authorities.
“The advertising from the companies is tremendous oversell compared to what they can actually demonstrate,” said Grover J. Whitehurst, a former director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the federal agency that includes What Works."
Government Official Nixes Research
"Karen Cator, a former Apple executive who directs the Office of Educational Technology at the Department of Education, said the clearinghouse reports on software should be “taken with a grain of salt” because they rely on standardized test scores. Those tests, Ms. Cator said, cannot gauge some skills that technology teaches, like collaboration, multimedia and research.
Ms. Cator’s office is developing a new framework to measure the educational value of technology, but she advised schools and districts not to wait to invest in software like Cognitive Tutor.
“They know what their students need to know and what they need to be able to do,” she said."
Comment: Right or wrong, school officials bought the software to improve student performance, primarily on state assessments. Cator telling school leaders to ignore her own Education Department's research is eye-opening.
The Bottom Line
Officials spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on software "silver bullets" but fail to do two simple things before and after making the purchases:
1. Implement the programs with fidelity. School officials mistakenly wait until state test scores are released to judge the effacacy of a software program. They then wrongly attribute causality to the software.
Most schools and school systems never check to see if the programs are being implemented at all, and very few check on the fidelity of the implementation. Are these programs being implemented by the teachers as designed and are they being consistently used as presrcibed.
2. Check on available research. The What Works Clearinghouse is only a free click away http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/ .
Even "though the clearinghouse is intended to help school leaders choose proven curriculum, a 2010 Government Accountability Office survey of district officials found that 58 percent of them had never heard of What Works, never mind consulted its reviews.
“Decisions are made on marketing, on politics, on personal preference,” said Robert A. Slavin, director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University. “An intelligent, caring principal (or district official) who’d never buy a car without looking at Consumer Reports, when they plunk down serious money to buy a curriculum, they don’t even look at the evidence.”
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