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Lisa C. Hurst

Inside the School Silicon Valley Thinks Will Save Education | WIRED - 10 views

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    "AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat
Tara Heath

Know Your Rights | Students' Rights | American Civil Liberties Union - 3 views

  • Do I have First Amendment rights in school? You have the right to speak out, hand out flyers and petitions, and wear expressive clothing in school — as long as you don’t disrupt the functioning of the school or violate school policies that don’t hinge on the message expressed. What counts as “disruptive” will vary by context, but a school disagreeing with your position or thinking your speech is controversial or in “bad taste” is not enough to qualify. Courts have upheld students’ rights to wear things like an anti-war armband, an armband opposing the right to get an abortion, and a shirt supporting the LGBTQ community. Schools can have rules that have nothing to do with the message expressed, like dress codes. So, for example, a school can prohibit you from wearing hats — because that rule is not based on what the hats say — but it can’t prohibit you from wearing only pink pussycat hats or pro-NRA hats. Outside of school, you enjoy essentially the same rights to protest and speak out as anyone else. This means you’re likely to be most protected if you organize, protest, and advocate for your views off campus and outside of school hours. You have the right to speak your mind on social media, and your school cannot punish you for content you post off campus and outside of school hours that does not relate to school.
  • Can my school tell me what I can and cannot wear based on my gender? Public schools can have dress codes, but under federal law dress codes can’t treat students differently based on their gender, force students to conform to sex stereotypes, or censor particular viewpoints. Schools can’t create a dress code based on the stereotype that only girls can wear some types of clothes and only boys can wear other types of clothes. For example, your school can require that skirts must be a certain length, but it cannot require that some students wear skirts and prohibit others from doing so based on the students’ sex or gender expression. That also applies to pants, ties, or any other clothing associated with traditional gender roles. Dress codes also must be enforced equally. For example, rules against “revealing” clothing, such as bans on tank tops or leggings, shouldn’t be enforced only or disproportionately against girls. All students should be allowed to wear clothing consistent with their gender identity and expression, whether they identify as transgender or cisgender. This also applies to homecoming, prom, graduation, and other special school events. Schools shouldn’t require different types of clothing for special events based on students’ sex or gender identity — for example, requiring tuxedos for boys and prom dresses for girls.
  • Can my school discipline me for participating in a walkout? Because the law in most places requires students to go to school, schools can discipline you for missing class. But schools cannot discipline you more harshly because of the message or the political nature of your action. The punishment you could face will vary by your state, school district, and school. If you’re planning to miss a class or two, look up the policy for unexcused absences for your school and school district. If you’re considering missing several days, read about truancy. Also take a look at the policy for suspensions. If you are facing a suspension of 10 days or more, you have a right to a formal process and can be represented by a lawyer. Some states and school districts require a formal process for fewer days. You should be given the same right to make up work just as any other student who missed classes.
Katie Akers

COPPA and Schools: The (Other) Federal Student Privacy Law, Explained - Education Week - 4 views

  • In a nutshell, COPPA requires operators of commercial websites, online services, and mobile apps to notify parents and obtain their consent before collecting any personal information on children under the age of 13. The aim is to give parents more control over what information is collected from their children online.
  • This law directly regulates companies, not schools. But as the digital revolution has moved into the classroom, schools have increasingly been put in the middle of the relationship between vendors and parents.
  • In some cases, companies may try to shift some of the burden of COPPA compliance away from themselves and onto schools
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • “That is not without risk, and COPPA has a whole lot of gray area that gives school attorneys pause.”
  • Less clear, though, is whether COPPA covers information such as IP (internet protocol) address, device identification number, the type of browser being used, or other so-called metadata that can often be used to identify users.
  • some school lawyers have taken the FTC’s previous guidance to mean that their districts must get consent from every single parent, for every single product that collects information online from young children.
  • First, according to the FTC, schools can grant consent on behalf of parents only when the operator of the website, online service, or app in question is providing a service that is “solely for the benefit of students and the school system” and is specific to “the educational context.”
  • How are schools supposed to determine if a website or app is strictly educational?
  • will any information collected from children under 13 be used or shared for commercial purposes unrelated to education? Are schools allowed to review the information collected on students? Can schools request that student info be deleted? If the answers to that second group of questions are, respectively, yes, no, or no, schools are not allowed to grant consent on behalf of parents, according to the FTC.
  • Many vendors also allow third-party trackers (usually related to analytics or advertising) to be embedded into their sites and services.
  • How do schools notify parents and get their consent under COPPA?
  • Often through an Acceptable Use Policy or similar document that is sent home to parents at the beginning of the school year, said Fitzgerald of Common Sense Media.
  • Even better, Fitzgerald said, is when schools provide a detailed list of exactly what websites/online services/apps students will be using, and what the information practices of each are.
  • some privacy experts say that a one-time, blanket sign-off at the beginning of the school year may not be considered valid notification and consent under COPPA, especially if it doesn’t list the specific online services that children will be using.
  • responsibility for deciding “whether a particular site’s or service’s information practices are appropriate” not be delegated to teachers.
  • Many districts do in fact have that kind of review-and-approval process.
  • One is “click-wrap agreements.” Often, these are the kinds of agreements that almost all of us are guilty of just clicking through without actually reading
  • Herold, Benjamin. (2017, July 28). The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Education Week. Retrieved Month Day, Year from http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/childrens-online-privacy-protection-act-coppa/
Adrienne Michetti

Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places" - 52 views

    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This is, I think, why I'm more keen on today's social networks than I am on games -- games do not provide deep emotional support.
  • "bowling alone" hypothesis (Putnam, 2000), which suggests that media are displacing crucial civic and social institutions
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      Putnam - need to check this article. Interesting; not sure I agree.
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  • According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
  • The evidence to date is mixed
  • A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      SO True
  • It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
  • combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
  • By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
  • loosely structured by open-ended narratives
  • They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
  • from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
  • the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
  • the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      Love this quote.
  • demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
  • first project was a traditional effects study
  • second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
  • ethnography
  • sociocultural perspective
  • as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
  • a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
  • brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
  • the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
  • In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
  • virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
  • in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
  • eight defining characteristics of third places
  • there is no default obligation
  • To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
  • the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
  • Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
  • Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
  • the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
  • an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
  • appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
  • conversation plays an analogous role
  • "In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
  • third places must also be easy to access
  • such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
  • accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
  • barriers to initial access.
  • "What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
  • "It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
  • affective sense
  • As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
  • engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
  • Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
  • In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
  • Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
  • Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
  • The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
  • the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
  • Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
  • create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
  • Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
  • Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
  • Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
  • operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
  • bridging social capital is inclusive.
  • This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
  • On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
  • bonding social capital is exclusive.
  • social superglue.
  • it can also result in insularity.
  • shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
  • Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
  • One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
  • While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
  • Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
  • It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
  • It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
  • In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
  • However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
  • Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
  • Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
  • Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
  • is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
  • In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
  • Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
  • it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.
Peter Beens

Education Week Teacher: Teaching Secrets: Communicating With Parents - 1 views

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    Teaching Secrets: Communicating With Parents By Gail Tillery Premium article access courtesy of TeacherMagazine.org. You will face many challenging tasks as a new teacher. Dealing with parents is probably among the most intimidating, especially if you are young and in your first career. While communicating with parents can be tricky, a little preparation will help you to treat parents as partners and to be calmer when problems arise. Here's the first rule to live by: Your students' parents are not your enemies. Ultimately, they want the same thing you want, which is the best for their children. By maintaining respectful and productive communication, you can work together to help students succeed. Second, whenever problems arise, remember that parents are probably just as nervous about contacting you as you are about returning the contact-and maybe more so. I'll confess: Even after 26 years of teaching, I still get a little frisson of fear in my belly when I see an e-mail or hear a voicemail from a parent. But I have seen time and again that parents are often more nervous than the teacher is-especially if their child doesn't want them to contact the teacher. Indeed, some parents may even fear that if they raise concerns, their child will face some kind of retaliation. Remember that parents' tones or words may reflect such fears. In your response, try to establish that everyone involved wants to help the child. Here are some practical tips for communicating effectively with parents: Contact every parent at the beginning of the year. Do some "recon." Telephone calls are best for this initial contact, since they are more personal than e-mail. Ask the parent to tell you about his or her child's strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, etc. Make sure to ask, "What is the best thing I can do to help your child succeed?" Remember to take notes! Once you've gathered the information you need, set a boundary with parents by saying, "Well, Ms. Smith, I have 25 more parent
Tony Baldasaro

Virtual kids: Actually they're real, but they go to school online - Kansas City Star - 16 views

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    "Eleventh-grader Philip Marten's second-hour class is orchestra. But first hour, third hour, fourth hour and the rest of his school day are spent not at school but at home in Shawnee. Philip may look like any other high school kid, but in fact he's a "virtual" student. For him and others enrolled in virtual schools online, getting an education involves no bells, no lockers, no school plays, no marching band, no snow days and no cafeteria food."
Christopher Lee

Why I Like Prezi - 0 views

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    Why I Like Prezi In my life, I have given a *lot* of presentations. In high school, they were presentations on group projects. In university, they were presentations on research projects. At Google, they're presentations on how to use our APIs. When I first started giving presentations, I used Powerpoint, like everyone else. But I kept thinking there must be a better way, and I experimented with other options - flash interfaces, interactive Javascript apps. Then I discovered Prezi, and it has become my presentation tool of choice. Prezi is an online tool for creating presentations - but it's not just a Powerpoint clone, like the Zoho or Google offering. When you first create a Prezi, you're greeted with a blank canvas and a small toolbox. You can write text, insert images, and draw arrows. You can draw frames (visible or hidden) around bits of content, and then you can define a path from one frame to the next frame. That path is your presentation. It's like being able to draw your thoughts on a whiteboard, and then instructing a camera where to go and what to zoom into. It's a simple idea, but I love it. Here's why: It forces me to "shape" my presentation. A slide deck is always linear in form, with no obvious structure of ideas inside of it. Each of my Prezis has a structure, and each structure is different. The structure is visual, but it supports a conceptual structure. One structure might be 3 main ideas, with rows of ideas for each one. Another might be 1 main idea, with a circular branching of subideas. Having a structure helps me to have more of a point to my presentations, and to realize the core ideas of them. It makes it easy to go from brainstorming stage to presentation stage, all in the same tool. I can write a bunch of thoughts, insert some images, and easily move them around, cluster them, re-order them, etc. I can figure out the structure of my presentation by looking at what I have laid out, and seeing how they fit together. Some people do this
Tony Baldasaro

Weblogg-ed » "What Did You Create Today?" - 1 views

  • What did you make today that was meaningful? What did you learn about the world? Who are you working with? What surprised you? What did your teachers make with you? What did you teach others? What unanswered questions are you struggling with? How did you change the world in some small (or big) way? What’s something your teachers learned today? What did you share with the world? What do you want to know more about? What did you love about today? What made you laugh?
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    In a couple of weeks, both Tess and Tucker will be starting their first day at brand new schools. They'll know no one, have all new teachers, new surroundings, and, hopefully, new opportunities. I'm not sure they're totally at peace with these changes, but as I keep telling them, it's the kind of stuff that builds character. (I keep regaling them with school switching stories of my own, the most challenging being when my mom moved us out to New Jersey from Chicago when I was beginning 6th grade and three days before school started I was wading barefoot in a creek, stepped on a broken bottle, and ended up with 10 stitches in the bottom of my foot and a pair of crutches for the first week of classes. Talk about character building.) Wendy and I have been trying to prepare them for this shift as best we can, and while I know it's a bit scary for them, I'm really hopeful the change will be good for them on a lot of different levels.
Randolph Hollingsworth

Ariz State Univ - Service Learning syllabus (USL410 Indep Placement) - 7 views

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    COURSE OBJECTIVES: This is a graded internship that allows you to integrate your own coursework with a hands-on service learning experience. The central objective of this course is to provide students with community experiences and reflection opportunities that examine community needs, the importance of civic engagement, and social justice issues affecting ethnic minorities and marginalized populations in contemporary American society. Students dedicate 70 hours at a pre-approved site (including Title I K-12 schools, youth programs, health services, social services, environmental programs, government agencies, etc.) directly serving a population in need or supporting activities that contribute to the greater good of our community. A weekly seminar, course readings, discussions, and reflection assignments facilitate critical thinking and a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, citizenship, and how to contribute to positive social change in our community. The course is also designed to provide "real-world" experiences that exercise academic skills and knowledge applicable to each student‟s program of study and career exploration. STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Student will be introduced to essential skills associated with their baccalaureate studies to actively serve the local community. While completing this in-depth study of cultural diversity, citizenship and social justice issues facing our community, students will gain an understanding of the value of Social Embeddedness and the importance of incorporating civic engagement into their collegiate careers, as they strive to become civically engaged students. Students will be introduced to inequalities, discrimination, and other community issues facing ethnic minorities and marginalized populations, as well as the correlation with greater societal issues. INTERNSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES:  Service hours - 70 hours of community outreach (spread throughout the semester in which you are enrolled in the course)
Randolph Hollingsworth

ASU - Service Learning USL210 - 5 views

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    COURSE OBJECTIVES: This is a graded internship that allows you to integrate your own coursework with a hands-on service learning experience. The central objective of this course is to provide students with community experiences and reflection opportunities that examine community needs, the importance of civic engagement, and social justice issues affecting ethnic minorities and marginalized populations in contemporary American society. Students dedicate 70 hours at a pre-approved site (including Title I K-12 schools, youth programs, health services, social services, environmental programs, government agencies, etc.) directly serving a population in need or supporting activities that contribute to the greater good of our community. A weekly seminar, course readings, discussions, and reflection assignments facilitate critical thinking and a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, citizenship, and how to contribute to positive social change in our community. The course is also designed to provide "real-world" experiences that exercise academic skills and knowledge applicable to each student‟s program of study and career exploration. STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Student will be introduced to essential skills associated with their baccalaureate studies to actively serve the local community. While completing this in-depth study of cultural diversity, citizenship and social justice issues facing our community, students will gain an understanding of the value of Social Embeddedness and the importance of incorporating civic engagement into their collegiate careers, as they strive to become civically engaged students. Students will be introduced to inequalities, discrimination, and other community issues facing ethnic minorities and marginalized populations, as well as the correlation with greater societal issues. INTERNSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES:  Service hours - 70 hours of community outreach (spread throughout the semester in which you are enrolled in the course)
tthomasuscu

Gun Culture Is My Culture. And I Fear for What It Has Become. - The New York Times - 15 views

    • tthomasuscu
       
      Very clear imagery. He opens the essay with his personal anecdote to set the scene for this discussion. It also lets the reader know right away that he is a gun owner.
  • What I was doing was perfectly legal. In North Carolina, long-gun transfers by private sellers require no background checks.
    • tthomasuscu
       
      Should this be changed to prevent criminals from buying guns from private sellers? How is something this dangerous allowed to take place?
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  • so long as the buyer has a purchase permit or a concealed-carry license.
  • I felt uneasy
  • He liked the rifle. I needed the cash. We shook hands, and off we went.
  • There is rarely a moment when I’m not within reach of a firearm.
  • We don’t touch the guns or draw them from their holsters. They are unseen and unspoken of, but always there.
  • Rarely do we mention what we carry
  • I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew the rules: Always assume a firearm is loaded. Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. Know your target and what’s beyond it.
  • Guns were often a bridge between father and son.
  • or my family, guns had always been a means of putting food on the table. My father never owned a handgun. He kept nothing for home defense.
  • had a gun put to my head
  • I can remember that
  • steel
  • I can remember
  • In the end, what happened was swept under the rug. My parents said the school was probably trying to keep the story off the news.
  • surrounded myself with the people I did as a form of protection.
  • I dropped to the ground as gunfire rang from a car at a bonfire party.
  • I pushed friends behind the brick foundation of a house as a shootout erupted over pills. There were times when someone could have easily been shot and killed.
  • his service weapon pushed into the base of my skull.
  • I stood there trembling while they apologized.
  • Jackson County
  • I found a community that reminded me of my grandmother, where folks still kept big gardens and canned the vegetables they grew. They still filled the freezer with meat taken by rod and rifle — trout and turkey, dove and rabbit, deer, bear, anything in season.
  • hared passion for wilderness and time spent in the field with gun in hand.
  • Those types of things are rare now, even in places like Appalachia.
  • A few weeks later, the boy took that .30-30 lever action into the field and killed his first deer with it — the same as his uncle, his grandfather and great-grandfather.
  • centuries of experience gathered around the campfire each night
  • the .308 blew apart the morning.
  • There is a sadness that only hunters know, a moment when lament overshadows any desire for celebration
  • Life is sustained by death
  • the killing is not easy, nor should it be.
  • would feed me for a year
  • I asked if there was anything I could’ve done differently to make him more comfortable when he first approached the truck.
  • He smiled and told me: “But this is South Carolina. Most every car I pull over has a gun.”
  • As I headed toward the mountains, all I could think about was Philando Castile,
  • situation was re
  • All I could think about was how things might have been different if the
  • versed and that young black state trooper with braces had been behind the wheel, a white trooper cautiously approaching the car.
  • It was impossible not to recognize how gun culture reeks of privilege.
  • Ruger 10/22s and Marlin Model 60s, the .22LRs
    • tthomasuscu
       
      This guy knows his guns. Even though his essay doesn't cite research, you can see his ethos through his personal experience and his use of precise jargon.
  • There were always guns, but nothing like the assault weapons that line the shelves today.
  • firearms whose sole purpose would be to take human life if I were left with no other choice.
  • I’ve witnessed how quickly a moment can turn to a matter of life and death. I live in a region where 911 calls might not bring blue lights for an hour. Whether it’s preparation or paranoia, I plan for worst-case scenarios and trust no one but myself for my survival.
  • they joke about the minute hand of the doomsday clock inching closer to midnight.
  • as they wait for the end of the world.
  • they own them because they’re fun at the range and affordable to shoot. They use the rifles for punching paper, a few for shooting coyotes. E
  • step as close to Title II of the federal Gun Control Act as legally possible without the red tape and paperwork. They fire bullets into Tannerite targets that blow pumpkins into the sky.
  • None of them see a connection between the weapons they own and the shootings at Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Aurora, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland. They see mug shots of James Holmes, Omar Mateen, Stephen Paddock, Nikolas Cruz — “crazier than a shithouse rat,” they say. “If it hadn’t been that rifle, he’d have done it with something else.”
    • tthomasuscu
       
      Where is the fault in this logic? It just doesn't add up.
  • They fear that what starts as an assault-weapons ban will snowball into an attack on everything in the safe.
  • I understand what’s at stake
  • I think about that boy picking up that AR in Cabela’s, and I’m torn between the culture I grew up with and how that culture has devolved.
  • changes I know must come, changes to what types of firearms line the shelves and to the background checks and ownership requirements needed to carry one out the door.
  • an unrelenting fear of what could be lost
  • a subsistence culture already threatened by the loss of public land, rising costs and a widening rural-urban divide; the right of individuals to protect their own lives and the lives of their families.
  • He cut a look in my direction as if I’d absolutely lost my mind.
  • I’d be fine with an assault-weapons ban
  • question is irrelevant, that the reason doesn’t supersede the right.
  • Despite everything we have in common, despite the fact that he’s my best friend and we were going squirrel hunting in a few days, the two of us fundamentally disagree
  • As sad as it is to say, the silence is easier
  • there were kids on the television in the background, high school survivors who were willing to say what we are not, and I was ashamed.
  • ne of those pretty, late-winter days with bluebird skies when the trees are still naked on the mountains and you can see every shadow and contour of the landscape.
  • The muzzle was pointed in our direction. Ashley was terrified.
  • The truth is, there are guns I feel justified in owning and guns I feel belong on battlefields.
  • I know that part of what they’re missing or refusing to acknowledge is how fear ushered in this shift in gun culture over the past two decades.
  • Fear is the factor no one wants to address — fear of criminals, fear of terrorists, fear of the government’s turning tyrannical and, perhaps more than anything else, fear of one another.
  • I recognize this, because I recognize my own and I recognize that despite all I know and believe I can’t seem to overcome it.
  • I don’t buy into that only-way-to-stop-a-bad-guy-with-a-gun-is-a-good-guy-with-a-gun bravado.
  • I have no visions of being a hero. Instead, I find myself looking for where I’d run, asking myself what I would get behind. The gun is the last resort. It’s the final option when all else is exhausted.
  • we walked, I could feel the pistol holstered on my side, the weight of my gun tugging at my belt. The fear was lessened by knowing that there was a round chambered, that all it would take is the downward push of a safety and the short pull of a trigger for that bullet to breathe. I felt safer knowing that gun was there.
    • tthomasuscu
       
      How does fear drive so many of us to distrust and hate our fellow Americans? How does the Gun Lobby and the NRA use this fear to their advantage? What role does fear play in racial prejudice? How do we combat and address this fear?
Brianna Crowley

Education Week: It's Time for a New Kind of High School - 29 views

  • We need to tear apart the school day, the high school timetable, the school year, the four-year diploma. We need to rethink credit- and diploma-awarding authority, which need not be the sole purview of the high school.
  •  
    Food for thought on Educational Reform, however, not a great amount of practical first steps. Similarly, I am skeptical of some of the suggestions that private industry can do education better than public-provided. 
  •  
    I am currently in private education, although I have taught in both. I believe that the school I am at is highly effective in their schooling, but could benefit from these reforms. That being said, I am not sold on the idea that private is better than public, especially as a universal idea ( ie All private education is better than public education). On th other hand I do see it being easier for private education to take on some of these challenges for reform.
Marti Pike

Teachers: Five Ways to Ease Back into School | Edutopia - 49 views

  • planning to see kids on my first day or two back to school
    • Marti Pike
       
      Find a techy way to arrange this for my 5th grade teachers missing their students now in Middle School.
    • Marti Pike
       
      Perhaps a lunchtime Skype!
  • If you know that on that first day you will return to your classroom you'll have a friend to help and talk with it'll be much easier.
    • Marti Pike
       
      For the kids too.  See if parents can let you know who they are then make arrangements for them to pass notes in the halls and meet at lunch. 
  • fun back-to-school tasks
    • Marti Pike
       
      Rebuild my webpage.  Create my first 3 Committee webpages so I'll feel like I'm ahead. Watch video clips and TedEd flip them. Marti Pike less than a minute ago Print, read, and mark up interesting articles that might be used in class or committees.  
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Our mindset is the key to how we experience our reality. If we can help our minds land on thoughts that are energizing, empowering, and affirming then we'll experience our return to school in an easier way.
    • Marti Pike
       
      See also Carol Dweck's Mindset.  
  • The key is learning to shift these stories into interpretations that offer possibilities and empowerment
  • a rut story. A different interpretation could be
    • Marti Pike
       
      This committee they've made me chair might turn out to be a powerful Think Tank on issuses that are important to me. I'm looking carefully for applications. 
  • Our thoughts create our realities
    • Marti Pike
       
      "Nothing is but what thinking makes it so."  Shakespear
  • rejuvenated
    • Marti Pike
       
      I spent time at the Family History Center. 
  • no more than three hours a day of work.
    • Marti Pike
       
      It felt that way because I did the things I enjoyed about my job...and a few "must dos."
anonymous

Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com - 70 views

  • When it comes to showing results, he said, “We better put up or shut up.”
  • Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.
  • how the district was innovating.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • district was innovating
  • there is no good way to quantify those achievements — putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again
  • “We’ve jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we’re doing. This might just be the new bandwagon,” he said. “I hope not.”
  • $46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.
  • If we know something works
  • it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training
  • The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.
  • Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.
    • anonymous
       
      yep - so where does leadership come in?
  • “It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”
  • “Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”
  • that computers can distract and not instruct.
  • “They’re inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it,”
  • The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered “True,” 70 percent “False,” and 6 percent didn’t know.
  • rofessor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.
  • engagement is a “fluffy
  • term” that can slide past critical analysis.
  • creating an impetus to rethink education entirely
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Like teaching powerpoint is "rethinking education". Right.
  • guide on the side.
  • Professor Cuban at Stanford
  • But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint
  • “There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page,” she said. “It’s intimate.”
  • Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.
  • This is big business.
  • “Do we really need technology to learn?” she said. “It’s a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot.”
  •  
    Shallow (still important) analysis of the major issues regarding technology integration in schools.
Carol Ansel

The Daring Librarian: Wikipedia is not wicked! - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post - 70 views

  • Teaching Wikipedia in 5 Easy Steps: *Use it as background information *Use it for technology terms *Use it for current pop cultural literacy *Use it for the Keywords *Use it for the REFERENCES at the bottom of the page!
  • 4 ways to use Wikipedia (hint: never cite it) Teachers: Please stop prohibiting the use of Wikipedia 20 Little Known Ways to Use Wikipedia Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica Schiff, Stacy. “Know it all: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?” The New Yorker, February 26, 2006 And: Yes students, there’s a world beyond Wikipedia **Several years ago, Nature magazine did a comparison of material available on Wikipedia and Brittanica and concluded that Brittanica was somewhat, but not overwhelmingly, more accurate than Wikipedia. Brittanica lodged a complaint, and here, you can see what it complained about as well as Nature’s response. Nature compared articles from both organizations on various topics and sent them to experts to review. Per article, the averages were: 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 for Wikipedia. -0- Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet. And for admissions advice, college news and links to campus papers, please check out our Higher Education page. Bookmark it! var entrycat = ' ' By Valerie Strauss  |  05:00 AM ET, 09/07/2011 .connect_widget .connect_widget_text .connect_widget_connected_text a {display:block;} #center {overflow:visible;} /*.override-width iframe {width:274px !important;}*/ Tumblr Reddit Stumbleupon Digg Delicious LinkedIn http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html#_=1315504289567&count=horizontal&counturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fblogs%2Fanswer-sheet%2Fpost%2F
  •  
    Excellent perspective on "The 'W' Word" - use it wisely for what it is - high school and college kids shouldn't be citing any general knowledge encyclopedias for serious research - but that doesn't mean there aren't some excellent uses for it.
Roland Gesthuizen

The bell has rung for Denmark's 'model' teaching system | Nicola Witcombe | Comment is ... - 43 views

  •  
    "A four-week lockout of teachers from schools in Denmark has come to an end. In central Copenhagen, where I live, my daughter and her classmates gleefully cycled to school on their first day back. The month-long closure has led to schools being valued even more highly by the more than 556,000 pupils and about 50,000 teachers who were affected. "
Michele Brown

Stephen R. Covey: Our Children and the Crisis in Education - 61 views

  • Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves -- who can take initiative and be the solution to problems. They need people who can build trust and get along with others, and solve complex challenges in teams without much supervision.
  • "Partnerships between schools and parents in educating the whole child, which includes developing both the character strength and the competencies required to really succeed in the 21st Century."
  • A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Seven Habits of Highly Effective People -- a set of universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society, organization, or family. I take no credit for these principles. I simply organized, sequenced and articulated them. These principles include 1) taking personal responsibility and initiative, 2) getting clear about what's important to you and setting goals, 3) putting those priorities first and being disciplined, 4) seeking mutual benefit in all interactions with others -- the golden rule, 5) seeking to understand others from their perspective first before making your point, 6) valuing differences and creating third-alternative solutions to problems that are better than "my way" or "your way," and 7) taking care of and renewing yourself in all four areas of life -- body, mind, heart and spirit.
  • The approach is inside-out, with the teachers and administrators learning, living and modeling the principles themselves first, and then, at the most basic level, integrating the principles into their teaching every day. There is no new curriculum. The principles of effectiveness are creatively woven by teachers into every subject -- reading, math, history, science, social studies, art, etc. From the moment they walk into the school each day until the final bell rings, the children soak in their adult leaders' belief that they are leaders of their own lives, have unique talents, and can make a difference.
  • We don't define leadership as becoming the CEO or the few percent who will end up in big leadership positions. We are talking about leading your own life, being a leader among your friends, being a leader in your own family. Leadership, as one school put it, is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
  • The world has moved into one of the most profound eras of change in human history.
Garth Holman

Garth Holman & Mike Pennington        Two middle school teachers        Imple... - 63 views

  • Garth, Steph and I are currently listening to Alan November speak at a technology conference at Bowling Green State University.  He started with a question: "what is the most important skill we should be teaching students?".  Alan then said thathat the president of HSBC, West Point University and a college professor all said that it should be EMPATHY.  Interesting talk Mr. November is giving about all the ways we, as teachers, should be using technology, but he is very pessimistic about teachers changing, giving students more control and bringing social networking into the classroom.  Great talking points, lots to think about.  More from the road as it occurs.
  • I read Harry Wong's First Days of School years ago.  I bought in to his ideas on teaching rules and procedures for the first days of school.  However, doing that on the first day of school made me just like everyone else.  That is not me, I am not everyone else.  I stand at the door and greet my students.  At th
Nigel Coutts

Starting the year on the right foot - The Learner's Way - 8 views

  •  
    Across Australia students are returning to school. Armed with fresh stationery, new books full of promise, shoes that are not yet comfortable and uniforms washed and ready to go, students will be heading off for the first day of a new year. What do they hope to find and how might we make sure their first day back sets them up for a successful year of learning?
Martin Burrett

26 First World War Lesson Ideas For Schools - 14 views

  •  
    "At the time of publication, it was leading up to 100 years since the cessation of fighting at the end of the First World War. The destruction of life, lands and families finally ceased for a couple of decades and bringing to mind the conflict of modern-day young generations is still important as lessons can be learned from those tragic battles."
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