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Tony Richards

The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley - 14 views

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    "What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo
Vicki Davis

Blogger: Cool Cat Teacher Blog - Post a Comment - 0 views

  • I don't feel that any of the names mentioned act or feel like they are better than me and have even included me on many conversations
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This blogger is a good example of someone who has jumped in with all 10 fingers and gotten to know a lot of neat people. As a relative newcomer, loonyhiker knows a lot of people. Newcomers just need to "jump in!"
  • I do love when you say, "if one person reads our blog and get something out of it.. it is important." I try to keep that in mind all the time. Numbers don't matter..people do.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Remembering each reader as an invidual is a vital thing about blogging.
  • Lisa Parisi
  • ...66 more annotations...
  • As far as the ego thing goes who cares. Your blog's this mine is that. Whoopdy do! If you're learning and growing your PLN that is what counts.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I love Charlie's perspective on this.
  • Charlie A. Roy said.
  • I feel similar frustration. If the point is about learning than reading and commenting is a great way to add to our own creative potential.
  • Tennessee
  • Great response to a burning question/statement that most of us (well probably all of us)feel at one time or another.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I find tennessee's comment interesting. What is the "burning" question? Do we matter? Is anyone else really out there? Is Internet realilty -- REAL reality. We are grappling with this and just now realizing that there is an emotional thing going on with it all!
  • Many of the people that I have learned the most from are not the ones involved in the "cocktail party" but rather those in the trenches doing what I love to do each and every day, just like you!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      He has an important point -- if you're only reading the uber-popular bloggers -- you're missing the point of the blogosphere. I make it a point to find some newcomers. To me, it is like a game, I want to find new people doing great things and encourage them like so many greats like David Warlick, Darren Kuropatwa, Ewan McIntosh, and more did for me when I started.
  • agree that developing a readership takes time.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Many educators don't know the number of readers they have b/c they don't use the right tools -- I recommend consolidating to ONE feedburner feed. It just makes sense.
  • Carolyn Foote
  • Scott McLeod
  • Re: the depressing aspects of 'comment intensity,' I actually meant it to be an affirming post rather than a depressing one
  • I think that the comment intensity idea is important in this respect: I often see laments from bloggers that they don't get many comments on their posts. What the table above shows is that even those of us who are fortunate enough to have large readerships often don't get many comments. My personal median over the past 20 posts, even WITH the big spike of 89, is still only 2.5. Ewan, your blog and Vicki Davis' are similar. The point is that many, many posts don't get a lot of comments, even those by the more widely read bloggers.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      It could be encouraging for some -- for me it made me feel like I had another thing to count! Although, I see Scott's point -- his article wasn't written for me!
  • tom said...
  • Thanks for bringing this up. This has been an issue for me personally as well. OK, so nobody's IN, but the (pseudo?) community nature of blogging makes it feel that way.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Tom is right -- we all feel this way! I think the feeling of looking in on the blogosphere is one of feeling "out" looking in -- for all of us!
  • But, like other artists, we have to work a little every day whether we feel like it or not, and whether we get validation that day or not.
  • I think many of us are working at blogging because there's an element of self improvement, which implies self evaluation. Without feedback from others it's easy to be hard on ourselves.
  • Christopher D. Sessums
  • For me, the conversation is hardly closed; it is simply a matter of having something to say, something to share.The emotional commitment is another aspect of the conversation that is easily glossed over.
  • MIke Sansone
  • I've found (both with myself and those educators I've worked with in their blogging starts) that the edublogosphere is open and welcoming -- but as we engage in any cultural group (even offline), patience really is a key.Still, we sometimes measure our success by the interaction from those we look up to (esp. teachers - many of whom were probably the best students in their class, yes?)
  • Sometimes we don't see the comments -- because the talk happens offline.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is a very important point and one to remember -- the "quiet" audience online may be a very vocal audience offline.
  • Britt
  • I get very few comments on my blog but see through the clustermaps that I have readers each and every day, so continue to feel that the blog is benefiting me through reflection and may even be benefiting others as well.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is why having a statcounter or clustrmap is SO very important -- it helps you understand traffic and audience!
  • atruger
  • I NEVER get to share tools I discover because someone ALWAYS beats me to the punch...but I am ok with that.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      But you should share ANYWAY! -- we're not people breaking news -- we're talking about what we USE. So, talk and share!
  • I truly connect with what you write even though I am one of "those" people who reads but rarely comments. YOU do make a difference and so do I!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      These comments mean so much to me!
  • Bego said...
  • the whole cocktail party analogy is just a grown up version of the kickball line-up in elementary school.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I was always picked last there -- whew this analogy hits me close to home. I was always picked last b/c I was the worst. Even the worst kickball player needs to feel encouraged and not destroyed for getting up and kicking the ball. Even the "worst" blogger - if there is such a thing -- needs to feel encouraged sometimes too just for blogging.
  • In the blog world, change is effected by good content, and while good content isn't always noticed at first, it does eventually get a respectable position--sometimes because the cocktail group points them out.
  • How could I think to be in the same boat as John Scalzi who started in 1998 if I've only been blogging since 2007?
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Remember this -- I've been blogging just over 2 years. Strange things can happen -- consistent creation of meaningful content is important.
  • I found your blog, Vicki, because a project you do for Atomic Learning mentioned you, and your name is on the movies they use.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I did the Web 2.0 workshop for atomic learning and many have found my blog -- actually I had to use a source that I had permission to use!!! ;-)
  • jeanette tranberg
  • 2005 - you were the only ones out there to follow
    • Vicki Davis
       
      lol -- I started blogging in December of 2005 and had about 7 followers until mid 2006 -- but there are many who think I've been around forever!
  • Oh yes, I have felt the cocktail chill at times. I'm a norwegian edublogger, that have been following your brunks (blogdrunks) for a while. To start with - in
  • Wes told me once I twittered, that nobody should twitter alone and I could not agree more - so I don't.
  • So, from the outer side looking in: Anybody stopping by in Second Life tonight (which is today for you) for a virtual edu cocktail?I'm aka Kita Coage at Eduisland II, waiting to cocktail connect with you c",)
  • Paul Hamilton
  • For most of us, blogging is very much a personal venture.
  • I suspect that we all have a deep desire to be heard and to be accepted. The longer I'm involved in the edublogosphere, however, the more impressed and encouraged I am by the level of acceptance that there is here. It is a good thing that we don't always agree with each other. Disagreement is often at the heart of constructive conversation
  • At the same time, we are no different than the kids in our classrooms. We educators need to know that we will be accepted, no matter what we have to say and no matter how well we are able to express it. I think we help to make the edublogosphere a "safe place" for each other as we try to keep it positive and as we take advantage of the numerous opportunities to be affirming.
  • Jim Dornberg said.
  • I don't at all feel excluded from the blog "cocktail party", because just like a real cocktail party, I am drawn to the people who have something important, and engaging to say and I am content to listen and learn from them. I have seen a few of the "big names" at conferences, and even met a few of them in person. I have emailed several of them and others, or left an occasional comment, and I have been very pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful responses I have received.
  • I read many blogs, but comment rarely, and I suspect that those who read my blog do the same. So I don't feel at all excluded. I'm just happy to occasionally be part of the conversation.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Many people feel this way -- just happy to be a part of the occasional conversation.
  • Alfred Thompson
  • When I was at EduBloggerCon last spring I felt quite the outsider. There were famous people there and I was unknown. I still feel that way in the broad edublogsphere. But honestly the broad sphere is not who I am blogging for. I blog for a niche - computer science teachers. The event for that niche is SIGCSE and there I (blush) feel a bit like a star. Few of the people there know the edubloggers with much larger readership or Technorati ranks. And really reaching the CS teachers is my goal not reaching everyone who teaches general subjects.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Knowing your audience is very important.
  • There is, I believe, room for more at the top if only because the number of teachers reading blogs is still very small but we all hope it is growing. We are still at the ground floor. That makes edublogging different from tech blogging I think.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Alfred thompson is right on the money!
  • Jason Bengs
  • I think we need to all remember our focus for blogging. Mine is for reflection. I use my blog as a tool to improve my teaching. If others start to read and can learn from it, great. To my knowledge I am the only one seeing my blog right now. Which is fine with me. I don't think blogging should be a popularity contest and having a large number of readers is great, it must mean that you, and others, have something to offer that others want to emulate.
  • prof v said
  • I think you could have added three additional points. First, a suggestion on how to increase readership. I think new bloggers (myself included) are still trying to figure out how to make the connections that allow for conversations within blogs. I go back to your list of 10 tips for successful blogging, and still find things I never noticed before
  • would love to see an updated list that perhaps would include how to make sure your blog is part of an RSS feed and how to set up subscriptions for potential readers to make it easy for them to subscribe to your blog.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      If you go to my blog and search for feedburner -- that is what I use -- I've written several posts on that. I'll have to update the original 10 habits. perhaps I'll do that soon!
  • I think even you have realized that it is more difficult to break into the edublogger field as there is now so many new bloggers (just in the last two years).
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I don't know -- I've seen some newcomers like Darren Draper jump into the blogosphere pretty quickly -- it is about getting involved in the conversation, which is easier now with twitter and webcasts at edtechtalk. Good conversationalists rise to the top.
  • Finally, I am surprised that you did not point out how you have helped new bloggers by both asking for new voices and then publishing them in your own blog. I think this is an indication that you are trying to open up the "party".
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I always let my readers defend me. I'm not perfect, none of us. We also don't have unlimited time... so I have to do the best I can.
  • Dean Shareski
  • Isn't the whole point of web 2.0 is that it exudes democracy and equality? Those that get all concerned about rankings and ratings are, as you've suggested missing the point.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Dean has got it right here.
  • We often quickly want to find ways of ranking. Reminds me of the evils of current assessment practices. We tell kids to do their best and work on improving performance and yet continue to use ranking systems that is clearly a mixed message.
  • Anonymous said.
  • I'm new to this world as of Monday...yes, 4 days of immersing myself in as much ed. tech, web 2.0, online collaboration "stuff" that I can. (thanks to Lisa Thumman at Rutgers U.) Cocktail party or not, your blog and the comments people have left have increased my list of people to follow. Even a discussion about "being on the outside" has led me to the "inside". I'm thrilled to be in the company of such great minds and promise to start contributing once I wrap my brain around it all! Thanks to everyone for sharing! cmtvarok
    • Vicki Davis
       
      A 4 day old newcomer to the edublogosphere comments.. what an amazing linkage of conversation! Wow! Older, newer, very new. Wow!
  • Mrs. V.
  • thanks for coaxing me out of my blogger drought!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      She wrote a great post!
  • Vicki A. Davis
  • I believe that this "post" has been made stronger by the comments, which have added to the post greater depth of meaning.
  • All over this conversation I see the change in society. We are all going through the emotions of becoming accustomed to something new... kind of like I first experienced when the Internet first came out.
  • And while, when I began blogging, I didn't really set my sights or aim for a large readership... now that it is here, I will seriously consider and appreciate each individual reader and take my job seriously
  • @tennessee -- Those in the trenches are my most important reads... I just wish there were more of us. It seems as if many teachers view blogging as a way out of the classroom when they should see it as a way to improve the classroom!
  • @scottmcleod - I believe the comment intensity is highly correlated to controversiality AND immediacy. If a lot of people SAW someone recently, they want to interact and comment (immediacy.) If someone says something very emotional or controversial, people want to comment and interact (controversiality.) While I guess looking at these stats are fine, I've found in my very short time blogging that looking too much at numbers of any kind removes my focus from what is important. When I focus intently on conversation, my blog traffic and numbers just grow. I always say "whatever is watered, grows." If I water my investigation of stats, I become a good statistician... if I water my blog but also commenting and participating in the blogosphere as a WHOLE, I become a good blogger. I'd rather be the latter. And while the post was meant to be encouraging... I have to admit I'm a competitive perfectionist and always have to reign in that aspect of my nature.
  • @christophersessums - I think the emotional nature of something is like the proverbial elephant in the Net -- it is there. It always stuns me the number of people who discuss their feelings on this when it comes up... it means that many of us are experiencing the same thing.
Adrienne Michetti

Why Women Still Can't Have It All - www.theatlantic.com - Readability - 7 views

  • Just about all of the women in that room planned to combine careers and family in some way. But almost all assumed and accepted that they would have to make compromises that the men in their lives were far less likely to have to make.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      and this is what bothers me. SO MUCH.
  • when many members of the younger generation have stopped listening, on the grounds that glibly repeating “you can have it all” is simply airbrushing reality, it is time to talk.
  • I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed.
  • ...67 more annotations...
  • I had the ability to set my own schedule most of the time. I could be with my kids when I needed to be, and still get the work done.
  • the minute I found myself in a job that is typical for the vast majority of working women (and men), working long hours on someone else’s schedule, I could no longer be both the parent and the professional I wanted to be
  • having it all, at least for me, depended almost entirely on what type of job I had.
  • having it all was not possible in many types of jobs, including high government office—at least not for very long.
  • “Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work.”
  • Yet the decision to step down from a position of power—to value family over professional advancement, even for a time—is directly at odds with the prevailing social pressures on career professionals in the United States.
  • “leaving to spend time with your family” is a euphemism for being fired.
  • Think about what this “standard Washington excuse” implies: it is so unthinkable that an official would actually step down to spend time with his or her family that this must be a cover for something else.
  • it cannot change unless top women speak out.
  • Both were very clear that they did not want that life, but could not figure out how to combine professional success and satisfaction with a real commitment to family.
  • many of us are also reinforcing a falsehood: that “having it all” is, more than anything, a function of personal determination.
  • there has been very little honest discussion among women of our age about the real barriers and flaws that still exist in the system despite the opportunities we inherited.
  • But we have choices about the type and tempo of the work we do. We are the women who could be leading, and who should be equally represented in the leadership ranks.
  • women are less happy today than their predecessors were in 1972, both in absolute terms and relative to men.
  • The best hope for improving the lot of all women, and for closing what Wolfers and Stevenson call a “new gender gap”—measured by well-being rather than wages—is to close the leadership gap:
  • Only when women wield power in sufficient numbers will we create a society that genuinely works for all women. That will be a society that works for everyone.
  • We must clear them out of the way to make room for a more honest and productive discussion about real solutions to the problems faced by professional women.
  • These women cannot possibly be the standard against which even very talented professional women should measure themselves. Such a standard sets up most women for a sense of failure
  • A simple measure is how many women in top positions have children compared with their male colleagues.
  • Every male Supreme Court justice has a family. Two of the three female justices are single with no children.
  • women hold fewer than 30 percent of the senior foreign-policy positions in each of these institutions.
  • “You know what would help the vast majority of women with work/family balance? MAKE SCHOOL SCHEDULES MATCH WORK SCHEDULES.” The present system, she noted, is based on a society that no longer exists—one in which farming was a major occupation and stay-at-home moms were the norm. Yet the system hasn’t changed.
  • “Inflexible schedules, unrelenting travel, and constant pressure to be in the office are common features of these jobs.”
  • I would hope to see commencement speeches that finger America’s social and business policies, rather than women’s level of ambition, in explaining the dearth of women at the top. But changing these policies requires much more than speeches. It means fighting the mundane battles—every day, every year—in individual workplaces, in legislatures, and in the media.
  • assumes that most women will feel as comfortable as men do about being away from their children, as long as their partner is home with them. In my experience, that is simply not the case.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This is fascinating. Really. 
  • I do not believe fathers love their children any less than mothers do, but men do seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family, while women seem more likely to choose their family at a cost to their job.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This. This is SO TRUE. I think this is the same.
  • To many men, however, the choice to spend more time with their children, instead of working long hours on issues that affect many lives, seems selfish.
  • It is not clear to me that this ethical framework makes sense for society. Why should we want leaders who fall short on personal responsibilities?
  • Regardless, it is clear which set of choices society values more today. Workers who put their careers first are typically rewarded; workers who choose their families are overlooked, disbelieved, or accused of unprofessionalism.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This disconnect has ALWAYS bothered me. SO MUCH.
  • having a supportive mate may well be a necessary condition if women are to have it all, but it is not sufficient
  • Ultimately, it is society that must change, coming to value choices to put family ahead of work just as much as those to put work ahead of family. If we really valued those choices, we would value the people who make them; if we valued the people who make them, we would do everything possible to hire and retain them; if we did everything possible to allow them to combine work and family equally over time, then the choices would get a lot easier.
  • Given the way our work culture is oriented today, I recommend establishing yourself in your career first but still trying to have kids before you are 35—or else freeze your eggs, whether you are married or not.
  • But the truth is, neither sequence is optimal, and both involve trade-offs that men do not have to make.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      exactly this -- men do not have to make this choice. Thus, it will always be unequal.
  • You should be able to have a family if you want one—however and whenever your life circumstances allow—and still have the career you desire.
  • If more women could strike this balance, more women would reach leadership positions. And if more women were in leadership positions, they could make it easier for more women to stay in the workforce. The rest of this essay details how.
  • I have to admit that my assumption that I would stay late made me much less efficient over the course of the day than I might have been, and certainly less so than some of my colleagues, who managed to get the same amount of work done and go home at a decent hour.
  • Still, armed with e-mail, instant messaging, phones, and videoconferencing technology, we should be able to move to a culture where the office is a base of operations more than the required locus of work.
  • Being able to work from home—in the evening after children are put to bed, or during their sick days or snow days, and at least some of the time on weekends—can be the key, for mothers, to carrying your full load versus letting a team down at crucial moments.
  • Changes in default office rules should not advantage parents over other workers; indeed, done right, they can improve relations among co-workers by raising their awareness of each other’s circumstances and instilling a sense of fairness.
  • The policy was shaped by the belief that giving women “special treatment” can “backfire if the broader norms shaping the behavior of all employees do not change.”
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This is so progressive.
  • Our assumptions are just that: things we believe that are not necessarily so. Yet what we assume has an enormous impact on our perceptions and responses. Fortunately, changing our assumptions is up to us.
  • One of the best ways to move social norms in this direction is to choose and celebrate different role models.
  • If we didn’t start to learn how to integrate our personal, social, and professional lives, we were about five years away from morphing into the angry woman on the other side of a mahogany desk who questions her staff’s work ethic after standard 12-hour workdays, before heading home to eat moo shoo pork in her lonely apartment.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      UGH.
  • Women have contributed to the fetish of the one-dimensional life, albeit by necessity. The pioneer generation of feminists walled off their personal lives from their professional personas to ensure that they could never be discriminated against for a lack of commitment to their work.
  • It seems odd to me to list degrees, awards, positions, and interests and not include the dimension of my life that is most important to me—and takes an enormous amount of my time.
  • when my entire purpose is to make family references routine and normal in professional life.
  • This does not mean that you should insist that your colleagues spend time cooing over pictures of your baby or listening to the prodigious accomplishments of your kindergartner. It does mean that if you are late coming in one week, because it is your turn to drive the kids to school, that you be honest about what you are doing.
  • Seeking out a more balanced life is not a women’s issue; balance would be better for us all.
  • Indeed, the most frequent reaction I get in putting forth these ideas is that when the choice is whether to hire a man who will work whenever and wherever needed, or a woman who needs more flexibility, choosing the man will add more value to the company.
  • In 2011, a study on flexibility in the workplace by Ellen Galinsky, Kelly Sakai, and Tyler Wigton of the Families and Work Institute showed that increased flexibility correlates positively with job engagement, job satisfaction, employee retention, and employee health.
  • Other scholars have concluded that good family policies attract better talent, which in turn raises productivity, but that the policies themselves have no impact on productivity.
  • What is evident, however, is that many firms that recruit and train well-educated professional women are aware that when a woman leaves because of bad work-family balance, they are losing the money and time they invested in her.
  • The answer—already being deployed in different corners of the industry—is a combination of alternative fee structures, virtual firms, women-owned firms, and the outsourcing of discrete legal jobs to other jurisdictions.
  • Women, and Generation X and Y lawyers more generally, are pushing for these changes on the supply side; clients determined to reduce legal fees and increase flexible service are pulling on the demand side. Slowly, change is happening.
  • In trying to address these issues, some firms are finding out that women’s ways of working may just be better ways of working, for employees and clients alike.
  • “We believe that connecting play and imagination may be the single most important step in unleashing the new culture of learning.”
  • “Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will.” Google apparently has taken note.
  • the more often people with different perspectives come together, the more likely creative ideas are to emerge. Giving workers the ability to integrate their non-work lives with their work—whether they spend that time mothering or marathoning—will open the door to a much wider range of influences and ideas.
  • Men have, of course, become much more involved parents over the past couple of decades, and that, too, suggests broad support for big changes in the way we balance work and family.
  • women would do well to frame work-family balance in terms of the broader social and economic issues that affect both women and men.
  • These women are extraordinary role models.
  • Yet I also want a world in which, in Lisa Jackson’s words, “to be a strong woman, you don’t have to give up on the things that define you as a woman.”
  • “Empowering yourself,” Jackson said in her speech at Princeton, “doesn’t have to mean rejecting motherhood, or eliminating the nurturing or feminine aspects of who you are.”
  • But now is the time to revisit the assumption that women must rush to adapt to the “man’s world” that our mothers and mentors warned us about.
  • If women are ever to achieve real equality as leaders, then we have to stop accepting male behavior and male choices as the default and the ideal.
  • We must insist on changing social policies and bending career tracks to accommodate our choices, too. We have the power to do it if we decide to, and we have many men standing beside us.
  • But when we do, we will stop talking about whether women can have it all.
Vicki Davis

UK Team is focusing on online comment defamation - 1 views

  • a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
  • a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
  • a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • a rising problem with people making anonymous statements that defamed companies, and people sharing confidential information online.
  • the new team would ensure there was “nowhere to hide in cyberspace”.
  • a story from six years earlier about United Airlines going bankrupt was voted up on a newspaper website. This was later picked up by Google News and eventually the Bloomberg news wire, which published it automatically as if it were a news story.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Could this be considered the new "insider trading" - hmmm. Surely there are issues if it is done maliciously but isn't there a line here?
  • rogue employees
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Uhm, how about rogue companies?
  • trying to get Internet Service Providers to give out details of customers who had made comments online
  • shares in American firm United Airlines fell by 99 per cent in just 15 minutes after an outdated story that the firm had filed for bankruptcy was forced back onto the headlines.
  • the numbers of disgruntled employees looking to get their own back on employers or former employers was also on the rise.
  • could stifle free speech, and the ability of people to act as whistle-blowers to expose actions by their employers.
  • an outlet for anonymous reporting.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Is it possible to have accountability AND anonymity? Must these be mutually exclusive?
  • This is known as the ‘Streisand effect’ online, after a case where singer Barbara Streisand tried to suppress photos of her California beachside home from a publicly-available archive of photos taken to document coastal erosion.
  • Nightjack. This was the guy who was blogging on the front line about police work and he was forced to stop this story because he was unmasked by The Times
  • If you allow a lot of anonymous debate by people who are not regulated, you can get it descending to the common denominator. If you allow people to register with an identity, even if it’s not their real one, you bring the level of debate up.”
  • There was one case a couple of years ago that we just keep referring back to where a defamatory comment was made and it wasn’t taken down for a period of time. Because of that the host of the website was held to be liable.”
  • the ‘Wild West’ era of the internet was in some ways coming to an end, with firms starting to crack down
  • I think companies are still grappling with whether it’s better to take it on the chin and hope people don’t see the comments, or on the other hand cracking down on everything that’s particularly damaging that’s said online. Maybe this is set to change.”
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    While this article starts out about a lawfirm in Birmingham UK that is going to "track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online" it becomes an amazingly poignant article on the very nature of the Internet today and the push pull between anonymous commenting and accountability of the commenter. Push pull between free speech and online identity and brand protection. One person in this article claims that this sort of thing is the sign that the "wild west" of the INternet is coming to an end. Oh dear, I hope someone invents a new one if somehow anonymous commenters are now going to risk such! Also love the article's discussion of the Streisand effect wherein Barbara protested the sharing of some photos of her eroding beachfront which caused a stir and more people looking at the photos than if she had left it alone. This article is going to be a must read for Flat Classroom students and would be great for college-level discussions as well.
Vicki Davis

Dropbox Blows Up the Box, Connecting Every App, File, and Device | Wired Business | Wir... - 5 views

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    If you're not already using Dropbox - you should. They had a developer conference and will likely end up everywhere in every app. Some very cool things coming. Just like Evernote - who has a powerful "trunk" features where developer work is showcased - Dropbox is going to find that opening up to development opens a whole new marketplace and ingenuity beyond what they have in house.  Some info from the wired article.  "But after all that single-mindedness, Houston and Ferdowsi now want to let their baby sing. Today, at Dropbox's first-ever developers conference, the company is officially launching a new set of coding tools designed to push Dropbox into every corner of your digital life. Not content to stay sequestered inside the box, the company's co-founders are unveiling ways for developers to meld their service with every app on every device you own. For the first five or so years of its existence, Dropbox was synonymous with its "magic folder." Save your files in the Dropbox folder on your computer, and they "magically" reappear in your Dropbox apps on your phone and tablet and in your Dropbox account on the web. Now, if developers take to the company's new tools, the service will escape the confines of this folder, fusing with third-party apps running on practically every computer and smartphone operating system. Houston wants Dropbox to become the "spiritual successor to the hard drive." He says the hard drive needs to be replaced because so many of us are doing so much computing on devices that don't fit the traditional paradigm for working with files. Users don't interact with files on iOS, Android, or the web the way they do on PCs. Apps don't have "open" or "save" options that launch a separate window where you tap through a folder tree."
Vicki Davis

Karooba - Play Trivia - Promote Fun-based Learning - Share Knowledge - Earn Prizes > Home - 0 views

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    Got an email from this group - would love to hear from those who have played Karooba -- here is the information they sent me: "The Karooba site includes the following features: * One the largest collections of education-based (over 100,000) trivia questions * Educational games that allow you to: o Challenge friends around the world in one-on-one trivia games o Join a tournament on education based topics or set up a tournament of friends or classmates o Try your luck in a new Find-it game o Create your own quizzes and see how others score on your test * State-of-the-art avatar tool (Karoobatar) - create your near real life or cartoon characters * A real time communications tool (Karoobacator) - Instant message with your friends without the risk of foul language. Karooba was created and is maintained by a computer consulting firm based in Minnesota. The firm's staff, which is mostly comprised of parents with school-age kids, is very concerned (like most parents are these days) about what their children view on the Internet. With this in mind, Karooba was designed to be a 'safe haven' where kids can go to play online, as well as learn…and more importantly one that parents (and teachers) can trust. "
Vicki Davis

Amazon.com: Customer Discussions: How do I view "real" page numbers on my Kindle books? - 2 views

  •  
    There continues to be a problem that not all books in the Amazon kindle store have real page numbers. If students are expected to cite sources and not allowed to use location numbers, then Amazon can expect the pushback seen on this forum post. Meanwhile, a helpful person on the forum has noted how you can know what to read on the Kindle if your professor or teacher says "read page 80-92" - you can dive into the table of contents on the website and save a copy. This is the only solution. It is time for Amazon to get their act together and have all Kindle ebooks display page numbers if there is a printed copy of the book. If there is not a printed copy of the book, there needs to be a consistent reference point or "page" that all can use for sourcing and citing content. "1. Look up the book in the in the Amazon Kindle store (where you purchased it). 2. Click on the book where it says "Look Inside." You want to look at the table of contents, which will have the pages numbers for each chapter. 3. It defaults to the "kindle edition," which does not have the page numbers in the table of contents. However, there is a tab above that says "Print Book." Click on that. 4. Once you're on the "Print Book" display, it shows the page numbers in the TOC. By doing the above, I was able to determine that "the first 26 pages" = Chapters 1 & 2. I used Evernote to take a screen capture of the entire TOC, which I'll refer back to."
Vicki Davis

Call for Artwork :: Mission 10,000 Rockets - 3 views

  • Every invention starts from a simple drawing on a paper. To celebrate the DigitalGlobe™ satellite launch that will capture high-resolution pictures for Bing™ Maps, we want to borrow kids' imaginations to create the rocket of tomorrow.
  • Of the first 10,000 drawings submitted, every school that submits at least 20 drawings will be entered into a drawing to win a $5,000 donation from Bing™ and a portion of the book proceeds.
  •  
    ! Of the first 10,000 drawings submitted, every school that submits at least 20 drawings will be entered into a drawing to win a $5,000 donation from Bing™ and a portion of the book proceeds. We understand this is quite a tight deadline. To help you out, we are going to provide you with some educational materials. The first 500 teachers to fill out an information request form on Artsonia will get a poster for the classroom, along with a satellite and rocket fact sheet and some fun rocket trading cards. You may also download pdf printable versions of the educational materials. In addition, students can watch the Delta II rocket launch video on www.10000rockets.com. Then, in early November, Bing™ will have a panel of scientists talking about rockets and you can use that for further inspiration in the classroom. As the students are learning about rockets, we want to get 10,000 of them to draw the rocket of tomorrow. Drawings can be uploaded on Artsonia from 10/8/09-11/25/09. We will do a few things with the drawings: * The first 10,000 drawings will be published in your Artsonia school gallery and showcased on a dedicated gallery website, www.10000rockets.com. * Schools who submit at least 20 drawings will be entered into a drawing to win* one of eight $5,000 donations. * Each drawing will be judged by a panel of Microsoft employees in conjunction with scientists. The judges will select one from each grade group (K-5, 6-8, 9-12) that inspires them and turn these student drawings into 3-D models to honor their invention. * The first 10,000 qualified drawings will be placed into a commemorative book and sold on 10000rockets.com. Proceeds from the book will be donated to 8 of the schools who have students featured in the book, chosen at random.
Vicki Davis

Edutech Musings: A New Years Rant - 4 views

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    As some friends and I have been talking on my Facebook fanpage about how much grading and planning we're doing over Winter break, Chris Fancher shared his wish for teachers on the page which relates. While I don't agree that kids are "{products" I do know that I have to spend quite a bit of extra time to have any hope of considering myself a good teacher. It is a thought provoking read challenging us to be more. WE're all getting so much out of Twitter (many of us are) and the off-time things we're doing and sharing, so you might want to think about it and read his post. Chris says: "My wish for 2013 is that the 2 or 3 teachers who read this go out and find someone on their campus who they can get together with outside of "normal" hours.  Then these same teachers need to get on twitter and find a group of teachers who is on twitter at times they are on and are willing to interact and help with plans and ideas.  Then these same teachers need to pick one day a week when they can devote to a twitter chat and start being an active participant. My wish is that every student has a teacher who is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they are receiving the best education available. "
Vicki Davis

Future of Education - Charting the Course of Education and Learning in a Networked World - 0 views

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    From Steve Hargadon: "I've started a new community at http://www.FutureofEducation.com to providing an opportunity for those who care about education to share their voices and ideas on charting the course of education in a networked world. It's a place for thoughtful discussion on an incredibly important topic. The site will launch officially at the end of the month with the start of a weekly interview series, but I'm inviting some participation now because of an email Carol Broos (http://www.classroom20.com/profile/beatechie) sent out. Carol is one of twelve teachers who have been invited to participate in a round table discussion concerning the direction of education the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Jan 21. She was sent the following questions, and is asking for feedback and ideas. You can respond either at the new http://www.FutureofEducation.com site or her wiki at http://education20.pbwiki.com/FrontPage. Here are the questions: 1. What is the one most important education issue you wish Secretary Duncan to focus on during his tenure and why? 2. How shall the tenets of the No Child Left Behind act be altered or invigorated? What are its positives? How can its negatives be improved? 3. How should the new administration respond to the nation's need for better prepared and more qualified teachers? 4.What should the new administration do to increase student engagement in mathematics, the sciences and the arts? 5. How should funding equity issues be addressed? There is also a discussion topic on what questions were not asked that might have been." This seems to be a great thing!
Vicki Davis

Ed Tech Trek: I'm beaming! - 0 views

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    This is the best example of how professional development works.
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    I love this post. This is how Web 2.0 spreads. I want to quote from the author: "Then I showed him wikispaces and the lightbulb went off. In a voice full of what I can only describe as awe, he said, and I'm paraphrasing him, "This could change the way we teach." (Cue the heavenly music). While I was showing him each tool, we discussed how he could integrate it into his teaching practices. I know I probably overwhelmed him, but he's excited and energetic. He left with a brand new Google account and having created his classroom wiki. That and he's vowed to share what he's learned with his fellow teachers. Here's hoping this goes viral - if at least a little." I love it. It is the one on one time and the lights go off. This is how it works best. we need to have more one on one time planned in order to promote change. People want the attention -- no one likes to feel like an underappreciated cog in an overworked machine.
Vicki Davis

Constructing Modern Knowledge 2009 - 0 views

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    Great post by Ben Grey on his participation in Constructing Modern knowledge - he hits several things including the fact that many at the conference said that computer programming should be mandatory for all students and a presenter who said that the problem with today is that too many people have a voice. My comments from Ben's blog are below. Great conversations happening here! Programming - OK, on the programming thing, here are my thoughts. In our curriculum our objective is not as much a specific LANGUAGE. One year I may use HTML with Javascript, this past year I used LSL - what I want kids to know that when they encounter programming and coding that there are certain conventions. Some are case sensitive, some are not. How do you find out how to add to what you know about programming? Do you know where to go to find prewritten code? Can you hack it to make it work to do what you want it to do? We spend about a week - two weeks but I require they know how to handcode hyperlinks and images - they are just too important. But to take 12 weeks or 6 weeks to learn a whole language - yes maybe some value - but to me the value is HOW is the language constructed or built. What are the conventions and how do I educate myself if I am interested in pursuing. What comes out of this time is kids who say either "I never want to do that" or "this is really cool, I love coding." They are doing very simplistic work (although the LSL object languages were pretty advanced) but since we don't have a full course nor time in our curriculum, I do see this as an essential part of what I teach. I'm not teaching it for the language sake but for the sake of understanding the whole body of how languages work - we talk about the different languages and what they are used for as part of Intro to Computer science and have an immersive experience. To me, this is somewhat a comprimise between leaving it out entirely or forcing everyone to take 12 weeks of it. I
yc c

Eyejot - the easiest way to send video - 12 views

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    service iframe your video on top of a webpage - eg: to comment a webpage\n\nBenefits of Sending Branded Video E-mails:\nProfessional Looking: once you've subscribed and saved the Eyejot This! Bookmarklet onto your toolbar, shooting and sending a branded video email is easy. In fact, the whole process takes less than a few minutes (depending on the length of your message of course).Easier to Create than Written E-mail: In most cases, recorded a video email is easier than typing out a full on email. Why? Because on video, you're conversational and spoken word comes out more naturally. It's a great way to get face-to-face with clients (at least virtually) and works well with both existing clients and clients that you're trying to court.Great Way to Capture Attention and Have Site Visitors Spend More Time On-Site: my favorite part about Eyejot is the ability to share a webpage with someone while branding it with your email message. It's a great way of sharing relevant information with a personalized touch. Sharing a particular blog post, listing or teaching someone how to navigate/use the IDX on your blogsite increases the chances of someone spending more time on your site.
Jason Heiser

Copy / Paste by Peter Pappas: The Reflective Principal: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part IV) - 8 views

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    The Reflective Principal: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part IV) Reflection can be a challenging endeavor. It's not something that's fostered in school - typically someone else tells you how you're doing! Principals (and instructional leaders) are often so caught up in the meeting the demands of the day, that they rarely have the luxury to muse on how things went. Self-assessment is clouded by the need to meet competing demands from multiple stakeholders. In an effort to help schools become more reflective learning environments, I've developed this "Taxonomy of Reflection" - modeled on Bloom's approach. It's posted in four installments: 1. A Taxonomy of Reflection 2. The Reflective Student 3. The Reflective Teacher 4. The Reflective Principal It's very much a work in progress, and I invite your comments and suggestions. I'm especially interested in whether you think the parallel construction to Bloom holds up through each of the three examples - student, teacher, and principal. I think we have something to learn from each perspective. 4. The Reflective Principal Each level of reflection is structured to parallel Bloom's taxonomy. (See installment 1 for more on the model) Assume that a principal (or instructional leader) looked back on an initiative (or program, decision, project, etc) they have just implemented. What sample questions might they ask themselves as they move from lower to higher order reflection? (Note: I'm not suggesting that all questions are asked after every initiative - feel free to pick a few that work for you.) Bloom's Remembering : What did I do? Principal Reflection: What role did I play in implementing this program? What role did others play? What steps did I take? Is the program now operational and being implemented? Was it completed on time? Are assessment measures in place? Bloom's Understanding: What was
Ed Webb

Many Complaints of Faculty Bias Stem From Students' Poor Communicating, Study Finds - F... - 4 views

  • some perceptions of classroom bias would decline, and students would benefit more from exposure to opposing viewpoints, if colleges did more to teach argumentation and debate skills. Teaching undergraduates such skills "can help them deal with ideological questions in the classroom and elsewhere in a civil way, and in a way that can discriminate between when professors are expressing a bias and when they are expressing a perspective that they may, or may not, actually be advocating,"
  • The study's findings, however, were criticized as ideologically biased themselves by Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, a group that has frequently accused colleges of liberal or leftist indoctrination. The article summarizing the study, Mr. Wood said on Friday, "seems to me to have a flavor of 'blaming the victim,'" and appears "intended to marginalize the complaints of students who have encountered bias in the classroom."
  • Students need to learn how to argue as a workplace skill. If they understood this as a key workplace strategy that will affect their ability to advance they may be more willing to pay attention. They are there-- regardless of what we may believe-- to get jobs at the end. Discussion and dealing with disputes or differences is key to professional advancement
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • It's one thing to be closed to students' arguments or to insist on conformity with a prof's views.  It is another altogether when students do not know how to argue their own points, especially points that are not political.  At some point, isn't it the case that the prof does know even a little bit more about their subjects than their students?
  • Several studies (post 1998) seem to indicate that the capacity to understand and engage in logical argumentation has diminished (at least in the 'Western' world). These studies seem to have encouraged the state education boards (committees) of several states to entertain making a "critical thinking" or "Introductory logic" course part of the required core.
  • I have found Susan Wolcott's teaching materials, which are informed by research by K.S. Kitchener and P. M. King, to be the most helpful in addressing student accusations of bias.  I had long been puzzled by why my colleagues in philosophy are so often accused of bias when, in my own observation of their teaching, they take care to keep their own views of a philosophical topic hidden from students.  Indeed, they spend a great deal of time playing devil's advocate and championing the philosophical position that is getting the least airtime in class discussion, readily switching sides if another perspective begins to be neglected.  Wolcott's developmental analysis, which explains how students arrive at college as "confused fact finders" and often get stuck in learning critical thinking skills at the "biased jumper" stage, helps me to understand how students attribute bias to professors when the students lack skills to maneuver around arguments.  The most helpful part of Wolcott's analysis is her suggestion that, if one gives students an assignment that is more than one level above their current abilities in critical thinking, they will completely ignore the assignment task.  This failing is particularly visible when students are asked to compare strengths/weaknesses in two arguments but instead write essays in which they juxtrapose two arguments and ignore the task of forging comparisons.  In Wolcott's workbooks (available by request on her website), she describes assignments that are specifically designed to help students build a scaffolding for critical thinking so that, over four years, they can actually leave the "biased jumper" stage and move on to more advanced levels of critical thinking.  One need not be a slavish adherent to the developmental theory behind Wolcott's work to find her practical suggestions extremely helpful in the classroom.   Her chart on stages of critical thinking is the first link below; her website is the second link.   http://www.wolcottlynch.com/Do... http://www.wolcottlynch.com/Ed...
  • The classroom and campus are not divorced from the polarized language in the greater society wherein people are entrenched in their own views and arguments become heated, hateful, and accusatory.  The focus of this study on political bias is not helpful under the circumstances.  The greater argument is that students need to be taught how to argue effectively, with facts, logic and reasoning not just in the classroom but beyond.
  • What happened to the 'Sage on the Stage' as the 'provacatuer-in-chief'?  Some of my best classroom experiences came from faculty that prompted critical thinking and discussion by speaking from all sides of an issue.  They were sufficiently informed to deflate weak arguments from students with probing questions.  They also defended an issue from every side with factual information.  In the best instances, I truly did not know the personal position of a faculty member.  It was more important to them to fully and fairly cover an issue than it was to espouse a personal preference.  That spoke volumes to me about the love of learning, critical examination of strongly held personal beliefs, and assertive but fair-minded discourse.  Do those faculty still exist?
  • The study suggests that those faculty do exist and in fact are numerous, but that students' ever-diminishing skills in critical thinking and argumentation lead them to misunderstand the questioning, challenging Socratic dialogue and "devil's advocate" work of the professor as simple bias. 
  • When I was teaching controversial subjects the advice from the Administration was, "Teach the debate."  Its pretty hard to "teach the debate" without actually having some of those debates.  When students "checked out" during those debates I always wondered if they were the ones who were going to report on their teaching evaluations that, "the professor was biased."  Of course when the student intellectually "checks out," i.e., remains quiet, only says what they think I want to hear, etc., they are not doing A work in the class.  This reinforces their view that "the professor is biased."
David Warlick

Idaho Teachers Fight a Reliance on Computers - NYTimes.com - 8 views

  • The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.
    • David Warlick
       
      I'm not sure what this means, "High-tech Vangard," though I guess I understand why a state would want to make up a term like this and use it to label what they are trying to do.  
  • To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators.
    • David Warlick
       
      To me, the salient question is, "Are teachers and administrators less important than technology?"  If they're not, then you find some other way to pay for the tech.
  • And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.
    • David Warlick
       
      OK, several comments here. 1. I have no problem with "less a lecturer."  However, I do not advocate the elimination of lecture.  It is one of many methods for teacher and learning. 2. The implication of the last part of the sentence is that the computer is becoming the/a teacher, delivering instruction.  I do not agree with this characterization of technology.  It is a tool for helping students learn, not for teaching them (with some exceptions).  It extends the learners access to knowledge and skills...
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  • And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.
    • David Warlick
       
      My question here is, "Why are the requiring online classes?"  If it is part of the "high-tech vangard" thing, then I don't really understand.  If it is because they believe that it is more effective for learning, well, that's a complex issue that depends on so many things that have NOTHING to do with the state's legislature.  If it is because students will be taking online courses in their future, and then need to learn to take online courses while in high school, then I can support that.  I do not believe that it is appropriate to compare online courses to face-to-face courses.  Fact is, sometime online is the only way you can access the knowledge/skills that you need.  We need to be comfortable with that.  But it has little to do with technology.  It's learning!
  • improve student learning.
    • David Warlick
       
      This is a phrase that irks me.  I think that we should be using contemporary information and communication technologies for teaching and learning, because our prevailing information environment is networked, digital, and info-abundant.  We should be using tech to make learning more relevant to our time...
  • “I fought for my country,” she said. “Now I’m fighting for my kids.” Gov. C. L. Otter, known as Butch, and Tom Luna, the schools superintendent, who have championed the plan, said teachers had been misled by their union into believing the changes were a step toward replacing them with computers. Mr. Luna said the teachers’ anger was intensified by other legislation, also passed last spring, that eliminated protections for teachers with seniority and replaced it with a pay-for-performance system. Some teachers have also expressed concern that teaching positions could be eliminated and their raises reduced to help offset the cost of the technology. Mr. Luna acknowledged that many teachers in the state were conservative Republicans like him — making Idaho’s politics less black and white than in states like Wisconsin and New Jersey, where union-backed teachers have been at odds with politicians.
  • The teacher does become the guide and the coach and the educator in the room helping students to move at their own pace.
    • David Warlick
       
      This is so far off the mark that I do not know where to begin.  OK, here's what I would say.  "Our children live in a time of rapid change.  Therefore, they must become resourceful and relentless learners.  Being a teacher in such classrooms requires an expanding array of skills and activities, among them, being resourceful and relentless learners in front of their students -- adapting to today's prevailing information environment and the information and communication technologies that work it."  Probably need to find a simpler way to express this.
  • The plan requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits
    • David Warlick
       
      Again, why?
  • Mr. Luna said this would allow students to take subjects that were not otherwise available at their schools and familiarize them with learning online, something he said was increasingly common in college
    • David Warlick
       
      I agree with this.  It's a good reason to require Online courses, to learn to take them, and to be expected to take some course that is so esoteric that it's not offered locally.
  • becomes the textbook for every class, the research device, the advanced math calculator, the word processor and the portal to a world of information.
    • David Warlick
       
      I am not in disagreement with this statement.  I'd be no less disagreeable with omission to textbook.
  • Teachers are resisting, saying that they prefer to employ technology as it suits their own teaching methods and styles. Some feel they are judged on how much they make use of technology, regardless of whether it improves learning. Some teachers in the Los Angeles public schools, for example, complain that the form that supervisors use to evaluate teachers has a check box on whether they use technology, suggesting that they must use it for its own sake.
    • David Warlick
       
      We get so hung up on "technology."  It's the information that's changed.  There should be a check box that says, in what ways is the lesson including networked, digital, and abundant information?
  • That is a concern shared by Ms. Rosenbaum, who teaches at Post Falls High School in this town in northern Idaho, near Coeur d’Alene. Rather than relying on technology, she seeks to engage students with questions — the Socratic method — as she did recently as she was taking her sophomore English class through “The Book Thief,” a novel about a family in Germany that hides a Jewish girl during World War II.
    • David Warlick
       
      This is a wonderful method for teaching and timeless.  However, if the students are also backchanneling the conversation, then more of them are participating, sharing, agreeing and disagreeing, and the conversation has to potential to extend beyond the sounding of the bell.  I'm not saying, this is a way of integrating technology, I'm saying that networked collaboration is a relevant way for students to be learning and will continue to learn after school is over.
  • Her room mostly lacks high-tech amenities. Homework assignments are handwritten on whiteboards. Students write journal entries in spiral notebooks. On the walls are two American flags and posters paying tribute to the Marines, and on the ceiling a panel painted by a student thanks Ms. Rosenbaum for her service
    • David Warlick
       
      When I read this, I see a relic of classrooms of the past, that is ignoring today's prevailing information landscape.
  • Ms. Rosenbaum did use a computer and projector to show a YouTube video of the devastation caused by bombing in World War II. She said that while technology had a role to play, her method of teaching was timeless. “I’m teaching them to think deeply, to think. A computer can’t do that.”
    • David Warlick
       
      Yes, she's helping them to think deeply, but how much more deeply would the be thinking if she asked her students to work in teams and find videos on YouTube that portray some aspect of the book, critique and defend their selections.
  • She is taking some classes online as she works toward her master’s degree, and said they left her uninspired and less informed than in-person classes.
    • David Warlick
       
      Again, it is not useful to compare online course to f2f.  They're different, and people need to learn to work within them.
  • The group will also organize training for teachers. Ms. Cook said she did worry about how teachers would be trained when some already work long hours and take second jobs to make ends meet
    • David Warlick
       
      I look forward to learning how they will accomplish this.
  • For his part, Governor Otter said that putting technology into students’ hands was the only way to prepare them for the work force. Giving them easy access to a wealth of facts and resources online allows them to develop critical thinking skills, he said, which is what employers want the most.
    • David Warlick
       
      It disturbs me that policies may be coming out of an environment where the conversation probably has to be factored down to such simplistic statements.  Education is complex, it's personal, and it is critical -- and it's not just about what employers want!
  • “There may be a lot of misinformation,” he said, “but that information, whether right or wrong, will generate critical thinking for them as they find the truth.”
    • David Warlick
       
      Bingo!
  • If she only has an abacus in her classroom, she’s missing the boat.
    • David Warlick
       
      And doing a disservice to Idaho's children!
  • Last year at Post Falls High School, 600 students — about half of the school — staged a lunchtime walkout to protest the new rules. Some carried signs that read: “We need teachers, not computers.” Having a new laptop “is not my favorite idea,” said Sam Hunts, a sophomore in Ms. Rosenbaum’s English class who has a blond mohawk. “I’d rather learn from a teacher.”
    • David Warlick
       
      What can't we get past "Us vs Them."  Because it gets people elected.
Vicki Davis

Global education survey puts Shanghai on top - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

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    Remember one thing as you look at these scores - not all students are tested in many countries and in many countries only the brightest go to school. In my opinion, these tests have some serious flaws. For example, I don't play cricket - my scores would be low -- I don't know that I'm so upset about that. While math, science, and reading are important -- standards vary greatly between countries -- so unless we're going to prep for PISA scores. Also on another note -- comparing "Shanghai to nations makes me wonder - I'm sure there are certain cities in the US that would do very well on such a test. Anyway, I want to look deeper, but I think before we rattle cages and get too upset, the report should be looked at deeply but not only the report - but the test. I remember getting upset that my kindergartener scored in the 60th percentile on "environment" only to see that he missed that a judge was supposed to be a guy in a grey wig (who does that) and couldn't identify a subway turnstile (we live in a town of 5,000). Since that time, I always want to see the test. Lots of people will be talking about this so look at it and be prepared to answer questions. This is the post from Aljazeera so you can see what other countries are saying about the report. "Asian countries have topped the rnakings in a global education report which evaluates the knowledge and skills of 15 and 16-year-olds around the world. The report by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), published on Tuesday, shows that children from Asian nations continue to outshine their western counterparts in maths, science and reading. The city of Shanghai topped the table in the three-yearly reported which tested more than 510,000 students in 65 countries. Children in Shanghai were, on average, the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling ahead of the majority of nations tested."
Anne Bubnic

Play It Safe: Hackers use the back door to get into your computer; a strong, well-chose... - 0 views

  • For the home user, however, password safety requires more than on-the-fly thinking. Pacheco suggests a system built around a main word for all instances. The distinction is that the name of the site is added somewhere. For example, if the main word is "eggplant," the password might be "eggyyplant" Yahoo, "eggplantgg" for Google or "wleggplant" for Windows Live. He suggests listing the variations in an Excel spreadsheet.
  • Password security is a big deal, and if you don't think it is, then someone might be hacking into your computer even as you read this. A strong password isn't foolproof, but it proves that you're no fool. And it might protect you from compromised data, a broken computer or identity theft. Your bank account, your personal e-mails and lots of other stuff are at risk with weak passwords.
  • "A good password is the most important part of Internet security," said Robert Pacheco, the owner of Computer Techs of San Antonio. "It's the beginning and end of the issue. You can't stop it (hacking). You do what you can do to prevent it. You just try to stop most of it." A strong firewall, as well as spyware -- and virus-detection software -- protect a computer's so-called "back door," Pacheco said, where a hacker can gain access through various cyber threats. Those threats include infected e-mail attachments; phishing Web pages that exploit browser flaws; downloaded songs or pictures with hidden trojans; or plain ol' poking-and-prodding of a computer's shields. But passwords protect information from a frontal assault by way of the computer's keyboard.
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  • Other people use easy-to-remember passwords. Trouble is, Rogers said, they're easy-to-guess passwords, too. Good examples of bad passwords are your name, your family's names, your pet's name, the name of your favorite team, your favorite athlete or your favorite anything. Get to know the person -- a technique that geeks refer to as "social engineering" -- and the password is easy to guess. There are message-board stalkers who can guess passwords in a half-dozen tries. Hackers rely on a lot of methods. Some, Rogers said, employ "shoulder surfing." That means what it sounds like -- looking over someone's shoulder as that person is typing in a password.
  • Other people use easy-to-remember passwords. Trouble is, Rogers said, they're easy-to-guess passwords, too. Good examples of bad passwords are your name, your family's names, your pet's name, the name of your favorite team, your favorite athlete or your favorite anything
  • The type of hardware being used can be a clue, said Rogers, a senior technical staffer in the CERT Program, a Web security research center in Carnegie-Mellon University's software engineering institute. It's easy to find a default password, typically in the user's manual on a manufacturer's Web site. If the user hasn't changed the default, that's an easy break-in.
  • Hackers rely on a lot of methods. Some, Rogers said, employ "shoulder surfing." That means what it sounds like -- looking over someone's shoulder as that person is typing in a password
  • Most of the password hacking activity these days goes on at homes, in school or in public settings. These days, many workplaces mandate how a password is picked.
  • The idea is to choose a password that contains at least one uppercase letter, one numeral and at least eight total characters. Symbols are good to throw in the mix, too. Many companies also require that passwords be changed regularly and that pieces of older ones can't be re-used for months. And user names cannot be part of the password. Examples: Eggplant99, 99eggpLanT, --eggp--99Lant. For the next quarter, the password might change to variations on "strawberry.
  • The idea is to choose a password that contains at least one uppercase letter, one numeral and at least eight total characters. Symbols are good to throw in the mix, too. Many companies also require that passwords be changed regularly and that pieces of older ones can't be re-used for months. And user names cannot be part of the password. Examples: Eggplant99, 99eggpLanT, --eggp--99Lant. For the next quarter, the password might change to variations on "strawberry."
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    Password security is a big deal, and if you don't think it is, then someone might be hacking into your computer even as you read this. A strong password isn't foolproof, but it proves that you're no fool. And it might protect you from compromised data, a broken computer or identity theft. Your bank account, your personal e-mails and lots of other stuff are at risk with weak passwords.
Vicki Davis

Learning independence with Google Search features | Official Google Blog - 1 views

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    Very proud of my dear friend Cheryl Oakes from Maine who is on the Official Google blog with her work with those with disabilities. Cheryl is an amazing woman who loves children. My youngest son has met her only once (in San Antonio at ISTE) and still calls her Aunt Cheryl. She has that effect on people. Great post. "One teacher who has taken advantage of the web as an educational tool is Cheryl Oakes, a resource room teacher in Wells, Maine. She's also been able to tailor the vast resources available on the web to each student's ability. This approach has proven invaluable for Cheryl's students, in particular 16-year-old Morgan, whose learning disability makes it daunting to sort through search results to find those webpages that she can comfortably read. Cheryl taught Morgan how to use the Search by Reading Level feature on Google Search, which enables Morgan to focus only on those results that are most understandable to her. To address the difficulty Morgan faces with typing, Cheryl introduced her to Voice Search, so Morgan can speak her queries into the computer. Morgan is succeeding in high school, and just registered to take her first college course this summer."
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