HGSET561

Very few virtual schools have worked with students this young, so there are interesting questions about jumping from no virtual schooling all the way to this model.

There is a really fascinating and controversial policy story behind this. Through "legislative sausage-making" the states first virtual school is being run by a single district out in Western Mass., mostly as a result of the entrepreneurial spirit of the superintendent. There are big questions about what will happen as students across the state sign up for the virtual school and their districts are required to pay tuition to Greenfield. And Greenfield isn't really providing a school, they are just enrolling students to be taught by a for-profit company, K-12. There are quite a few very interesting policy issues that would be worth digging into as the state launches this new venture in an unusual way.

When I first read the article, I immediately thought "an idealist gone rogue." I wondered if there was even any research/method behind this decision, and you mentioned there is a fee. Did I understand correctly that the school district will have to pay this fee for the student like some sort of voucher? If I get a chance I'm going to look for more articles out there on this project. Thanks for mentioning it, Justin. Interesting, indeed.

The first (or at least most comprehensive!) 3D visualization of this kind of surgical procedure; arguably these kinds of animations are superior to 2D animations for showing anatomy. Next step for education: interactive surgical media?

These kind of videos would be helpful for medical students to watch in their surgery clerkship before observing a particular surgery, especially since anatomy curriculum has been shortened and cut throughout national medical school programs.

$330 million given to 44 states to design new computer-based assessments that will "measure higher-order skills...including students' ability to read complex texts, synthesize information and do research projects."

Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and tongue to cancer, so he cannot talk or eat. Nevertheless, he has managed to have hope and publish a cookbook!

How technology affects language and writing differently  in logographic languages

More adults text that teenagers

I was always wondering where the ole A4 came from...

Does this type of 3-D aid learning? And what type of research evidence is needed to establish this

Internet is certaily playing an incredibly important role in our daily life, no matter in the United States, or China.

This is a hot topic in China last year that all computers, especially those for young kids, should be installed a filter to block unhealth contents. However, the policy turns out to be ineffective at all. At least from what I know, no one around me has actually installed the software to "protect" themselves.

Worried about security, India threatens to ban messaging services

Articles like that make me glad I live in the USA ... but, then again, "they" are probably monitoring all our messaging. In any case, the article was interesting to me in that it shows, once again, how companies who want to play world wide need to build in more capabilities to their product in order to accommodate government ordinances.

What happens to your teen avatar when the plug is pulled on your virtual world?

That looks like a tragedy that's rooted in bad software architecture - having the Teen software be so different from the main Second Life software that it now has to be shut down ... tsk tsk. I hope Linden Labs has learned from this. It was really interesting to learn how this has been used in education (with specifics about hurdles the teachers had to jump to get it into the curriculum).

The quality of the graphics on this mobile phone game struck me; definitely very engaging and holds promise for educational apps?

This article illustrates 10 reasons why students fail at getting their Ph.D. Now I have a little more understanding of why it takes a long time!

A history and forecast of the internet