Jaxonenglish

In 2004, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was past in the United States, ensuring states and public agencies give disabled children ages three to twenty-one the "early intervention" they deserve.

This article spoke about how scholars believe that children who are read to by their family members will most likely have better literacy practices. They have greater tendencies to try and read without any formal instruction compared to those who wait for instruction. They believe that the "comfortable atmosphere" of their own hom and the soothing voice of their mother (or in some cases their father, grandma...etc) generates as reading being something calm rather than a task. Children get to learn about all new things and can be explained to in a way that they can understand. Their parents are able to speak to them in a language easyly understood by their children and be able to meet their unique needs. The connection between real life situations and that of a storybook are made which makes it more simple for a child to understand and actually be able to personally relate to.

Standardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole. (Of course, on "The Late, Late Show," no one ever insists that the monster is really doing us a favor by making its victims more "accountable.") But let's put aside metaphors and even opinions for a moment so that we can review some indisputable facts on the subject.

"Reading is the most important academic skill and the foundation for all academic learning. If our children cannot read, they are on the road to academic failure. Teaching children to read must be our highest priority." The Orton-Gillingham method is language-based and success-oriented. The student is directly taught reading, handwriting, and written expression as one logical body of knowledge. Learners move step by step from simple to more complex material in a sequential, logical manner that enables students to master important literacy skills. This comprehensive approach to reading instruction benefits all students.

This article covers video game use in the classroom and the advantages to introducing students to video games.

This article on the CARLA website is about where to find the results of a 1994 questionnaire that was mailed to 140 immersion schools in the U.S. to collect information about the language immersion program, language use, the big picture, developing curriculum, learning in non-school environments, and expressing cognitive operations through the language of immersion.

Annotation #3 This is about using modern games to teach concepts.

Annotation #2 This video was on a school that made video games at part of the school for those students who are struggling to stay focused. Students are able to do work from computer games made by the schools.

Social media should play a role in eliminating the problem of cyber bullying. Popular sites such as Facebook and MySpace have a big influence on teens and should be the ones promoting solutions to this issue. These social networks should create stricter penalties against digital bullies.

In this article, distance learning is viewed as a great way to reach adult learners and give students flexibility never before experienced with traditional learning. The main focus though is the obstacles and barriers present in this new method of higher education. Galusha names five areas of concern for student learning, responsibilities of faculty members for facilitating this new method, and possible organizational and course complications. Along with these are explanations of the motivations certain students and teachers have towards taking on distance education, and what institutions can do to provide the most successful online education experience for students.

This article is about video games and the beneficial aspects of video games as teaching implements. This article also addresses the criticisms of video games as teaching implements (will kids become more violent/will kids get less school work done).

In the article teacher Janice L. Rozich talks about an internet treasure hunt she made for her students to learn about Japan.

In this peer-revised journal, the authors give an evaluation and analysis of integrating more technology into classrooms across America. Not only do they bring in material that deals with success stories of some school districts with computer technology but they also look at more in depth matters like the teachers' uses of these new technologies. They give evidence to show how significant of an impact technology has on education as well as why some teachers are frustrated at the idea of more technology.

The Future of Thinking, Cathy Davidson argues our world is no longer taking learning seriously. Teachers are teaching so that students are passing tests. She argues the No Child Left behind Act leaves old forms of learning behind. How is it improving the way children are learning if the focus of learning is changing?

In Rethinking Education in The Age of Technology - The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson jump straight into questioning whether schools are using new technologies to their advantage.

ImprovEverywhere is a group who conduct a lot of flash mobs all over the US. In this particular video that is on youtube.com. They gathered 207 people in New York's Grand Central Station to do a huge flash mob. They choose and exact second in which they would all stop randomly in whatever position they were in and would stay there till the specified time. They were just randomly everywhere and doing normal everyday things, but all did like they agreed to and stopped. People were just so surprised. They didn't understand what was happening and why all these people just stopped. Some people were convinced they were protesting something or trying to get across a message.

The article offers viewpoints of why individuals use select networking sites.It focuses on the importance of pictures and how that affects who interacts with whom. It also notes how MySpace became dead, and how Twitter is so vastly different from Facebook.

This article offers some research that was done on how many relationships are person can have at one time regardless of how many facebook friends you have. It states your "friends" on facebook are more of contacts.

In the article Lift the Cell Phone Ban, by David Rapp, the ongoing concerns of cell phones in the classroom is discussed. David Rapp first discussed concerns of North American schools and how cell phones are becoming distracting. Rapp then brought the idea of using these devices in the classroom. He states how many countries like Asia and the United Kingdom already use cell phones in the classroom a great amount of the time. David Rapp discusses an experiment that happened in Canada where the use of cell phones in the classroom worked and helped. The teacher was able to use video recordings on the cell phones to monitor small group discussions and get work turned in more efficiently.

The study "Teacher Concerns During Initial Implementation of a One-to-One Initiative as the Middle School Level" by Loretta Donovan, Kendall Hartley, and Neal Strudler tells of how every student having their own laptop to use is becoming more and more common in schools today. This is often a challenge for many teachers. Donovan et al conducted this study to "examine one-to-one computing access in the middle school settings from the perspective of those being asked to change," (263) which most of the time is teachers.