Jaxonenglish

This article shows us what this new thing "race to the top" is all about. In this article you will read about how much money the government is putting into this program for "incentive" to help schools be reformed and gain better test scores. It is a great article to read to get you started on knowing what is race to the top, but it makes you also question, why are we spending all this money just to make test scores higher? is the problem deeper than this? This is what i will be looking more into and hopefully getting some answer to post of here relating to this topic.

In this video Yi talks about the increase usage of google and how it has improve over the years and had been made easier for everyone to use. But he states a problem about how frequently everyone uses it without evaluating to see if the informations are actually accurate.

written by Terry Miller just recently this past August. The first part of the article talks about how well students performed on the test and the huge improvement they are making over the years. The results of the test rose at least eight percent over this last year. California's top executive educator, California State Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell, visited Cleveland Elementary School in northwest Pasadena. O'Connell said, "The growth in achievement is evident among every subgroup of students. However, we must continue to pay close attention to the achievement gap that shows students of color and poverty are trailing behind their peers. He is concern for those students of the lower class and those of the African American race. O'Connell is trying to figure out a way to help this proficiency and narrow this academic chasm.

The Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative of the Lynch School of Education at Boston College did a study based on the "Use, Support and Effect of Instructional Technology" otherwise known as USEIT, in 55 classrooms in nine Massachusetts school districts. They were trying to research if student usage of technology would affect their tests scores on standardized tests.

In the article "Debate: Not Child Left Behind" put together by "Debatepedia" the pros and cons of standardized testing resulting from the 'No Child Left Behind' Act are discussed.

In "The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption" by various authors, the authors discuss that 21 states are reviewing the textbooks usage in schools.

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.

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.

I found a short outline from presentation slides on The National Writing Project and it talks about the importance of using participatory media in schools. It has a lot of information about what teachers can do with the media along with some positive input from teachers themselves. It gives a few standards that need to be met by the teachers and then the response they are getting from incorporating those results.

This whole websites contains great articles on how boys are in literacy and the dynamis they have with or without literacy!! Very interesting website that deals with linguistic, literacy, writting and electronic literacy!

It talks about how our generation is different and why teachers need to change. It also discus ways to use video games in school to help students learn.

"A novel public school in New York City has taken the video game as its model for how to teach. Students use video games and design them as part of their classes. As Quest to Learn is wrapping up its first year, those behind the program say game-based learning is integral to 21st century literacy" The article took James Gee's idea and really wanted to make a school that bases its learning through video game. It talks about the idea and the system that they created and the article also addresses the issues of the pressure to meet the marks they want to show success.

Using digital technology to help kids with physical disabilities develop social skills.

This article was based on the study of people addiction to technology. It talked about how people walk around on their cells phone and ignore the real world, as well as psychiatrists studying the habits on people and technology. The article also talked about how technology is ruining the relationship between people, because it is taking away the intimacy between the people.

In the online article that I read it gave the definition of what a flash mob is and then it went on to explain the origins of flash mobs. The first flash mob in 2003 was suppose to poke fun at society and conformity and in doing it started a new way to conform without appearing to conform. The article then lists different countries flash mobs and the largest one that I could find was an international pillow fight.

The article I chose talks about how our learning strategies developed, and how there was more of a need for "hands on" learning. It goes on to say how one of the first objects that were used for more visual learning was the chalkboard; the chalkboard was one of the only technological advancements in classrooms for over 100 years. Because our technology has advanced so much in the last decade, things like Ipods and mobile phones are now being useful tools in the learning process also.

In "Classroom Technology and Teacher-Student Interaction" by Geneva Logic, they discuss how teachers can use the system called Vision on computers within the classroom and it will benefit the interaction of teachers and students. For in the article, it points out how the "ratio to public school students to instructional computers with internet access had shrunk to 3.8 to 1 in 2005" (14 percent improvement in availability over 2003). Today, in the year 2010 less than 10 percent of students do not have access to a computer. However, researchers have found it is the teachers who are intimidated by bringing in technology within the classroom. Researchers stated that "technology brings about changes in classroom organization and the role the teacher plays; providing teachers with the tools they need to negotiate these changes is crucial to their success". (Muir-Herzic, 2004) This shows that if we were to provide teachers with these tools then teachers would see how technology within the classroom "leads to qualitative and quantitative improvements in teacher-student interaction.

In "Learning Through Play" by Bob Mackey, Mackey argues that video games have been in classrooms for years but have never been used to their full capacity. In this article he explores ways in which video games made for fun (not for educational purposes) can be applied in the classroom.

The article was about a study done by an Irish doctor that noticed that children would do better in math and reading if they made the same movemnts they made while they were in the womb.Children who were having issues in learning and understanding subjects in school were now doing much better after attending several Primary Movement classes. This article is very much related to the subject for my research memo in that I want to investigate about the impacts that children have while they are in the womb and whether children who are read to have a later advantage in their reading, writing and math skills while they grow up opposed to those who arent.

In an article co-authored by Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff, distance learning is viewed as a revolution in education where if you do not adapt, you will become extinct. Universities nationwide must substitute "face-to-face interaction and teacher-centered pedagogy" with "hybrid courses using student-centered pedagogy"(2) Emphasizing the fact that a good percentage of students prefer distance learning, the authors call for new and innovative developments for the online course systems offered today. Hiltz and Turoff end with a very appropriate quote from Charles Darwin about the importance of flexibility and ability to adjust to changing times, ""It's not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."