SMART Launches kapp iQ - rAVe. Imagine a 4K front-of-room display that also doubles as a digital whiteboard that’s as simple to use as a regular whiteboard. That product now exists in the form of the SMART kapp iQ. It enables multi-way linking between any combination of devices, anywhere in the world — that’s SMART kapp iQ. SMART kapp iQ lets everyone, whether in the meeting room or classroom, see what is being written in real time. It doesn’t stop there. SMART says that the kapp iQ isn’t just a whiteboard. Connect with the board through the SMART kapp app, connect your device to the board in a single step using a QR code. After you connect, a URL is immediately created for your session. Here are all the details. Suewaters - home. 14 Educational Websites Students Will Ask to Visit This Summer.
The most popular website at my school is Minecraft–hands down, starting in 1st grade (I’m amazed parents let six-year-olds use this sometimes violent game, but they do and students do and the mania starts). Because kids would live in this blocky virtual world 24/7, I only let them play it two lunch periods a week. Those days, my lab is always packed. Kids have no idea they’re learning math (estimation, geometry, shapes), science (geology, rocks, minerals), building, or softer skills like thinking and reasoning, problem solving, hypothesis-testing, risk-taking, and collaboration. They don’t realize they’re exercising that delicate skill called ‘creativity’ or care that Common Sense Media raves that “Minecraft empowers players to exercise their imagination and take pride in their digital creations as they learn basic building concepts.” As I watched students play (and play and play and play), I started to understand what it was that enraptured them so thoroughly: It’s the thinking.
Video: “We Need Your Students To Get Higher Test Scores. The Best Posts About Michelle Rhee’s Exaggerated Test Scores. The education blogosphere, and parts of the education media, have been abuzz the past couple of days over the discovery that Michelle Rhee’s often-claimed astronomical student test gains when she was a teacher were not true. This, of course, does not mean that Rhee was not a good teacher — for all I know, she was an excellent one (though I have to admit her admission that she taped the mouths shut of her students one day does give one pause). It can mean, however, a number of other things. And here are my choices for The Best Posts About Michelle Rhee’s Exaggerated Test Scores, which provide some insightful commentary. I think that the most thoughtful and best piece is by Alexander Russo, Rhee: Reformer’s Growing Credibility Problem. Michelle Rhee’s early test scores challenged was written by Jay Mathews at the Washington Post.
Jay Mathews’ Lazy Swipe at Michelle Rhee by Rick Hess at Education Week is less noteworthy for Hess’ post than for the comments on it, including one from Mathews. Eight Web Tools for Language Learning. Learning a second language is a struggle for many students. After all, it can be difficult to understand the grammar and usage of a second language when you occasionally struggle with grammar and usage in your first language. Bringing the wealth of online resources into the language learning equation can help students overcome the obstacles they face when learning a second language. At the most basic level, online translators such as Google Translate provide a lot of support for students, automatically detecting the language being typed, offering audio of the original phrase and its translation and giving examples of usage for key words.
Game websites such as Digital Dialects and Lingo Zone give students a fun way to practice vocabulary words without using flash cards or other drill and kill methods. Learning from native speakers Beyond the more basic translation and game resources for learning a language, the reach of the internet is what makes it ideal for learning a second language. - From the Principal's Office: Unwrapping the Common Core Standards.
Victory for schools: ACLU backs down from 'emoticons' cyberbullying claim. Good news: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has agreed to dismiss a claim it filed after an Indiana district disciplined students for cyberbullying classmates. Here’s what happened: The ACLU filed suit on behalf of three Indiana students — known as K.F., S.M. and J.D. in court documents — who were suspended for comments posted on Facebook. The eighth-grade girls posted comments that: discussed killing classmatessuggested putting someone in a bathtub of acid and lighting it on firedebated whether it was better to kill with a knife or a gun, andbrainstormed ways to hide the evidence.
A concerned parent of one of the targeted students — who was afraid to go to school — printed a copy of the conversation thread and took it to the school principal. The three girls were suspended — and later expelled — for violating bullying, harassment and intimidation rules. The suit sought to have the discipline expunged from the girls’ transcripts as well as injunctive relief and monetary damages. Teaching For Intelligence. The claim is often made (in this issue as well as elsewhere) that schools give a disproportionate emphasis to logical/mathematical and verbal material and intelligence.
My sense is that this is only superficially true. The content may have this character, and lip service may be given to these forms of intelligence, but the actual educational process remains focused on low level skills. The real development of thinking skills, even within these areas of intelligence, is usually as neglected as the rest of our mental capacities. If this changes soon, Professor Costa will be one of the reasons. His recent book, Developing Minds; A Resource Book For Teaching Thinking, provides a comprehensive overview of the growing Thinking Skills Movement, and he has also recently been elected president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
He is currently Professor of Education at California State University, Sacramento. - Robert Gilman 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Global Slavery, by the Numbers. A graphic produced by the SumAll Foundation showed its findings. Here are some chilling statistics: The lifetime profit on a brickmaking slave in Brazil is $8,700, and $2,000 in India. Sexual slavery brings the slave’s owner $18,000 over the slave’s working life in Thailand, and $49,000 in Los Angeles. These are some of the numbers recently published by a foundation financed by a New York company that analyzes data for business intelligence, which deployed the same techniques to look at the worldwide trade in human trafficking.
While slavery is illegal across the globe, the SumAll Foundation noted, there are 27 million slaves worldwide, more than in 1860, when there were 25 million. “The big shocker for us was the implicit value of human life compared with different commodities,” said Dane Atkinson, chief executive of SumAll, the company that financed the foundation with 10 percent of company equity, or $500,000. “Another big shocker for us was how poor the data quality is,” said Mr. “To This Day” Project—Shane Koyczan (Video) Don't Call Them Textbooks - Technology. By Jeffrey R. Young Textbook publishers argue that their newest digital products shouldn't even be called "textbooks. " They're really software programs built to deliver a mix of text, videos, and homework assignments.
But delivering them is just the beginning. No old-school textbook was able to be customized for each student in the classroom. One publisher calls its products "personalized learning experiences," another "courseware," and one insists on using its own brand name, "MindTap. " "In the early days of TV, the first things you saw on TV were radio shows, and only over time did the next format evolve for that medium," says Don Kilburn, chief executive of Pearson Learning Solutions.
Major publishers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years buying up software companies and building new digital divisions, betting that the future will bring an expanded role for publishers in higher education. But Ms. Colleges as Publishers? Entering New Sectors Mr. Tennessee lawmaker wants to tie welfare benefits to good grades. A Tennessee lawmaker is pushing a controversial new bill that would tie welfare benefits to students' performance in school. Republican state Sen. Stacey Campfield last week introduced the legislation, which calls for the state to cut welfare benefits to parents whose kids don't do well in class.
Critics are already panning the proposal as unfair, and one that could hurt students in the end -- but Campfield is defending his idea, which he says would force parents to take a more active role in their children’s education “We’re not asking children to re-write the Magna Carta,” Campfield told FoxNews.com Monday. “A D-minus gets you through.”
But state Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the bill would “stack the deck against at-risk children.” “How does Sen. If they don't, recipients could see their checks slashed by 30 percent. “Nothing motivates people like money,” Campfield said. The impact of the bill could be widespread. Don’t Give Students More Tools of Mass Distraction—Maclean’s On Campus | Fluency21 – Committed Sardine Blog. Rhee Finances. One problem with the education "reform" industry is not merely that it generally looks at "education" as though it were a commodity, like soybeans, and that the problems with how we educate a great many children of our fellow citizens can be solved if we just refine the delivery systems for the product.
In other words, most education "reform" proponents treat "education" as though it exists in a vacuum unaffected by the factors — like, say, joblessness and poverty — in the real world outside the classroom. (How many prominent school "reformers" have stepped up and said anything about the increasingly effective campaign by the NRA to arm public school teachers? Thought so.) Thus do we come to the second problem with the education "reform" movement — it is shot through root and branch with patent-medicine remedies pitched by for-profit grifters and hustlers. They have their own genre of richly financed propaganda, like 2010's Waiting for Superman and this year's Won't Back Down.
Videos - EdMedia Commons. The Best Posts On The Gates’ Funded Measures Of Effective Teaching Report. The Gates’ funded Measures Of Effective Teaching released their latest studies today. There have been a few posts about it, and I’m sure there will be many more. I thought I’d get a hard start on collecting them in one “The Best…” list. Here are my picks for The Best Posts On The Gates’ Funded Measures Of Effective Teaching Report: Gates Foundation study paints bleak picture of teaching quality is from Gotham Schools. (thanks to Alexander Russo for the tip) Fire first, ask questions later? I’ve written two posts: Gates Just Releases Big Teacher Evaluation Report Great Response To Gates Report From Randi Weingarten How the Gates Foundation Spins its Research is by Jay Greene. Why Reformers Misunderstand Their Own Research is by John Thompson. This Post By John Thompson On Gates Is Candidate For Best Ed Policy Commentary Of The Year Guest Post: Here’s What Was Missing From The Wall Street Journal’s Column On Teacher Evaluation Feedback is always welcome.
How They Get It: A New, Simple Taxonomy For Understanding. How They Get It: A New, Simple Taxonomy For Understanding by Terry Heick How can you tell if a student really understands something? They learn early on to fake understanding exceptionally well, and even the best assessment leaves something on the table. (In truth, a big portion of the time students simply don’t know what they don’t know.) The idea of understanding is, of course, at the heart of all learning, and solving it as a puzzle is one of the three pillars of formal learning environments and education. 1. What do they need to understand (standards)? 2. 3. But how do we know if they know it? Understanding As “It” On the surface, there is trouble with the word “it.” “It” is essentially what is to be learned, and it can be scary thing to both teachers and students.
So if a student gets it, beyond pure academic performance what might they be able to do? The following actions are setup as a linear taxonomy, from most basic to the most complex. How It Works Early Understanding 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Obama Education Policy Draws Some Skeptics. But some critics suggest that at the same time the administration has gotten tough on teachers and set higher standards, it could be allowing states to set new, unambitious goals for how quickly students must reach those standards, particularly poor and minority students.
“We repeatedly look for ways to game the system and fuzz up the fact that our kids aren’t being educated to the standards that they need,” said Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs at the Education Trust, a nonprofit group that works to close achievement gaps. One particularly controversial example emerged over the summer, when Virginia initially released new targets showing that the state would require 57 percent of black students to become proficient in math by 2017, compared with 78 percent of white students. Virginia’s education department has since revised its goals, with a goal of making 73 percent of all students proficient in math within five years. Jessica Koscielniak for The New York Times. Ravitch criticizes school closings, charter expansion. In a Monday morning speech at the City Club of Chicago, education reformer turned critic Diane Ravitch slammed the initiatives she once supported – such as standardized testing and sanctions for failing schools – as “the status quo.”
In their place, she prescribed a different vision for schools: early childhood education for all students, strict limits on charter school expansion, and public policy changes to reduce poverty and school segregation. The U.S. has always been at the bottom of international test rankings, Ravitch said, because of its high child poverty rate compared to other industrialized countries.
She cited research showing that African-American students who attend integrated schools earn more money, have better educational outcomes and even live longer. After the speech, Ravitch conceded that Chicago, where 86 percent of students are Latino or African-American, is a long way from being able to desegregate its schools.
Ravitch said Illinois Gov. MOOCs and Hype Again. I have a confession to make. I dropped out of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Artificial Intelligence at Stanford university in the Fall of 2011. There were over 160,000 other students in the class from all over the world. I listened to the two professors on my laptop give mini-lectures, watched fast hands scrawl quickly and cleverly over whiteboards to graphically display the concepts they were teaching. I found the information fascinating. I took a few quizzes. Then I fell behind and realized that I couldn’t keep up, given the other things I was doing so I dropped out.
MOOCs have soared in popularity as the “disruptive innovation” that will revolutionize higher education. Right before our eyes we are experiencing the very beginning of the hype cycle. My guess is that the Artificial Intelligence course at Stanford in 2011 triggered the cycle. Technology Trigger: A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Like this: Like Loading... Charter Schools. The Impact of Great Teachers. The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments. 'Embodied Learning' Blends Movement, Computer Interaction. BEWARE: Like drugs, electronic media change brains. Ought we be more careful? Especially with children? The Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers) Why We Should Care About Galvanic Response Skin Bracelets. Testing mandates flunk cost-benefit analysis - The Answer Sheet.