eSchool News

‘Robotic custodian’ saves schools money

The Upper Merion School District estimates its robotic floor cleaner saves the district about $126,000 a year.

Pennsylvania’s Gov. Mifflin School District is considering adding to its custodial staff, and the worker comes with an impressive resume: It’s been known to save thousands of dollars a year in custodial costs while doing a top-notch job.

But if that’s not enough, its family already has built a reputation for hard work in the Gov. Mifflin district. Relatives include the cafeteria vending machines, the copier in the high school office, and the microwave in the teachers’ lounge.

Its older brother, R2D2, is a movie star—but that’s another story.

That’s right, Gov. Mifflin is thinking of adding a robot to the custodial staff.

Picture an industrial-size Roomba. It’s a dust mop and floor scrubber all in one. And, when it’s programmed with a building’s floor plan, it reportedly will clean the floors on its own.

It’s a tool that school districts like Mifflin might turn to as they trim the size of custodial staffs to save on employee costs.

“With budget cuts and staff being cut, [schools] can essentially do more with less,” said Wendy E. Hughson, marketing director for Intellibot Robotics, the Portland, Ore.-based company that makes the Gen-X Robotic Sweeper/Scrubber.

Gov. Mifflin isn’t set on getting one of the robots yet. Administrators told the school board in January that they would solicit bids for review.

“This is going to be a tough budget year, and we have to look everywhere,” said business manager Mark R. Naylon. “Sometimes you have to spend money to save money.”

The district has the chance to cut two part-time custodian positions through attrition, Naylon said. The robot would help the remaining workers keep up with the cleaning.

Categories: Kids News

Experts warn of a growing trend: Teen password sharing

Password sharing among teens puts their cyber security at risk.

Educators should be aware of an emerging trend that puts students’ cyber security at risk: Password sharing among teen couples.

It’s something that experts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area say teen couples are doing to show their love and affection, KDAF-TV of Dallas reports. But they also say it can come with some serious long- and short-term consequences.

“They feel like it is another level of status in their relationship,” said Teen Contact Director Missy Wall, who added that it’s something many teens tell her they’re doing. She said it often causes problems.

“Relationships change, and in schools what happens with bullying and the stakes get higher with Facebook,” said Wall.

Teens admitted to sharing passwords on the KDAF-TV Facebook page. One girl wrote, “I share my password to everything with him.”

For more safety & security news, see:

10 ways schools are teaching internet safety

Teachers’ newest online worry: ‘Cyberbaiting’

SAFE Center at eSN Online

Wall said it actually could be a sign of an unhealthy dating relationship.

“If they say, ‘If you really trust me, you’ll let me have your password,’ well that is a control mechanism,” she said.

The folks behind EyeGaurdian, a tool designed to help parents track their kids’ online behavior, say password sharing can lead to even bigger problems long-term.

“That person could easily give out information that maybe they didn’t want to share, so then they’re prone to identity left, they’re prone to cyber bullying,” said ImageVision Social Media Director Stephanie Ochoa.

Categories: Kids News

One district’s experience with iPads

"We're getting calls now, and we're more than happy to share," said Superintendent Lance Bagstad. "We've made mistakes, and we've done things right."

The sign in the hallway tells Renville County West fifth-grade students what they’ll need in class: social studies book, pencil, folder, iPad.

In another classroom, Quick Response codes on the bulletin board can be used to download assignments directly onto an iPad.

They are visual reminders of how much things have changed this year for students and staff at RCW, which has provided Apple iPads for all students in grades 4-12. Nearby MACCRAY Schools has provided iPads for students in grades 7-12.

There have been bumps in the road—the devices need better cases, because they break too easily, and there have been occasional issues with kids downloading unauthorized software.

But the positives have outweighed the negatives, school officials said recently. While this is still a transition year, they say they can see ways the iPads will help the district contain costs in the future.

As they need new textbooks, for example, they expect to use digital versions where possible.

For more news about iPads in the classroom, see:

Apple unveils interactive textbooks, revamped iTunes U

Tips and success stories for effective mobile learning

Schools see rising scores with iPads

Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks

Textbook-free schools share experiences, insights

Their experience also has stirred interest around the state. RCW representatives were mobbed at a January school board convention, where people had to be turned away from their presentation.

“We’re getting calls now, and we’re more than happy to share,” said Superintendent Lance Bagstad. “We’ve made mistakes, and we’ve done things right.”

School Board member David Hamre said the board has been pleased with the progress seen this year.

“They are above and beyond what we ever dreamed of,” he said, “and it’s only the beginning.”

Categories: Kids News

National project aims to inspire the ‘model classroom’

Students taught by one Model Classroom workshop participant said they never felt so enthralled by schoolwork.

South Carolina is at risk of a water shortage. With $500,000 in grants available for innovative conservation projects, it’s up to the students in Bryan Coburn’s introduction to engineering course at Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, S.C., to devise solutions.

Armed with smart phones and an array of ed-tech tools, the teens spent much of last semester on that hypothetical assignment. By the project’s end, they had created elaborate online portfolios showcasing their research, 3D designs, and multimedia packages.

Students said they never felt so enthralled by schoolwork. Some were inspired to become engineers.

“It was amazing,” freshman Parker Hooten said. “We didn’t just sit there and learn. We actually did stuff. It made the class much more fun and involving. You want to be there.”

That’s the kind of school experience that Coburn, the state’s Teacher of the Year in 2009, and the founders of a national program want to replicate.

For more Best Practice news, see the “Best Practices” section of eSN Online.

Coburn is among a cadre of celebrated teachers rethinking how to prepare students to excel in an age of rapid innovation and global uncertainty. The project is called “The Model Classroom.”

Run by the Pearson Foundation’s New Learning Institute, the two-year-old program invites Teacher of the Year winners from around the nation to Washington, D.C., during summers for workshops on making better use of ed tech to inspire a new generation of students.

Categories: Kids News

New report examines international ed-tech policies

A new report examines how different countries approach ed-tech management and access.

A new report comparing educational technology use of K-12 students in 21 countries found that, despite global economic uncertainty, many countries are still investing in technology to improve educational systems and boost student achievement.

Twenty governments said that giving students better access to the internet is a top priority, and roughly half said students need more access to computers.

The January 2012 report, International Experiences with Technology in Education (IETE), comes from SRI International’s Center for Technology in Learning and was conducted at the request of the U.S. Department of Education.

It seeks to identify what types of educational technology data are being collected, how technologies are being used to improve international students’ access to high-quality instruction, how technologies are being used to increase teacher effectiveness, and how other governments are tracking student progress and using those data to inform policy decisions.

The governments shared many of the same national goals when it comes to improving educational technology for students, including “updating infrastructure; ensuring equity of access to digital technologies; improving information and communications technologies (ICT) proficiency among students, teachers, and administrators; increasing the availability of digital learning resources; and increasing the integration of ICT into instruction to support students’ creativity and problem-solving and collaborative skills.”

“This report is unprecedented in the range of countries that were included and the compilation of success indicators that are being used across large-scale international studies,” said Gucci Estrella Trinidad, educational researcher at SRI and manager of the research project.

“Countries are exploring different mechanisms and avenues for making technology more accessible to students and teachers to support learning. By making cross-country comparisons, a wider audience can benefit from experiences and solutions of other countries.”

Research took place in two phases during 2009 and 2010. In the first phase, researchers examined literature and the internet for multinational data collections, and they sought to identify methods, instruments, and available data on government efforts to integrate ICT into teaching and learning. The report’s second phase involved updating available data and surveying and interviewing representatives of the 21 governments included in the research.

Countries and governmental bodies included in the report are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, and Sweden.

Important findings

Key findings include:

Categories: Kids News

High school cracks down on drugs by checking students’ text messages

The investigative technique has raised questions among some legal experts and unnerved students who said they assumed texting to be private.

An Illinois high school is cracking down on campus drug sales by confiscating the cell phones of student suspects and using their text messages to identify others—an investigative technique that has raised questions among some legal experts and unnerved students who said they assumed texting to be private.

Stevenson High School spokesman Jim Conrey said the ongoing investigation, in which Lincolnshire, Ill., police are also participating, has resulted in multiple suspensions, though he would not provide the number. He said examining student text messages was a legal and appropriate way to gather information about the alleged sales.

“That’s perfectly within our rights within the school,” he said. “If schools have credible evidence that cell phones are being used in some kind of trafficking … we have every right to take the phones.”

As the lives of teens become increasingly intertwined with the technology they carry, investigators are finding revelations about alleged criminal behavior on cell phones, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In a twist, some parents complained that because the school wasn’t saying much about what was happening, their primary source of information became those same social media sites.

And though Conrey said the privacy and legal issues were clear, some experts said courts and legislators are falling behind the galloping technologies.

Kimberly Small, assistant general counsel for the Illinois Association of School Boards, said the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that school officials need only “reasonable suspicion” to search students’ belongings, a standard of proof less strict than the “probable cause” that applies to police officers.

But she noted that a more recent federal law established that owners of electronic devices have a legitimate interest in the confidentiality of their messages. The law has yet to determine exactly how school administrators’ search power intersects with that privacy concern, she said.

“It’s such a gray area for everyone—students, parents, school officials, even law enforcement,” she said.

Categories: Kids News

Online program will help guide Okla. students through Algebra I

About 10,000 students from low-performing schools are participating in the first year of the program.

An online pilot program to help eighth- through 10th-graders who are struggling with Algebra I is being launched at 16 high schools and 23 middle schools throughout Oklahoma.

About 10,000 students from low-performing schools are participating in the first year of the program, which is free to their school districts, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

“We wanted to reach students who are most struggling in Algebra I as they prepare to take end-of-instruction tests—one of the requirements for Achieving Classroom Excellence,” said state Superintendent Janet Barresi.

Teacher training is conducted by webinar and will continue through Feb. 8. Training is also free to participating districts.

“This is one of the state department’s efforts to assist low-achieving schools by providing additional resources to teachers and students,” Barresi said.

She said she hopes to expand the program across the state and reach students in younger grades after this pilot year.

Learn more about Apangea Math

After reviewing seven online programs, the state Education Department selected Apangea Learning Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa., to provide the supplemental online math instruction and tutoring services.

“We were very impressed with the demonstration of this product and can see the high potential for Algebra I students who are struggling,” said Jeff Downs, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) director for the state Education Department.

He said other states, including Texas, Idaho, and Indiana, have seen success from the program.

Categories: Kids News

Digital Learning Day draws nearly 2 million students

Schools and stakeholders across the nation advocated for more access to educational technology during Digital Learning Day.

Thirty-nine states, 15,000 teachers, and 1.7 million students participated in the first-ever Digital Learning Day on Feb. 1, which aimed to demonstrate how technology is improving teaching and learning across the nation.

Headed by the Alliance for Excellent Education, Digital Learning Day kicked off with web sessions focusing on leadership and innovation, instruction, and professional learning and teacher effectiveness before attendees viewed a national town hall webcast featuring Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, and video conferences with teachers and students from exemplary schools across the nation.

“We have to do everything we can to foster education and to help us move from print to digital as fast as we can,” Duncan said, noting that while technology has transformed businesses and governments around the world, it has only slightly changed the way most U.S. schools operate.

“We have to move from being a laggard to being a leader,” he said, challenging schools to move from print to digital textbooks within five years.

In March, Duncan and Genachowski will convene a meeting with policy makers and stakeholders to develop real action plans that will help the U.S. move forward and remain competitive with foreign education systems, Genachowski said.

Watch to see an example of one district’s Digital Learning Day

“The world has changed dramatically in the just the last year. … The next thing we want to do is to keep this moving forward,” he said.

A live chat continued through the presentations, and participants discussed “bring your own device” initiatives, how to ensure equity in educational technology access, the use of cell phones in classrooms, and more.

Kristin Kipp, the 2011 National Online Teacher of the Year, said digital learning and online education provide opportunities to students who might not graduate from high school otherwise.

Categories: Kids News

Feds’ challenge to schools: Embrace digital textbooks

The Obama administration has challenged schools and companies to get digital textbooks in students' hands within five years.

Are hardbound textbooks going the way of slide rules and typewriters in schools?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Feb. 1 challenged schools and companies to get digital textbooks in students’ hands within five years. The Obama administration’s push comes two weeks after Apple Inc. announced it would start to sell electronic versions of a few standard high-school books for use on its iPad tablet.

Digital books are viewed as a way to provide interactive learning, potentially save money, and get updated material faster to students.

Digital learning environments have been embraced in Florida, Idaho, Utah, and California, as well as Joplin, Mo., where laptops replaced textbooks destroyed in a tornado. But many schools lack the broadband capacity or the computers or tablets to adopt the technology, and finding the money to go completely digital is difficult for many schools in tough economic times.

Tied to the Feb. 1 announcement at a digital town hall was the government’s release of a 67-page “playbook” to schools that promotes the use of digital textbooks and offers guidance. The administration hopes that dollars spent on traditional textbooks can instead go toward making digital learning more feasible.

For more news about digital textbooks, see:

iBooks 2 license agreement gets icy reception in higher education

Textbook-free schools share experiences, insights

Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks

Going digital improves the learning process, and it’s being rolled out at a faster pace in other countries such as South Korea, Genachowski said in an interview. Genachowski said he’s hopeful it can be cost-effective in the long run, especially as the price of digital tablets drops.

Watch an example of Apple’s new digital textbooks

“When a student reads a textbook and gets to something they don’t know, they are stuck,” Genachowski said. “Working with the same material on a digital textbook, when they get to something they don’t know, the device can let them explore, it can show them what a word means, how to solve a math problem that they couldn’t figure out how to solve.”

Students can use the textbooks for video explanations to help with homework, they can interact with molecules, and they can manipulate a digital globe to see stories and data about countries, said Karen Cator, director of the Education Department’s Office of Educational Technology.

“We’re not talking about the print-based textbook now being digital. We’re talking about a much more robust and interactive and engaging environment to support learning,” Cator said.

About $8 billion is spent annually in the U.S. on textbooks for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, said Jay Diskey, executive director of the school division of the Association of American Publishers. Diskey said textbook companies have been working on the technology for the past five years to eight years to transform the industry, but in many cases, schools simply aren’t ready.

Categories: Kids News

Apple iBooks 2 license agreement gets icy reception in higher education

A blogger who tracks Apple products called the iBooks 2 license agreement 'Apple at its worst.'

Advocates for open-license textbooks in higher education, while largely unhappy with Apple’s new iBooks 2 platform, say the technology behemoth has done a favor for their movement: Apple’s pricey, limiting approach to digital textbooks is in stark contrast to the textbook model that aims for low-cost or free college texts.

iBooks 2, announced to great fanfare during a flashy Jan. 19 press conference in New York City, offers iBooks Author software that enables instructors and others to create and publish their own interactive digital textbooks in the Apple iBooks Bookstore.

Some campus technology leaders hailed the new iBooks platform as a revolution in digital publishing.

Others took a close look at the iBooks 2 licensing agreement’s fine print and called it “crazy evil,” “mind-bogglingly greedy,” and “deliberate sabotage” of the open, industry-leading standard known as EPUB.

Read the full story on eCampus News

Categories: Kids News

Viewpoint: The education competition myth

Most of the fundamental conditions of capitalism don't exist in the world of public education, the author asserts..

I received lots of feedback from my eSchool News article last year, “Viewpoint: Why education is not like business,” which postulated there was a fundamental fallacy in viewing the world of public education through the lens of normal business paradigms.

An overwhelming number of the comments I received were positive and supportive (and gave additional examples of such fallacy), but a few folks thought I was just perpetuating the problem of government being resistant to change, serving its own interests rather than those of the public, and apologizing for a lack of innovation.  As I mentioned in that article, I’m a strong believer in capitalism and have devoted most of my professional life to profit-driven pursuits.

The distinction I drew was that most of the fundamental conditions of capitalism don’t exist (and we wouldn’t want them to exist) in the world of public education.  In short, it’s what defines a “public good”–just like our military or highways, which have to operate to a large degree outside of laissez faire economics.

Many readers and fellow school board members have asked me to elaborate on a specific area referenced in the previous article–the notion of competition among schools.  It continues to be a great debate within the education community as to whether competition is a good thing or a bad thing.  On the one hand, many in the field say that competition just works, regardless of the arena–the pressure to perform better is a rising tide that will lift all boats, and of course this argument is central to many in the charter school movement.

On the other hand, many educational leaders suggest that educators aren’t affected by these sorts of pressures, and that competition actually harms students.  Unfortunately, this debate misses the larger point.  In a sense, both sides are mostly wrong, and if anything, the very premise of the debate is flawed.

It’s not whether competition works or whether it doesn’t work; the question is whether it can exist at all.  Just like capitalism is predicated on the free flow of information, capital, and labor, competition has prerequisites.  In this article, I have parsed them into individual conditions required for a healthy and effective competitive environment, including: (a) Customer Switching Ability, (b) Provider Capacity, (c) Existence of Clear Success Metrics, (d) Incentives to Win, (e) Minimal Downside of Having Losers, and (f) Having a Level Playing Field.

Customer Switching Ability–The first predicate condition for competition is the ability for customers to change providers with minimal friction.  Said another way, competition is based on the premise that “customers vote with their feet,” meaning they can easily pick (and change) the services and products that they feel best serve their needs.  Implicit in this premise is the requirement that customers are able to seamlessly change their provider without incurring extra cost, hassle, or some other side effect from making such a switch.

If customers cannot vote with their feet, then competition will have no effect.  Let’s use an example of where such friction can exist.  If you try two restaurants, and you decide that the one 10 miles away from you is superior to the one a block away from you, you will still probably make the trip and go to the farther one.  The reason you can do this with minimal friction is that you don’t eat there every day, making the cost for the extra travel trivial.  On the other hand, if you were somehow required to only eat at one restaurant each and every day, it would suddenly be a burden to drive back and forth to the farther restaurant.  If physical distance is a factor in consuming any product or service, friction is created proportionately to both that distance and the frequency in which that distance must be traveled to consume the product.

Categories: Kids News

ED: States applying for NCLB waivers should do more to reach students

In their applications for waivers from NCLB rules, states didn't do enough to ensure that schools would be held accountable for the performance of all students, ED says.

In its initial review of No Child Left Behind waiver requests, the U.S. Education Department (ED) highlighted a similar weakness in nearly every application: States did not do enough to ensure schools would be held accountable for the performance of all students.

The Obama administration praised the states for their high academic standards. But nearly every application was criticized for being loose about setting high goals and, when necessary, interventions for all student groups—including minorities, the disabled, and low-income students—or for failing to create sufficient incentives to close the achievement gap.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools where even one group of students falls behind are considered out of compliance and subject to interventions. The law has been championed for helping shed light on education inequalities, but most now agree it is due for change.

Indiana’s proposal to opt out of the federal law’s strictest requirements was criticized by ED for its “inattention” to certain groups, like students still learning the English language. New Mexico’s plan, a panel of peer reviewers noted, did not include accountability and interventions for student subgroups based on factors like achievement and graduation rates. In Florida, the department expressed concern that the performance of some groups of students could go overlooked.

For more school reform news, see:

States strengthening their teacher evaluation standards

Expert: Federal school reform plan is wrong

Beyond ‘Superman’: Leading Responsible School Reform

The concerns were outlined in letters sent last December by the administration to the 11 states that have applied for a waiver. Since then, state and federal officials have been talking about how to address the concerns; some states have already agreed to changes.

The letters were obtained by The Associated Press for all of the states except Tennessee and Kentucky, which declined to provide them until an announcement is made on whether a waiver is granted. ED previously has said it expected to notify states by mid-January.

“Our priority is protecting children and maintaining a high bar even as we give states more flexibility to get more resources to the children most in need, even if that means the process takes a little longer than we anticipated,” said Daren Briscoe, a department spokesman.

Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, said federal officials are in a challenging spot.

Categories: Kids News

$3M gaming project could help spark STEM education

MIT will develop an online multiplayer game for high school math and biology.

A $3 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant will help the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Education Arcade build a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) to help high school students learn math and biology.

Part of the grant’s purpose will be to change the way that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics are traditionally taught in secondary schools. Studies indicate that many students fail to remain engaged and interested in STEM education in high school and college, leading to a need for highly skilled STEM employees in the nation’s workforce.

MIT Associate Professor Eric Klopfer, director of the Education Arcade and the Scheller Teacher Education Program, has researched educational gaming tools for more than 10 years. Klopfer created StarLogo TNG, a platform that helps kids create 3D simulations and games using a graphical programming language, as well as several mobile game platforms—including location-based augmented reality games.

MIT’s Education Arcade explores games that promote learning through authentic and engaging play. Aside from STEM education topics, Education Arcade projects have included history, literacy, and language learning and have been tailored to a wide range of ages. They have been designed for personal computers, handheld devices, and online delivery.

For more news about STEM education, see:

Inquiry-based approach to science a hit with students

Climate change skepticism seeps into classrooms

Meet six of the country’s best STEM schools

In a MMOG, many players’ avatars can interact and cooperate or compete directly in the same virtual world.

“This genre of games is uniquely suited to teaching the nature of science inquiry, because they provide collaborative, self-directed learning situations,” Klopfer said. “Players take on the roles of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians to explore and explain a robust virtual world.”

The game will be aligned with the Common Core standards in mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards for high school students. It will use innovative, task-based assessment strategies embedded into the game to let students use and display mastery of the topics and skills necessary to play the game. This task-based assessment strategy also will give teachers targeted data that will enable them to track student progress and provide valuable, just-in-time feedback.

Klopfer’s team will work closely with Filament Games, a Wisconsin-based games production studio, as the project’s primary software developers.

Categories: Kids News

Homebound students use robot to continue learning from home

The VGo device has helped Cris Colaluca connect with his peers at school.

Teacher Ben Edwards points to the number 75 written on the board in his seventh-grade math class at Mohawk Junior High School in Lawrence County, Pa.

“Is this going to round up to 80 or down to 70?” he asks all the students before calling on one to answer. “Cris?”

From a half-mile away in his bedroom at home, Cris Colaluca correctly answers, “Up!”

Edwards can hear and see Cris clearly through a screen set atop a 4-foot-tall, 20-pound mobile robot called a VGo. As the first student in the state to use the technology, according to the company that produces it, Cris is attending school for the first time in six years.

“I was surprised there was something out there to help me,” said Cris, 14, of New Castle, Pa., an affable boy with a crop of curly brown hair and a quick smile.

Cris was born with spina bifida but attended school until his first-grade year, when he developed a rare condition that caused his body to seize almost 90 percent of the night.

“His brain was getting no rest,” said his mother, Terry Colaluca.

The seizures caused respiratory problems as well as achalasia, a disorder affecting the ability of the esophagus to move food toward the stomach. Cris now takes 21 medications daily, including steroids to control the seizures. He has 16 doctors.

Cris no longer can physically tolerate school. For several years, teachers came to his home. He tried a stationary web cam but missed out on the peer interaction he remembered from earlier years.

Last year, Mohawk technology coordinator Theresa McConnell discovered a solution when she saw a news report on the VGo, made by the New Hampshire-based company of the same name.

“I knew that was exactly what we needed,” she said.

Categories: Kids News

Column: It’s time to strengthen the P-16 continuum

"If we are to realize President Obama’s goal of leading the world in college graduates, we’ll need to break down the barriers that currently exist at both ends of the K-12 system," Domenech writes.

Learning Leadership column, February 2012 issue of eSchool News—A major impediment to education reform is the silos that exist in the pre-kindergarten through college continuum. If we are to realize President Obama’s goal of leading the world in the percentage of citizens who are college graduates, we will need to break down the barriers that currently exist at both ends of the K-12 system: preschool programs and institutions of higher education.

There have been attempts at articulation, but the way these systems are structured, there are legal and operational barriers that are difficult—if not impossible—to overcome.

Child care and preschool programs are operated primarily by private and nonprofit institutions that have no formal relationships with the public school system. Yet, there is ample evidence to suggest that early childhood programs for children who are at risk offer the best return on the public dollar investment. We often write about the education of the total child and how critical it is to coordinate all the community services that come to bear on the needs of children. Child care and preschool programs fall in that category, along with programs that provide for the health and nutritional needs of our youth.

At the American Association of School Administrators, we pride ourselves in providing programs that help our members deal with the total needs of the children they serve. Thanks to a grant we recently received from the Wal-Mart Foundation, we are working with four major school systems to provide breakfast programs. In Riverside, Calif.; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Syracuse and Brentwood in New York, children will not be arriving at school hungry and unable to focus on their lessons. With the federal funding available for such programs and the foundation dollars to help organize them, children in these communities will be fed a nutritional breakfast.

For more from Dan Domenech, see:

U.S. education is still the best in the world—but here’s what we can learn from others

Improving public education isn’t a mystery

New teacher evaluation framework promises to serve students, and educators, fairly

There are also thousands of children who, although eligible for health insurance coverage under the Children’s Health Insurance Program, are not receiving the medical coverage they are entitled to. In collaboration with the Children’s Defense Fund and under a grant from the Centers for Disease Control, AASA is working with a number of school systems throughout the country to provide health coverage for 50,000 students that currently do not have it.

AASA also has been active in the development of programs that foster nutrition and battle obesity. In this instance, we have collaborated with two sister organizations, the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents and the National Alliance of Black School Educators. We’ve also worked closely with First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative, and last year we co-sponsored an event with the National Broadcasters Association that featured film and recording star Beyoncé in a “flash mob” dance involving thousands of middle school students throughout the nation.

But most of these programs have taken place within the K-12 realm, making them much easier to control and coordinate. With preschool youngsters, there is the issue of legal responsibility.

Categories: Kids News

Teachers: Budgets block classroom technology access

Ninety-one percent of teachers said they have access to computers in their classrooms.

Despite advances in digital learning tools and efforts to close the ed-tech access gap, school budgets remain one of the biggest barriers to classroom technology access, according to a national PBS LearningMedia survey of preK-12 teachers.

Although ed-tech advocates campaign for technology’s seamless integration into instruction, only 22 percent of teachers surveyed said they have the “right” level of technology in their classrooms.

Sixty-three percent of teachers said budgets continue to be barriers to classroom technology access, and in low-income communities, 70 percent of teachers reported budgets are their main obstacle. Aside from funding, teachers reported that unfamiliarity with technologies (8 percent), a lack of knowledge about where to find proper technologies or a lack of training (8 percent), technologies’ incompatibility with current curriculum (7 percent), slow/poor/no internet connection (6 percent), and other various reasons (9 percent) as barriers to classroom technology use.

Socio-economic status also plays a role in other areas: 38 percent of teachers in affluent school districts reported high levels of parental support, compared with just 14 percent of teachers in low-income communities; and 38 percent of teachers in high-income areas have school board support, compared to 21 percent of teachers in low-income areas.

Computer access is not a problem for the majority of teachers—91 percent have access to computers or laptops in their classroom—but access to “newer” technologies is. Fifty-nine percent have access to interactive whiteboards, and teachers in affluent districts are twice as likely to have access to tablets as teachers in middle- and low-income districts.

Categories: Kids News

Obama unveils plan to stem rising college tuition costs

The money Obama is targeting is what's known as "campus-based" aid.

President Barack Obama is announcing a plan to shift some federal dollars away from colleges and universities that don’t control tuition costs and new competitions in higher education to encourage efficiency as part of an effort to contain soaring college costs.

Obama will spell out his plans Jan. 27 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The speech will cap a three-day post-State of the Union trip by the president to promote different components of his economic agenda in politically important states.

On Jan. 24 during his State of the Union address, Obama put colleges and universities on notice to control tuition costs or face losing federal dollars. That’s had the higher-education community nervous that he could set a new precedent in the federal government’s role in controlling the rising costs of college.

Read the full story on eCampusNews.com here

Categories: Kids News

Inquiry-based approach to science a hit with students

John Scali's honors chemistry class has students solve problems like real scientists.

John Scali’s class at Concord High School in Wilmington, Del., doesn’t look like your typical honors chemistry class.

Sure, the periodic table is prominently displayed in the room and lab tables dominate the space, but there’s something different going on here. You know it because there are students all over the room and they’re feverishly working together in small groups to complete their work.

They aren’t just learning science, they’re engaging in it. And they’re doing so in innovative ways.

Science education in the U.S. is on the brink of change in an effort to make Americans more competitive in science, technology, engineering, and math (known as STEM) and to meet the demands of these growing fields.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Georgetown University reported that jobs in STEM fields have lower rates of unemployment and higher pay and are growing faster than overall job growth. STEM jobs include engineers, college biology professors, and even skilled workers and technicians in fields like mining and transportation.

The change is centered around the development of new K-12 science standards. The National Research Council of the National Academies released a framework for these standards in July and invited all states to help in their development. Delaware is one of 26 states that have stepped up to the challenge so far.

For more news about STEM education, see:

Climate change skepticism seeps into classrooms

Meet six of the country’s best STEM schools

New framework aims to shape K-12 science

Scali, who recently received his doctorate in education from the University of Delaware, is at the forefront of developing and implementing these standards, which include integrating engineering and other real-life principles.

For example, one unit centers on balancing chemical equations. Students are asked to figure out how much chemical starting material they need to produce a specific quantity of final product, much like a researcher in industry must do when creating a pharmaceutical drug or household cleaning item. By the end of the unit, they will have to produce that final product during an in-class experiment.

The lesson “makes things more relevant for the students,” Scali said. “It’s what goes on in the real world. I place a lot more priority on the process of science itself—the process is a lot more important.”

Scali’s honors chemistry class is broken up into units built upon a central theme. Students are given essential questions they must answer to achieve understanding of each unit’s principles, by asking questions and solving problems like scientists do. They have the duration of the unit to answer the questions, and the tools they use to do so—worksheets, labs, experiments—are up to them. Time management is a skill they cultivate quickly, the value of which many students appreciate as they look ahead to college.

Categories: Kids News

Five practices of effective principals

The report notes that support from district and state officials is essential if school-level leadership is to be successful.

Strong leadership is essential to a positive school culture and student success, and effective principals use five key practices to ensure that their schools are successful, according to a new report from the nonprofit Wallace Foundation.

“The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning,” a Wallace Foundation Perspective, distills lessons from school leadership projects and major research studies supported by the foundation since 2000.

“After more than a decade of investment in school leadership, we can confirm the empirical link between school leadership and improved student achievement,” said Will Miller, president of The Wallace Foundation. “No longer seen as glorified managers of buildings and bus schedules, today’s principals must be their schools’ chief improvement officers, strengthening instruction, building a culture of high achievement, and marshaling the skills of other educators to boost student performance.”

The report gleans lessons from Wallace-supported scholarship by leading researchers at institutions including the RAND Corporation, Stanford, Vanderbilt, the University of Washington, and the Universities of Minnesota and Toronto, as well as Wallace-funded projects in 24 states and numerous districts. It concludes that five practices are central to effective principal leadership:

1. Shaping a vision of academic success for all students.

The literature evinces a broad consensus that setting clear, rigorous learning expectations for all students is crucial to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and less-advantaged students, and for raising achievement overall.

An effective principal makes sure that the notion of academic success for all gets picked up by the faculty and underpins what researchers at the University of Washington describe as a school-wide learning improvement agenda that focuses on goals for student progress.

Categories: Kids News

Students learn smart-phone app making

In the past year, people downloaded more than 17 billion apps to their mobile phones and tablet computers.

In the past year, people downloaded more than 17 billion apps to their mobile phones and tablet computers, and that number is expected to skyrocket in the next two years.

That’s why students at North Carolina’s Apex High School will be among those at five schools nationally who will be learning how to design and market mobile apps, as part of a test program launched by computer maker Lenovo and the National Academy Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that develops education programs for public schools.

Students will work in teams to create a real-world mobile app during the 12-week, after-school course. Enrollment is optional, but as of Jan. 24, 30 Apex students had registered, said Julie Oster, director of the Academy of Information Technology, an Apex High School program that follows the NAF curriculum.

Among them is sophomore Sullivan Figurskey, who said he is looking forward to the first course.

“I think this will be one of those programs I’ll remember, because it will shape the future of my academic career,” Sullivan said.

On Jan. 24, Lenovo and NAF announced the course at a press conference in the Apex High media center. They were joined by North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue and Wake County Public Schools Superintendent Tony Tata.

Lenovo donated 30 Android-based ThinkPad tablets and several ThinkCentre HD All-in-One desktop computers for the program; the company worked with NAF and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop the curriculum. The program will teach students not only technology skills such as coding and programming, but also how to create a business plan to market their apps.

Categories: Kids News