Saturday, June 09, 2007
From TIME Magazine - How Nebraska Leaves No Child Behind
Quote: Eschewing the Washington-created remedy, they have developed a homemade model called the School-based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System (STARS) that has yielded impressive results, been praised by education scholars and attracted interest from Edward Kennedy, NCLB’s Senate custodian. “We just told the Department of Education that if they were really trying to [serve] all kids and close the proficiency gap that high-stakes testing isn’t the way to do it,” says Doug Christensen, state commissioner of education. “We told them we would show them that we had a better way.”
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Friday, May 04, 2007
An upcoming edition of The Nation features an article by Linda Darling Hammond on the reauthorization of NCLB. She outlines some of the impact, positive, but mostly negative, that NCLB has had on our educational system.
At base, the law has misdefined the problem. It assumes that what schools need is more carrots and sticks rather than fundamental changes.
Link to Evaluating “No Child Left Behind.”
What do you think?
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Sunday, March 18, 2007
This is a blog that describes itself: “At the Schoolhouse Gate ("The Gate") is intended to cover all things related to P-12 school law. “
Link to At the School House Gate blog.
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I just ran across this post from David Sherman about his experiences with blogging. David is an elementary school principal in Deerfield, Illinois. I think this is a great testimonial, from an administrator, on the power of blogging and of using Bloglines as a resource for professional growth.
Link to “Blogging and the Teaching of Writing”
Link to Mr. Sherman’s Blog
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Friday, February 02, 2007
When thinking about technology, teaching and learning, a good question to ask:
“Pedagogically speaking, what can I do now that I could not do before?”
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Thursday, February 01, 2007
Quoted from an email I received:
To provoke thought leaders to think about the future of education in new ways, KnowledgeWorks Foundation has launched a fully interactive version of its Education Map of the Decade. This exciting new tool is available at www.kwfdn.org/map.
Developed in partnership with the Institute for the Future, the Education Map of the Decade identifies external future forces that are likely to shape the primary and secondary education system over the next 10 years. It identifies six key global and American trends and considers how those trends may affect five “impact zones”: family and community, markets, institutions, educators and learning, and tools and practices.
It also identifies five “hot spots” – trends that will profoundly affect educators and students over the next decade and deserve particular attention. Trends range from dark – such as bio-distress and increasing chronic illness – to hopeful – such as the potential for new technology and media to stimulate entirely new kinds of teaching methods.
The Map website provides leaders with the tools and resources to shape discussion and planning on the future of education. Specifically, the website offers:
- Online tools that allow for customization of map content to meet the specific needs of an institution, organization, or individual
- Ability to view the original resources behind the map and contribute additional resources for future discussions
- Real-world scenarios reflecting the impact zones and hot spots
- Interactive discussion board to share and learn from other education leader
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Check out this article online at Edutopia. It presents an interview with futurist Alvin Toffler discussing our present educational system.
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Monday, January 22, 2007
Last month the National Center on Education and the Economy released Tough Choices or Tough Times, a report of the new commission on the skills of the American workforce. There is a book discussion group starting up at Open Planner to discuss the curriculum implications of this influential new assessment of the US education system. If you would like to join the discussion go here to create an account on the site. Once you have an account, you can go here and register for the discussion group.
You can look at the discussion board and see how the discussion will be structured. I am very interested in participating in this form of discussion and hope that you may find the time to join us. The report is relevant to our discussions of change within the district, and this format will offer you the opportunity to experience collaboration and communication with others through electronic means. I hope you’ll give it a try!
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Sunday, January 07, 2007
This link came from Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed blog.
Newly Ancient - “You find yourself staring at a blog filled with the thoughts, ideas, and writings of Arthus Erea, a student and beginning web developer.”
This is a terrific example of a teenager (13 years old) who is effectively using a blog and bringing his friends into the discussion.
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Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Since we’re reading the Mike Schmoker book, “Results Now,” I thought I’d post some thoughts. In his book, Schmoker exposes some ugly, unspoken truths about education:
In most cases, neither teachers nor students can articulate what they are supposed to be learning that day. They can describe only the activity or assignment, which is often chosen because it keeps kids occupied. Irrelevant worksheets and activities often predominate. Catching students learning the most vital reading and writing standards is heartbreakingly rare. And in defiance of what every educator has learned, there is a glaring absence of the most basic elements of an effective lesson: an essential, clearly defined learning objective followed by careful modeling or a clear sequence of steps, punctuated by efforts during the lesson to see how well students are paying attention or learning the material. In most classrooms, half or more of the students are clearly not engaged or paying attention. (16)
In the second section of the book, the author makes the case for authentic literacy in schools - “...intellectually engaging reading, writing and discussion.” (49) Nobody would argue that we need to focus on tasks that move beyond basic knowledge comprehension. Certainly reading, writing and discussion can be powerful to propel us toward what we would hope to achieve. As I was reading, however, I couldn’t help but think about how powerful blogging is in helping us to achieve more, “...intellectually engaging reading, writing and discussion.”
That is my concern. While the book speaks little to the actual pedagogy necessary for achieving results, I fear that educational leaders who are getting excited by this book will look to the old ways of teaching these authentic literacy skills. While there may be noticeable improvement from some tried and true strategies, how much more powerful can the instruction be with the use of some 21st century tools. It’s important to remember that these are the tools - yes, technology tools - of our clients, our students. If we want to fully engage them, speak to them, and have them achieve to their fullest potential, we cannot overlook the role of technologies in the development of these authentic literacy skills.
You can add to the wiki notes on the Salisbury Township School District Wiki.
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Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The week’s Time cover story is an extension of our discussion about updating our schools. The writer of How To Bring Our Schools Out Of The 20th Century makes many of the same points about our American educational system and the critical nature of some of the problems we face in the 21st century. Definitely worth a read.
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Friday, December 08, 2006
During Ed Barlow’s presentation at LCTI, he mentioned the need for us and our students to have a “virtual desktop”—a place where we go to learn keep up-to date on things in our field. The idea resonated with me because I consider my Bloglines account to be one aspect of my own “virtual desktop.” Related to that, the EduBlog nominations came out today. If you are looking for some good educational blogs, you might want to check out their list of nominations. Awards will be announced on Sunday, December 17.
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Monday, December 04, 2006
It will be interesting following the comments to this post on David Warlick’s blog. I like Vicki Davis’s suggestion for us to all set up Bloglines accounts. I must say, I have read about more thought provoking ideas on blogs than in many books. Books are great, but blogs are so much more immediate for me. We’ll get more into this at our December 19 goals meeting.
What books do you think are ”must reads” for administrators that will help us negotiate the changing landscape of education?
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Sunday, December 03, 2006
More and more, I read about how technology can help transform what we need to do in education. This article, Futurist: To fix education, think Web 2.0, reports on a talk by John Seely Brown at a recent conference at MIT.
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Thursday, November 30, 2006
“In just 15 years, we’ll begin to see the merger of human and computer intelligence that ultimately will enable people to live forever. At least that’s the prediction of author and futurist Ray Kurzweil.”
Too good to be true? Check out this article.
“Kurzweil isn’t writing science fiction. In fact, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, a robotics director at Carnegie Mellon University, an MIT professor, and a physicist have all endorsed his book. He has received the National Medal of Technology and the Lemelson-MIT prize. The directors of the National Institute of Health have asked him to speak to their members. Kurzweil says he’s simply looking back and measuring the computational progress the human race has made over the last century and then projecting that same line of progress forward into the near future.”
In the fall of 2007, those entering kindergarten will be graduating in the year 2020 when a number of the technological innovations spoken of by Kurzweil may be reality. How will those kindergartners be prepared for that future? What role will their schooling play in that preparation?
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