A special legislative committee pricing the state's share of public education has given preliminary support for extra aid to educate non-English speaking students. Read the rest ...
Friday, January 25, 2008
Spotlight from the MacArthur Foundation
Spotlight from the MacArthur Foundation
The Spotlight Blog, "blogging the field of digital media and learning," is supported by the MacArthur Foundation. Postings are sparse at this time, but should pick up to reflect the Foundation's continuring involvements with digital media and learning projects.____JH
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"Each week this Spotlight will provide a central focal point for "what's important" in the emerging field of digital media and learning. But that's not all. This Spotlight is part of Digital Bridges, an initiative to bring coherence and collaboration to the field. Concretely, this site offers the public a first opportunity to get involved by signing up to get notified of major news and collaboration opportunities. This spring we will launch a larger Knowledge Network to centralize these efforts"
Education board rejects teacher drug testing (KHNL News 8 Honolulu)
Education board rejects teacher drug testing (KHNL News 8 Honolulu)
Honolulu (AP) - The Board of Education says it'd be too costly to randomly test teachers for drug abuse. The board has voted unanimously not to fund a proposed drug testing program for public school teachers.
Honolulu (AP) - The Board of Education says it'd be too costly to randomly test teachers for drug abuse. The board has voted unanimously not to fund a proposed drug testing program for public school teachers.
Education and Business Innovation Summit (Democrat News)
Education and Business Innovation Summit for St. Francois, Madison, and Iron Counties Continue reading ...
Interview with Hewlett Foundation's Catherine Casserly
This interview appeared in Hewlett's November 2007 newsletter; Catherine Casserly is the Program Officer at Hewlett for Open Educational Resources. Her observations on how the OER movement has developed and perspectives on directions it may take are worth reading. ____JH
_____
"What are the implications of having high quality educational materials freely available without issuing credentials like diplomas to confirm a student has mastery of a subject? Right now the educational materials on the Web also serve to guide a student to an institution where they might want to enroll to learn about a certain subject. But I think eventually we will see the creation of institutions to issue credentials based on self-guided study via the Web. That will probably involve payments for testing and evaluation."
"Look into your crystal ball. What do you think all this will look like in another decade based on advances in technology and current trends? We can’t even imagine what the technology will look like in ten years. I think we’ll have a vast library of available knowledge and alternative ways for people to get access to higher education. I think we’ll have institutions that grant credentials for this learning. And I hope we’ll have students who engage in learning in rewarding ways that make them creators of knowledge. And it’s through that creation that they learn. That will be a big turning point."
Read the rest ...SANTA ANA Contract worker accused of theft
McGill University's Life Sciences Library assembled this excellent set of resources for medical instruction and learning. The site will also be of value to patients who want to be proactively informed about topics related to their own medical problems. The links include Databases, Journals, Directories, Multimedia Resources, Curriculum Tools, and the very interesting ABC of Teaching and Learning Medicine Series. ____JH (Thanks to Ray Schroeder's Educational Technology for this resource.)
Read the rest ...The district does not expect a surplus from its $20 billion in bond issues, however, as costs continue to rise.
Declining enrollment has prompted the Los Angeles Unified School District to scale back its $20-billion school construction and remodeling program sought to relieve overcrowding and end involuntary busing.
I'm always pleased to discover new sites that provide innovative learning resources. The Virtual LRC combines features of an online reference library and a meta search engine. This is definitely a site that students, instructors, and writers will want to keep available in their bookmarks or toolbars to facilitate ready information checking. Virtual LRC was created and is maintained by Dr. Michael Bell, a former library administrator. ____ JH (Via Helge Scherlund's eLearning News Blog.)
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"The mission of the Virtual Learning Resources Center is to index thousands of the best academic information websites, selected by teachers and library professionals worldwide, in order to provide to students and teachers current, valid information for school and university academic projects! The Virtual LRC is both a dedicated index of over 10,000 web pages maintained by a real human being, as well as a meta-search engine that includes in its results information gleaned from many of the best research portals and university and public library Internet subject guides recommended by teachers and librarians."
"The VLRC includes selected sites in a growing list of subject/information areas including: full-text magazines, newspapers, electronic text archives, art history, biography, biology, career information, psychology, history, government information, literature, medical information, social sciences, legal information, American Civil War, Art, Careers, Crime, Directories, Economics, Education, English Language, Electronic Texts, Foreign Languages, Geography, Genealogy, Government Information,Health/Medical, History, Legal Information, Lesson Plans, Literature, Mathematics, Music, Reference, Science, Technology, Tutorials on the Web, and Writing Style Guides."
Read the rest ...The LeMill world-wide web community (viewable in twelve languages) contains an impressive online set of resources for teachers, which are attractively and functionally displayed within the web design. The resources include contents, tools, teaching methods, and stories/cases. Although the educational resources available through LeMill are mainly at the K-12 level, higher education materials are also included (see, for a fine example, the "Brief History of New Media"). Since all the resources at LeMill are web-based, nothing needs to be downloaded or installed, editing of the resources can be accomplished within a web browser. Also, all of the resources are freely available under a Creative Commons attribution-sharealike license.
View the LeMill Overview for a quick orientation to the site, then examine the Tour and the FAQ. From there users can explore by browsing or searching resources and can also register to participate in the community. (Thanks to Teemu Leinonen for recent information about LeMill.)___JH
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"What is LeMill? LeMill is a web community for finding, authoring and sharing learning resources. First at all, you can find learning resources. You can use the resources you find in your own teaching or learning. You can also add your own learning content to LeMill. You may edit your content and combine larger chunks of learning resources from individual media pieces. If you wish you may also join some of the groups producing or editing learning resources. In LeMill the content is always easily found where and whenever you need them."
"Is LeMill another Learning Management System (LMS)? No - LeMill is not LMS. LeMill is a web site engine to author and share learning resources. All content in LeMill server are free/libre/open for all web users. Anyone may also start their own LeMill website. You can download LeMill engine, install it on your own server and put it online. After this you will automatically be part of the global network of LeMill servers. Because of this we like to say that LeMill is 'do it yourself' learning resource website engine. We love to see schools and other educational institutions taking LeMill in use."
Read the rest ...Reading with Fluency = Reading with Success
Materials: Fun short text with rhythm such as poems at the
Independent Level
Parents and teachers: Assist your children/students in
becoming fluent readers by:
1. Providing them with models of fluent reading. If you
are not a fluent reader, find someone who is and allow that
person to read to the children. The person who is modeling
must read with enthusiasm while allowing the voice to fall
and rise (vary pitch) at appropriate times throughout the
reading. For example, if a question is being read, the
reader should allow his/her voice to rise at the end. For
example, "Is this sufficient?" should be read as if the
reader is actually asking the question to someone in
person. The voice will rise at the last word because it is
after all a question.
2. Ask children/students to repeatedly read passages as you
offer guidance. They should practice reading passages until
they can read them as the model did, assuming the model is
an adequate reader. Do not allow someone to model reading
unless that person is an efficient reader. An inadequate
reader will hinder a child's interest in learning to read.
3. Model fluent reading. After you model how to read the
text, ask the children/students to reread it. By doing
this, the students are engaging in repeated reading.
Usually, rereading a text four times is sufficient to
improve fluency. Text with rhythm and/or poems is a good
choice for this activity. It is the actual time that
students are actively engaged in reading that produces
reading gains. Use text that is interesting to the child
and contains 100-200 words.
By listening to adequate models of fluent reading, students
learn how a reader's voice can make written text make
sense. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading
aloud daily to children/students. By reading effortlessly
and with expression, you are modeling and teaching how a
fluent reader sounds during reading.
After you model how to read the text, ask the
children/students to reread it. By doing this, the students
are engaging in repeated reading. Usually, rereading a text
four times is sufficient to improve fluency. It is the
actual time that students are actively engaged in reading
that produces reading gains.
Encourage parents or other family members to read aloud to
their children at home. As children/students hear several
models of fluent readers, they are exposed to many ways a
reader can sound. Soon they will see that some sound more
interesting than others or that some make the text come
alive more than others. Generally, children want to sound
just like the reader who made the text come alive and kept
their attention.
In addition, students improve their fluency by combining
reading instruction with opportunities to read books that
are at their independent level of reading ability. Books
that are at a child's independent level will require
minimal assistance from a parent/teacher. (see the three
levels of text readability below)
Readability Levels
Independent level text - This type of text is easy to read
with approximately 1 out of 20 words difficult for the
reader (95% success)
Instructional level text - This type of text is challenging
to read but manageable with approximately 1 out of 10 words
difficult for the reader (90% success)
Frustration level text - This type of text is too hard to
read with more than 1 out of 10 words difficult for the
reader (less than 90% success)
About the Author:
Your child's development is important and here at child
font, each lesson builds on skills from the previous
lesson; home schooling has never looked
brighter: http://www.childfont.com
Independent Level
Parents and teachers: Assist your children/students in
becoming fluent readers by:
1. Providing them with models of fluent reading. If you
are not a fluent reader, find someone who is and allow that
person to read to the children. The person who is modeling
must read with enthusiasm while allowing the voice to fall
and rise (vary pitch) at appropriate times throughout the
reading. For example, if a question is being read, the
reader should allow his/her voice to rise at the end. For
example, "Is this sufficient?" should be read as if the
reader is actually asking the question to someone in
person. The voice will rise at the last word because it is
after all a question.
2. Ask children/students to repeatedly read passages as you
offer guidance. They should practice reading passages until
they can read them as the model did, assuming the model is
an adequate reader. Do not allow someone to model reading
unless that person is an efficient reader. An inadequate
reader will hinder a child's interest in learning to read.
3. Model fluent reading. After you model how to read the
text, ask the children/students to reread it. By doing
this, the students are engaging in repeated reading.
Usually, rereading a text four times is sufficient to
improve fluency. Text with rhythm and/or poems is a good
choice for this activity. It is the actual time that
students are actively engaged in reading that produces
reading gains. Use text that is interesting to the child
and contains 100-200 words.
By listening to adequate models of fluent reading, students
learn how a reader's voice can make written text make
sense. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading
aloud daily to children/students. By reading effortlessly
and with expression, you are modeling and teaching how a
fluent reader sounds during reading.
After you model how to read the text, ask the
children/students to reread it. By doing this, the students
are engaging in repeated reading. Usually, rereading a text
four times is sufficient to improve fluency. It is the
actual time that students are actively engaged in reading
that produces reading gains.
Encourage parents or other family members to read aloud to
their children at home. As children/students hear several
models of fluent readers, they are exposed to many ways a
reader can sound. Soon they will see that some sound more
interesting than others or that some make the text come
alive more than others. Generally, children want to sound
just like the reader who made the text come alive and kept
their attention.
In addition, students improve their fluency by combining
reading instruction with opportunities to read books that
are at their independent level of reading ability. Books
that are at a child's independent level will require
minimal assistance from a parent/teacher. (see the three
levels of text readability below)
Readability Levels
Independent level text - This type of text is easy to read
with approximately 1 out of 20 words difficult for the
reader (95% success)
Instructional level text - This type of text is challenging
to read but manageable with approximately 1 out of 10 words
difficult for the reader (90% success)
Frustration level text - This type of text is too hard to
read with more than 1 out of 10 words difficult for the
reader (less than 90% success)
About the Author:
Your child's development is important and here at child
font, each lesson builds on skills from the previous
lesson; home schooling has never looked
brighter: http://www.childfon
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