Education Vault: 07/01/2009

Friday, July 31, 2009

Two very controversial topics met in the middle today, when one potentially pointless national identity card scheme which would cost the UK taxpayer between £10-20bn according to the London School of Economics , and a cut of £65m in higher education at university level would cut a further 1,500 full time lecturing and support staff. Even though the two stories are entirely unconnected, caused by decisions in two separate UK government departments, it has nonetheless sparked anger with union Continue reading ...

Horry County man charged for second time with having sex with horse

A Longs man remains jailed after police say he was caught on video surveillance having sexual intercourse with a horse at an Horry County stable for the second time in the last three years.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Open Education Search Project

The O'Reilly Radar blog reports that ccLearn, Google, and the Hewlett Foundation are working together to build a search portal focused on open educational resources. Everyone interested in the OER field will certainly be following this new OE Search project closely. ____JH

"ccLearn is working with the Hewlett Foundation and Google to build an 'open education web-scale search,' part of a larger effort to offer web users simple, overarching mechanisms for discovering OERs. This tool aims to direct search engine traffic to the incredible diversity of OER repositories and communities. While such a tool would not replace the more specialized and sophisticated search sites and portals that the community already uses, we believe it would expose a much wider public to our community’s materials. This is also an opportunity to encourage OER adoption and specify legal and technical conditions for making educational resources openly available. We see this project as an important step for achieving large-scale access to and use of open educational resources. "

Open Education Search [del.icio.us/tag/oer]

A new crop of school gardens

Even as state funding wilts, support for school gardens is growing.

A freckle-faced Malloy Sparling wraps her dirt-dusted fingers around a three-pronged cultivator and looks up with a big-toothed smile. "We're making a garden," she says, plucking a weed out of the ground, then wiping her little hands on her tomato red T-shirt.

Annenberg Broadband Media Resources

The Annenberg Foundation has provided instructional media to schools, colleges, and to public television for many years. Some of the Annenberg Media productions are now freely available online. Registration is required. The Teacher Resources are organized by discipline and age group and are searchable with key words. Some examples include "A World of Art," "The Constitution," "Human Geography," "In Search of the Novel," and "Seasons of Life." Although the materials are directed at teachers for use as supplements to classes, they will also be useful for students and adult learners.____JH

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"Annenberg Media is a unit of The Annenberg Foundation. Our mission is to advance excellent teaching in all disciplines throughout American K-12 schools. Former names of Annenberg Media are: Annenberg/CPB, The Annenberg/CPB Project, and The Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project.

We pursue this mission by funding and broadly distributing multimedia resources for teachers to help them improve their own teaching practice and understanding of their subject. Annenberg Media makes use of telecommunications technologies—the Internet, including broadband video streaming, and satellite television broadcast—as well as hard copy media to disseminate these multimedia resources, ensuring that they reach as many teachers as possible."

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Fed Chair Bernanke takes hit on investments

Fed Chair Bernanke takes hit on investments
If your investments didn't fare so well last year, here's a small consolation: Neither did Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's.

Mass. man let teens fight in his home

A Massachusetts man says he allowed his teenage son and several other boys to hold supervised fights at his home because he believed it would be safer than if they had fought on their own. Read more ...

LectureShare

This new web tool makes it easy for instructors to share text, audio, and video with students. Registration is required, but free. Use the FAQ and About sections to orient to the resources. Also look at Ezra Katz's sample course LectureShare 101 (once registered). ____JH

(Thanks to Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day for this reference.)

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Give students access to course materials without the burden of maintaining your own webpage or the hassle of complex web-based solutions
Post audio and video content easily
Make class announcements that your students will actually read—via e-mail, RSS (coming soon), or SMS
Effortlessly make your course available to anyone if you choose

Editorial: Cookie-cutter education needs to stop

The recent discovery of students' cookie- cutter essays for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test put into question the exam's effectiveness at measuring educational standards statewide.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Museum overseers sue to halt Rose closure

Three members of the Rose Art Museum’s board of overseers filed a lawsuit yesterday to prevent Brandeis University from closing the museum, selling artwork, or using any of the Rose endowment for other purposes - a surprising move that a university lawyer called “frivolous and without merit.’’ Read the rest ...

Blackboard Loses on Appeal

Inside Higher Ed reports on Blackboard's latest loss, which is good news for universities and colleges who use open source software because we can be sure that despite their disclaimers, Blackboard would certainly move against open source courseware if they succeed against Desire2Learn and other private companies. Blackboard's loss is also an affirmation of common sense since anyone with long-time experience in course management software knew that Blackboard's patent claims were simply assertions, not valid original contributions to courseware delivery methods. ____JH

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"Both companies appealed the parts of the case they'd lost to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwide jurisdiction over U.S. patent claims. Its highly technical decision upheld the lower court's conclusion that Blackboard's claims 1-35 were invalid. But the three-judge panel rejected the lower court's finding that Blackboard's patented learning system had originated the approach of giving a single user with a single log-in multiple roles, such as being a teacher in one course and a student in another."

"The appeals panel embraced Desire2Learn's argument that such technology existed in 'prior art,' in this case previously existing course management systems such as Serf and CourseInfo 1.5. The appeals court essentially ruled that the lower court judge had framed Blackboard's claim incorrectly for the jury, said Bruce T. Wieder, a lawyer for the Washington firm of Dow Lohnes who was not involved in the case. Having done so, the Federal Circuit court "could have said, 'This is how you should have interpreted it, you go look at it again,' " Wieder said. "But instead, the court said, 'Since we've seen what was argued, we now can say that the district court wouldn't have come to any conclusion,' and declared those claims invalid."

Britain's Leading Educational Paper in£5 Million Relaunch

Britain's Leading Educational Paper in£5 Million Relaunch

Monday, July 27, 2009

Europe fast-tracking swine flu vaccine

In a drive to inoculate people against swine flu before winter, many European governments say they will fast-track the testing of a vaccine, arousing concern among some experts about safety and proper doses. Continue reading ...

Libertarians seek a place in the New Hampshire sun

He fled the "People's Republic of Massachusetts" to escape tyranny. Now he strides the campground in a plaid kilt and mirror shades, an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle across his torso, an immense Scottish sword sheathed between his shoulders. Read the rest ...

Dropout prevention focus of Maine summit

Maine's high school dropouts will be the focus of discussion when educators, business leaders, children's advocates and others meet in Orono. Read the rest ...

Budget mess makes California vulnerable to crippling credit downgrade, official warns

Budget mess makes California vulnerable to crippling credit downgrade, official warns
Treasurer Bill Lockyer says the state could find funding sources for crucial programs cut off if its credit rating is dropped to junk status. Lawmakers and the governor vow to keep negotiating.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned today that state leaders' failure to reach a budget deal has put California at risk of a credit downgrade that would cut off access to funds needed for building schools, roads and other public works projects.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

DA drops charges against NC man shot by lover

A North Carolina district attorney has dropped criminal charges against an ex-convict shot in the chest by his lover.

Md. to Release Test Scores

Maryland education officials will release the results Tuesday of standardized tests that measure whether schools are meeting federal standards.

Trimming branches

In the bright, airy main room of the Adams Shore branch library in Quincy, several adults browsed the small collection of novels one recent afternoon, while a few aisles away a father and son leafed through a story book. Read more ...

Saturday, July 25, 2009

EducationBug.org Launches Free Job Post

Teacher loses fight to keep job

Judge gives L.A. Unified permission to terminate Matthew Kim, who has done no work for seven years.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has given school district officials the go-ahead to fire a special education teacher seven years after they decided he did not belong in a classroom because of alleged sexual harassment.

The invisible hand of letting people know who’s boss

Edward links downblog to a piece by Ronald Bailey in Reason magazine . My precis of Bailey’s thesis runs something like this. Having children, per se , isn’t so expensive. Educating them, on the other hand, is very expensive. This is because the levers of a modern, free market, rule of law, enforcement of contract society are complicated and you need a lot of training in order to know which lever to pull, and when. In actuality, lack of training generally leads to denial of access to said le Read more ...

ZaidLearn--a New Blog about Open Learning Resources

This promising new weblog by Zaid Ali Alsagoff is devoted to open learning resources around the world; Zaid is located in Malaysia. His blog is especially valuable for its extensive listing of links to bloggers who write about eLearning and its multiple links to Learning Tools, eLearning sites, OpenCourseWare sites, University Podcasts, and Learning Repositories. Zaid is currently at work on a book about effective learning and teaching that is scheduled for release in June 2008. ____ JH

Friday, July 24, 2009

Tanoos loses spot on education roundtable

Dan Tanoos' term on the Indiana Education Roundtable has expired and he will not be re-appointed, according to a letter he received last week from Tony Bennett, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Read the rest ...

Police stand by officer who arrested Gates

Police stand by officer who arrested Gates
Police union officials on Friday rallied around the white officer whose arrest of a prominent black scholar sparked a heated debate on race relations in the United States.

Jonna Perrilloand Richard Helmling: Collaboration boosts education

Think of the lonely schoolmarm in a one-room schoolhouse a century ago, her hair pulled tight behind horn-rimmed glasses as she leans over a stack of papers with the sunlight failing outside.

“Do Good Grades Predict Success?” Re-Post

Paul Kimelman, a reader and sometimes inadvertent guest blogger over at Freakonomics, asks whether or not there’s a direct correlation between kicking ass academically and then going on to achieve success in the real world. It’s a great post and it made me think about the tremendous value we tend to place on the paper [...]

It’s a great post and it made me think about the tremendous value we tend to place on the paper measures of success, i.e., grades achieved or money earned. Rarely do we look at the whole person and quantify their levels of happiness and contentment, or how many of their own goals they’ve achieved to determine how successful they are in life.

I myself am a recovering overachiever, and I therefore try very hard to not put insane amounts of pressure on my kids. It’s a fine line and I’m still working out the kinks in the system. I have to somehow get it through to my first-grader that completing the homework assignments are expected and required, while allowing her to do said assignment in her own way.

I don’t want her to obsess about perfection, but I do need her to understand that no one gets to waltz through life avoiding the drudgery entirely and sticking with only the super-fun bits. As a human in the Race (be that Rat or Great) she’ll be expected to contribute. But I would very much like to avoid beating the coloring-outside-the-lines instinct out of her; I love it that she prefers to do things a little to the left or right of center.

How do you instill in a person a solid work ethic and the concept that her own goal of using every color in the crayon box is just as important as completing the illustration assigned in the homework? There’s no paper measure or value in society for turning in a meticulously colored homework assignment. Her Mom and her teacher may think it’s cool and may appreciate it, but it’s not like there’s an extra point column for enjoying the assignment and using every color. A correct and completed assignment and some stellar test scores are the only proof of success available to school kids.

So will thirteen years of primary and secondary education form her for her higher education career, in which GPAs and test scores will be her personal-value metric? And what happens after college? Will she do what most adults do and transfer her success-pursuing energies immediately from grades to money? How do I instill in my offspring the idea that doing one’s best in school and in the professional world is important, but that a 4.0 and a million dollars are by no means the be-all and end-all?

Dammit. This is one of the drawbacks to being a thinking higher mammal cursed with the ability to ponder oneself into oblivion: you can think yourself into a sucky little dark corner wherein false optimism and pure, unadulterated denial are the only way out.

Well, I think my work here is done. I’m sure I won’t screw my progeny up too badly and that they will have a higher-than-average chance of growing up happy and then blossoming into well-adjusted, deliriously happy adults who wake up every day just bursting with excitement for the day ahead.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

photo: bookgrl

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Learning To Embrace The Suck Re-Post

Regardless of who you are or what life situation you find yourself in the midst of, there are bound to be some misery-infested moments. School, work, and just plain day-to-day life have wretched bits that bring on the urge to shake your fist at the sky and demand some answers. If every day, [...]

If every day, all day is like that for you, then I would suggest some changes. But if the unpleasant moments are just threads running through a solid, generally happy and contented life, you’ll be fine and can take the advice of Sergeant Felipe Perez (Williams College ’99) to “Embrace the Suck.” You can read his post on his blog, The Accidental Soldier, at his Alma Mater’s blog, EphBlog, or below.

Army port-a-potties the world over (I can speak to the US, Germany, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, at least) are full of some of the crudest, funniest, and wisest graffiti ever. My personal favorite, scrawled or scratched into at least one potty in ever place I’ve ever been, is “Embrace the Suck.”

“Army Strong,” “Army of One,” “Be All You Can Be” aside, “Embrace the Suck” is the real Army motto. The wisdom is simple and powerful. War sucks. Soldiering sucks. The Army sucks. Deal with it. Get over it. Accept it. Embrace it.

I think I’m close.

Just came back from 5 days in the woods. Slept in the dirt. Got rained on. Tore my hands up taking machine guns apart in the dark. Got real stinky. In short, it sucked.

But on day three or four (we lose track), we had hot chow trucked out to the woods. It had stopped raining. The sun was setting behind the North Carolina woods, through a break in the rainclouds. The truck was blaring 80’s R&B as they pulled up, and we convinced them to open the doors and turn it up. Before long, plate full of lukewarm spaghetti in hand, funky buddies at my side, and bad music in background, I was as happy as can be. It wasn’t long before our pint-sized First Sergeant started screaming about something or other, but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Better yet, last night, our field days over, we rolled back into the FOB. I’ve never been happier to see broken showers, a crowded tent, and a dining hall full of bland food. I’m learning to embrace the suck.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image: Bryce Muir

Amy’s Super Water

-My water is so good, it’s super water! 4-year old Amy in class this week Posted in education, quotes Tagged: education, K2, kindergarten, quotes Read the rest ...

CSU students could face even higher tuition, enrollment cut

A 20-percent tuition increase could face California State University students this fall when they return to school, along with a host of other changes, according to a proposal by Chancellor Charles Reed.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Chino school district loses its gamble

School board forged ahead with a summer makeup session for inadvertent short days during the regular year, hoping the state would approve the scheme. It didn't.

State officials Thursday denied a school district's novel plan to make up for lost instructional time -- and avoid a $5-million penalty -- by providing a last-minute summer session.

Annenberg Broadband Media Resources

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Teacher loses fight to keep job

L.A. Unified delays bids on schools

Plan to let district, charters and other groups compete for new facilities draws union opposition.

Faced with unrelenting union opposition, the Los Angeles Board of Education put on hold Tuesday a proposal that would have allowed charter operators and other outside groups to bid for control of 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years.

Read the rest ...

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Economy and Higher Education Re-Post

The Economy and Higher Education Re-Post
According to this article in the CS Monitor, freaking out about the economy is causing prospective college students (and their bill-footing parents) to reconsider where (and if) they should do their matriculating. Out of 2,500 high school seniors surveyed by MeritAid.com, almost 60 percent were planning on less prestigious higher education venues for purely [...]

According to this article in the CS Monitor, freaking out about the economy is causing prospective college students (and their bill-footing parents) to reconsider where (and if) they should do their matriculating. Out of 2,500 high school seniors surveyed by MeritAid.com, almost 60 percent were planning on less prestigious higher education venues for purely frugal reasons. 14 percent switched from plans to attend a four-year college and are heading to two-year colleges instead. 16 percent of the kids surveyed are halting all higher education plans for the time being.

College students currently attending private schools are considering the very tempting transfer to in-state public schools. And schools closer to home are a much more viable option for most families.

Admissions staffs see nervousness about not just tuition but also tangential costs. At a recent college fair in Greenwich, Conn., a mother and daughter approached the table for Claremont McKenna College. When the mom realized it was in California, “she said, ‘We’re having enough trouble financing the education these days, I don’t think we really want to worry about all the plane tickets,’ ” says associate dean of admission Adam Sapp. “I definitely didn’t hear that last year.”

The NY Times has an even cheerier article about families struggling to pay for college and the added challenge of loans being harder to come by these days.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

photo: China Daily News

Proposition 98, which guards funding for state's schools, is tested again

In the tug of war over state's deficit, Schwarzenegger would like to suspend it. The California Teacher's Assn. wants reassurances.

For years it has been this government town's equivalent of a stone fortress, a bastion of public policy under the watchful eye of a potent political army.

“Do Good Grades Predict Success?” Re-Post

“Do Good Grades Predict Success?” Re-Post
Paul Kimelman, a reader and sometimes inadvertent guest blogger over at Freakonomics, asks whether or not there’s a direct correlation between kicking ass academically and then going on to achieve success in the real world. It’s a great post and it made me think about the tremendous value we tend to place on the paper [...]

Posted by Alexa Harrington

photo: bookgrl

Monday, July 20, 2009

Young Quebecers seek higher education in the U.S.

Each year, many young Quebecers apply to prestigious American universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , hoping to benefit from better research opportunities, education and life experiences.

HI-TEC 2009 Industry Recognition Award Presented to Bart Aslin

Sued by the forest

Sued by the forest
Last February, the town of Shapleigh, Maine, population 2,326, passed an unusual ordinance. Like nearby towns, Shapleigh sought to protect its aquifers from the Nestle Corporation, which draws heavily on the region for its Poland Spring bottled water. Some Maine towns had acquiesced, others had protested, and one was locked in a protracted legal battle.

CSU students could face even higher tuition, enrollment cut

Sunday, July 19, 2009

I need help deciding which school to attend.?

Jul.19, 2009 in Uncategorized I want to get my bachelors and i have been researching online, and have narrowed it down to 3. I was wondering if anyone has attended these schools, and could share there expierence, rather it be positive or negative. thanksWestern Governors university Grand Canyon University Ashford UniversityI will be going for an Education degree.Tags: ashford university, bachelors, education degree, grand canyon, grand canyon university, western governors university Continue reading ...

Merit Exam Shows Mixed Results

High school students improved in math and writing but did worse in reading and science in the third year of Michigan's revamped standardized testing program.

Marine with gun arrest charged with murder

A Marine charged with two counts of murder Friday in the shooting death of two men outside of a shopping center was arrested last month for possession of a stolen gun and carrying a concealed weapon.

ACE Resources for Lifelong Learning Professionals

The American Council for Education maintains a useful set of pages for academics who work with adult learners. Included at the ACE site is information about Military Evaluation Programs, Government Relations, and Public Policy. (Of course not very many years ago, most students involved in distance education were included in the "adult learner" category, but today distance education is appealing to more and more younger students.) ___JH

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"For more than 60 years, ACE has helped adults gain access to a postsecondary education. We invite you to find out more about our programs and services."

Read the rest ...

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Gee – How Could This Happen in a State With a Barney Frank-Style Civil Rights Law?

Oh… Silly me. Vanessa Edwards Foster shines well-needed light on all of the insane glee over the conviction in the Lateisha Green murder – because, you see, in a state where trans = unworthy, murder = manslaughter. Lateisha Green’s murderer, Dwight DeLee, received his verdict in a Syracuse Courthouse. He was found innocent of second degree murder. He was convicted of first degree manslaughter. The jury determined that after DeLee had lobbed invective and epithets at Lateisha Green sitti Continue reading ...

Finding a new computer

AND THE FIRST SAFE SCORES JUST A LITTLE OVER A MONTH AWAY AND IT 'S TIME TO START THINKING ABOUT THE RIGHT LAPTOP APPEASING FIGURES TO AND YOU STILL IS BACK WITH A LOOK AT SOME ANTIOXIDANTS AND THERE 'S LOTS TO CHOOSE FROM AND I KNOW WHEN I WAS LOOKING FOR A COMPUTER HAS BEEN AND I SAT DOWN WITH HEARING YOU WHENEVER EVERYTHING THAT WE 'RE ...

Lunenburg school official: Regional plan unfair

The perceived benefits of creating a regional school district with Ayer and Shirley do not justify the effort needed by the town of Lunenburg to make it work, according to David Reif, chairman of the Lunenburg School Committee.

Va. paper expresses regret for backing segregation

Va. paper expresses regret for backing segregation
A Virginia newspaper expressed regret Thursday for supporting a systematic campaign by the state's white political leaders to maintain separate public schools for blacks and whites in the 1950s.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Osamabama under 60%

Osamabama under 60%
REEEEEAAAALLY ? And CNN posted it? Oh, and this comment: It’s always about color isn’t it? Once a person makes a negative comment about the president it’s always because he’s a man of “color” and we don’t like him just because of the color of his skin. Need I remind anyone that Obama is 1/2 black and 1/2 white? But the African Americans like to take all the credit. I don’t care if Obama is purple, he still sucks as president. We’ll see how everyone feels when you have to sale everything you h

Eye on Entertainment

Ala. students could take ACT for free

July 13 - The state of Alabama might start footing the bill for students to take the ACT.

Black, white students face performance gap

Black, white students face performance gap
WASHINGTON - Reading and math scores are rising for black students across the country, but not enough to close the gap between them and their better-scoring white peers, according to an Education Department report released yesterday.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

L.A. school board lets Birmingham High go charter

It was the first action by the newly constituted board, but the members weren't particularly enthusiastic about the move, on which they had little choice.

A newly constituted Los Angeles school board took its first action Wednesday by giving up control of its largest campus, allowing Birmingham High to convert itself into a charter.

Patrick wants more charter schools

Patrick wants more charter schools
Governor Deval Patrick will unveil a proposal today to nearly double the number of charter school seats allowed in the state’s worst-performing districts, a move expected to trigger a fierce debate on Beacon Hill and send tremors through local school systems.

MCAS results released today

The Massachusetts Department of Education today released the results of the 2008 MCAS tests and the department said statewide they show impressive math gains in all grades and strong improvement in eighth grade science and gains in English language arts, math and Science, Technology/Engineering in Grade 10. Continue reading ...

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Free Search Tools for Science Information

This guideline information was cited in Open Access News. These tools will be useful to students and instructors in both science and technology. ____JH

"ResourceShelf has put together A Quick Look at a Few Free Science Search Tools. Among the tools and resources it covers are BioMed Central, CiteSeer, DOAJ, Global Science Gateway, Google Scholar, Highwire Press, Microsoft Live Search Academic, National Science Digital Library, OAIster, PubMed Central, Science.gov, Scirus, and Scitopia." [Open Access News]

Ark. Trims Black-White Math Gap For 8th-Graders

Arkansas' public schools have narrowed the performance gap between black and white eighth-graders' scores on national standardized tests of mathematics skills and knowledge, according to a national report.

Lunenburg school official: Regional plan unfair

ACE Resources for Lifelong Learning Professionals

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"For more than 60 years, ACE has helped adults gain access to a postsecondary education. We invite you to find out more about our programs and services."

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

LectureShare

(Thanks to Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day for this reference.)

_____

Give students access to course materials without the burden of maintaining your own webpage or the hassle of complex web-based solutions
Post audio and video content easily
Make class announcements that your students will actually read—via e-mail, RSS (coming soon), or SMS
Effortlessly make your course available to anyone if you choose

SciTalks/HumTalks/GovTalks/BusiTalks

These four sites collect video lectures on scientific, humanities, government, and business topics by prominent thinkers. I've sampled a number of the talks and found them to be extremely valuable. These sites could be very useful to instructors who want to supply supplementary materials for their courses. _____JH

School levy failure highlights challenges for big districts

School levy failure highlights challenges for big districts
Rowland Unified gained a majority of votes but couldn't get the required two-thirds support. Experts say larger districts like L.A or Long Beach could have trouble reaching that level as well.

Many wealthy communities across Southern California have recently passed parcel taxes to help their beleaguered schools. But the defeat this week of a similar levy in a less affluent, larger school district in the San Gabriel Valley offers a look at the challenges that could face parcel tax proposals in big-city school systems in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

CALIFORNIA BRIEFING

Reports from Los Angeles, Hawthorne and Orange

STATEWIDE

Monday, July 13, 2009

You’re invited to attend the Principles of Liberty Seminar

You’re invited to attend the Principles of Liberty Seminar
Presented by: National Center for Constitutional Studies Sponsored by: Constitution Week USA Discover the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Founding Fathers which they said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desired peace, prosperity, and freedom. This positive, exciting message will give you a lasting understanding of the Principles of Liberty. Thousands of people have enjoyed this seminar all over the country. Date: Saturday, July 18th Time: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm Place:

Berklee music school taps African musicians

Victor Dogah bobs his head and smiles, quickly getting the hang of the Puerto Rican rhythm written on the whiteboard behind his professor. He and his classmates hit their fingers and palms on their drums in near perfect unison. Read more ...

Britain's Leading Educational Paper in£5 Million Relaunch

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Brighton residents sue city over BC

Brighton residents sued the City of Boston this week, seeking to halt Boston College’s plan to build ball fields and a dorm on the site of the former headquarters of the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Read more ...

Pittsburgh scholarships saving schools, students

Pittsburgh scholarships saving schools, students
John Tokarski III maintained a 4.4 GPA in Pittsburgh's Schenley High School, played three sports and took on leadership roles. Yet it appeared his dreams might burst: the $45,000-a-year tuition for the private college he wanted to attend was too steep.

Teachers union attacks Schwarzenegger's proposed suspension of Proposition 98

Teachers union attacks Schwarzenegger's proposed suspension of Proposition 98
The California Teachers Assn. launches a television ad blasting the governor for suggesting a $3-billion cut to the funding guarantees for schools.

The California Teachers Assn. unveiled a television ad Thursday attacking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his proposal to suspend Proposition 98, the law that sets funding guarantees for schools.

The Open Library Project

This interesting transcript of an e-mail interview features Scott McLemee, a regular contributor to Inside Higher Ed, with a programmer, Aaron Swartz, who works on The Open Library Project. The short interview effectively captures the scope and vision of the project. ____JH

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Here's a sample:

"Q: How is Open Library funded? Are you working on it full time? And how many people are involved in the project?

A: It’s currently being funded by the Internet Archive, with the help of some state and federal library grants. We have some volunteers, but also about 5 people working full-time (a couple programmers, a designer, and a product manager)."

Saturday, July 11, 2009

10 Most broke states

10 Most broke states
Here is the story of the various states , with the appropriate LEFT spin giving you the tale of woe, the sacrifice, the horrible CUTS in spending the overspending leeches wish not to make. The economic problems of American families are now pounding many state governments which are in turn slashing services to balance their budgets in one of the most difficult years in decades. High on the chopping block are benefits to the poor, money for education, highway repairs, hours that state office

Free Search Tools for Science Information

This guideline information was cited in Open Access News. These tools will be useful to students and instructors in both science and technology. ____JH

Read the rest ...

ISU TRiO Upward Bound summer program attracts 60 participants to campus

ISU TRiO Upward Bound summer program attracts 60 participants to campus
Sixty students are participating in the Idaho State University Upward Bound program's resident summer session learning the skills they need to be successful university-level students.

Fifty-two of the participants are high school students, the other eight are "bridge students," who are graduating high school seniors who participated in the program, said Mike Echanis, director of TRiO Student Services at Idaho State University. The Upward Bound students arrived on campus June 8 and their session ends July 31.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Education secretary treads where teachers unions don't want to go

Education secretary treads where teachers unions don't want to go
Arne Duncan, in a speech at the NEA's annual meeting in San Diego, says teacher merit pay and student test scores should be on the table when discussing education reform.

The country's top education official challenged teachers unions Thursday to embrace historically controversial ways of promoting teacher effectiveness, including offering merit pay and evaluating instructors based on student test scores.

O’Malley Exhibits Maryland’s Recovery Web Tools before Congressional Committee

O’Malley Exhibits Maryland’s Recovery Web Tools before Congressional Committee
O’Malley release Governor Martin O’Malley Exhibits Maryland’s Recovery Web Tools before Congressional Committee WASHINGTON, DC (July 8, 2009) –Governor Martin O’Malley testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today, where he exhibited Maryland’s nationally-recognized, interactive website that tracks funding from President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) from it’s inception. The Governor joined Governors Edward Rendell (PA) and Deva

What Helps When Your Marriage Is In Trouble?

One of the most difficult decisions in a persons life can be whether to stay with someone or leave. When someone has been married for a long time, this can be a big and hard decision to make, does this person really want to be single again? Probably yes. Do you want to be alone? Perhaps not. The real issue is if you will be satisfied living with a companion without love as you get older and in your later years. When youre young and dont have a lot of baggage-literally and figuratively-the choice Read the rest ...

OER Commons: Open Educational Resources

Since my own EduResources Portal closed in July 2007, I've been looking for other useful portal entry points to recommend to students and instructors who are searching for educational resources. I highly recommend the OER Commons as a valuable first stop. The Commons is extremely broad in scope, but so well organized that new users can orient to its resources quickly.

The OER materials can be browsed by categories or collections; resources are also searchable with key words. Additionally, the entry page displays the OER Top Ten and the Top 25 Tags for a quick scan of what other users are viewing. Visitors who register can set up their own OER Portfolio and also sign up to receive an E-News newsletter.

The "OER Matters" section provides links to News Stories, Articles and Reports, Conferences and Workshops, Discussion Forums, Organizations and Associations, Tools and Technology, and Blogs and Wikis. The Commons was created by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) which is supported by the Hewlett Foundation. OER professionals will want to mark the OER Commons in their bookmarks and visit the site regularly (an rss feed is also available). _____JH

______

"OER Commons is a teaching and learning network, from K-12 lesson plans to college courseware, from algebra to zoology, open to everyone to use and add to."

"Learn more about the worldwide movement to make teaching and learning materials free and accessible for use and re-use by everyone."

Thursday, July 9, 2009

EduResources Portal Closed

The EduResources Portal was closed this month. The Portal, which was formerly at http://sage.eou.edu/SPT was shut down by Eastern Oregon University (EOU) when the server could no longer be maintained. Because of financial pressures, the University must focus on "supporting hardware and software that directly contribute to the central mission of the institution."

I began the EduResources Portal in 2003 while completing a sabbatical research project; the Portal was established to provide a starting point for instructors who sought to locate online instructional repositories. When I retired from EOU in June 2004, I continued to maintain the Portal from a distance with the assistance of the Computer Center at EOU. The Portal operated in conjunction with this EduResources Weblog; the Portal provided organized links to sites that contain instructional resources for higher education and the Weblog provided commentary about news related to online instructional resources.

I intend to continue the EduResources Weblog for at least another year. I recommend that users who relied on the EduResources Portal make use of the TLT Group's Collection of Collections to guide their searches for online resources: "Exploration Guide: Collections, Repositories, Referatories of Instructional Resources on the Web."

Read the rest ...

Interventions needed in Cambodia to reduce HIV transmission from wealthier urban men to wives

By Roger Pebody, Wednesday, July 08, 2009 A household survey in Cambodia found an HIV prevalence of 0.6%, and found that infection was more common in urban areas and in wealthier households, researchers report in the July 17th edition of AIDS. A number of the findings support the hypothesis that the majority of infections in men are related to buying sex and that most women are infected by their husbands. Previous monitoring of the HIV epidemic in Cambodia relied on surve Read more ...

Political cartoon for 7/9: Ward needs a J-O-B

Political cartoon for 7/9: Ward needs a J-O-B
A Denver judge ruled this week that disgraced former Prof. Ward Churchill is not entitled to reinstatement at the University of Colorado, nor will he collect a monetary settlement. Churchill must now find gainful employment, but he may have to look outside academia for his next gig. read more

Ariz. legislators restore vetoed school funding

Ariz. legislators restore vetoed school funding
The Arizona Legislature met in special session Monday, with lawmakers quickly approving bills to restore vetoed funding for K-12 public schools and keep the state eligible for billions of dollars of federal stimulus funding.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Education Consulting Firm To Become Leading Expert in Charter Schools and For-Profit Education Industry

Read the rest ...

Translating the World's Information with Google Translator

Translating the World's Information with Google Translator
This is an informative article from the Google Blog about using the Google Translator Toolkit. Of course translation services are vital components to facilitate the world-wide sharing of educational resources. ____JH
_______
At Google, we consider translation a key part of making information universally accessible to everyone around the world. While we think Google Translate, our automatic translation system, is pretty neat, sometimes machine translation could use a human touch. Yesterday, we launched Google Translator Toolkit, a powerful but easy-to-use editor that enables translators to bring that human touch to machine translation.

For example, if an Arabic-speaking reader wants to translate a Wikipediaâ„¢ article into Arabic, she loads the article into Translator Toolkit, corrects the automatic translation, and clicks publish. By using Translator Toolkit's bag of tools â€” translation search, bilingual dictionaries, and ratings, she translates and publishes the article faster and better into Arabic. The Translator Toolkit is integrated with Wikipedia, making it easy to publish translated articles. Best of all, our automatic translation system "learns" from her corrections, creating a virtuous cycle that can help translate content into 47 languages, or over 98% of the world's Internet population.

Besides Wikipedia, we've also integrated with Knol, and we support common document types including Word and HTML. For translation professionals, we provide advanced features such as terminology and translation memory management.

For more information, check out our introductory video below. And if you're a professional translator or just a linguaphile, try Google Translator Toolkit for easier and faster translations. Be sure and let us know what you think.

Posted by Michael Galvez and Sanjay Bhansali, Google Translator Toolkit team

[The Official Google Blog]

Audit finds states using stimulus to stay afloat

The Obama administration hoped spending $787 billion in stimulus would jump-start the economy, build new schools and usher in an era of education reform. So far, government auditors say, many states are setting aside such grand plans and simply trying to stay afloat. Read the rest ...

Surprising insights from the social sciences

Surprising insights from the social sciences
Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you life. Using extensive survey and government data on thousands of people, an economist found that people who have earned more are much less likely to die. In fact, poor middle-age men have mortality rates many times that of their affluent peers. Worse, this disparity has increased over time, for both ...

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Dual Academic Careers Re-Post

Dual Academic Careers Re-Post
Do smarty-pants professor types feel they need a bigger challenge? Was defending their dissertation not enough? All of those years of undergraduate and graduate work, living somewhere near the poverty line, working and striving for those extra letters after their names? Why do obviously intelligent humans do this to themselves? Because [...]

Do smarty-pants professor types feel they need a bigger challenge? Was defending their dissertation not enough? All of those years of undergraduate and graduate work, living somewhere near the poverty line, working and striving for those extra letters after their names? Why do obviously intelligent humans do this to themselves? Because they want to spend their working days in a place of higher learning, with ivy-covered walls and trees that change color in the fall, with a tenured position, teaching hundreds of fresh, shiny little faces, each one eager to learn all that the prof has to teach.

These days, actually landing a tenured position at a college or a university is right up there with the Holy Trinity of Nearly Impossible Occurrences: winning the lottery; playing in the NBA; and being struck by lightning. And do you know what makes landing a sweet teaching gig even harder? Being married to another PhD-havin’ brainiac who would also love to land a tenured position. What are the chances both halves of a PhD couple will actually end up making a living in academia?

The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University has noticed that women don’t move as quickly or as easily through the gauntlet as their male counterparts do. A major part of this can be attributed to gender issues. But there seems to be another glitch in the Tenured Woman system: a high number of female academics are partnered with other academics, sometimes in their field. Here are the problems that situation can bring about, according to the Clayman Institute:

“Both married and domestic partners in dual-career relationships suffer decreased job mobility and the benefits in terms of opportunities, experience, salary, and working conditions that mobility can bring. This is especially true for women in the sciences, who are more often partnered with other academics. While only 7% of the members of the American Physical Society are women, for example, an astonishing 44% of them are married to other physicists. An additional 25% are married to some other type of scientist. A remarkable 80% of women mathematicians and 33% of women chemists are married to men in their own fields. Such partnerships are at cost to their mobility and advancement given the rarity of dual offers.”

Starting in November 2006 the folks at Stanford’s Clayman Institute began conducting a nationwide survey of 30,000 faculty. The point? A very good one:

“The Institute’s ‘Dual-Career Academic Couples’ study will culminate in policy recommendations aimed at helping universities recruit and retain greater numbers of women in leading faculty and administrative positions. Restructuring university practices will help transform the way universities do business and grow academic cultures where women, too, can flourish.”

I love it when research institutes use their powers for good, not evil. I found some interesting bits about dual-career issues, women in academia, gender issues, and what some folks are doing to try to increase the female population in the upper echelons of academia, especially in the math and science fields.

These three links add up to the motherlode of links on dual academic career couples and women in science. You could spend weeks trying to find the info these lists have.

Further Reading:

Stanford List
Women in Biology List
Dual Science Career Couples List

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Conquering all her hurdles

Conquering all her hurdles
Hurdles have always posed a challenge rather than a stumbling block for Meghan Ferreira. In or out of athletics.

MCAS results released today

MCAS results released today
The Massachusetts Department of Education today released the results of the 2008 MCAS tests and the department said statewide they show impressive math gains in all grades and strong improvement in eighth grade science and gains in English language arts, math and Science, Technology/Engineering in Grade 10.

Monday, July 6, 2009

McNamara, defense chief during Vietnam War, dies

Robert S. McNamara, the cerebral secretary of defense vilified for his role in escalating the Vietnam War, a disastrous conflict he later denounced as "terribly wrong," died Monday. He was 93. Read the rest ...

Roundup of NEA Action so Far

Roundup of NEA Action so Far
If you're just joining us at the 2009 National Education Association Representative Assembly, Teacher Beat has been blogging all weekend. Here's a roundup of items you may be interested in checking out: Van Roekel and the Media: Not entirely warm and fuzzy. Yet.ESEA Committee Gives Report: Followed by some pointed comments by Van Roekel on the federal law.Charters a Theme: In the wake of the Race to the Top funding, there's been a flurry of NEA action on charters.Van Roekel's Keynote: He uses th

Man charged in North Myrtle Beach is registered sex offender

A 35-year-old man charged after a 14-year-old girl reported an abduction and sexual assault in North Myrtle Beach is registered as a sex offender in North Carolina and spent 11 years in jail after pleading guilty to robbing and raping a woman in 1996.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Higher Education Costs Up More Than Inflation Yet Again

Tuition and fees at private U.S. colleges and universities for the 2009-2010 school year will rise an average 4.3 percent, the lowest percentage increase in at least 37 years, according to a survey.

Pearson Education's OnMicrosoft Podcasts Provide New Learning Tool

WorldWideScience

Science students and instructors will want to put this web address in their bookmarks because WWS provides a federated search of science sites around the world. By combining WWS with Scirus--plus a discipline-specific search and a general search in Google--a searcher will have made a serious first-pass at finding information. ____JH (Via the Development Gateway's E-Learning distribution.)

____

"WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway—accelerating scientific discovery and progress through a multilateral partnership to enable federated searching of national and international scientific databases. Subsequent versions of WorldWideScience.org will offer access to additional sources as well as enhanced features"

College Loan Corporation and Regent Form Strategic Alliance

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Budget battles keep states from tackling reforms

As lawmakers in cash-strapped states wrestled this year with revenues that kept on falling, both campaign promises and long-standing reform efforts got pushed to the side. There just wasn't enough time or money to expand health care or improve education -- or, in Rhode Island, finally get around to banning indoor prostitution -- while also passing a budget. Read the rest ...

Eye on Entertainment

Advocacy Groups Should Halt Attacks on Moderate Democrats, Obama Says

President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation. In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to “true” health-ca Read the rest ...

Crashing

I experienced a major crash of my computer and my backup system recently. Consequently, I've not been able to post messages for several days. Also, I've not been able to fully recover past messages. Hope to fully recover the system today or tomorrow.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Air Force pilots relish tricky firefighting runs

Air Force pilots relish tricky firefighting runs
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Friday:

CBO on the Affordable Health Choices Act

On Thursday evening, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary analysis of the latest version of Title I of the Affordable Health Choices Act, commonly known as the HELP bill or the Kennedy bill (since it's the product of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions which Senator Kennedy chairs). Based on a quick review, here are the top six things I think you should know about the cost estimate. Read the rest ...

Can Telemarketing Fraud Happen To You? Filed Under (Business Building Course) by ggross on 03-07-2009

Telemarketing fraud victims are of many different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and range from those with little formal education to those with professional degrees. All ages are affected, although seniors receive a large percentage of the calls. The problem with telemarketing fraud is that it is difficult to tell whether a caller is legitimate, and it is sometimes difficult for people to hang up on telemarketers. Certain individuals, and especially seniors, are targeted relentlessly by Read more ...

Thursday, July 2, 2009

25 Edu Blogs Worth Reading

Karen Schweitzer has a guest post up at Learn Me Good, one of my favorite education blogs. The post is a list of 25 Edu Blogs Worth Reading, and Educated Nation is included, which is lovely. Lovelier still is having a new list of education blogs to peruse (because I can’t seem to [...]

As far as Learn Me Good goes, if you haven’t read John Pearson’s book or blog (they share the same title), I highly recommend both. You have to respect a guy who can write with such hilarity about his first year of teaching; how does one find humor in any trial by fire, especially one’s own?

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

Supreme Court declares strip-search of student unconstitutional

Supreme Court declares strip-search of student unconstitutional
The 8-1 decision says Arizona school officials lacked justification for such an invasive search of a 13-year-old girl, who was suspected of hiding ibuprofen pills.

After two decades of giving school officials wide leeway to search students for drugs or weapons, the Supreme Court set a legal limit on Thursday, ruling out of bounds the strip-search of a 13-year-old girl who was suspected of hiding pain relief pills.

The long road back

The long road back
The English High School, a historic icon and once one of Boston's premier learning institutions, has become one of the city's worst schools. This year, it must improve or face closure. This story is the first of several about the students, teachers, and headmaster at English as they try to reverse the school's troubled course.

CALIFORNIA BRIEFING

Reports from Los Angeles, Hawthorne and Orange

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