Saturday, October 31, 2009

Job Interview Preparedness

Job Interview Preparedness
Knowing at least fifty of the questions an interviewer might throw at me, as well as solid advice on how I should go about answering them intelligently, reduces my stress level significantly.

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Smooth Harold, Blake Snow’s alter ego/blog, has an outstanding list of the 50-Most-Common-Interview-Questions-and-Answers. It’s so good, having access to it makes me feel like a naughty little cheater. Knowing at least fifty of the questions an interviewer might throw at me, as well as solid advice on how I should go about answering them intelligently, reduces my stress level significantly (I prefer not to be caught off guard in situations where everyone is watching me and scoring how well I jump through hoops, climb vertical rock faces, and leap over nether-region-clenching chasms).

I’m not currently on the job hunt, but the Gen-Xers (my people, dude) were cursed several years back when some think-tanker told everyone that we would change jobs and careers a stupid number of times throughout our professional lives. Which basically means that by the time I’m in my sixties and will (hopefully) be a decade or so away from retirement, I’ll be able to interview my parents and my grandparents under the table.

Of course, they will either be already dead or nearly there, so some will argue that it’s not going to be a fair fight. Whatever. I’ll be so cranky about having to switch career paths and jobs every few years that I will no longer give a flying rat’s ass about the obsolete concept of “fairness.”

And what I meant by all that was: Woohoo! Interviews! Go out there and interview your asses off, people! Forward motion is good, and knowing you can nail several of the questions the suits in the tiny room will want you to answer with inimitable aplomb and captivating perfection is such a chest-swellingly marvelous feeling. It’s so good, it’s probably addictive. It’s also totally legal, so go nuts.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source*)


Ted Sizer dies at 77; educator built enduring reform movement

His progressive ideas about how schools should be organized and what students should learn helped drive the debates that rattled parents, government officials and educators in the 1980s and '90s.

Ted Sizer, a former prep school headmaster and Harvard University dean who built an education reform movement that has endured for two decades despite its unfashionable opposition to government- imposed standards and emphasis on deep learning over memorization and regurgitation, has died. He was 77.


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State of education: Poor

State of education: Poor

One year ago, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell anticipated having $18 billion more to spend on students in the state than his department has today.


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

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

Friday, October 30, 2009

Cal State Fullerton ghost town is its own lesson

A three-day state-mandated class furlough at the campus graphically illustrates the effects of California's budget crisis on higher education.

The busload of future college students from Whittier High School who took a field trip Wednesday to Cal State Fullerton got less -- and more -- than they were expecting.


Continue reading ...

Eye on Entertainment

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Many states set low bar on student proficiency

Many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not, the Education Department reported yesterday. Continue reading ...

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Apperson Education Products Partners with Northrop Grumman

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ACT Recognizes Outstanding Education and Workforce Achievements

ACT Recognizes Outstanding Education and Workforce Achievements

Iowa City, IA-To celebrate 50 years of helping students achieve education and workforce success, ACT today presented awards to seven recipients who have demonstrated a strong commitment to college and career readiness at the "Recognizing Exemplary Achievement in College and Career Readiness" ceremony in Washington, D.C. "ACT could think of no ...


Teacher sounds off on education reform

Teacher sounds off on education reform

Fellow citizens, taxpayers, government leaders: I am a teacher. After 30 years in the field of education, I can't yet envision the day I will retire from the opportunity, and incredible responsibility, to be in the presence of children each morning.


College Loan Corporation and Regent Form Strategic Alliance

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Mich. gov, GOP leader still far apart on revenue

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm remains optimistic that some Senate Republicans will support more money for schools, but GOP Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said Tuesday he won't alter the Senate's only proposal for raising some extra cash. Read the rest ...

Pearson Education's OnMicrosoft Podcasts Provide New Learning Tool

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Eye on Entertainment

Eye on Entertainment

Nashville schools study tying pay to scores

Teachers' job security and pay should be partly determined by how well their students learn, according to a new report on how to improve education in Tennessee.

Continue reading ...

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

More on the Higher Education Bubble

More on the Higher Education Bubble

Why do college costs continue to go up? It's really quite simple, government subsidies continue to rise and have shielded college students and their parents from the real increase in college costs.


Victim says poisoning no accident

Victim says poisoning no accident
One of six Harvard Medical School researchers sickened after drinking coffee laced with a toxic chemical said yesterday that he does not see how the poisoning could have been accidental, but has no idea who might be responsible.

Fairfield doctor has novel approach to concussions

For 11 years, Charlie Snedacker was lucky. Though he loved sports, including lacrosse and skateboarding, Charlie, who lives in Norwalk, had never once gotten a concussion. But luck often runs out, and Charlie's did. In September of last year, Charlie, a student at Roton Middle School, was hit in the head with a soccer ball while at recess and, "it ... Read the rest ...

Monday, October 26, 2009

MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition

Should be interesting to see what emerges from this new funding direction by the MacArthur Foundation. ____JH

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"Awards will be made in the two categories of Innovation and Knowledge-Networking.  Innovation Awards ($100,000 and $250,000) will support learning pioneers, entrepreneurs, and builders of new digital learning environments for formal and informal learning. Knowledge-Networking Awards ($30,000 base award, to a total of $75,000 if budget warrants) will support communicators in connecting, mobilizing, circulating, or translating new ideas around digital media and learning. Entries to the Competition are due October 15, 2007.

Details and application requirements can be found at www.dmlcompetition.net.  If you have comments or questions about the Competition that you would like to share publicly, we would love to hear from you via this Spotlight Blog."

Read more ...

Madoff associate had heart attack, drowned in pool

A man accused of making more than $7 billion off the investment schemes of jailed financial manager Bernard Madoff drowned after having a heart attack, authorities said Monday. Continue reading ...

EduResources Portal Closed

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."


Calorie limits for school lunches are recommended

Calorie limits for school lunches are recommended
An Institute of Medicine panel also urges lower sodium content under proposed guidelines for the National School Lunch Program, whose nutritional standards have not been updated since 1995.

Children would get fewer French fries and more dark green vegetables in school cafeterias under recommendations being issued today by an Institute of Medicine panel.



Sunday, October 25, 2009

At elite colleges, new aid for the middle

At elite colleges, new aid for the middle
Some of the nation's most elite colleges, trying to ward off perceptions that they've become unaffordable to even high-income families, are bolstering their financial aid packages by offering grants to students whose parents earn as much as $180,000 a year.

Open Thread - Taxing the Wealthy

Open Thread - Taxing the Wealthy
Finally, we hear something reasonable from the wealthy on how to recover from the financial crisis: Simply donating money to deal with the problems is not enough, they want a change in the whole approach. "The path out of the crisis must be paved with massive investment in ecology, education and social justice," they say in the petition. Those who had "made a fortune through inheritance, hard work, hard-working, successful entrepreneurship, or investment" should contribute by paying more

More on the Higher Education Bubble

More on the Higher Education Bubble

Why do college costs continue to go up? It's really quite simple, government subsidies continue to rise and have shielded college students and their parents from the real increase in college costs.


Saturday, October 24, 2009

UL System adopts higher admission, transfer standards

UL System adopts higher admission, transfer standards

Students seeking to enter or transfer to University of Louisiana campuses in 2011 will have to meet a higher standard.


Blackboard Loses on Appeal

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."



Khazei unveils education plan in Mass. Senate bid

City Year co-founder Alan Khazei (KAY'-zee) is pushing for improvements in public education as he campaigns for the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward Kennedy. Read more ...

Friday, October 23, 2009

Boston pilot school wins $100,000

A Boston pilot school has won $100,000 for its dramatic improvement in academic performance, school officials said. Read more ...

Method challenges some education myths

Method challenges some education myths
Districts and states that use the 'value-added' approach have had some surprising results: Class size, student background and schools' funding appear to be less critical than has long been believed.

For years, schools and students have been judged on raw standardized test scores. Experts say this approach is flawed because they tend to reflect socioeconomic levels more than learning.



BIG APPLE MORE DANGEROUS THAN SPACE

BIG APPLE MORE DANGEROUS THAN SPACE
Transcript of Astronaut Mike Massimino's visit to New York City If you follow Astronaut Mike Massimino on Twitter (Astro_Mike), then you are well aware of his exploits in space and back here on Earth. Of course, 147 characters don't quite do justice to his recent trip to his home town of New York City. In between taxi rides that achieved more Gs than liftoff, Astronaut Mike met with many enthusiastic fans at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, the New York City Fire Museum a

Friday Funnies

Friday Funnies
As always, the weekly funnies feature courtesy of Darren at Teaching and Developing Online.Come CloserMiss RightThree Kinds of PeopleHumbleChemistry ClassStress isAnd one that isn’t a cartoon:H1N1 Paranoia …Tensions RiseUntil next week…

Thursday, October 22, 2009

State disputes report on cuts to prekindergarten spending

Massachusetts is one of 10 states this year to cut the amount of money it spends on prekindergarten education, reducing such spending by a greater percentage than all but one other state, according to a report by a national advocacy group that tracks money spent on early childhood education. Read more ...

Fire that destroyed D.C. mansion and art ruled accidental

Investigators say the July fire that destroyed the home of Peggy Cooper Cafritz might have been caused by oily rags left on a porch.

Continue reading ...

List of Learning Object Repositories

List of Learning Object Repositories

This is a useful list of the major learning object repositories, divided into general and discipline-specific listings. The web pages are hosted by the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee at the Center for International Education. ____JH


CCES Swimmers Break Records and more...

At the 3A State Championship on Oct. 11 at Clemson University's Fike Aquatic Center, several Christ Church Episcopal School swimmers broke school records.

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HDA Deliver Financial Sector Talent Coaching Case Studies

Coaching schedules typically span 3 to 6 months, consisting of a series of face-to-face meetings, in-between telephone and online support and a 360° assessment London, England, October 22, 2009 — HDA, who deliver a broad range of human capital solutions, note that coaching benefits both company and individual – in HDA’s 2008 Executive Coaching Survey 82% [...] Continue reading ...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

College tuition is up sharply amid recession

College tuition is up sharply amid recession
With the economy struggling, parents and students dared to hope this year might offer a break from rising college costs. Instead, they got another sharp increase.

Missouri lawmakers listen to pros/cons of open enrollment

Missouri lawmakers listen to pros/cons of open enrollment
JEFFERSON CITY — Superintendents from small districts bordering Iowa and Arkansas told similar stories Tuesday about the possibility of Missouri school districts adopting an open enrollment policy. There are good and bad elements of the philosophy of letting parents enroll children in schools outside the district where they live, but if Missouri lawmakers adopt such a plan, be prepared to change it on the fly.The General Assembly agreed to study open enrollment this year as a compromise in the e

Aid restored to low-income Ill. college students

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has signed legislation to restore college financial aid to nearly 140,000 low-income students. Read more ...

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Science, tech initiative targeting Mass. 6th-graders

A new nonprofit initiative will dispatch professionals from the worlds of science, engineering, and technology to sixth-grade classrooms around the state. The volunteer visitors’ goal: to persuade students to consider careers in the fields. Continue reading ...

Breast Augmentation Risk Reduced With Keller Funnel

Breast Augmentation Risk Reduced With Keller Funnel
Breast augmentation surgery may be less risky using the Keller Funnel, to be unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons later this week. Surgery of any kind comes with risks. But, with a new device that has recently come on to the market, breast augmentation may be facing a huge revolution. The [...]

UConn mourns stabbing death of football player

UConn mourns stabbing death of football player
A Connecticut football player who was an expectant father was stabbed to death early Sunday after an on-campus dance, just hours after helping his team to a homecoming victory.

Monday, October 19, 2009

ZaidLearn--a New Blog about Open Learning Resources

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


ACE Resources for Lifelong Learning Professionals

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."


College Loan Corporation and Regent Form Strategic Alliance

College Loan Corporation and Regent Form Strategic Alliance

Update On Arch Criminal Zach Christie.

I wrote yesterday about the dangerous terrorist and arch-villain Zachary Christie, age 6, who committed the unpardonable sin of taking a Boy-Scout combination eating implement to school.

Read the rest ...

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Ex-Boston EMS chief being sworn as FEMA deputy

Ex-Boston EMS chief being sworn as FEMA deputy
Former Boston Emergency Medical Services chief Richard Serino is being sworn in as deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Youth face uphill struggle amid Detroit's troubles

Youth face uphill struggle amid Detroit's troubles
Like the rundown houses and shuttered storefronts in his Detroit neighborhood, bleakness abounds in LeRoy Taylor's future.

Healthy Ways to Socialize

Probably the biggest concern for parents who choose to home school their children is providing ways for them to interact, in a healthy way, with their peers. This article is about activities, Alternative education, education, Education in the United States, establishments, fun, Healthy, Homeschool, homeschooling, interact, interaction, peers, resources, socialize, Swimming, ways. Before I learned [...] Related Articles: How Many Hours a Day Should You Home School It’s hard to determine Read the rest ...

Saturday, October 17, 2009

What Makes a Kids’ Movie Scary

What Makes a Kids’ Movie Scary
Warner Brothers PicturesA scene from “Where The Wild Things Are.”“Where the Wild Things Are,” a film based on Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, hit theaters on Friday. The book is loved by 4- and 5-year-olds, but this PG-rated movie is probably too scary for them. Child development experts debate whether, when it comes to the big screen, live-action films are easier for preschoolers to identify with and enjoy than complex animation. But the live-action G-rated movie seems increasingly ra

Galluccio’s enablers on the Hill

Until elected officials stop thinking of themselves as something other than ordinary citizens, bound by the same laws and consequences as everyone else, Beacon Hill's shield of arrogance remains unscathed. Read the rest ...

College Loan Corporation and Regent Form Strategic Alliance

College Loan Corporation and Regent Form Strategic Alliance

L.A. schools construction chief resigns

Guy Mehula, 56, who had been with the program since 2002, quit after an apparent power struggle with district leadership. James Sohn is named interim facilities chief.

Guy Mehula, the highly regarded head of the Los Angeles Unified School District's massive school construction program, has resigned after an apparent power struggle with district leadership.


Read more ...

Friday, October 16, 2009

Education Center Online Celebrates Black History Month - Offering Online Education for People of All Races

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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."

Continue reading ...

A poor time for a law school at UMass-Dartmouth

While proponents argue that no state money will be required, a closer look at the planned tuition level and the services offered by the school suggest there's a good chance the school could eventually come to rely on taxpayers for funding. Continue reading ...

Thursday, October 15, 2009

McGuinty's education talk put to the test

Adam Radwanski Last updated on Tuesday, Oct. 06, 2009 10:35AM EDT D alton McGuinty would really, really like to talk to you about early childhood education.

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Mark O'Neill's Sunshine Girl

Mark O'Neill's Sunshine Girl

SUNshine Girl Shannon is 23 and has been studying for her LSAT. A good grade will get her into law school.


Retiring in Maine: Healthy Mind

Retiring in Maine: Healthy Mind

SMART THINKING Keeping your mind active is a key to healthy living in Maine. By Joshua F. Moore ALWAYS LEARNING Residents of an independent and assisted living community in Scarborough are making learning a lifelong affair.


In the public of Job nowadays we full require to be successful and hold that success for a really easy time.

In the public of Job nowadays we full require to be successful and hold that success for a really easy time.
In the world of Business nowadays we all require to be successful and maintain that succeeder for a real easy meter. A Business (also named a firm, or enterprise) is a legally known organization designed to allow goods and/or helps to customers so therefore we all require the best of the best goods/and or helps to allow to our customers or clients in which always case. Im offering alot of im remarkable to Business e-books in sub-categories such as Education, Management, New Products, Promotio

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Retiring in Maine: Healthy Mind

Retiring in Maine: Healthy Mind

SMART THINKING Keeping your mind active is a key to healthy living in Maine. By Joshua F. Moore ALWAYS LEARNING Residents of an independent and assisted living community in Scarborough are making learning a lifelong affair.


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. Read the rest ...

Education Department official acknowledges error in counseling teen

Education Department official acknowledges error in counseling teen
Kevin Jennings, under fire from conservatives, says he erred as a teacher 21 years ago when he failed to notify authorities that a student told him he had sexual relations with an adult.

A President Obama appointee in the Education Department acknowledged Wed- nesday that as a teacher 21 years ago he mishandled an incident in which he failed to notify authorities that a 15-year-old student had told him he had sexual relations with an adult.



Slain Yale student memorialized by university

Slain Yale student memorialized by university
The Yale University graduate student who was found murdered a month ago on what was to be her wedding day was remember Monday as a "model student" at a memorial service for the university community.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Open Education Search Project

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]


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

Read the rest ...

Insurance dispute takes center stage in auditorium drama

Garfield High is left with a burned-out shell as L.A. Unified and insurers argue over whether the remaining walls should be demolished after 2007 arson fire.

Garfield High School has not hosted a play, a musical performance or an assembly in its historic auditorium since an arson fire gutted it nearly 2 1/2 years ago.


Read the rest ...

Radio program eases transition for Vietnamese parents in Garden Grove

Radio program eases transition for Vietnamese parents in Garden Grove
'Youth and Education' aims to bridge a cultural divide by providing tips on helping students on a wide range of questions.

Annie Mai knows what it's like to be the only Vietnamese student in class. She understands what it is to have parents who work long hours and are unable to help their children with schoolwork. And she can relate when a child must translate for her parents during teacher conferences.



Monday, October 12, 2009

A Quantum Leap in Education -- Fast, Free and Personalized

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Castaic's a high school short of completion

Castaic's a high school short of completion
The northern L.A. County suburb has waited for more than a decade. But a variety of factors have stymied the hopes of residents.

When David Huffaker moved to Castaic in 1985, he was certain that one day his children would graduate from a brand new high school that the community had been promised for so long.



Educomics

Educomics
Via Dean Groom on Posterous, a resource for creating educational comics, Our Educomics . The focus is on the education of children but there are some that appear to have some value for the workplace. Educational Comics Design | 4 Learning – Side Track | Dean Groom | 11 October 2009

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Berklee music school reaches out to Latin America

Mariachi music has been Adrian Longoria's passion since he was a child. The Houston-born 21-year-old has performed for packed wedding receptions, private business parties and in dark corners of Mexican restaurants. Read more ...

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. Read more ...

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.)

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"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"

Read more ...

Idaho State University Rupp debate team ranked 18th in nation

Idaho State University Rupp debate team ranked 18th in nation
The season's first Cross Examine Debate Association/National Debate Tournament coach's poll is out and Idaho State University's James M. and Sharon E. Rupp debate team is ranked 18th in the nation. The team started the season several weeks ago with strong showings at its first two tournaments. "We're excited about the coaches' poll," said Sarah Partlow ...

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Graphical/Clustering Searches for LO/OER Information

Every now and then I like to do graphical searches related to Learning Objects and Open Educational Resources because I find that these searches sometimes yield different frameworks for understanding the information and sites that emerge than I get from my regular reading of rss feeds and blog entries. Recently I tried the new WikiMindMap and was pleased to see that the entry for "Learning Objects" is very good; the entry in Wikipedia for "Open Educational Resources" is a bit sparse, but not bad for starters. If you try "OER" alone as the search term you'll get not only Open Educational Resources but Oregon Electric Railway, Odaku Electric Railway, Offense Efficiency Rating, and Oxygen Efficiency Ratio.

Getting outside Wikipedia. I used my favorite graphical search engine, Kartoo. The Kartoo search for "Open Educational Searches" put the fairly new OER Commons right at the center of the display which I thought was accurate and timely.

A colleague, Dr. Russ Poulin from WCET, recently recommended the clustering search engine Clusty, so I tried it for both "Open Educational Resources" and "Learning Objects." Ten times as many results were returned for the second search term than for the first, indicating (I suppose) that Learning Objects have been discussed longer in the professional literature than Open Educational Resources. I liked the way Clusty ordered and outlined the results.

Finally, I did a search in Google for "Graphical Search Engines" and discovered a kind of meta search engine tool called, appropriately, the Graphical Search Engine Comparison Tool from SEO Tools. This handy tool permits the user to select two from among five popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Vista, and AlltheWeb) and then enter search terms for the two different search engines (e.g., Google and Yahoo) to compare their results. The resulting display shows which links are at the top, middle, and bottom of one search vs the other and what percentage of the sites overlap in the searches (in this example, 46% for "Learning Objects," 36% for "Open Educational Resources"). Using this tool will convince searchers how important it is to NOT rely on a single search engine. Highly recommended. ____JH

 

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WideOpenEducation

WideOpenEducation is a promising new blog that focuses on resources for higher education. The weblog is sponsored by the same creator who developed the excellent Open Education Datatbase (OEDb). The WOE site will include an rss feed for subscribers and will be searchable by key words. It will be interesting to see how this site develops. _____JH Continue reading ...

OpenEd

OpenEd
I've added the OpenEd community site to my navigator links for Recommended Websites about OER. The Creative Commons review of the site commented, "There are so many great educational materials out there—some already openly licensed and a great deal more in the public domain—and the problem is that a lot of people still don’t know about them or how to use them. Similarly, the open education movement has produced some really exciting projects and programs in recent years, but there is no global landing space for these inspiring movers and shakers to really connect as a coherent community. Open Ed, the new Open Education Community site, is the result of brainstorming with other initiatives in the movement on how to provide such a space. We designed the site for open education community members, but also for teachers, learners, and those who just want to get involved. We were able to build it thanks to the strong support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation." View the video on the front page for an orientation to the many resources and services available at OpenEd.


Friday, October 9, 2009

MCAS scores fall shy of target

For the first time since testing began, more than half of Massachusetts schools are out of compliance with federal achievement standards, education officials said yesterday, a finding that raises warning flags for local educators but also sparks questions about whether the national benchmarks are too high. Read more ...

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

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"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."

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Deluded, With A Huge Imagination

...complete with an awesomely religious introduction in which they explain that Darwin wasn’t so much a scientist ahead of his time, but was more a deluded freak with a huge imagination...

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Anti-evolution group Living Waters and their president, Ray Comfort, have published their own version of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, complete with an awesomely religious introduction in which they explain that Darwin wasn’t so much a scientist ahead of his time, but was more a deluded freak with a huge imagination who played his fellow humans with a long list of hoaxes.

Here’s what Ray Comfort and Living Waters had to say regarding their plan:

Living Waters, an evangelical group that argues for the literal truth of the Bible, is planning to distribute 175,000 copies of The Origin of Species on university campuses next month, just in time for the 150th anniversary of its publication. But these won’t be ordinary copies. They will feature a “special introduction” to Darwin’s classic.

The idea, according to the fund raising materials, is that top universities, which might not be thrilled at their students being given anti-evolution materials, will be unable to block the distribution of Darwin’s writings. “Let’s see if they try to ban Darwin’s Origin of Species,” it says.

Look, I respect and encourage humans to have different beliefs. What I don’t respect, however, is someone (anyone, even a freaky, liberal, cold-hard-science person like myself) resorts to using fear tactics or brain-washing or some form of effed-up trickery to lure unsuspecting minds to their way of thinking. Grow up. Say what you want to say and allow people to take it or leave it. Don’t be creepy, and for the love of all things holy, don’t stoop to treating your prospective converts like children of below-average intelligence.

It’s tempting to go back on my live-and-let-live philosophy and publish my own edition of the bible with an introduction full of lots of explanations as to the epic mythology contained therein, the ancient fables of pre-scientific-method mankind, and the spectacularly unprovable math and science which the big book claims are the absolute truth. It would be a little (so much!) fun to show up at a church and pass out my version of that big guy’s book, but I won’t. I’m entirely too classy.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Panel approves new SC scoring system for schools

A South Carolina oversight panel has approved a scoring system that would mean more of the state's schools meet federal education goals.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

D.C. teachers ask court to block layoffs

D.C. teachers ask court to block layoffs
Teachers planned a rally Thursday to protest the layoffs of nearly 400 D.C. public school employees, about 6 percent of the work force.

An education problem looms

An education problem looms
In a time of layoffs, the state hopes to inspire a new generation of educators

As thousands of laid off California teachers sit out the school year, educators are worried about the long-term effect of losing so many teachers. Some instructors are considering leaving the state or even the profession, and if history is any indication, fewer young people will pursue careers in teaching.



Legislative session on deficit to start Oct. 17

Legislative session on deficit to start Oct. 17
The Legislature will convene in a special session on Oct. 17 to try to resolve a budget deficit of more than $400 million, but Gov. Bill Richardson said Monday that tax increases will not be on the agenda.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Eugene officials to review small school structure

Four years after North Eugene High School reinvented itself with a small school structure, the Eugene School Board wants to know if its working.

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EduResources Portal Closed

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."


Literacy: We’ve Still Got It

I was never concerned as to whether or not today’s school-age kids were going to be considered fully functioning adults someday; anyone who can seemingly mind-meld with a computer (or a cell phone or anything gizmo-ish), understand it, and make it work is probably going to do just fine once they’re let loose on the [...]

I was never concerned as to whether or not today’s school-age kids were going to be considered fully functioning adults someday; anyone who can seemingly mind-meld with a computer (or a cell phone or anything gizmo-ish), understand it, and make it work is probably going to do just fine once they’re let loose on the world.

Despite feeling that kids these days were good to go on the technology front, I was a wee bit worried that the whole writing portion of their lives was headed for much suckage. I was caught in the admittedly old-fashioned (lame!) idea that all forward progress in the land of tech can only lead to less and less well-rounded humans. The telephone, for instance, led to a severe decline in letter-writing. (Of course, the electric light bulb led to everyone staying up later and getting more work done, but let’s ignore that for the moment.)

Clive Thompson’s article in Wired has calmed me down. Thanks to all the e-mail and texting that goes on these days, kids are doing more writing than anyone has since correct cursive and perfect penmanship were qualities to strive for. Now we’ve got technologically savvy kids who can express themselves with the written/typed word like nobody’s business. I’m stoked that society will not be taking one-way trips in any hand baskets.

From the article:

The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing. In interviews, they defined good prose as something that had an effect on the world. For them, writing is about persuading and organizing and debating, even if it’s over something as quotidian as what movie to go see. The Stanford students were almost always less enthusiastic about their in-class writing because it had no audience but the professor: It didn’t serve any purpose other than to get them a grade. As for those texting short-forms and smileys defiling serious academic writing? Another myth. When Lunsford examined the work of first-year students, she didn’t find a single example of texting speak in an academic paper.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

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Adult Education is back in town

Classes for the community are back by popular demand. The Calhoun City Schools Community Education program is now offering several affordable adult and youth classes geared for fitness and fun.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Eye on Entertainment

Eye on Entertainment

Police captain heads for Harvard

Police captain heads for Harvard
Boston police Captain James Claiborne, who was once a candidate for commissioner of the department and was at one point the highest-ranking minority member on the force, is leaving to become deputy police chief at Harvard University.

Educational co-ops gain foothold

At North Point Baptist Church one recent day, a group of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders dissected owl pellets, while outside some younger children stained woodworking projects.

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Look beyond test scores to measure education

Look beyond test scores to measure education

According to Time magazine, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to transform our educational system by holding teachers accountable for the success or failure of their students through 'linking student test results and teacher performance.' This seemingly simplistic solution is based on the presumption that we already know what the problem ...


Monday, October 5, 2009

Jon Udell Reviews Beautiful Code, Expert Minds

I only dabble in software programming occasionally (usually in Python), but I do pay attention to what programmers are doing because I believe the skill of programming is one of the most important achievements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Without programmers our handsome hardware computers would merely be pieces of furniture.

This item is from Jon Udell's blog and reports on a collection of essays compiled by Greg Wilson and Andy Oram, Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think: "The idea is to get a bunch of well-known and not-yet-well-known programmers to select medium-sized pieces of code (100-200 lines) that they think are particularly elegant, and spend 2500 words or so explaining why."

I believe Udell's book comments on sharing expertise, through Internet video and screencasting,  are important beyond the field of programming. The influence of expert minds on one another and the potential influence of expert minds on student minds in formation are highly valuable features of our information age. ____JH

[Via Bruce Landon's Weblog for Students]

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"The 600-page tome arrived recently, and as I’ve been reading it I’m struck once again by the theme of narrating the work. Of the chapters I’ve read so far, three are especially vivid examples of that: Karl Fogel’s exegesis of the stream-oriented interface used in Subversion to convey changes across the network, Alberto Savoia’s meditation on the process of software testing, and Lincoln Stein’s sketches (”code stories”) that he writes for himself as he develops a new bioinformatics module.

Although this is a book by programmers and for programmers, the method of narrating the work process is, in principle, much more widely applicable. In practice, it’s something that’s especially easy and natural for programmers to do.

It’s easy because a programmer’s work product — in intermediate and final form — happens to be lines of text that can be printed in a book or published online.

It’s natural because programmers have been embedded for longer than most other professionals in a work process that’s fundamentally enabled by electronic publishing. We’ve been sharing code, and conversations about code, online for decades.

Most work processes don’t lend themselves to the sort of direct capture and literal representation that you see in Beautiful Code. Not yet, anyway. I think that can and will change, though, and I think two emerging forms of media will be powerful agents of change.

One of those forms is Internet video, which enables the capture and sharing of many kinds of physical-world expertise. The other is screencasting, which does the same for virtual-world expertise. Narration of work in these forms won’t be able to be printed in a book. But it will be just as valuable as the narration in Beautiful Code, and for the same reasons. Access to expert minds is just inherently valuable. We’re entering an era in which we’ll be able to access many more — and many different kinds of — expert minds. I’m looking forward to it. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the access I have now to the 38 minds that Greg and Andy have collected for this book."

Continue reading ...

Managed Forex Accounts

'italic;' class='tradesbyline'>by Bart Icles Individuals who want to invest in Forex trading will have the option of doing trading on their own or just outright avail of a managed Forex account with a Forex broker. Doing an individual-style of trading entails many requirements in order to become successful at it such as, learning everything about the industry by studying the market and doing extensive research on it. This demands more time and effort and time on one’s part that may be Read more ...

The original education plan

After reading last week's column about home school, in which I said that it is more about home than school, one of my students said, 'People will think we don't have school.' We do have school, at any time of the day -- or night -- that a topic of interest presents itself.

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Sunday, October 4, 2009

MCAS scores fall shy of target

MCAS scores fall shy of target
For the first time since testing began, more than half of Massachusetts schools are out of compliance with federal achievement standards, education officials said yesterday, a finding that raises warning flags for local educators but also sparks questions about whether the national benchmarks are too high.

Home-schooling mother sets sights on superintendent job

A home-schooling parent and small business owner says she's running to be South Carolina's education superintendent.

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“An Inside Look At College Costs”

This is a ponderable piece on the current financial situation colleges and universities have found themselves in. Who benefits from the money coming into a school? Hint: It’s probably not the faculty or the students. Here’s an excerpt: An interesting point to consider comes from the U.S. Department of Education, which surveyed [...]

This is a ponderable piece on the current financial situation colleges and universities have found themselves in. Who benefits from the money coming into a school? Hint: It’s probably not the faculty or the students.

Here’s an excerpt:

An interesting point to consider comes from the U.S. Department of Education, which surveyed nearly 3,000 colleges and reported, “Colleges have added managers and support personnel at a steady, vigorous clip over the past 20 years, new research shows, far outpacing the growth in student enrollment and instructors.”



Not only are the numbers of administrative personnel growing rapidly, the salaries and benefits they command are taking a large amount out of the universities’ revenues. The same cannot be said of faculty members. As an example, at Eastern Michigan University, our faculty salaries and benefits are less than 25% of the total expenses. The school has experienced a decline in instruction expenses in recent years, meaning that the core academic operations – teaching and research – are now a smaller piece of the pie. More…

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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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
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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 Wikipedia™ 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 — 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.


  [The Official Google Blog] Continue reading ...

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Time for California to make reforms in education

The governor has called for a special session on education reform to enact changes needed to make California eligible and competitive for billions of dollars in federal funding.

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Who Is Artie Shaw…and why is he following me?

About the Author Ferdie Pacheco, MD has been called a Renaissance Man because of his polifacetic career. He has been successful as a pharmacist, medical doctor, Fight Doctor in boxing, including working as a corner man for twelve world champions, including Muhammed Ali for seventeen years. He also served as a boxing commentator for NBC, Showtime and Univision, winning two Emmies. During this time he was the Boxing Consultant for NBC for ten years. He is retired from broadcasting after bei Read more ...

Police: Yale retiree brought weapons to campus

Police: Yale retiree brought weapons to campus
A retired Yale University employee who had complained about his benefits showed up at the Ivy League school with a rifle, ammunition and a knife, but his attorney said he had no ill intent.

WideOpenEducation

WideOpenEducation is a promising new blog that focuses on resources for higher education. The weblog is sponsored by the same creator who developed the excellent Open Education Datatbase (OEDb). The WOE site will include an rss feed for subscribers and will be searchable by key words. It will be interesting to see how this site develops. _____JH Read more ...

Friday, October 2, 2009

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

 

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Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad!

Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad!
Seventh grader Adam Marino, of Saratoga Springs New York, is getting an early education in law and citizenship courtesy of the New York State Police and his school district. His offense? Riding a bicycle to school. At the start of school in September, Kaddo Marino thought that she had a nonverbal agreement with school officials to allow her son to ride his bike until a new policy was resolved. But on the night before classes started, school authorities called parents to say that walking a

Radio program eases transition for Vietnamese parents in Garden Grove

'Youth and Education' aims to bridge a cultural divide by providing tips on helping students on a wide range of questions.

Annie Mai knows what it's like to be the only Vietnamese student in class. She understands what it is to have parents who work long hours and are unable to help their children with schoolwork. And she can relate when a child must translate for her parents during teacher conferences.


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Thursday, October 1, 2009

Lawmakers hear arguments on school start dates

Having a uniform starting date for schools in late August or early September would save schools money and give families and kids more prime vacation time, several parents told an interim legislative committee Wednesday.

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UBS client from NJ pleads guilty to hiding assets

A New Jersey client of the international banking giant UBS has pleaded guilty to concealing more than $6 million in assets in Swiss bank accounts.

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Pearson Education's OnMicrosoft Podcasts Provide New Learning Tool

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Pearson eCollege Announces New Education Partners

Pearson eCollege Announces New Education Partners