Most California elementary schools will be deemed "failing" by 2014 under No Child Left Behind

Most California elementary schools will be deemed "failing" by 2014 under No Child Left Behind

The majority of California elementary schools will be deemed "failing" by 2014 because achievement benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind act are too difficult to meet, a new study says.

Ben Franklin: City Slicker

Ben Franklin: City Slicker
A slightly different perspective on Ben Franklin. With Thomas Jefferson he is one of my favorite Founding Fathers. Emphasizes Franklin's urban skills and focus in terms of public health, safety, and education through networking.

JFActivist: Side-by-Side Comparison Chart of Presidential Ca

JFActivist: Side-by-Side Comparison Chart of Presidential Ca
The Ohio Legal Rights Service has prepared a side-by-side comparison chart of the presidential candidates' positions on disability-related issues. AAPD provides a link to this comparison as an educational resource only and does not corroborate its accuracy or comprehensiveness, nor...

Guide to Online Course Design

This chapter is called "Design with Learning in Mind" from Robin Smith's Guide to Online Course Design. The author successfully summarizes the key components in designing an online course and brings out the crucial differences between an online course and a classroom course. ____JH (Via Tomorrow's Professor.)
____
--"The posting below looks at how to develop learner-centered environments for online courses. It is from Chapter 1, Design with Learning in Mind, in the book, Conquering The Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design, by Robin M. Smith Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 [www.josseybass.com] Copyright © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc."
Read the rest ...

Washington's top students guaranteed a spot at WSU

Washington State University is offering guaranteed admission to in-state students who rank in the top 10 percent of their high school class or who have at least a 3.5 grade point average at the time of ...

Read the rest ...

CLARe--Contextualized Learning Activity Repository

CLARe--Contextualized Learning Activity Repository
CLARe currently contains resources related to language learning and study skills but plans are underway to expand the contents. Take a look to see what's available. ___JH
______

"CLARe (Contextualised Learning Activity Repository) is a repository for online learning and teaching materials. It contains complete interactive, multimedia activities (learning objects) and individual resources, such as texts, video or audio recordings (assets).
Use our search facility to find the most appropriate resources, or browse to see the kind of material that CLARe contains."

"CLARe is running on GNU EPrints repository-creating software, which generates eprints repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting OAI 1.1 and 2.0. The GNU EPrints repository-creating software is available for free at http://software.eprints.org/."

NW Board OKs 30 percent hike in driver’s education fee (Bluffton News-Banner)

Beginning this school year Northern Wells Community Schools will increase the cost of its driver education program a whopping 30 percent from $250 to $325 for students residing in the district. Continue reading ...

The Future of Education

The Future of Education
It is no secret I love technology and sometimes you can’t help but wonder how it will continue to change our lives (for better or worse). I look back at my education and the teachers who had the daunting task of trying to teach a dunce like me a thing or two. I never really enjoyed school, in fact the day I graduated high school has to be one of

Is 'teaching to the test' damaging our education system?

Good teachers vary in substance and style, but they tend to have a few things in common: They inspire students to push themselves.

Continue reading ...

Free Educational Treatments DVD (USA)

Free Educational Treatments DVD (USA)
Receive a free educational dvd on the causes and treatments of varicose veins. (NC, SC and VA residents only)

ZaidLearn's OCW + OER Lists

Zaid Ali Alsagoff has revised his OCW/OER list compilation to produce an extremely useful update. Zaid's compilation should be bookmarked for reference by university instructors, students, and support staff. ______JH

______

University Learning = OCW + OER = FREE!

• Link to ZaidLearn's Delicious OCW Adventure
• 130+ Free Learning Tools
• 75 Free EduGames

- Zaid Ali Alsagoff ( [ZaidLearn] Continue reading ...

Scottish education experiment: to play games to improve math

Scotland by the Center for Education (Learning and Teaching Scotland, Scotland is in charge of affairs related to education, by the Sco Read the rest ...

Free Digital Texts and Free Online Course Materials

Free Digital Texts and Free Online Course Materials
It's important when the free digital textbooks and free online course materials are covered by the LA Times. The issues surrounding pricey textbooks and digital alternatives are compactly discussed in this news article. ___ JH (Thanks to the blog Free Culture News for this reference.)
____
"Caltech economics professor R. Preston McAfee finds it annoying that students and faculty haven't looked harder for alternatives to the exorbitant prices. McAfee wrote a well-regarded open-source economics textbook and gave it away -- online. But although the text, released in 2007, has been adopted at several prestigious colleges, including Harvard and Claremont-McKenna, it has yet to make a dent in the wider textbook market."
"McAfee is one of a band of would-be reformers who are trying to beat the high cost -- and, they say, the dumbing down -- of college textbooks by writing or promoting open-source, no-cost digital texts. Thus far, their quest has been largely quixotic, but that could be changing. Public colleges and universities in California this past year backed several initiatives to promote online course materials, and publishers and entrepreneurs are stepping up release of electronic textbooks, which typically sell at reduced prices."
"Open educational resources is an amorphous category for publishers, but basically it includes e-textbooks, courses, videos, taped lectures, tests, software and other materials released online free to the public without restriction on use."

Twisting nature into art, for now

While many people see piles of twigs and branches as leftover nuisances from a weekend of yard work, Patrick Dougherty sees them as an opportunity to create a work of art. Read more ...

Mirroring - Do You Do It?

Bet you thought this was going to be some kinky new form of sex play didn’t you? Well, it’s not. Mirroring is actually something you do everyday without even realizing it. You likely mirror your boss when you are trying to make her feel that you are on her side. You mirror your kids and [...] Read the rest ...

Student science test scores lacking

The first and only measure of how Vermont students of various ages are doing in science - the New England Common Assessment Program or NECAP science exam results - shows that the majority of the state's pupils ...

Read more ...

The Importance of Solar Power and Solar Panels

The Importance of Solar Power and Solar Panels
The Importance of Solar Power and Solar Panels Posted By Gugu Maseko on September 26, 2008 @ 7:53 pm by Gugu Maseko The sun is a very intense ball of gas up in the atmosphere. It burns twenty four hours a day, seven days per week. We only see it during out daytime but on the other side of the globe they get the daytime when we get the night. When the sun light beams down on the earth’s surface, a small percentage of the solar radiation heading for earth gets reflected. There are larger amo

aima, All India Management Association

All India Management Association (AIMA) - Education in IndiaAll India Management Association (AIMA), posted by admin, About All India Management Association , AIMA.www.googleglossary.com Continue reading ...

University of Ill. virtual campus flounders

University of Ill. virtual campus flounders
An $8.9 million online campus launched by the University of Illinois nine months ago has had disappointing enrollment and fewer course offerings than expected, but the man who created it isn't giving up.

Twisting nature into art, for now

Twisting nature into art, for now
While many people see piles of twigs and branches as leftover nuisances from a weekend of yard work, Patrick Dougherty sees them as an opportunity to create a work of art.

How’d You Score THAT Gig?

Some of my vacation reading included How’d You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Jobs [and How to Get Them] by Alexandra Levit. I’m a girl who likes clear instructions that are as exact as possible when embarking on a new experience. I’m a big fan of the informational interview, [...]

Some of my vacation reading included How’d You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Jobs [and How to Get Them] by Alexandra Levit. I’m a girl who likes clear instructions that are as exact as possible when embarking on a new experience.

I’m a big fan of the informational interview, and back when I was a student I always always always (I couldn’t not, it seemed) read every page of my textbooks. This included the copyright page, which I was never once tested on. It’s a thing: I have to know as much information in advance so I will feel properly prepared for my mission. Oddly enough, I only feel that I must do this for work or academic situations; when I travel (sans children) I am perfectly content to just go.

From the perspective of someone who appreciates having new career situations described to her, I must say I found Levit’s book extremely helpful and well-researched. She describes in detail 60 careers and how one might go about landing a job in a particular field, including the education required and how the people she interviewed came to work at their current positions.

At the beginning of the book, before you jump into reading about the specific careers, there’s a smarter-than-Cosmo test to ascertain what personality type you are, as it relates to your professional life. The list includes: Adventurer, Creator, Data Head, Entrepreneur, Investigator, Networker, and Nurturer.

I fully admit to bending the test a little; Levit instructs you to choose the single best answer for any given question. For several of the questions I could honestly have chosen three or four answers that described me exactly; there was much pondering and I couldn’t find just one.

In the end I counted up all worthy answers, and saw which columns had the most answers that pertained to me at the end. I had a ’score’ of seven in the Creator column, and eight in the Investigator column, which makes me both. I agreed with that, and with the descriptions Levit writes about both types. I had never labeled myself as either of those before, but it made sense when I thought about it. And really, are any of us just one thing?

I can recommend the book as an excellent tool for figuring yourself out, as well as researching some career options prior to jumping into a particular career pool feet first, fully clothed and blindfolded.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Read more ...

Are High Performances at Charter Schools a Myth?

A study by the Department of Education finds that students in charter schools actually perform lower. Read the rest ...

Official Apple iPhone Developer University Program, Stanford

Apple announced details of an iPhone Developer University program to allow higher education institutions provide courses on iPhone and iPod touch programming.The University Program provides a wealth of development resources, sophisticated tools for testing and debugging, and the ability to share app... Read more ...

Three honored for results on PSAT

Based on outstanding math, reading and writing scores they earned last year on the Preliminary SAT, three Westfield High School seniors have been named National Merit semifinalists by the National Merit ...

Continue reading ...

Video Games Find a Growing Place in Classrooms

Video games are gaining a larger place in American schools as a useful and exciting tool to help students acquire knowledge. Though some educators still question the best method to introduce these games in the classroom, one professor at Parsons School of Design in New York is proposing the creation of a new public school... Continue reading ...

Irresponsible event encourages immorality

Irresponsible event encourages immorality
The front page of the September 18 Indiana Daily Student featured a large full color picture of three students wearing pig noses and pig ears placing condoms on fake bananas. The back page had another large full color photo of a student placing a condom on a fake banana. Is this really necessary? Did the IDS really need to have large full-color pictures of people putting condoms on fake bananas on the front page of Thursday’s newspaper, especially considering that the newspaper is distributed

You Can Get There From Here

You Can Get There From Here
The path an individual takes to become what they are when they grow up has always been fascinating to me. In particular are the bendy, twisty, non-traditional routes from point A to point B. Rik at The Click Heard Round the World just posted about his own career trajectory that landed him at [...]

The path an individual takes to become what they are when they grow up has always been fascinating to me. In particular are the bendy, twisty, non-traditional routes from point A to point B.

Rik at The Click Heard Round the World just posted about his own career trajectory that landed him at Global Kids, an amazing organization that gets urban youth engaged in their own education as well as global and community issues.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

GED program airing on The Education Channel (Naples Daily News)

Those planning to take the General Educational Development (GED) exam soon should be sure to catch the GED Connection TV show on The Education Channel, cable 20. Read more ...

Debate shows runners at odds

Debate shows runners at odds

The two major candidates for governor sparred over the state's education policy yesterday, in a debate that revealed the deep rifts between their governing philosophies.

One Desktop Per Ten A Workable Model

10 Users from 1 Computer. Userful systems have definite advantages over more "traditional" educational or computer lab configurations. The Userful Multiplier can run on a number of Linux distributions (and can even be found in the Ubuntu repositories), and allows one desktop computer to accommodate up to ten users. Read the rest ...

Avoid In Interior Decoration

Avoid In Interior Decoration
If all know the saying that it is only those who have mastered the steps in dancing who can afford to forget them. It is the same in every art. Therefore let us state at once, that all rules may be broken by the educated the masters of their respective arts.

Take a hint from squirrels; eat nuts daily

Studies show that scant amount, eaten five or more times weekly, may reduce the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease, says Maureen Ternus, executive director of the California-based International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation. Continue reading ...

The Fuss--Resources for Learning about RSS

I found this listing of rss workshops, tutorials, and information on the University of British Columbia Wiki. The information included in The Fuss really does convey what all the fuss is about when it comes to using rich site syndication feeds to keep up with postings from diverse sources across the Web. Next to using e-mail and search engines in browsers, the ability to acquire and organize rss feeds is a primary information literacy skill for students, instructors, and all others who visit the wonderful world of the Web. At the same site also consult Intro to RSS. (These pages at UBC are maintained by Brian Lamb.) ____JH

_____

IntroToRSS - a long scrolling page with pretensions of primer-hood.

• What's TheFuss with RSS? - a really long scrolling page of resources and tutorials about [our favorite three letter acronym].
• Intro
• Why the fuss?
• What is RSS?
• Viewing RSS Content
• Cookie Time
• Connecting Learning Objects via RSS
• Implementations
• Q&A

---

Read the rest ...

Heritage Weekend (2008) drops to 1 day - Stafford, NJ

Heritage Weekend had been shortened to Heritage Day, an educational program, and has been moved to took place on Sept. 19 in and around the OceanFirst Theater at the Stafford Township Arts Center at 1000 McKinley Ave. The three-day Heritage Weekend that annually takes place around Lake Manahawkin had been cancelled due to insufficient sponsorship Continue reading ...

Edward Roybal is a big name around town

Edward Roybal is a big name around town
Many buildings in L.A. honor the influential Latino lawmaker, whose legacy reaches far beyond his political base.

Across the city he represented for decades, building after building is named after Edward Roybal.

Introduction to Bush Betrayal (2004)

Introduction to Bush Betrayal (2004)
Continuing with the parade of Introductions, here’s the lead chapter from Bush Betrayal (2004). This book generated a lot of vituperative fan mail. Here is a collection of the highlights: ”Bush Supporters Vindicate the President.” I began to wonder if supporting George W. Bush automatically depraved people’s ability to spell. It is unfortunate that more Americans did not catch on sooner to Bush’s deceits. Perhaps even worse, few people seem to be drawing the right lessons from the Bu

Heaven found: Morning Prayers at Harvard

Heaven found: Morning Prayers at Harvard
This is the most beautiful thing in Boston: Morning Prayers, the 15-minute, daily worship service in the Appleton Chapel at Harvard's Memorial Church.

Heaven found: Morning Prayers at Harvard

This is the most beautiful thing in Boston: Morning Prayers, the 15-minute, daily worship service in the Appleton Chapel at Harvard's Memorial Church. Continue reading ...

Ready for expanded mission

Ready for expanded mission
It almost looks like it should be orbiting Earth. The space station mock-up features work areas that bear names such as life support, probe, and remote. A glove box encased in a plastic dome lets would-be astronauts conduct special experiments.

Heather Turnbow - Making Fortunes Online

Heather Turnbow's Top Priority is learning how to market on the internet. Get the education from Heather Turnbow to make your money, learn to grow it, and make it work for you. If you are not taught the skill of marketing, then you are at the mercy of a company that claims they will drive traffic for you. Read the rest ...

Chatsworth school at edge of disaster

Principal Ann Gillinger, a dozen teachers and about 25 students were at Chatsworth Hills Academy when two trains collided. 'It was a crunching, collapsing, forceful thing,' she says.

It was the end of Ann Gillinger's first week as principal of Chatsworth Hills Academy . She sat at her desk in the late afternoon, e-mailing parents and teachers to congratulate everyone for a successful week. Read the rest ...

Educational Resources

Teching Guides for Parents and Teachers, Learning Tips for Primary and High School Students on College Entrance, As Well As Adult Continuing Education Read more ...

LITCHFIELD Register for adult education classes (The Nashua Telegraph)

LITCHFIELD -- The Community Adult Education program in Litchfield is now accepting registrations for classes, starting Monday and running through Oct. 29. ... Read the rest ...

Schools cut truancy by taking parents to court

Schools cut truancy by taking parents to court
WATERBURY, Conn. - Waterbury officials are expanding a program that requires the parents of chronically truant public school students to appear before a probate judge.

OSU reports large enrollment

OSU reports large enrollment

Oklahoma State University says that 3,073 new freshmen have enrolled at the school for the current semester.

School aid sliding, some want town to quit district

Alarmed at a brain drain of students and a loss in two years of more than $600,000 in state aid to the regional vocational school, some Tewksbury school officials say they want out of the five-town pact covering the district. Read more ...

Reviewing the past year of my youth ministry

Every year each ministry in our church writes an overview of the past year. A couple of us (including myself) also give an oral report at our annual meeting. Here’s a brief (believe it or not) excerpt from my written annual report about where the youth ministry has come this past year. A Focused Vision This year our philosophy of ministry was greatly simplified. No more mission statement, purpose statement, vision statements, core values, strategies, etc. It was confusing for most people and v Read the rest ...

Are Foreign Car Drivers Smarter?

No, they're just more educated...the article below discusses the findings.... Read more ...

Slang Dictionaries Help Parents Crack Teen Codes

Slang Dictionaries Help Parents Crack Teen Codes

Parentline Plus, a parental charity in Britain, has just launched an online dictionary of teen slang to help parents better communicate with their kids.

Web Science

This article in the Online Newsletter of the Association for Learning Technology reports on the initiative to establish a new concentration of science and scholarship focused on how the Web functions and how to improve Web operations. ___JH (Thanks to TL Infobits for this reference.)

_____
"To promote Web Science and explore its emerging agenda, a joint endeavour between the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, was set up in 2006, called the Web Science Research Initiative (webscience.org). WSRI’s mission is to foster the fundamental advances required for the Web’s continued growth. In particular, WSRI is focusing on steering the development of the Web Science discipline, running a series of workshops and looking at the lines of an academic curriculum for teaching Web Science. There will be an International Web Science Conference held in Athens, Greece, in 2009 – hopefully the first of many – as well as a new journal Foundations and Trends in Web Science."

"Web Science is not just modelling the current Web. It is about engineering new infrastructure protocols by using scientific and technological tools from many disciplines to understand the human society that uses them, to create beneficial new systems – which may involve extremely radical thinking about both technology and society (Shneiderman 2007). Such new engineering must respect the invariants of the Web experience: decentralisation to avoid bottlenecks and allow increases of scale; serendipitous reuse of information; fairness, openness and trust. In this way, the Web will remain a technology that enhances human society, and supports human aspiration."

Read more ...

Michael Rosen: Death of the bookworm

Michael Rosen: Death of the bookworm
Michael Rosen: Death of the bookworm Michael Rosen: Children are being taught to read at school – but not to love books’ complexity and depth. It’s a national disgrace

How’d You Score THAT Gig?

How’d You Score THAT Gig?
Some of my vacation reading included How’d You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Jobs [and How to Get Them] by Alexandra Levit. I’m a girl who likes clear instructions that are as exact as possible when embarking on a new experience. I’m a big fan of the informational interview, [...]

Some of my vacation reading included How’d You Score That Gig? A Guide to the Coolest Jobs [and How to Get Them] by Alexandra Levit. I’m a girl who likes clear instructions that are as exact as possible when embarking on a new experience.

I’m a big fan of the informational interview, and back when I was a student I always always always (I couldn’t not, it seemed) read every page of my textbooks. This included the copyright page, which I was never once tested on. It’s a thing: I have to know as much information in advance so I will feel properly prepared for my mission. Oddly enough, I only feel that I must do this for work or academic situations; when I travel (sans children) I am perfectly content to just go.

From the perspective of someone who appreciates having new career situations described to her, I must say I found Levit’s book extremely helpful and well-researched. She describes in detail 60 careers and how one might go about landing a job in a particular field, including the education required and how the people she interviewed came to work at their current positions.

At the beginning of the book, before you jump into reading about the specific careers, there’s a smarter-than-Cosmo test to ascertain what personality type you are, as it relates to your professional life. The list includes: Adventurer, Creator, Data Head, Entrepreneur, Investigator, Networker, and Nurturer.

I fully admit to bending the test a little; Levit instructs you to choose the single best answer for any given question. For several of the questions I could honestly have chosen three or four answers that described me exactly; there was much pondering and I couldn’t find just one.

In the end I counted up all worthy answers, and saw which columns had the most answers that pertained to me at the end. I had a ’score’ of seven in the Creator column, and eight in the Investigator column, which makes me both. I agreed with that, and with the descriptions Levit writes about both types. I had never labeled myself as either of those before, but it made sense when I thought about it. And really, are any of us just one thing?

I can recommend the book as an excellent tool for figuring yourself out, as well as researching some career options prior to jumping into a particular career pool feet first, fully clothed and blindfolded.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Importance of sex education

Sex education has always been attached with the stigma of immorality. But in this age of MMS, Internet and what not, it becomes important that the youngsters are made aware of sex and also that there is a right time for everything.. Continue reading ...

McCain and Obama on the issues

A look at where Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain stand on a selection of issues: Read the rest ...

Advice To Policymakers: Don't Try To 'Fix' Latino Community

A report out today calls for a presidential commission on Latino issues to increase Latino access to vital educational, health, economic and civic opportunities. The report also concludes that a lack of immigration reform widens disparities and limits the future progress of the Latino community and the nation. Continue reading ...

You Can Get There From Here

You Can Get There From Here
The path an individual takes to become what they are when they grow up has always been fascinating to me. In particular are the bendy, twisty, non-traditional routes from point A to point B. Rik at The Click Heard Round the World just posted about his own career trajectory that landed him at [...]

The path an individual takes to become what they are when they grow up has always been fascinating to me. In particular are the bendy, twisty, non-traditional routes from point A to point B.

Rik at The Click Heard Round the World just posted about his own career trajectory that landed him at Global Kids, an amazing organization that gets urban youth engaged in their own education as well as global and community issues.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Families, neighbors mourn LA train wreck victims

Families, neighbors mourn LA train wreck victims

Atul Vyas scored in the top 1 percent on his medical school entry exams, but he was having trouble answering one question on applications to Harvard and Duke: Describe a hardship you've overcome.

More SC students meet expectations on state tests

More SC students meet expectations on state tests

More students met or exceeded expectations on the state's final Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests, a boost that comes just before a new type of standardized test is rolled out in classrooms this year.

Green Toilets at ASU Polytechnic

Green Toilets at ASU Polytechnic
I have two irrational fears: public bathrooms and crosswalks. Anyone who has taken a college-level biology course will mostly understand my fear of public toilets and the recurring unsettling dreams I have involving hellaciously decrepit restrooms. The crosswalk weirdness only ever gets me blinking frowns and silence when I try to explain, [...]

I have two irrational fears: public bathrooms and crosswalks. Anyone who has taken a college-level biology course will mostly understand my fear of public toilets and the recurring unsettling dreams I have involving hellaciously decrepit restrooms. The crosswalk weirdness only ever gets me blinking frowns and silence when I try to explain, so never you mind about that one.

I’ve posted before about the forward-thinking greenness of Arizona State University and their sustainability degree programs (here and here). Now, according to Mr.Bradford at Geek Stew, they’re doing great (and not at all scary) things with toilets in the new Santan Hall building at ASU Polytechnic. I’m enjoying vicarious feelings of deep, settling calm just knowing there are safe and shiny toilets out there.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Inc. Reports on Barr, from an Entrepreneurial Perspective

Entrepreneurs have a Libertarian streak, and Inc. magazine decided to take a look at Libertarian Bob Barr. The interview revealed Barr's concern about less foreign students entering the American educational system. The blog discusses why small business people should consider the Libertarian party. Read more ...

McCain Misrepresents Comprehensive Sex Ed

McCain has misrepresented the teaching of comprehensive sex education to children. Continue reading ...

Telugu Article Education - Urine Color as Health Indicator

Telugu Article Education - Urine Color as Health Indicator Read more ...

For them, Saturday is college day

For them, Saturday is college day
For years, Deb Tello ran a day-care center out of her Wilmington home and dreamed about working in a classroom. But without a college degree, she knew it would be impossible to land a full-time teaching job, and working part-time as a substitute wouldn't pay the bills.

English Language Dominance Expands, as Critics Accept "Secret of Success"

English Language Dominance Expands, as Critics Accept "Secret of Success"

A recent move by the French education minister to make English language education more widespread and accessible than ever could mark the end of one of the final obstacles to the language's global dominance.

Summer idle? Not quite (part 1)

Summer idle? Not quite (part 1)
How three scholars spent their summer vacations. Part one of three. Jim Zingarelli

Ark. AG says schools can admit illegal immigrants

Ark. AG says schools can admit illegal immigrants
Arkansas' colleges and universities can admit illegal immigrants, the Arkansas attorney general's office says. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said in an advisory opinion Wednesday that schools don't have a duty to verify the citizenship status of potential students they admit. The state's higher education director earlier this year ordered schools to check the immigration status of potential students.

Disruptive Technologies or New Pedagogical Possibilities

Disruptive Technologies or New Pedagogical Possibilities
Grainne Conole of OpenLearn presents a view of how Web 2.0 technologies can influence pedagogical approaches.  The models and ideas in Conole's presentation are worth considering by learning design professionals whose task is to facilitate the construction of online courses. (The video from the Eduserve Foundation Symposium 2008 was cited by iThinkEd.)____JH

Is Homework Helpful or Harmful?

The return of students to the classroom raises the question of whether homework is an effective educational tool, or an unnecessary stressor and burden on students.

Read more ...

Andres Oppenheimer: We could learn a lot from Finland

Like many other foreign journalists, I made the obligatory pilgrimage to Finland to learn how this country has climbed to the top spots in key international rankings measuring economic, political and social ...

Continue reading ...

UK Science "expert" says creationism should be taught

UK Science "expert" says creationism should be taught
"Just because something lacks scientific support doesn't seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from the science lesson". Yes, that is an actual quote from Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society

Math, reading scores stagnate in Oregon high schools

Middle and high school students across Oregon aren't improving on state tests in math and reading, new data from the Oregon Department of Education show.

Continue reading ...

A clash between UC Berkeley's priorities and those of its neighbors

A clash between UC Berkeley's priorities and those of its neighbors
Tree-sitters are grounded after a failed fight to stop a proposed athletic center, but that isn't the only contentious issue.

She calls herself Dumpster Muffin and lived in a tree on the UC Berkeley campus for more than seven months. In her view, university officials are bullies who want to destroy nature for the sake of football.

Philly school rekindles same-sex education debate

Calling all ninth-grade boys! Raise your hand if this school sounds like fun: wearing jackets and ties every day, staying until 5 p.m., learning Latin and - to top it all off - no girls.

Continue reading ...

Open Access Directory

The aims of the Open Access movement, the Open Software movement, and the Open Educational Resources movement overlap, with each movement influencing the others. This new Open Access Directory wiki should be a valuable asset for professionals in all three fields. ___JH(Thanks to Carolina Rossini for this reference.)

______

"Welcome to the Open Access Directory (OAD), a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD will make it easier for users, especially newcomers, to discover them and use them for reference. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA.

The goal is for the OA community itself to enlarge and correct the lists with little intervention from the editors or editorial board. For quality control, we limit editing privileges to registered users. We welcome your contributions to our lists, ideas for new lists, and comments to help us improve OAD."

Table of contents

• Discussion forums
• Events. Conferences and workshops related to OA.
• Institutions that support open access
• Jobs in open access
• Journal declarations of independence
• Lists maintained by others
• Proposed lists. These proposals may soon blossom into active lists.
• Research in progress
• Research questions
• Statements by learned societies and professional associations

Read the rest ...

A Side Order …

Jacqulyne had this interesting post and a link to an LA Times article - Something to go along with the chat. The article is an interesting overview and cuts back into the systemic view that we were talking about on Monday night. Take this idea: We need a new, results-driven mind-set at the Department of Education that will drive pure educational innovation and “scale up” proven experiments and novel ideas that work. The federal government stands in a unique position to meet these needs. Th Continue reading ...

Is Homework Helpful or Harmful?

Is Homework Helpful or Harmful?

The return of students to the classroom raises the question of whether homework is an effective educational tool, or an unnecessary stressor and burden on students.

Taft Elementary sheds label

Taft Elementary sheds label

A dark cloud has lifted from Taft Elementary School in Redwood City after hovering over it for several years.

Supplementing Your Child’s Education

Here are some great supplements for your child's education to help them get, and stay, ahead! Continue reading ...

Taiwan to extend maximum stay for Chinese students - The Chi

Taiwan to extend maximum stay for Chinese students - The Chi
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The government is likely to implement in October at the earliest a new measure allowing Chinese students to stay longer in Taiwan, Deputy Education Minister Lu Mu-lin said yesterday.

Online tools let parents peer into their kids' school day

Online tools let parents peer into their kids' school day
What's he eating for lunch? Is she showing up for class? What subjects are they weak in? Software is helping unravel the mystery.

It's tough sending little Bobby or Suzy back to school. Parents may worry what kinds of teachers their children will encounter, whether they'll be as smart as their classmates and whether bullies will steal their lunch money.

Open Education News

David Wiley announces the startup of Open Education News. This is another site to add to your list of rss feeds to monitor happenings in the field of open education. ___JH

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"The young field of open education is gaining momentum and energy. As additional projects, foundations, universities, and other participants join the movement, the need increases for a single source to gather, sort, analyze, synthesize, and disseminate news related to open education. As a field, open education is now where the field of open access was a few years ago. Peter Suber's wonderful Open Access News provides an invaluable service to the OA community, and we intend to replicate this service with Open Education News."

"Open Education News is essentially a group blog. A number of individuals from the US, South Africa, and eventually other locations daily monitor the internet for news related to open education. We then aggregate these items and publish them individually with minor commentary. Occasionally we'll publish bigger pieces of our own authorship; analyses and such. If you know of some open education news we should write about, contact David Wiley at david.wiley@gmail.com."

"Open Education News is graciously supported by the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation."

Continue reading ...

Keeping Kids Organized for School

With the beginning of a new school year comes a need to help kids manage their extracurricular activities, homework and busy schedules.

Read more ...

Young people need information, access to birth control

"The fact is that teen pregnancy is a direct result of today's government and school policies that limit access to birth control and withhold education about sexual health. These are George W. Bush's policies. Now John McCain and Sarah Palin want to extend them with new vigor." Continue reading ...

BC student seriously hurt in leap from balcony

BC student seriously hurt in leap from balcony
A 23-year-old Boston College student was seriously injured yesterday morning when he plunged 20 feet from a second-floor balcony in Brighton after trying to jump onto a nearby tree, said police spokesman Eddie Chrispin.

ZaidLearn's OCW + OER Lists

Zaid Ali Alsagoff has revised his OCW/OER list compilation to produce an extremely useful update. Zaid's compilation should be bookmarked for reference by university instructors, students, and support staff. ______JH

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University Learning = OCW + OER = FREE!

• Link to ZaidLearn's Delicious OCW Adventure
• 130+ Free Learning Tools
• 75 Free EduGames

- Zaid Ali Alsagoff ( [ZaidLearn] Read more ...

Guide to Online Course Design

Guide to Online Course Design
This chapter is called "Design with Learning in Mind" from Robin Smith's Guide to Online Course Design. The author successfully summarizes the key components in designing an online course and brings out the crucial differences between an online course and a classroom course. ____JH (Via Tomorrow's Professor.)
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--"The posting below looks at how to develop learner-centered environments for online courses. It is from Chapter 1, Design with Learning in Mind, in the book, Conquering The Content: A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Course Design, by Robin M. Smith Published by Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 [www.josseybass.com] Copyright © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc."

Palin pregnancy revives national debate on sex education (Daily Record)

WASHINGTON -- Some 30 years after sex education became a staple of high school curricula, schools still struggle over what students should know and whether it works. Continue reading ...

Welcome to Britain!

Welcome to Britain!
We do hope that you enjoy your stay. Just been born? Well done, and welcome to the UK, the land of logic. We strive to make it as unpleasant as possible, with as much intrusion into your personal life as... well, as we see fit really. I'll just flag up some highlights, but you really should go over to The Nation Of Shopkeepers for the full manual: the reading of this document is entirely voluntary, by the way, unless you decide not to read it—in which case it is compulsory. And remember! I feel

Know your baseball cap bill of rights

W e have come to the time of year when we remove the video-game controls - by surgery, if necessary - from the hands of our children, and send them back to school.

Read the rest ...

Knol

Both students and instructors use the online collaborative encyclopedia  Wikipedia and both are likely to make use of Knol. The new Google site offers short articles on a very wide range of subjects from Backpacking to Malaria to Barbecue Sauces. Net watchers will be looking closely to see if Knol grows at the same pace and to the same scope as Wikipedia. ____JH
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The Knol site has one goal: to help you share what you know.

"The Knol project is a site that hosts many knols — units of knowledge — written about various subjects. The authors of the knols can take credit for their writing, provide credentials, and elicit peer reviews and comments. Users can provide feedback, comments, related information. So the Knol project is a platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information.

Knols are indexed by the big search engines, of course. And well-written knols become popular the same as regular web pages. The Knol site allows anyone to write and manage knols through a browser on any computer."
Read the rest ...

BEHAVIORISM

BEHAVIORISM
# BEHAVIORISM is a theory of animal and human learning, that only focus on objectively observable behaviors and discounts mental activities.# Behaviorism is the educational theory that is based on the underlying ideology that has a direct influence on behavior .

Web Science

Web Science
This article in the Online Newsletter of the Association for Learning Technology reports on the initiative to establish a new concentration of science and scholarship focused on how the Web functions and how to improve Web operations. ___JH (Thanks to TL Infobits for this reference.)

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"To promote Web Science and explore its emerging agenda, a joint endeavour between the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, was set up in 2006, called the Web Science Research Initiative (webscience.org). WSRI’s mission is to foster the fundamental advances required for the Web’s continued growth. In particular, WSRI is focusing on steering the development of the Web Science discipline, running a series of workshops and looking at the lines of an academic curriculum for teaching Web Science. There will be an International Web Science Conference held in Athens, Greece, in 2009 – hopefully the first of many – as well as a new journal Foundations and Trends in Web Science."

"Web Science is not just modelling the current Web. It is about engineering new infrastructure protocols by using scientific and technological tools from many disciplines to understand the human society that uses them, to create beneficial new systems – which may involve extremely radical thinking about both technology and society (Shneiderman 2007). Such new engineering must respect the invariants of the Web experience: decentralisation to avoid bottlenecks and allow increases of scale; serendipitous reuse of information; fairness, openness and trust. In this way, the Web will remain a technology that enhances human society, and supports human aspiration."

1st District bios

1st District bios
NAME -- Carol Shea-Porter AGE-BIRTH DATE-LOCATION -- 55; Dec. 22, 1952; New York, New York

McCain's defense: 'It helps to be a mayor'

"Of course," John McCain says, "it helps to be a mayor." Maybe not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it's one of the answers Republican John McCain gave when pressed to explain why he thought his little-known running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is qualified to be vice president or even president. Continue reading ...

Students taking fall and spring tests this year

Students will spend more time taking standardized tests this year as the state begins its transition from fall to spring exams.

Read more ...

Burke's $49.5m rehab lifts school spirit, image

Burke's $49.5m rehab lifts school spirit, image
With a black backpack slung over his shoulders, 16-year-old Augusto Ceron strode into the Jeremiah E. Burke High School's new library and gazed in awe at the dozens of computers, the books neatly stacked in shiny white metal cases, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a panoramic view of the Boston skyline.

GOP platform on abstinence and education

A call for abstinence Here is the portion of the Republican platform that deals with abstinence and education: Read the rest ...

RI trying to secure new janitorial contracts

RI trying to secure new janitorial contracts
The Carcieri administration is working to secure new janitorial contracts following the arrests of more than two dozen suspected illegal immigrants who cleaned state buildings.

Back to School Basics

The end of summer is a study in trade-offs: book time replaces pool time; loungewear is swapped for school-wear; and strict schedules oust free time in a blatant reminder that the summer's over.

Read the rest ...

You don't have to be a genius to Network Market

You don't have to be a genius to Network Market
The secret to building your business, is to keep good solid prospects in the pipeline. The secret to keeping good prospects in the pipeline is to educate yourself and market yourself on a constant basis. Replication and Duplication is what I teach my downline. It is as simple as that!

Disruptive Technologies or New Pedagogical Possibilities

Disruptive Technologies or New Pedagogical Possibilities
Grainne Conole of OpenLearn presents a view of how Web 2.0 technologies can influence pedagogical approaches.  The models and ideas in Conole's presentation are worth considering by learning design professionals whose task is to facilitate the construction of online courses. (The video from the Eduserve Foundation Symposium 2008 was cited by iThinkEd.)____JH

Is College Worth It?

Is College Worth It?

As parents pack their youngsters off to college, they might ask themselves whether it's worth both the money they will spend and their children's time.

Back to School Basics

Back to School Basics

The end of summer is a study in trade-offs: book time replaces pool time; loungewear is swapped for school-wear; and strict schedules oust free time in a blatant reminder that the summer's over.

Coolest College Application Essay Ever: Re-Post

Author’s note: This is a refurbished older post. It’s still relevant and I’m on vacation. No one can back up “Coolest” with facts, but I stand by my statement nonetheless. The non-sheep in me wanted so much for it to have been an actual college admissions essay. Alas, I can find nothing [...]

Author’s note: This is a refurbished older post. It’s still relevant and I’m on vacation.

No one can back up “Coolest” with facts, but I stand by my statement nonetheless. The non-sheep in me wanted so much for it to have been an actual college admissions essay. Alas, I can find nothing to back that up. The Urban Myth maintains that Hugh Gallagher wrote the infamous essay in 1990 when he applied to NYU and it was then printed up in several major newspapers as well as becoming infamous via the Internet. The Internet part is true, which means most people have already read it. If you haven’t, you really should.

Here’s the real story, according to Harper’s Magazine:

“This essay, by Hugh Gallagher, won first prize in the humor category of the 1990 Scholastic Writing Awards. It appeared in the May issue of Literary Cavalcade, a magazine of contemporary fiction and student writing published by Scholastic in NYC. Gallagher, who is 18, grew up in Newtown Square, PA, and will attend NYU this fall.”

He did attend NYU and graduated in 1994. I have no connections in the admissions office, so I have no idea whether he used his essay to get in. The Internet circulation in combination with his essay being published in Harper’s did open some doors for Gallagher’s writing career. He’s written for Rolling Stone, Wired, and his first novel, Teeth, was published in 1998.

Rampant, unfounded optimism usually pisses me off. And yet it’s my dream (which has every chance of not coming true) that someday colleges will choose students because of who they actually are and for their unique potential, not for padded high school transcripts or highly-coached college admissions processes and SAT scores. Whether Gallagher actually sent this in with his application to NYU or not, it still makes me happy and gives me at least a spider web of hope. Sometimes we all need to be reminded that not being a sheep can work in your favor.

ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Continue reading ...

CLARe--Contextualized Learning Activity Repository

CLARe currently contains resources related to language learning and study skills but plans are underway to expand the contents. Take a look to see what's available. ___JH
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"CLARe (Contextualised Learning Activity Repository) is a repository for online learning and teaching materials. It contains complete interactive, multimedia activities (learning objects) and individual resources, such as texts, video or audio recordings (assets).
Use our search facility to find the most appropriate resources, or browse to see the kind of material that CLARe contains."

"CLARe is running on GNU EPrints repository-creating software, which generates eprints repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting OAI 1.1 and 2.0. The GNU EPrints repository-creating software is available for free at http://software.eprints.org/."

Read the rest ...

Field guide

As the lazy days of summer wind down and the first red leaves signal fall's imminent arrival, high school seniors begin mulling the often angst-filled question of where to apply to college, and parents begin mapping out college tours. In an attempt to ease the pain to psyche and wallet for both generations, I visited four university towns in Massachusetts ... Read more ...

ICICI Bank Adopts Slow strategy On Education Loans (Nasdaq)

(RTTNews) - India's largest private sector lender ICICI bank has been going slow in increasing the education loans, especially at a time when the public sector banks are encouraged to sanction more and more education loans, the media reported. Continue reading ...

Educating millions, earning billions-Educomp

Educating millions, earning billions-Educomp
Educating millions, earning billions.Shantanu Prakash, the CEO of Educomp Solutions dreamed of starting an IT company when he was studying management at IIM, Ahmedabad — not a software coding company, but a technology-driven firm in an area where there was not much competition.The result was a foray into the business of digitising school textboo

Harvard's legacy

At the end of the school year, most Harvard students take home a head full of knowledge - and some of them leave behind a room full of great stuff. Lucky for us, a group of industrious undergrads collects the leftovers, adds items from private donations, and sells it all at the Harvard Habitat for Humanity Annual Stuff Sale. A ... Read more ...