EducationBug.org Launches Free Job Post

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Merrimack, NH, charter school triples enrollment

Merrimack, NH, charter school triples enrollment
A charter school in Merrimack, N.H., will re-open Monday with a new director, three times as many students and three times the space.

Cuts result in reduced staff, fewer programs

Cuts result in reduced staff, fewer programs
Students in some area communities will find larger class sizes and fewer programs when they return to school this fall - despite an influx of federal stimulus money that headed off more draconian cuts.

Annenberg Broadband Media Resources

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

 _____

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

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

 

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Running with my resources

Amy asked me some more about our homeschooling decision and I’m not gonna get into it too much (the short rundown is here ) but her comment did make me think about one of my concerns about homeschooling pre-homeschool. I know that it’s not a great idea to remove the parents who are passionate about education from the public system. When we decide to leave the neighborhood school to head to homeschooling, we’re taking our resources with us. Not our taxes, mind you (homeschoolers still pay taxes Read the rest ...

Merrimack, NH, charter school triples enrollment

A charter school in Merrimack, N.H., will re-open Monday with a new director, three times as many students and three times the space. Read more ...

Educate Online Launches, Dedicated to Improving Student Achievement, Building Academic Confidence

Educate Online Launches, Dedicated to Improving Student Achievement, Building Academic Confidence

Guidance Counselor On 'Acceptance'

WELL AS STUDENTS HEAD BACK TO COLLEGE MANY PARENTS ARE REELING FROM THE COSTS OF PAYING FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION AS COSTS OR ACCEPTANCE RATES DROP MAKING GETTING INTO COLLEGE EVEN MORE COMPETITIVE OUR NEXT GUEST DAVID MARCUS I WROTE A BOOK ABOUT THIS ISSUE A SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE WELL KNOWN HIGH SCHOOL GUIDANCE COUNSELOR THANKS FOR BEING ...

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Ramadan fast a coming-of-age challenge

Ramadan fast a coming-of-age challenge
Naveed Khan of Waterbury and his three children won't eat food or drink water for 15 hours today, or any day, through Sept. 19.

UNH instructor’s 1960s memoir resonates with modern readers

Meredith Hall never expected to come back to Hampton. When she got pregnant at age 16, the summer after the 1964 riots in the New Hampshire beach town, she was shunned by the community. Emotionally battered by the experience, she went out in search of herself. Continue reading ...

Almost as Good as it Gets, for a Liberal

I was proud that I was involved in taking Edmonton-Strathcona from Rahim Jaffer and the Conservatives and getting NDP Environment Critic Linda Duncan elected, so it was with some reluctance that I enter a new riding with a Red MP. However, reading through Vancouver-Quadra Liberal MP Joyce Murray’s website and Wikipedia profile , I must say that I could do much worse in terms of MPs. Ms. Murray supported numerous environmental issues as a BC Liberal MLA and continues to champion more at th Read the rest ...

EducationBug.org Launches Free Job Post

EducationBug.org Launches Free Job Post

Pearson eCollege Announces New Education Partners

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Swine flu rises at US colleges as students return

Colleges across the country are seeing spikes in the number of students with suspected cases of swine flu as dorms fill up and classes begin for the fall semester. Read more ...

It's a charter year and new future for Birmingham High

It's a charter year and new future for Birmingham High
The Valley campus begins the school year independent of L.A. Unified control. Charter supporters had to overcome numerous obstacles, including internal dissension, cash shortage and lawsuits.

If there was a brick wall, they walked into it. If there was a land mine, they stepped on it. When the history of charter schools in the United States is written, Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley may stand as a cautionary tale of all that can go wrong when a regular public school tries to convert to an independent charter.

Obama wants states to overhaul failing schools

Obama wants states to overhaul failing schools
The Obama administration is making good on a promise to use federal dollars to prod local officials to turn around failing schools.

Valuable Yet Simple Tips To Follow When Buying A Reading Program For Your Kids

Valuable Yet Simple Tips To Follow When Buying A Reading Program For Your Kids
Today’s youth do not have the opportunity to develop their reading skills. At the present time, kids in the US rank close to the bottom in the areas of science and math skills. The technicals that are being used to teach children to read these days are simply not effective. Find learn to read phonics programs here. Nowadays the verbal ability is too low, probably going to the least. Eleven million Americans are estimated to be illiterate. In order to gain most knowledge we have to learn h

Test scores offer reality check for Villaraigosa's schools

There are some gains but overall the results fall short of the L.A. mayor's original rhetoric suggesting he could deliver rapid improvement. The story was similar at Locke High, a charter school.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa learned a major lesson in school reform Tuesday: It's hard to fix failing schools in Los Angeles, even those under his purview.

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CourseSmart’s eTextbook App for the iPhone

CourseSmart’s eTextbook App for the iPhone
So much excitement about the iPhone! CourseSmart just announced the release of its free eTextbooks application on the App Store. The eTextbooks App allows student and instructor subscribers to access their CourseSmart eTextbooks whenever and wherever they want. “We’ve seen significant demand from student customers for the ability to get required textbook content [...]

So much excitement about the iPhone! CourseSmart just announced the release of its free eTextbooks application on the App Store. The eTextbooks App allows student and instructor subscribers to access their CourseSmart eTextbooks whenever and wherever they want.

“We’ve seen significant demand from student customers for the ability to get required textbook content in electronic form on an iPhone or iPod touch,” said Frank Lyman, executive vice president of CourseSmart. “It’s important to students to be able to access textbook content in color with the same page layout as a printed textbook and now the eTextbooks App allows them to do that.”

According to the press release, the iPhone App:

Provides any time, anywhere access to the eTextbooks students have purchased online at www.coursesmart.com[link].

–Enables students to easily browse, search, and read thousands of textbooks from their iPhone or iPod touch.

–Preserves the carefully laid out pages giving students quick and easy access to not only the full text but essential content such as diagrams, illustrations and charts.

–Allows students to “stack” all of their textbooks in the “My eTextbooks” personal, online library.

–Students can search for a topic within a single book or across their entire eTextbook stack, view text notes, access the table of contents, zoom in on text, graphs, and scroll through or jump to individual pages.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Zeroes And Ones

One of my last classes at ********* College focused exclusively on US-China trade, currency, interest rates, inflation, deficits and debt. It’s a dense topic to teach in any meaningful way in under two hours, but the reaction of the class afterwards reassured me that what I was trying to get across had been absorbed: they were, to a person, horrified. The long and short of it, as you know, is this: the US economy is worth around $14 trillion. The budget deficit (the difference each year be Read more ...

ACT scores hold steady

ACT scores hold steady

Overall results from the 2009 administration of the ACT to McCreary Central High School juniors show flat scores in all subjects.

State of schools is strong as students return to class

In a matter of days more than 4.7 million children and 600,000 educators and staff will return to school.

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Mary B. Henry dies at 82; civil rights activist improved education, healthcare in L.A.

Mary B. Henry, a civil rights activist who helped create the national Head Start program and fostered the rise of the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center from the ashes of the 1965 Watts riots, died Friday. She was 82.

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Why she's giving away $50 million

Melanie Lundquist of Palos Verdes Estates is optimistic that writing a $5-million check every year for 10 years to help low-performing L.A. schools will result in wider reforms nationally.

Imagine all the things you could buy if you had a spare $50 million under the mattress.

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Pearson Education's OnMicrosoft Podcasts Provide New Learning Tool

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Atlanta School District Report disputes audit

Atlanta School District Report disputes audit

Atlanta Public Schools officials continue to challenge a state audit that found evidence of cheating on standardized tests.

Students need to take an active role in their education

Welcome to the Student Success column! This column is dedicated to helping students reach their full educational potential, inside and outside of the classroom.

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Tuning up at the Song School

Tuning up at the Song School
The likes of Mary Gauthier offer instruction to aspirants in the lonely craft of songwriting. Solace is part of the program.

The songwriters attending Mary Gauthier's class pulled up a folding chair or found a patch of lawn, to hear her inveigh against the forces that block writers' best effort.

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 ...

William 'Bill' Russell dies at 94; longtime high school sports commissioner

William 'Bill' Russell dies at 94; longtime high school sports commissioner
As the head of the California Interscholastic Federation, Russell helped formulate the first athletic code enabling schools to sponsor girls' teams, with rules adopted statewide in 1967.

William "Bill" Russell, a former longtime California Interscholastic Federation commissioner who was instrumental in the rise of girls' high school sports, died Aug. 9 at his home in Santa Barbara. He had brain cancer. He was 94.

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 the rest ...

Atlanta School District Report disputes audit

Atlanta Public Schools officials continue to challenge a state audit that found evidence of cheating on standardized tests.

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Eye on Entertainment

Eye on Entertainment

Teaching Naked at Southern Methodist University

As the granddaughter of science professors who was used to asking a question at a grandparent’s house and receiving a long but educational lecture as an answer to my little-girl ponderings, I have always had a fondness for the prof-lecturing, students-listening method of teaching. If the professor is engaged and is obviously enamored of [...]

As the granddaughter of science professors who was used to asking a question at a grandparent’s house and receiving a long but educational lecture as an answer to my little-girl ponderings, I have always had a fondness for the prof-lecturing, students-listening method of teaching. If the professor is engaged and is obviously enamored of his or her subject, then sign me up for sitting still in a lecture hall with my teensy and barely effective “desk” so I can let the knowledge flow from the chalkboard to my brain.

I love love love listening to someone explain something to me when the something in question is their favorite topic to expound upon. Seriously, even if it’s an area that I thought I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about, an instructor who loves their subject and can’t wait to tell me all about it in ways the textbook could never hope to, can blow my mind.

All of which is to say that were I still matriculating, I would be one of the students grumbling about less lecturing and more interaction and discussion between professors and students. I understand why Professor Bowen wants the instructors in his department to teach naked and avoid the dullness of PowerPoint. I am fully on board with his desire that instructors rely less on the bells and whistles and are more involved, creative, and present when they are teaching.

I’m all for awesome teachers. But I fail to see how ditching computers and digital slide shows means more discussions have to occur. Can’t the teachers just explain things with more breadth and depth since the students have already listened to the podcast of the prof’s basic lecture before class? Deeper teaching is fine, not more talking amongst ourselves.

I just want to learn and I don’t want to have to talk about it. Is that so wrong? To be fair, most of my coursework was math and science, which isn’t as up for debate as other subjects might be. Is the square root of sixteen always four? Discuss! Is a water molecule actually composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom? Discuss! Is gravity really happening? Go! If I had wanted to debate the subject matter, I would have been drawn to philosophy or poli-sci or sociology; something less provable and more fraught with grey areas.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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When scientific intensity turns to volleyball

As a Harvard University graduate student in the late 1980s, Craig C. Mello relished the afternoons he would escape from the lab for a volleyball game in the courtyard of the biological laboratories. Read the rest ...

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.

 

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Is Crowdsourcing the Future of College Education?

A course at Duke University will allow students to take over aspects of teaching and grading.

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William 'Bill' Russell dies at 94; longtime high school sports commissioner

William 'Bill' Russell dies at 94; longtime high school sports commissioner
As the head of the California Interscholastic Federation, Russell helped formulate the first athletic code enabling schools to sponsor girls' teams, with rules adopted statewide in 1967.

William "Bill" Russell, a former longtime California Interscholastic Federation commissioner who was instrumental in the rise of girls' high school sports, died Aug. 9 at his home in Santa Barbara. He had brain cancer. He was 94.

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

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The Open Library Project

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

_____

Here's a sample:

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

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

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Drexel University Leader in Education Named Penn Educator of the Year

Drexel University Leader in Education Named Penn Educator of the Year

Waupun considers change to graduation honors

Waupun considers change to graduation honors

The spotlight will shine on more than a handful of scholars at graduation time next spring if a proposed academic recognition policy is approved.

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."

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Shapleigh: Texas' future hinges on closing education gap

Shapleigh: Texas' future hinges on closing education gap

When Steve Murdock, Texas' former state demographer, left to head the U.S. Census Bureau, he left behind an honest - and startling - picture of Texas' future: "If the current relationships between minority status and educational attainment, occupations of employment, and wage and salary income do not change in the future from those existing in ...

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 ...

Crashing

Crashing

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

JH

Cambridge Sgt. Crowley speaks at police convention

Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley has opened the five-day convention for the Fraternal Order of Police with brief remarks. Read the rest ...

Tom Carey Answers Questions about MERLOT

In this interview in eLearn Magazine Tom Carey answers questions about MERLOT. In addition to his professorship at the University of Waterloo, Prof. Carey also acts as chief learning officer for MERLOT. Among other topics, Carey explains how MERLOT relates to other open education repositories and gateways. ____JH (Via the Development Gateway dgAlert.)

______

"Instructors in higher education get e-learning support from two distinct sources: their own institutions, through colleagues and faculty teaching centers, and their disciplines, through subject area experts and scholarly associations. Tom Carey, professor of management sciences at the University of Waterloo and chief learning officer of MERLOT, explains how the MERLOT consortium is finding the sweet spot where those two processes come together."

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ACT online newsletter offers education help for parents

ACT online newsletter offers education help for parents

The August edition of ACT Parent is now available online. Designed to help children succeed as they prepare for college and careers, ACT Parent features articles that empower you as a parent.

'The Miracle Worker' opens Athens Community Theater season

'The Miracle Worker' opens Athens Community Theater season

Photo by Greg Moses Madison Johnson, left, plays Helen Keller opposite Mary Moates' Anne Sullivan in the Athens Community Theater production of The Miracle Worker.

LG candidate Wagner endorsed by VEA

GROUP CITES WAGNER’S COMMITMENT TO PUBLIC EDUCATION From a Wagner campaign press release: RICHMOND - Today, Democratic Nominee for Lt. Governor Jody Wagner was endorsed by the Virginia Education Association at an event in Richmond. Speaking to a group of educators attending a roundtable event led by Wagner, Dr. Kitty J. Boitnott , Chair of the VEA Fund for Children and Public Education , cited Wagner’s long-standing commitment to public education: “We believe Mrs. Wag Read the rest ...

Tom Carey Answers Questions about MERLOT

In this interview in eLearn Magazine Tom Carey answers questions about MERLOT. In addition to his professorship at the University of Waterloo, Prof. Carey also acts as chief learning officer for MERLOT. Among other topics, Carey explains how MERLOT relates to other open education repositories and gateways. ____JH (Via the Development Gateway dgAlert.)

______

"Instructors in higher education get e-learning support from two distinct sources: their own institutions, through colleagues and faculty teaching centers, and their disciplines, through subject area experts and scholarly associations. Tom Carey, professor of management sciences at the University of Waterloo and chief learning officer of MERLOT, explains how the MERLOT consortium is finding the sweet spot where those two processes come together."

Read the rest ...

Grad student imprisoned in Iran returns to US

A graduate student imprisoned for a month in Iran and barred from leaving the country for nearly a year has returned to Los Angeles. Read more ...

The face of budget cuts

A friendly girl with almond-shaped eyes and a soft smile, Jessica Fiasconaro loves to belt out songs on her karaoke machine, and she once played Gabriella in a production of “High School Musical.’’ But when some of her peers look at her, all they see is her wheelchair. Continue reading ...

Home schooling up in Louisiana

Home schooling up in Louisiana

She and her husband, Brian, gave it a shot. a a We knew a lot of people who homeschooled, and we liked the way the children interacted with adults, how they interacted with each other as a family and that they enjoyed learning,a TMa TM Elkins said.

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

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Grammar and Punctuation Resources

Grammar and Punctuation Resources
I really don’t like screwing up. When I notice my screw-ups later, it freaks me out and I think about my mistake for days. Probably not the best use of my time and energy, and I’m working on that part of my personality, but there it is. It bothers me that I [...]

I really don’t like screwing up. When I notice my screw-ups later, it freaks me out and I think about my mistake for days. Probably not the best use of my time and energy, and I’m working on that part of my personality, but there it is. It bothers me that I was put on the gifted kid reading and writing track all through school, where I was encouraged to read and write beyond what was considered “standard” for my age, but was never taught of the rules of grammar or punctuation past about the fourth-grade level.

I’m still not sure why there has to be a separation between being given the space and time to be creative, and being given the basic tools to do the creative stuff correctly. Maybe it’s that teachers only have so much time to teach students everything, and sometimes it has to be either/or.

What is comes down to is that I, along my “gifted and talented” cohort, will probably spend too much time in our adult lives vacillating between two emotions: feeling super awesome and amazing one moment (whenever we recall our childhood memories of all the adults around us oohing and aaahing about our above-average brains), and then feeling utter lameness and shame (whenever we make horrible grammar and punctuation errors and the so-called average kids, who got to learn the rules, laugh their heads off at our giftedly dumb asses).

It’s entirely possible that I’m the only smarty-pants who ended up slightly neurotic due to my elementary school career. But for anyone else (neurotic or not) who could use a little basic grammar and punctuation knowledge, here’s a list of helpful sites to visit in the privacy of your own home or cubicle. No one will ever have to know that you aren’t as smart as your test scores might show.

Grammar and Punctuation Resources:

GrammarBook.com
Grammar Girl
Univ. of Chicago Grammar Resources
Most Common Grammar, Usage, and Style Errors
Purdue University: Online Writing Lab
Common Errors in English
Guide to Grammar and Style
Univ. of Illinois Intensive English Institute
Writing Resource Center

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

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 ...

Indian Springs School student scores perfect on SAT

Michelle Lou also has finished nationally in the top 10 scorers on the National French Exam.

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MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition

MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition

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

____

"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."

What Many Students Do When Looking At Colleges

A Cincinnati criminal defense attorney cannot be your job if you do not go to college. You have to attend a college to get a degree to become a practicing one. This goes for a Cincinnati criminal defense lawyer . Most people, will need to go to college to get a good job. Payment and the application process are very important steps in the college process. There are other steps that need to be taken in order to go to college so as to be able to get a job that you would be interested in, like a Read more ...

Indian Springs School student scores perfect on SAT

Michelle Lou also has finished nationally in the top 10 scorers on the National French Exam.

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Budget Cuts Starving The Arts

Budget Cuts Starving The Arts
The arts tend to be less than fully appreciated, so it’s not like I thought art departments would be immune to the current swath of budget cuts, but it’s still depressing. Everyone’s taking a hit, but the NY Times has highlighted several painful examples: If you are looking for a sign of how strapped the [...]

The arts tend to be less than fully appreciated, so it’s not like I thought art departments would be immune to the current swath of budget cuts, but it’s still depressing. Everyone’s taking a hit, but the NY Times has highlighted several painful examples:

If you are looking for a sign of how strapped the University of California, Los Angeles, is for cash, consider that its arts and architecture school may resort to holding a bake sale to raise money. California’s severe financial crisis has left its higher-education system — which serves nearly a fifth of the nation’s college students — in particularly bad straits. But tens of thousands of students at public and private colleges and universities around the country will find arts programs, courses and teachers missing — victims of piercing budget cuts — when they descend on campuses this month and next.

At Washington State University the department of theater arts and dance has been eliminated. At Florida State University the undergraduate program in art education and two graduate theater programs are being phased out. The University of Arizona is cutting three-quarters of its funds, more than $500,000, for visiting classical music, dance and theater performers. Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, which supports four departments — dance, music, theater and visual arts — is losing 14 percent of its $1.2 million budget over the next two years. The Louisiana State University Museum of Art, one of the largest university-affiliated collections in the South, saw 20 percent of its state financing disappear. Other private and state institutions warn of larger classes, trimmed offerings, higher tuition and fewer services, faculty and visitors.

I’m hoping everyone can just hunker down and try to hang in there until things improve. Because things have to improve at some point, right?

Further Reading:

Univ. of Calif. Makes Cuts After Reduction in State Financing
WSU Announces Layoffs, Program Cuts
Florida’s Financial Crisis, An Unnatural Disaster
Univ. of Arizona: Update on University Budget Cuts
Wesleyan University: Economic Downturn FAQs

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

Internet Marketing For Newbie ” Top Make Money Online Education

Internet Marketing For Newbie ” Top Make Money Online Education
August 14, 2009 | By Ruby Hopes In Online Business | by Billy LeeMaking money online is very important to some people, and internet marketing training is essential if they are to be successful. See the rest here: Internet Marketing For Newbie ” Top Make Money Online Education

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]

_________

"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 ...

Okla. schools dealing with 5 percent budget cut

Okla. schools dealing with 5 percent budget cut
State and local education officials in Oklahoma preparing for the upcoming school year received a most unwelcome back-to-school present with word of a state revenue shortfall.

EducationBug.org Launches Free Job Post

EducationBug.org Launches Free Job Post

Kentucky on target with education bill timelines

Kentucky on target with education bill timelines

Dr. Terry Holliday did not have much time to get ready. On the job less than a week, Holliday went before the Interim Joint Committee on Education Monday to talk about his vision of public education in Kentucky and implementation of Senate Bill 1, the latest round of state education reform.

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]

Jreviews Joomla Component

August 12th, 2009 Jreviews Joomla ComponentHere are the details about my project:Actually I am creating a movie portal using a joomla component called Jreviews (CCK), i need you to add some functionality to the component. The site will have some movies listed in it (only the ones added by users). Each listing will contain the movie information like Director, Year, Cast & Crew, Summary etc. which will be fetched from IMDB ,and listings will also contain different media links, so that users are Continue reading ...

Disputed lot in South L.A. is seized by school district

Disputed lot in South L.A. is seized by school district
Land bought by a nonprofit using a city block grant has sat empty, though there was talk of building a youth center and soccer field. Eight years later, L.A. Unified intends to build a school.

The plan to transform a vacant lot used as an illegal dumping ground into a youth center and soccer field for low-income residents in South Los Angeles seemed like a winner.

Swine flu won't mean school's out, federal guidelines say

New recommendations call for local districts to be conservative about school closures. Parents are urged to vaccinate children.

Educators should be conservative when they consider shutting schools because of outbreaks of swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, federal officials said Friday as they released guidelines for school districts.

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Grammar and Punctuation Resources

I really don’t like screwing up. When I notice my screw-ups later, it freaks me out and I think about my mistake for days. Probably not the best use of my time and energy, and I’m working on that part of my personality, but there it is. It bothers me that I [...]

I really don’t like screwing up. When I notice my screw-ups later, it freaks me out and I think about my mistake for days. Probably not the best use of my time and energy, and I’m working on that part of my personality, but there it is. It bothers me that I was put on the gifted kid reading and writing track all through school, where I was encouraged to read and write beyond what was considered “standard” for my age, but was never taught of the rules of grammar or punctuation past about the fourth-grade level.

I’m still not sure why there has to be a separation between being given the space and time to be creative, and being given the basic tools to do the creative stuff correctly. Maybe it’s that teachers only have so much time to teach students everything, and sometimes it has to be either/or.

What is comes down to is that I, along my “gifted and talented” cohort, will probably spend too much time in our adult lives vacillating between two emotions: feeling super awesome and amazing one moment (whenever we recall our childhood memories of all the adults around us oohing and aaahing about our above-average brains), and then feeling utter lameness and shame (whenever we make horrible grammar and punctuation errors and the so-called average kids, who got to learn the rules, laugh their heads off at our giftedly dumb asses).

It’s entirely possible that I’m the only smarty-pants who ended up slightly neurotic due to my elementary school career. But for anyone else (neurotic or not) who could use a little basic grammar and punctuation knowledge, here’s a list of helpful sites to visit in the privacy of your own home or cubicle. No one will ever have to know that you aren’t as smart as your test scores might show.

Grammar and Punctuation Resources:

GrammarBook.com
Grammar Girl
Univ. of Chicago Grammar Resources
Most Common Grammar, Usage, and Style Errors
Purdue University: Online Writing Lab
Common Errors in English
Guide to Grammar and Style
Univ. of Illinois Intensive English Institute
Writing Resource Center

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Education commissioner weighs in

Education commissioner weighs in

With education at a critical cross roads in its history, finding ways to improve and innovate it is crucial to its future, Mitchell D. Chester, Massachusetts Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, said Monday.

Educate Online Launches, Dedicated to Improving Student Achievement, Building Academic Confidence

Educate Online Launches, Dedicated to Improving Student Achievement, Building Academic Confidence

Operator picked for Ind. virtual school program

Operator picked for Ind. virtual school program

Hoosier Academies has been chosen to operate Indiana's first virtual charter school, which was authorized by the General Assembly during the recent special session, the Indiana Department of Education announced Thursday.

Interview with Gene M. Heyman

FOR YEARS, THE enlightened - and widely held - view of addiction has been that it is a disease. Chronic drug abusers, for example, are physiologically compelled to continue their self-destructive behavior. They often have a genetic predisposition toward addiction, and their drug abuse results in biochemical changes in the body. Addicts need help if they are to be saved. Read the rest ...

Harvard Management hires 2 executives

Harvard Management Co., which runs the nation’s largest university endowment, has hired two new investment executives as it looks to come back from a year of sharp losses. They are: Read more ...

State To Stress Reading Comprehension

Policy makers in Tennessee are launching several efforts to help public school students improve their reading comprehension.

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New Colo. School Data Track Students Over 3 Years

New Colo. School Data Track Students Over 3 Years

Colorado schools are doing a good job maintaining the progress of students who grasp the basics of reading, writing and math, according to new data tracking student test scores over three years.

Summer Vacation 2009

Summer Vacation 2009
My husband and I both were raised in regions where surviving the brutal heat of summer was something to be proud of and, apparently, nostalgic for. We also feel compelled to inflict three-digit heat on our grossly unprepared, rainy weather children. Seattleites only ever burn themselves on highly caffeinated hot beverages laced with [...]

My husband and I both were raised in regions where surviving the brutal heat of summer was something to be proud of and, apparently, nostalgic for. We also feel compelled to inflict three-digit heat on our grossly unprepared, rainy weather children.

Seattleites only ever burn themselves on highly caffeinated hot beverages laced with precisely foamed milk; they’ve never run barefoot across their dry lawn and into the heat-shimmered street, waved their swimming-pool soaked dollar at the ice cream truck and then hopped from burning foot to burning foot, waiting for their Sno Cone. Fireplaces and lattes are as hot as Seattle gets. It’s sad, really, and so my spouse and I feel that our Vitamin D deficient offspring need some sweltering sunshine to be soaked into their bones on an annual basis so they won’t grow up to be pale heat weenies.

Which means that I’m on vacation and have re-posted enough previously posted bits to keep everyone occupied. Have a lovely two weeks.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Back-to-School Guidance on Swine Flu

Back-to-School Guidance on Swine Flu

With back-to-school season just around the corner, federal health and education officials today are not suggesting drastic K-12 schools closures where students have already caught swine flu .

Pearson eCollege Announces New Education Partners

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Missouri joins effort for national educational standards

The State Board of Education voted yesterday to authorize Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro to join the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a national project to establish more consistent academic standards in English and mathematics for K-12 students, according to a news release from the Department of Elementary and Secondary ...

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Circus education is intense

Circus education is intense

A school teacher with a travelling circus says trips to outback Australia are a great education for home-schooled children.

State senators to consider changing law on student scores, teacher evaluations

State senators to consider changing law on student scores, teacher evaluations
In an effort to qualify for federal 'Race to the Top' funds, the Senate's education committee plans to look at a 2006 law that bars use of test scores to evaluate teacher performance.

The state Senate will hold hearings later this month to determine if legislators need to change a California law governing the use of student test scores in order to qualify for competitive federal education reform dollars.

What’s Next For Roku? 5 Suggestions.

What’s Next For Roku? 5 Suggestions.
I love my little Roku box . The Roku Digital Media Player ( $99, Amazon ), which began life as the Roku Netflix Player , streams Netflix content (free for subscribers) and Amazon video on demand (VOD). Standard def was decent, but both are now available in HD (720p). Sure, it’s not Blu-ray but it’s good enough for many. Perhaps, most. And the mighty quick, dead simple interface is a joy to use, providing a better experience than TiVo’s equivalent Netflix and Amazon apps. We know Roku’s got

Socio-economic status plays no major role in cognitive decline in elderly

Washington, August 8 (ANI): A new piece of research has found no link between cognitive decline and socio-economic status in people aged 70 and older. However, the study, led by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), has shown that seniors who have never been married, and widowers, seem to perform more poorly as they age,.Published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the study of older Americans 70-plus years of age (mean age 75) found that rates of cognitive decli Read more ...

Education Connection Launches Video Contest for Scholarships and Cash Prizes

Education Connection Launches Video Contest for Scholarships and Cash Prizes

Summer education through parenting skills

Summer education through parenting skills

Though the summer vacation from school is traditionally a time for kids to throw their text books in the corner, fathers can use their parenting skills to ensure their sons and daughters are still learning something during the time off.

Key dates in the U. of Ill. admissions scandal

Events leading up to Thursday's report from the Illinois Admissions Review Commission: -- May 29, 2009: The Chicago Tribune reports that the University of Illinois maintains a list of politically connected applicants at the Urbana-Champaign campus, and that some members of the so-called Category I list have been admitted in spite of lackluster qualifications. The list in 2005 included a ... Read more ...

Budget cuts devastate California higher education

When California college students return to campus this fall, they'll find crowded classrooms, less access to faculty and counselors, fewer campus services and more difficulty getting classes they need to graduate -- all while paying higher fees. Read the rest ...

Key dates in the U. of Ill. admissions scandal

Events leading up to Thursday's report from the Illinois Admissions Review Commission: -- May 29, 2009: The Chicago Tribune reports that the University of Illinois maintains a list of politically connected applicants at the Urbana-Champaign campus, and that some members of the so-called Category I list have been admitted in spite of lackluster qualifications. The list in 2005 included a ... Continue reading ...

Reader praises community college education

Reader praises community college education
Re: "A higher degree of thrift," July 26:

Labor nonprofit's consulting fees to officials investigated

Payments of $30,000 each to former L.A. Unified Board of Education members David Tokofsky and Jose Huizar, now an L.A. city councilman, are the focus of the federal probe.

Federal investigators are examining whether a labor-affiliated nonprofit improperly funneled consulting fees to Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar and former Board of Education member David Tokofsky, according to sources close to the probe.

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RI students to cops: don't brand our party houses

RI students to cops: don't brand our party houses
The punishment, renters and homeowners in this beach town say, is tantamount to a scarlet letter: A large orange sticker plastered by police on homes that host raucous parties.

State senators to consider changing law on student scores, teacher evaluations

State senators to consider changing law on student scores, teacher evaluations
In an effort to qualify for federal 'Race to the Top' funds, the Senate's education committee plans to look at a 2006 law that bars use of test scores to evaluate teacher performance.

The state Senate will hold hearings later this month to determine if legislators need to change a California law governing the use of student test scores in order to qualify for competitive federal education reform dollars.

Advice For Surviving PhD Orals

Advice For Surviving PhD Orals
If you’ve ever read the About Page on this here blog, you’ll know that somewhere on my extensively planned path to the land of the Perfectly PhD-ed Career, I was derailed (mostly voluntarily) by my own personal efforts to ensure the continuation of the species (Mommyness replaced my dream of Tenured Professorness). I’ve been [...]

If you’ve ever read the About Page on this here blog, you’ll know that somewhere on my extensively planned path to the land of the Perfectly PhD-ed Career, I was derailed (mostly voluntarily) by my own personal efforts to ensure the continuation of the species (Mommyness replaced my dream of Tenured Professorness).

I’ve been a mommy for less time than I spent thinking my future held a stunningly windowed office in an ivory tower. Which is why, although I’m stupidly happy in my kid-laced life (the animal instincts make it biologically impossible not to like your kids), I still have barfy feelings when I think about sitting for the orals I never actually had to take.

If you spend enough time thinking that the years of school will all culminate in your standing before the brainy version of a firing squad, it will be difficult to convince yourself that it’s okay to just let that fear go. As I had been imagining this for myself since I was in about the fifth grade, and didn’t derail until I was about 26, you can see why I’d have a hard time leaving the nausea behind.

If you’ve managed to stick with your goals of being educated to some point nearing ridiculousness (which I fully support, by the way) and you’re nearing the orals portion of your PhD, then I would suggest reading An Orals Survival Kit. It’s up on Tomorrow’s Professor blog, and was written by three UC Berkeley PhD candidates (which means they’ve recently passed their orals and know of what they speak).

It is like standing in front of a firing squad. Your executioners are four professors who are experts in their fields. You writhe before them as they take turns posing questions almost beyond your grasp. The threat hangs constantly over your head: Fail to satisfy them, and your graduate career will end.

That’s how many graduate students imagine their oral exam. But the reality doesn’t have to be that bad.

While it’s true that a Ph.D. oral exam can be the most terrifying hurdle in graduate school, it can also be a positive and rewarding experience. Truly. For many students, the stress associated with preparing for orals is largely because they will experience the exam format for the first, and last, time. Too often, no one explains what to expect or how to prepare. More…

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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Britain's Leading Educational Paper in£5 Million Relaunch

Britain's Leading Educational Paper in£5 Million Relaunch

Why music education is important in the valley

It is no news to anyone that the state of California is in dire straits financially, and that is having a direct result on the educational system.

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An unwanted summer break

An unwanted summer break
Many low-income children living in suburban communities such as Framingham, Northbridge, Norwood, and Waltham do not have access to federally-funded free lunch programs during school vacation, even as the recession has increased the number of families needing help.

Rare athlete deaths spur sickle cell trait testing

Rare athlete deaths spur sickle cell trait testing
Thousands of families carry the gene that causes sickle cell disease and don't know it -- even though almost every newborn today is tested for what's called "sickle cell trait," and starting this summer more college athletes are getting tested, too.

W.Va. mine worker killed in excavator accident

Emergency officials in Boone County say a worker at a coal mine has been killed in an accident.

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UMass Amherst installs outdoor warning system

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is installing an outdoor emergency warning system with eight sirens to broadcast potential threats on campus. Read the rest ...

Educate Online Launches, Dedicated to Improving Student Achievement, Building Academic Confidence

Educate Online Launches, Dedicated to Improving Student Achievement, Building Academic Confidence

Obama chides California for not using test scores to evaluate teachers

At stake are billions in federal stimulus funds to be allocated in 'Race to the Top' grants. Schwarzenegger says state law will be amended if necessary to comply.

President Obama singled out California on Friday for failing to use education data to distinguish poor teachers from good ones, a situation that his administration said must change for the state to receive competitive, federal school dollars.

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148pc increase in TAFE applications

148pc increase in TAFE applications
Mount Gambier’s TAFE SA campus has recorded a 148pc jump in the number of mid-year applications from potential students, particularly in the areas of aged care, enrolled nursing and beauty therapy. This comes in the wake of the campus receiving a $4m funding boost from the Federal Government for infrastructure programs at the Wireless Road site. Employment, Training and Education Minister Michael O’Brien said there had been a 28pc increase in applications across the state and a 23pc jump i

The Ins and Outs of Finding a Great Mentor

The Ins and Outs of Finding a Great Mentor
This is a guest post by Eric Schechter , Social Media Manager at Clickbooth , an Exclusive CPA Network . One thing is for sure, the affiliate marketing industry is currently one of the most successful industries in the world right now. It’s so successful that thousands of people a day are leaving their day jobs to pursue a full time career promoting affiliate offers. The problem is, there is so much to learn when you first start out and it can be very frustrating trying to take it all in.

Exclusive Interview! Heroes Sylar- Zachary Quinto

The show Heroes has certainly been good to Zachary Quinto, and the actor admitted that despite his previous exposure in an other television hit series, 24, working on the NBC show has given him more opportunity to shine. Quinto, who plays the menacing supervillain Sylar on the show, has reached new heights of popularity. However, since many viewers have come to identify him with his evil character, it is not surprising that upon encountering Quinto in real life, there are some who choose to s Read the rest ...

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

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

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

The Open Library Project

The Open Library Project

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

_____

Here's a sample:

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

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

WideOpenEducation

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

David Wiley's Open Course on Open Education

Here's the link the to wiki syllabus for David Wiley's Fall 2007 course about Open Education. There's still time to sign up for this online course. "The goals of the course are (1) to give you a firm grounding in the current state of the field of open education, including related topics like copyright, licensing, and sustainability, (2) to help you locate open education in the context of mainstream instructional technologies like learning objects, and (3) to get you thinking, writing, and dialoguing creatively and critically about current practices and possible alternative practices in open education." Those who don't want to participate in the course will still find value in the online readings and the links to OER sites. ____JH Read the rest ...

MBBS in Ukraine

Hi, Join the world recognized MBBS program in Ukraine. You can now earn your MBBS degree at an expense less than 30% by doing it in one of the most reputed universities in Ukraine with world class accreditation. 50% Aggregate In Physics, Chemistry & Biology 30% Cheaper World Class Standards Medical University Listed With International Medical Education Directory (IMED). Karabuts Logovenko Street, Mykolayiv Ukraine - 16600 +380930484422 Website: http://www.karabuts. Continue reading ...