Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 05/25/2012
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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Summer Break
I wrote this blog post about how to get the most out of your summer break. Here are some tips.
and am getting ready to make my "goal poster" for the summer. (I have goal posters from the last 5-6 years in my office - love looking at them.) Someone tweeted me that she was getting ready to make her goal poster and I thought I'd share this post with you for those preparing to "get out." -
7 Ways To Use Pinterest As A Writer
This post has some information on how you can use Pinterest. If you're a company or organization supporting educators and want to dissect that pin and know how to get the word out about what you're doing, here are some tips.
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Two Brooklyn Schools Examined for Cheating – SchoolBook
More cheating scandals begin to brew. When children transferring out of a school drop from 90th percentile to 30th - something is up and that may be test fraud. Read this new york times article and also, if you want to know how to find statistical anomalies that point to cheating - the first Freakonomics book is an essential read.
"According to The Times, last year P.S. 31′s “math scores were nearly perfect, and 90 percent of its students passed the English test, more than 40 points above the citywide average. To celebrate, staff members tied a sign to the building: ‘School Report Card P.S. 31 is #1 in New York City.’” The school has 550 students, in PreK to fifth grade.
At P.S. 257, where most of the preK to fifth-grade students are black or Hispanic and poor, “62 percent of the children at the school had a score of proficient or higher on the state English exam.” -
5 Things You Need To Know About The Chromebook | Edudemic
A nice write up about chrome books to help people understand about these tools. One important piece of advice: bandwidth is essential with cloud based computing - with no cloud you have no computing.
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TESiboard Interactive Resources Index - Resources - TES
An index of interactive white board resources that you can use. This list of free resources is a wonderful place to fill out your library for the fall. This would be a great place to spend during planning time as you download and organize resources for your IWB for the fall by standard. (Make folders)
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Is Agile the Future of Project Management? | EDUCAUSE
In Flat Classroom and with my students we use a Trello board which is a web app used for Agile development. This app makes sense for schools and for personalized learning projects like the Personal Project done by my computer students. I couldn't track all the little pieces without it. Scrum, Lean, Agile, KanBan - these are all terms for project management systems and I think that as educators implement projects, this is a great place to look to handle large complex tasks with teams of people in efficient ways. Meetings are often a waste of time and should be to do what you can ONLY do face to face.
This research posted on Educause's website seems to back up this assertion.
"Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012, agile development methods will be used on 80 percent of all software development projects. Project Management Institute’s research shows that agile project management tripled from December 2008 to May 2011, and can help decrease product defects, improve team productivity, and increase business value. -
Oracle Loses In Patent Case Against Google : NPR
When will we see an end to all of these court cases - are these companies really that bad or are they just fighting for existence? I doubt that the 150,000 fine will even pay for the lawyers on both sides not to mention the cost to the federal government. I think these companies should have to start footing the bill for the federal judges and people whose time they are monopolizing.
"A federal jury ruled Wednesday that Google didn't infringe on Oracle's patents when the Internet search leader developed its popular Android software for mobile devices.
Wednesday's verdict comes about two weeks after the same jury, with two additional members, failed to agree on a pivotal issue in Oracle's copyright-infringement case against Google. As a result, Google Inc. faced maximum damages of only $150,000 — not the hundreds of millions of dollars that Oracle Corp. was seeking. -
Were you trained in data and assessment? – DEN Blog Network
Ginny Washburne on her Discovery Education blog shares how she doesn't feel that teachers are prepared for data-driven instruction. In my opinion, we should have a good interpretation interface on the back end of the data to help teachers understand the areas where they need to improve. It shouldn't be rocket science to realize that your students don't understand mitosis.
"Everyone agrees that we are asking more and more of teachers, to “wear several hats” if you will. One of those “hats” is being able to drive instruction using data. Do you think you were adequately trained to interpret the data you receive? -
More Parents Are Saying No to Pearson's Field Tests – SchoolBook
There is a growing resistence to standardized testing as parents get organized, this New York Times article gives an overview of some of the things happening.
"Resistance also appears to be growing more organized. Groups like Change the Stakes are helping to spread information about opt-out procedures and have created a spreadsheet to help parents navigate the field testing landscape.
ParentVoicesNY has created a boycott form letter that parents can download, sign and then submit to their school. The group also has direct connections with more than 20 schools, according to Kevin Jacobs, a public school teacher who is one of its active members."
