Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 08/26/2012
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Teacher Drew O'Conner wins an iPad for sharing and aligning 30 lessons
This set of lessons includes some very popular lessons using fairy tales. All of them are aligned with the Common Core and you can download and share them. The Share My lesson site is giving away a free ipad to the "best sharer" each week. This is a great thing to do as we share with others and help with common core alignment, so join in.
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Education vs experience | Opinion | .net magazine
This type of article is continuing to proliferate as people question a textbook non-reality based degree happening in many universities. One of the things that made Georgia Tech unique when I was there was how many real-world experiences and projects students were required to do - often for real companies. With the skyrocketing cost of higher education, and the proliferation of "degrees" the brand of a university needs to be tied not to just head knowledge but knowledge of the "hands" (how to). Read this article about hiring web designers, while this is a unique field, it speaks to what is being said in industry about the college education and why college education is destined to change in a fundamental way in the near future.
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This news shows why freemium may be going away for some businesses. Unless a service can reach millions of users, freemium may not be the best way to go - this article recommends. I think that we will continue to see smaller services consider charging for things. Remember that just because it is free today doesn't mean it will be free tomorrow, i.e. Ning.
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Superintendent Tweets Photo of New Teachers - Agoura Hills, CA Patch
This superintendent is using Twitter as his PR tool as he tweets out a photo of new teachers at his school. You might want to look at how this is structured if you want to use this valuable, quick tool for sharing the news from your district.
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Mark Anderson's Blog » Displaying online work – some ideas & methods
Here are some ideas of what Mark is doing for sharing work, I have my students create the blog that suits their personal interest project. While Tumblr is nice for blogging, I have older students and monitor it closely - most schools would not find a good fit in tumblr, I think. Good ideas here, though.
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Md. teachers finding hungry kids in their classes
This breaks my heart, "A new report finds that 63% of Maryland teachers surveyed say children are not getting enough to eat at home and this is having a negative effect on students’ academic performance. " If we are paying people money so they can feed their family and AREN'T then we should pay again to feed them at school? How can you hold parents accountable for feeding their children? This speaks to the very core of many of our problems in the US - misplaced priorities. Homes have xboxes but no food? Nice shoes and empty tummies? This is upsetting on so many levels. Of course, these statements don't fit all people as they are generalities, however, making sure children are fed is an imperative. It makes me nervous, however, that the government is having to step in and feed children who aren't being fed at home because if they aren't being fed, there are much bigger problems than just a lack of food. As a person who had a time when we were completely broken by a farm gone underwater - I know what it is like to find quarters to buy milk - so this is heartbreaking. People need jobs and kids need food. It is also unfair to penalize teachers whose kids aren't learning if the kids are hungry. What do we do?
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Evernote Launches New Partnership with Moleskine - The Digital Reader
Evernote and Moleskin announce the new smartnotebook which is very cool. While you can already snap pictures of notes to Evernote - this notebook has small dots that adjust the page to make it square and remove distortion. It includes stickers that will tag the pages for you and add emphasis and included in the price of the notebook ($30) is a free subscription to Evernote premium for 3 months. I love evernote and while their tech support leaves a lot to be desired (it took me 6 months to figure out how to fix an installation glitch which was answered by another user on their forum after Evernote kept telling me just to use Revo uninstaller) -- it can't be beat for usefulness - that is why it is one of the few apps I am willing to pay for. I'll definitely be asking for this notebook for Christmas to try it out. Hope the price comes down a tad, though.
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Amazon to Hold a Press Conference on 6 September - The Digital Reader
Amazon will announce its new lineup of ereaders on Sept 6 and Apple will announce them one week later according to "The Digital Reader" a blog about eReaders and Tablets. The "textbook wars" have only just begun.
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An excellent article by Alfred Thompson on the white male skew of the AP exams and the issues for Computer Science education. Alfred Thompson, a blogger employed by Microsoft, is my go-to person for Computer Science education topics. This is another example of how he questions the status quo and offers solutions. I highly recommend subscribing to his blog. Meanwhile, my school is moving away from AP altogether into the ACCELL program where our juniors and seniors are able to earn college credit for college-quality courses offered in our high school and paid for, in part, by the HOPE Program in Georgia.
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Steve Jobs Begs Designers in 1983 to Build Better Looking Computers
Fascinating speech from visionary Steve Jobs.
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Free Technology for Teachers: The US Election on YouTube
Another reason to make YouTube available. Richard Bryne from Free Tech for Teachers shares about the new YouTube channel that will cover the US presidential election. Bookmark and share, especially if you have a current events class.
