Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 04/24/2012
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How the iPad Is Changing Education
The Read write web writes a comprehensive assessment about how the iPad is changing education.
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The Associated Press: Actors, artists aim to turn around failing schools
Artists are going to adopt schools to help improve them. This sounds nice but if an artist adopting someone to make them successful worked, every movie star's child would be successful and we know that this is not true. Hard work from a lot of anonymous people is what it is going to take. This feels gimmicky but if it helps kids, I'm all for it.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington and Forest Whitaker are adopting some of the nation's worst-performing schools and pledged Monday to help the Obama administration turn them around by integrating arts education.
The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced a new Turnaround Arts initiative as a pilot project for eight schools with officials from the White House and U.S. Department of Education. Organizers said they aim to demonstrate research that shows the arts can help reduce behavioral problems and increase student attendance, engagement and academic success.
The two-year initiative will target eight high-poverty elementary and middle schools. The schools were among the lowest-performing schools in each of their states and had qualified for about $14 million in federal School Improvement Grants from the Obama administration. The public-private arts initiative will bring new training for educators at the Aspen Institute, art supplies, musical instruments and programs totaling about $1 million per year, funded by the Ford Foundation, the Herb Alpert Foundation and other sponsors. -
Google's chromebook challenges iPad in the classroom - TwinCities.com
I find this title incredibly hard to believe but yes, there are many other options other than the ipad. Grace Lutheran School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin chose Chromebooks, but I would hardly call that a challenge to an ipad. Hat tip to Tim Holt for this interesting read.
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» Crazy Talk: The Do-What-You-Love Guide :zenhabits
I love Leo Babatua from Zenhabits. His crazy talk is my crazy talk, with the exception that most people want to quit. My blog has actually given me some money on the side to allow me to stay in teaching as the pay cut I took was very hard to deal with for my family. (Hat tip to Stephen Downes for pointing to this post. This is a pick me up post, for sure.
"That’s the amazing realization here: that we rule out the possibility of great change, because it doesn’t seem realistic. For nearly two decades I focused on going to college, and working at a day job that I sometimes enjoyed but often dreaded, because that’s what we expect should happen. Starting my own business, pursuing my dreams, doing something I loved? Crazy talk.
Crazy talk is what I’m going to give you today, in hopes that perhaps one of you will expand your possibilities. It is possible — I did it, all while working a full-time job, doing free-lance writing on the side, and having a wife and six kids. I did it, even if I never dared to dream it for the first three decades of my life. -
File Sharing Just Got Easier Through Dropbox
Awesome! You can now create a public URL for ANY file in dropbox (not just those in your public folder) to share with anyone. It is a very easy system as Richard Byrne shares in this post.) Great news. Dropbox is my favorite "go to" app for making my classroom paperless.
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eLearning Laura - 7 ideas for teachers when launching an iPad deployment
eLearning Laura shares her ideas for integrating iPads. I love how she starts with learning. Great read for teachers and IT integrators facing ipad integration.
